Video Game Localization And Dubbing

• Video localization is the translation of a video game and its content to meet a local market's language and cultural requirements.

• Video localization ensures that a video game is culturally acceptable to the various localities.

•  Dubbing in video game translation is replacing the original actor's voice with someone else speaking in the target language.

• Many video games are embracing localization so that they can have a global reach to their customers, and this makes it a trend in the video game translation industry.

• Expansion to new global markets requires excellent video game localization to enhance a video game's action.

• Also, video game localization ensures that the players have great experiences when interacting with the games in their mother tongues.

•  Lionbridge and SDL are examples of companies leaning towards the video game localization trend.

Machine Translation

• Machine translation is the use of translation software to convert video games from a source language to the target languages.

• The technique has existed over the years, but companies started embracing it after the introduction of Neural Machine Translation (NMT).

• The fact that most translation companies are beginning to use translation software in their video game translation makes it a trend.

• However, machine translation needs post-editors who can review the content and ensure that it meets the industry standards after translation.

• Examples of companies that are leaning towards this trend are SYSTRAN and SDL.

Use Of Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) Tools

•  Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) for video games uses a database that keeps track of frequently used phrases and sentences with their corresponding translations.

• The use of CAT tools is a trend in the translation industry as companies are adopting the use of CAT tools to ensure efficiency in the translation process.

•  Translators can then know which words translate to different phrases in video games.

• The use of CAT tools in the video game translation industry makes the process both cost and time-efficient.

• Examples of companies that use CAT tools for translation are Ulatus and SDL.

Research Strategy

Marketing

• SDL currently deploys an extensive multi-channel advertising strategy for its variety of products, as discussed within the enclosed spreadsheet.
• Most notably, SDL leverages a content marketing strategy with significant depth and breadth, including a well-developed array of online-accessible resources such as webinars, case studies, eBooks, white papers, videos and podcasts.
• Also online, SDL benefits from a clearly organized and well-established corporate website, as well as a variety of social media accounts.
• Specifically on social media, SDL has established a reasonably strong following through its active presence on Twitter (16.5k followers), LinkedIn (108k followers), Facebook (11k followers) and YouTube (1.1k subscribers).
• Meanwhile, SDL also has many offline marketing initiatives and events to promote its brand and products, including conferences, presentations and corporate appearances.

Strengths & Weaknesses

• SDL has numerous strengths or competitive advantages, including its global presence and strong portfolio of experience working across a variety of industries and companies.
• In particular, SDL has successfully worked with "90 of the top 100 global" corporations and can tout this past performance when speaking to its prominence as a provider and ability to deliver within larger, more complex organizations.
• However, SDL’s strengths in some cases may also represent weaknesses for the company.
• In particular, the fact that the company is such a global player with such a broad array of offerings and experience might make it less competitive for clients who are looking for a niche provider with depth in one specific area, such as a particular industry, country, customer type or solution.

Selected Findings

• As a part of its marketing, memoQ offers several types of educational resources on its website, including a blog and LocLand, an e-book specifically about gaming localization.
• The company also uses social media marketing, SEO/SEM, and email marketing.
• memoQ has 23.3k fans on Facebook and 9.3k followers on Twitter. Its promotional posts are repeated between those two profiles and its LinkedIn account.
• The company is considered one of the fastest growing SaaS companies by SaaS Mag and has customers in over 100 countries, including top brands from the gaming industry, such as Nintendo and Sony Entertainment.
•  Their strengths include great customer support and training options, supporting the Windows platform, and offering free trials of their services.
• Some of their weaknesses are not having billing and invoicing features, and not offering tools for customer-side project managers, unlike some of their competitors.

Research Strategy

Marketing

• Lionbridge currently deploys an extensive multi-channel advertising strategy for its variety of products, as discussed within the enclosed spreadsheet.
• Lionbridge benefits from a clearly organized and well-established corporate website, as well as a variety of social media accounts.
• Specifically on social media, Lionbridge has established a reasonably strong following through its active presence on Twitter (13.7k followers), LinkedIn (142.394k followers), Facebook (33.35k followers) and YouTube (1.17k subscribers).
• Lionbridge also has many offline marketing initiatives and events to promote its brand and products, including conferences, presentations and corporate appearances.

Strengths

• Named to EContent 100 list of companies that matter most in the digital content industry for the fifth year in a row.

• For more than 20 years, Lionbridge has been providing marketing, testing and globalization services in more than 300 languages, this has helped them to connect with global customers.
• Through their world-class platform, they orchestrate a network of 500,000 passionate experts around the world, who partner with brands to create culturally rich experiences, enabling them to diversify their market.
• Lionbridge was also recognized as a Best Employer for Women in 2018.

Weaknesses

• In particular, the fact that the Lionbridge Company is a global player with broad array of offerings and experience with over 500,000 passionate experts, this might make it less competitive for clients who are looking for a niche provider with depth in one specific area, such as a particular industry, country, customer type or solution.

Systran Company — Overview

• Systran's marketing strategy includes advertisements and promoted posts its social media platforms. On LinkedIn, Systran has an active profile of 2,641 followers where the company promotes and advertises its services. On Twitter, Systran company advertises its products and services through descriptive tweets, pictures and video clips to 1,154 followers.
• The company's Facebook and YouTube channels are also used to carry out marketing activities to 128 and 167 subscribers respectively. Systran boasts of 50 years of experience in translation solutions. The company's ability to aid communication in over 130 languages has led it to be the leading choice for defense and security organizations in the United States and other companies like the Samsung company.
• Systran's "innovative Neural Engine" is the best in the market. The machine translation quality is the closest to human fluency and can be adapted to the different context of each customer.
• Systran company can be said to have a weak social media presence. Social media is known to be a good platform for marketing and connecting with customers. With about 167 subscribers on YouTube and 128 follows on Facebook, access to customers is limited.

Research Strategy

Summary of Findings

• SDL's services include translation services, client services and support.
• Their products include content and digital experience management software, and language software.
• SDL "helps companies to communicate with confidence and deliver transformative business results by enabling powerful experiences that engage customers across multiple touchpoints."
• The cost of SDL Trados Studio ranges from €99 to €2,495 and the cost of their training and certification ranges from free to €187. 
• SDL position themselves as "the global leader and innovator in language and content management solutions."

Products and Services

• MemoQ Products include MemoQ server, MemoQ translator pro, MemoQ project manager, MemoQ cloud and Hey memoQ.
• Business services: increase margins, improve ROI, build brand equity, and differentiate brand from the competition workflow.
• MemoQ server hosting service include the Azure servers.

Value

• The main value communicated by memoq is their ability to make good and enjoyable software. The company has made translating more enjoyable by enabling translators to take delight in their work.
• Integration with other software is also used as additional value by the company. They tout the ability to integrate their products with software such as Plunet and XTRF." MemoQ also integrates with software that enables connections to sources of translatable content in CMS systems, like iLangl or easyling."

Cost for products'services

• MemoQ cloud cost from EUR 160 per month, memoQ project manager cost EUR 1500 / USD 1800 and memoQ translator pro cost EUR 620 / USD 770.
• MemoQ does not disclose pricing for its services and its memoQ server product. Potential customers are required to fill out a form on their website to receive a quote and more information.

Positioning and Messaging

• MemoQ claims to be the world’s leading translation setting with hundreds of features added through its evolvement that has made translation work easy and simple
• The company positions itself as a company that offers a cutting edge translation management in the cloud.

Lionbridge Competitive Landscape-Part 1

• Services offered by Lionbridge include content services, translation services, AI services, and testing services.
• Lionbridge products include translation management platform, machine translation platform, translation productivity platform, quality management platform, cloud platform, and integration platform.
• The principal value communicated by Lionbridge is the company's suite of cutting-edge platforms that allows users to orchestrate a vast network of tools, experts, and partners that simplifies tasks.
• Lionbridge basic plan starts at $10 per month. Potential customers are required to fill out a form on their website to receive a quote and more information.
• The company claims to be the "world most trusted global communications platform"; having over 20 years experience as linguistic experts and cultural translators and fluency in over 350 languages.
• Lionbridge operates from 5,000+ cities worldwide with over 500,000 passionate experts and over 2,100 customers.

Products and Services

• The services and solutions offered by the company include chat incident management, communication solutions using machine translation, digital forensics, regulatory compliance monitoring, and solutions tailored to government agencies.
• The company's main product is called SYSTRAN Marketplace.
• The SYSTRAN Marketplace offers translation modules that are tailored to different industry languages such as IT, legal, or manufacturing.
• The SYSTRAN Pure Neural Translation Server is a high-power suite that can translate millions of communications daily for industries such as eCommerce and customer service.

Value

• The main value that is communicated by SYSTRAN is the ability to translate a large number of communications at one time.
• The company aims to "revolutionize how global companies communicate" across multiple channels and languages.
• Integration with other software is also used as additional value by the company. The company advertises the ability to integrate their products with software such as MemoQ, Smartcat, Across, and Wordfast.

Pricing

• SYSTRAN does not disclose pricing for their customized suite of products. Instead, they ask potential customers to fill out a form on their website to receive a quote and more information.
• They do have pricing for their basic translation software available online. Their Essential Translator costs $79. Their professional translator costs $249 and includes extra features such as a Microsoft Outlook plugin, a quick file translator, and the ability to translate PDFs and other image files.

Positioning and Messaging

• SYSTRAN's messaging is very industry-focused. Their website includes visuals regarding what industries they work with, such as academics and data providers.
• They call themselves industry pioneers in translation solutions.