It took about two years to develop and publish our first two games, Slava and Snakers. It has been an exiting road but also a great learning experience. And one of our first, and most crucial learnings, is that localization does matter. A lot. In context of our games localization mainly entails tailoring the game to regional languages!
The road to more localization:
For our first game, Slava, we thought an English only game would suffice. And then offer more languages through a QR code with digital rulebooks. We are Dutch guys and Dutch people are known for their high proficiency in the English language, which we get thought extensively in our schools and culture. However, it turns out that by far the most people still very much prefer to read a game manual in their own language. In paper form. Even if their knowledge of that other language is pretty darn good. This goes even for quite young (aged 15-30) people, although we do see more acceptance on an English only game in this age group.
Why did we go for English only then? As stated we thought the bridge to reading an English manual is easy peasy for Dutch people and we had a digital version in Dutch. And it would open up a big additional market to start in English. Additionally, it also easier to produce since you have to only into account one version of your game which sells universally. Which is especially easier for a first small print.
Then Snakers comes along which we developed in three languages to start with: Dutch, English and German. We decided to go this route since we had that above mentioned feedback from customers on a clear preference for a NL version for Slava from our Dutch audience. For the translations we collaborated with The Geeky Pen. And what surprised us was that by using the Geeky Pen we also improved the quality of our game. Since they also really looked at it from a gameplay perspective, not just translating the game and we added a rule or two to provide more clarity for players. The Geeky Pen clearly employs gamers that also do translations! We can definitely recommend The Geeky Pen for your translations.
Fast forward to current times where we had one month of sales for Snakers and we have already noticed that ALL Dutch orders are for the Dutch game and players read through the rulebook faster and have an earlier grasp of the rules. We especially noticed this quick reading and understanding of the game rules during the game fairs of MoxCon and Noorderspel where we had a stand and demonstrated our games.
The importance of first play of a game and a quick and easy grasp of the rules cannot be understated. The player journey from buying to playing (or in case of a fair from playing to buying!) is much better since you lower one of the main obstacles in playing or accepting a new game; an overwhelming rulebook or the experience of players that the effort to know the rules is high or a game is (too) complex. There are also subtleties of rules that are lost in another language if you are not a native speaker. Lowering the first play threshold is also the reason why we added the additional player guides to Slava after a while. And the reason we added the tear-out player guides for Snakers as well.
In sum, we learned through our first game that players definitely prefer to have a paper rulebook in their own language. We also learned that by adding this we make first play easier and more enjoyable, which is huge of course if you are putting a game on the market. So for our second print of Slava we will definitely add a Dutch and German version as well. And as a next step we want to start localizing the video content and the how-play-videos of our games. Work to do!