quality of life and a low cost of living compared to other major cities in Europe, which is what really matters at the end of the day.


How many games have you worked on as a company and of which of those were milestones in your success? Many! We have lost track, but it’s more than 3,000. Some of the games and materials I translated in the early years were milestones in our success. The Secret of Monkey Island, for example, was a milestone due to the complexity of portraying the game’s humour to the Spanish market. The Legend of Zelda was another milestone as well as many other Nintendo titles due to the high level of quality required in the localisations. Midway titles such as Mortal Kombat were a milestone as we were directly involved in their production, editing the localisation of the manuals in several languages on a weekly basis. Zynga titles were another milestone for us where we set up a team of more than 100 translators in record time for daily deliveries in several languages, some of which had very short turnaround times (i.e. hours). This required a lot of planning and organisation. Regarding testing, Ubisoft titles were a milestone as we needed to set up large teams of testers for more than 20 languages in record time with all the preparation and reorganisation required for large scale testing projects. All in all, I would say that each-and- every game has been a milestone and they have each contributed to our success.


How big is Localsoft today compared to 30+ years ago? When I started in 1988, it was a one man show. Today, we are 14 full time employees, 50 part time employees and we work with thousands of freelancers around the world. Even though we have two offices in Spain, we work exclusively from our headquarters in the Málaga TechPark, an independent building with capacity for more than 250 people. This is where we conduct testing, in-house translation projects and coordinate our projects. We also have a Sales office in the U.K. and project managers in different time zones. We are now in a very good position to work on projects of any size and grow to the next level.


What are the prevailing business trends in localisation: For example, with the proliferation of live service games, are you seeing more publishers bring localisation services in-house? I am seeing more publishers bringing localisation in- house, but as you mentioned, this is a business trend,


August 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 37


“I am seeing more publishers bringing localisation in-house, but as you mentioned, this is a business trend, and it has happened before.”


and it has happened before. Many years ago, one of our clients decided to bring localisation services in-house, only to realise several years later that it was a huge expense, not only in terms of operational costs, which surpassed more than a million euros per year in salaries alone, but in terms of deviating indispensable internal resources to help manage localisation, which wasn’t their core business. At the end of the day, they didn’t obtain a return of investment. Many if not most of the larger publishers nowadays realise that outsourcing at least part of their work is the easiest and best solution.


How do you think the demands on your services will change over the next five years - what are the challenges you expect to face? I think we will see less demand for translation services per se. Automatic translations will be acceptable, especially amongst smaller publishers as costs will drop. There will be more competition, not only in terms of localisation service providers, but in terms of translators offering their services directly to publishers and it will be difficult to compete in terms of price per word. Our advantage at Localsoft is that we are a relatively large company with solid foundations, we have been in the video game localisation business since 1988 and we have adapted throughout the years to meet market needs. Every challenge is an opportunity to improve, and we embrace that.


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