Video Game Archives - DeafCat Studios

The Rise of Arabic Video Game Localization

eJznkgdUOg — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 13:58:30 +0000

Arabic Video Game Localization: Meeting the Needs of Arab Gamers in the MENA Region

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is experiencing a gaming revolution. With a rapidly growing market and a young, tech-savvy population, the demand for localized video games in Arabic is higher than ever. This article explores the unique characteristics of gamers in the MENA region, the role of technology and AI in localization, and the burgeoning infrastructure supporting eGaming. Additionally, we’ll highlight the unparalleled expertise and comprehensive services offered by DeafCat Studios in Arabic video game localization.

Gamers in the MENA Region: The Demand for Arabic Video Game Localization

The MENA region is home to one of the fastest-growing gaming markets in the world. With an estimated market value expected to surpass $22 billion by 2029, the region’s gaming community is vibrant and diverse. The majority of gamers are young, with a significant portion under the age of 30. This demographic is not only tech-savvy but also highly engaged, spending considerable time and money on gaming.

Cultural preferences play a crucial role in the gaming experience for MENA gamers. They prefer games that resonate with their cultural values and narratives. This makes Arabic localization not just a matter of language translation but also cultural adaptation. Successful localization efforts ensure that games are not only understandable but also culturally relevant and engaging.

DeafCat Studios: Leading Arabic Video Game Localization Services

DeafCat Studios stands out as a leader in the Arabic video game localization industry, offering a comprehensive suite of services that cater to the unique needs of the MENA gaming market. Their expertise ensures that games are not only translated but also culturally adapted to provide an engaging and authentic experience for Arabic-speaking gamers.

Translation and Adaptation

DeafCat Studios excels in translating game content into Arabic, ensuring cultural relevance and linguistic accuracy. Their team understands the nuances of the Arabic language and the cultural context, making sure that every aspect of the game resonates with local players.

Dubbing and Voice Over

With high-quality Arabic dubbing and voice-over services, DeafCat Studios brings games to life with authentic voices. Their experienced directors and voice talents cover multiple dialects, ensuring that the localized audio matches the original intent and tone of the game.

Large File Handling and Export

DeafCat Studios is adept at managing large files and ensuring smooth export processes. Their technical expertise guarantees that all game assets are handled efficiently, maintaining the integrity and quality of the localized content.

Subtitling

DeafCat Studios offers dynamic Arabic subtitling services with fast turnaround times, making sure that all visual content is accessible to Arabic-speaking audiences.

Detailed Project Management

DeafCat Studios emphasizes the importance of project management and organization in localization projects. Key practices include using project management tools, maintaining organized files, and ensuring timely script adaptation and review. Their top 10 rules for successfully managing a video game localization project highlight their commitment to efficiency and quality.

The Role of Technology and AI in Arabic Video Game Localization

Advancements in technology and AI are revolutionizing the localization process. Machine translation, voice synthesis, and AI-driven localization tools are making it easier and faster to translate and adapt games for the Arabic-speaking market.

Infrastructure for eGaming in the MENA Region

The infrastructure supporting eGaming in the MENA region is rapidly developing. Governments and private sectors are investing heavily in building state-of-the-art gaming facilities, including eSports arenas and gaming hubs. These investments are aimed at fostering a competitive gaming environment and attracting international gaming events.

High-speed internet and mobile connectivity are also critical components of the eGaming infrastructure. The MENA region has seen significant improvements in internet infrastructure, with many countries now offering high-speed broadband and 5G networks. This connectivity is essential for online gaming and eSports, providing gamers with a seamless and immersive experience.

Conclusion

Arabic video game localization is more than just a translation process; it’s about creating a gaming experience that resonates with the cultural and linguistic nuances of the MENA region. With the growing market, advancements in technology and AI, and robust eGaming infrastructure, the future of Arabic localization looks promising. Game developers who invest in high-quality localization will not only tap into a lucrative market but also build a loyal and engaged player base.

DeafCat Studios stands out as a leader in this field, offering a range of services that ensure games are not only translated but also culturally adapted to meet the needs of Arabic-speaking gamers. Their expertise and dedication to quality make them the go-to partner for successful Arabic video game localization.

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How Easy is it to Localize Chinese Games into Arabic

DeafCat Studios — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 11:09:37 +0000

Is it easy to localize Chinese games into Arabic?

Don’t worry we’ve got you covered!

Over the years, the team at DeafCat Studios gained in-depth experience in video game localization. That’s mainly due to working on global titles such as FIFA and Battlefield but also working with the smaller titles and mobile games.

An optimized Process:

Our process at DeafCat Studios has been tested and optimized to produce a top quality product quickly and efficiently. This is also true when we localize Chinese video games into Arabic. Recently DeafCat established an operation in China and has recruited Chinese speaking team members that help us close the cultural gap between our team in the middle east and China. The added value of having native Chinese resources on our team is that they understand the intricacies and specificities of the Chinese culture and they can relay very well our ideas and thoughts to the client et vice versa

Whether the video game is massive or tiny, the localization process is pretty the same and can be summed up into four distinct categories:

– Linguistic (this includes translation, diacritics and adaptation)
– Audio (VO recording of in-game lines)
– Marketing Asset Localization (Localizing all marketing assets such as trailers and producing customized content)
– Quality Assurance (language quality assurance as well as game testing.

Bejing here we come:

With our current set-up and our new representative office in China, we are now more than ever capable of servicing a bigger Chinese customer base, while at the same time simplifying the process of localizing Chinese video games into Arabic; A process that might seem difficult to most Chinese clients especially due to the language barrier.

If you want to learn more about our services, reach out to us today to get a free quote.

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Check out our podcast below to learn more about localizing Chinese video games into Arabic:

https://spoti.fi/3IrjNTA

The post How Easy is it to Localize Chinese Games into Arabic appeared first on DeafCat Studios.

How Can Chinese Startups Reach Customers in the Middle East?

DeafCat Studios — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 13:23:09 +0000

Bringing your idea to life in a start-up is an exciting yet challenging endeavor. Putting long hours to make it work and overcoming obstacles becomes your daily bread and butter. When things finally start to pick-up, so does the need to generate revenue. And if your target audience is in the Middle East, you will quickly realize that the biggest barrier to entry will be the cultural difference and mainly the language.

Generating leads to your business from the MENA regions requires you to have a very good communication plan that can resonate with your target audience. However, what works in China, doesn’t necessarily work in the Middle East et vice versa. For that reason, localizing your ideas in Arabic will bring you closer to your target audience and intern grow your business.

So what does localizing ideas mean? Well, let’s assume your startup is in the gaming industry and you are developing the next best selling game. Your game plot has been thought of in Chinese and all your marketing assets are also in Chinese, so in order to sell your game to an Arabic target audience, you will need to localize the game itself and all its assets into Arabic and also create new original marketing materials to support your campaign. Your social media posts, website and all other digital assets have to be localized in Arabic. Interviews have to be subtitled and gameplays have to be dubbed into Arabic. Therefore, having an expert partner in localizing video games into Arabic such as DeafCat Studios is key for your success.

Want to learn more about localizing ideas, listen to our podcasts here:

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Helping Chinese Video Games Publishers Enter the MENA Market

DeafCat Studios — Sat, 14 Sep 2019 12:13:29 +0000

VideoGame Publishers In the Mena Market

The MENA region has the fastest growth rate in the videogame market, with more than 4 billion dollars of total revenue in 2017. We’re confident that the future of the videogame industry in the Arab world is promising and DeafCat Studios is happy to be part of it. Our main objective in the coming years is to localize more Chinese games into Arabic.

There’s no doubt that for foreign video game developers and publishers, tackling the Arab market can be quite tricky. Recently we were at Gamescom in Cologne and had the chance to chat with various publishers such as EA, Ubisoft and Microsoft and we felt that there’s a big appetite from these global companies to grow their footprint in the MENA market. The biggest appetite of them all was definitely that Chinese publishers who currently are rejoicing the Chinese government, lifted the freeze on new video game licenses according to the Economist. At one point China was producing more than 9,000 new games every year before the freeze and now the giant machine is back on. We met with top Chinese video game publishers and they all had their eyes on the Arab gamer. Most certainly the biggest validation to this, comes from the gaming giant Tencent Games that recently picked Dubai as their MENA headquarters.

News

The good news for the Chinese is that the Arab videogame market is real and lucrative. But the bad news is that Arabs consumes content primarily in Arabic and not English and especially not Chinese and this is where we can help. As a matter of fact, for the past five years, DeafCat Studios localized video games into Arabic. We have been working with global publishers such as EA to help them localize some of their biggest titles into Arabic including World Cup 18, FIFA 19, FIFA 20 and also Battlefield 5. Our best added value to EA is the fact that we are a dynamic team who acquired unique video game localization skills. We also like to believe that we have the necessary middle eastern cultural know how fused with an international mindset and that allows us to easily bridge between Arabs and the rest of the world. Our presence in both Beirut and Dubai solidifies our Arab roots and expands our international spirit which is attractive to most global publishers. For those reason we believe we are in a best position to localize Chinese games into Arabic.

Now if you are a Chinese publisher reading this article, the following message is for you. DeafCat Studios is more than your typical localization company. We are part of a trio set-up made up of three other companies that have digital marketing and advertising as a core service offering. The trio set-up is perfectly positioned to localize and drive highly targeted converting traffic to your IPs or video games. We can help you enter and grow the MENA video-game market quickly and efficiently.

To learn more about our services, feel free to contact us or chat with us by clicking the chat icon on the bottom right of the screen.

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Modern Standard Arabic is Key to Reach a Global Arabic Audience

Deafcat Studios — Fri, 13 Jul 2018 13:05:37 +0000

Modern Standard Arabic dubbing in the Middle East

Arabic dubbing in the Middle East started with the late Nicolas Abou Samah, a celebrated Lebanese film director when he established his company FILMALI in Leabnon. His initiative sparked the industry in the Middle East given the importance of Arabic localization, as the significance of Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic specifically) cannot be underestimated in the modern world. It is the official language of over 20 countries and there are about 300 million speakers of Arabic across the world. As so, this is a huge potential in the global market growth.

Modern Standard Worldwide

The Arab world exhibits an immense opportunity for media, entertainment and many other different industries to expand their global reach. Nevertheless, Arabic localization is a particularly tricky task due to its complexities and dialects. Many brands chose to localize in Standard Arabic, from those we mention Netflix and Amazon and many other; this seems to be a wise choice since it’s the official language used in most all Arab countries. By definition, this choice escalated the global reach of these brands. However, and as mentioned before, Arabic is a complex language with many different dialects, which will directly affect the pronunciation when opting to localize in Modern Standard Arabic.

Lebanon & Egypt using Modern Standard

In terms of volume, there is no doubt that Lebanon and Egypt are the two biggest localization hubs in the Arab region. However, there are some major concerns that should be addressed when deciding which pool of talents to choose from and the reason in mainly due to the local accents. The Levantines (people living in Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon) have almost non-existent local accent when speaking Modern Standard Arabic; consequently they have a better pronunciation then other Arab speakers. Whereas Egyptians, have a predominant local accent that remains present when speaking Modern Standard Arabic. Comparing the two accents is rather simple. Lets take the letter G as an example. In Modern standard Arabic, it is pronounced “Jee” as in Jar, but Egyptians pronounce it “Gee” as in Galaxy, which is wrong. Consequently, the increase in demands for Modern Standard Arabic localization in Lebanon prove to be reasonable when intending to maximize the reach across the Arab world. With all eyes on the MENA region, it is becoming the future ahead. The market is booming which is pushing international brands to seek every way and opportunity to connect with the market’s demands, and language is a key factor to attain this connection. DeafCat Studios

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Arabic Localization, How it All Started!

Deafcat Studios — Mon, 18 Jun 2018 11:27:58 +0000

History of Arabic Localization

Through history, both human communication and the evolution of Arabic Localization using expression and dialogue were regarded as the main trigger for the elevation of human civilization. The use of writing through newspapers followed by photography, enabled communication to shift beyond. Reaching the 20th century, which was the dawn of media after the invasion of radio and film (TV) where people had the chance to see what others across the world looked like. Both, considered the most powerful aids of communication, source of information and entertainment. They made their way into homes becoming immensely a major component in everyone’s daily life routine. With a late, came the Internet, the latest assertive of all mass media linking the globe.

Globalization vs Arabic Localization

In today’s world of globalization, and with the expansion of broadcasting audiovisual sector. People are on daily basis coming in contact with films, TV programs, music and video games, many of which originated in foreign countries and with different languages. To make this contact possible and efficient, screen translations were used. Later on, came dubbing, one of the screen or audiovisual forms of translation, which involves the replacement of the original speech by a voice track. It attempts to follow as closely as possible the timing, phrasing and lip movement of the original dialogue. This became the upcoming trend. Pushing thus, translation, adaptation and localization in the US and Europe to their highest apex for the good of global interaction.

The Ages of Localization

Meanwhile, in the late 70s, the Middle East, distant from localizing foreign content, came Nicolas Abu Samah, a renowned Lebanese film director, introducing “Arabic dubbing” and establishing his own company FILMALI in Lebanon to eventually become the first entity of the region that kick-started the industry of dubbing in Arabic to the Arab world. Hence, and for the past four decades, FILMALI, followed by DeafCat Studios, a company established in 2006 due to the expansion of services offered. Hence, fully determined to provide consistently the highest quality of localized productions and services. Deafcat Studios, specialized in Arabic VO recording, Arabic translations, dubbing into Arabic, Arabic voice over, music production, 2.0 and 5.1 mixing as well as mastering. More recently, a boom of the video game industry, DeafCat Studios positioned itself to be one of the top companies to offer Arabic video game localization services to the biggest developers in the world.

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The First Video Game Dubbed in the Lebanese Dialect!

Deafcat Studios — Sun, 10 Jan 2016 18:33:40 +0000

Keywords Studios mandated us recently to work on a new video game dubbing project for Just Cause 3 developed by Avalanche Studios and published by Square Enix. It has been absolutely a blast localizing this game into the Lebanese dialect and we hope to see more games being published in Arabic. To our knowledge, this is the first global video game that has been dubbed into the Lebanese dialect and we are really excited about the feedback. The game is impressive, the graphics are fantastic, and the plot is really cool.

Localizing this game wasn’t a simple job especially that we had a very short time frame to submit the final work. However, our talented and committed team worked long hours and over time to submit a great sounding product. We also were very blessed working with highly talented actors that are considered to be some of the top talents in the industry today. Furthermore, we owe the success of this project largely to our art director who was key in casting the right talents for the game without loosing its original appeal.

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Top 10 Rules to Successfully Manage a Video Game Localization Project

Deafcat Studios — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 19:01:30 +0000

Proper management of a video game localization project is essential for its success. Modern video games usually have complex story-lines and game-plays and in turn have a large script. These scripts have more than 100,000 words that are recorded and hence localizing these video games into spoken Arabic is not a walk in the park. We have compiled below the top 10 rules that will help you successfully manage a video game localization project in Arabic or any other language:
1- Organize all your files in a comprehensive manner and place them in a shared folder that is easily accessible by team members.
2- Make sure the naming convention of your files are short and simple.
3- Make use of a project management tool and keep log of the tasks. We recommend Celoxis.
4- If you work with freelance translators, ask them to spend as much time at the studio as possible and not work from home.
5- Study the video game, understand the game-play, the plot, the characters’ bios and play previous versions of the game if possible.
6- Use a cloud based service to share and edit the scripts. We recommend Google drive.
7- Get the actors to preview the scripts prior to recording.
8- Start on time and commit to a certain number of recorded lines per day.
9- Spend enough time on script adaptation before the recording.
10- Review all the files and make sure they are complete before sending them out to the client.

We have been really lucky to work with top video game developers to localize their product into spoken Arabic and we have learned a thing or two along the way. If you have a video game that you want to localize into Arabic, please feel free to contact us to learn more.

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Video Game Localization into Arabic Made Easy!

Deafcat Studios — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 13:23:03 +0000

We have been working very hard to put together an optimized system to simplify video game localization into spoken Arabic. We also have been very lucky to work with European clients who helped us learn from their own processes. Let’s face it, European standards are very high and we are very fortunate to be able to cater to their request. A few things we learned along the way:

1- Project Management: It is undeniably the most important building bloc of the job. When working on video game localization projects, the studio is usually working with multiple stakeholders such as translators, actors, quality reviewers, sound engineers and most importantly the game developers. It is important to submit all the material to the game developers exactly in the format they ask for, and they might ask for up to 10 different audio recording format to fit exactly within their game structure. With games that need over than 100 hours of audio recording and 10 different file formats, it is very crucial to have solid project management skills.

2- Comply with the instructions: Since we are working with international clients, it is very important to comply to the instructions that they have send us. We learned that the proper delivery of our files and following instructions to the letter, does not only help us ensure deliveries, but is also very important to the other stakeholders’ deliveries since they are directly related to our own.

3- Transparency and trust: Localization of video games into different languages such as Arabic usually means dealing with clients that have no clue about the language. They do not speak the language and they rely on us to provide them with proper guidance. Hence it is very important to explain to them every detail no matter how frustrating it might be. Sometimes we feel like we are giving Arabic 101 courses but we learned that it is very important to build trust with our clients.

4- Support: It is no secret that all clients like to have outstanding support when asking for our services. As a general rule at the studio, we always go out of our way to provide our clients with whatever support they need. For example, we recently installed Skype conferencing in our studio so that the client and his engineers can assist the recording sessions from overseas. They asked for it, we made it happen.

5- Committing to deliveries: We take our delivery commitments very seriously, for that we understand that our clients are usually very eager to get their products out. They have sales milestones to reach and these are absolutely dependent on our deliveries. Consequently, we feel it is our duty to do whatever it takes to meet the deadlines. Easier said than done, since we are usually running after moody talents and juggling schedules to be able to make sure not one single hour is wasted. It has been truly a blast working on all our video game localization into Arabic projects and we are happy that we acquired that skill. Feel free to drop us a line to discuss a potential collaboration with our studio.

You have a fantastic new game you want to release and want to reach those 300+ million Arabs? Well, we can help you localize your game into modern standard Arabic or the popular Lebanese dialect. Contact us today to learn more.

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