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Game Development vocabulary · Publishing & Release

Localization

Meaning in game development, with examples

/ˌloʊkələˈzeɪʃən/nounCommon term

In game development, localization means: Adapting a game for players who speak another language and live in another culture: translating text and voice, and adjusting things like fonts, dates, jokes and images.

In Turkish: yerelleştirme, lokalizasyon

How it is used

Often shortened to loc or L10n. Localization teams and vendors work from string tables, and localization QA (LQA) checks the text inside the game. A common problem is German or Turkish UI text being longer than the English and not fitting.

Example sentences

  1. The Turkish localization made several menu labels too long, so we had to resize the buttons.

  2. Don't hard-code strings; all text must go through the localization system.

Common collocations

  • localization team
  • localization QA
  • localization vendor
  • string table
  • localization-ready
  • publisherA company that funds, markets and distributes games made by a development studio, often also handling platform deals, localization and testing.
  • platformThe hardware or store that a game runs on and is sold through, such as PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, iOS or Android, or a store like Steam.
  • age ratingAn official label that shows which age group a game is suitable for, based on content such as violence, bad language, gambling-like features or fear.
  • QAShort for quality assurance: testing a game to find, document and check bugs before and after release, and also the team that does this work.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Publishing & Release

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