Home | Customers | Game developer Phrase and EC Innovations collaboration
Global live game developer scales immersive player experiences across 78 languages
Operating across 78 languages and dozens of live titles, a leading global game publisher needed a multilingual content creation and delivery model that could support growth without compromising quality, governance, or cultural fit. Working with EC Innovations and Phrase, the organization replaced fragmented coordination with a shared delivery ecosystem built for scale. Phrase provides the governed, AI-led operational backbone, while ECI delivers game-specialist translation, cultural adaptation, and in-game language quality assessment. The result is faster global releases with confidence, including at least 99 percent terminology consistency, a 60 percent improvement in in-game language quality, and up to 40 percent faster release cycles without adding headcount.
From early regional success, the global live games company built a global portfolio of live titles serving millions of players across major markets.
As the business grew, experience became the differentiator. Players expect immediacy, emotional consistency, and cultural relevance across every market, whether engaging with narrative dialogue, live event storylines, or UI updates.
Delivering that expectation relies on an ecosystem designed to work as one. Through a close partnership with EC Innovations and Phrase, the global live games company continues to expand worldwide while preserving the emotional integrity that keeps players engaged.
CHALLENGE
Rising player demands
The developer’s global footprint expanded faster than its content operating model could support. Processing more than 60 million words a year across 78 languages and dozens of titles introduced significant operational strain.
Work was distributed across multiple internal teams and more than ten external partners. Source content changed frequently and often arrived in large multilingual spreadsheets, creating heavy manual coordination and increasing the risk of version drift. Collaboration across providers was difficult to standardize at live game speed.
Governance became a growing concern. The organization lacked clear visibility into internal versus vendor performance, processed word usage, and cost allocation by title and market. As volumes increased, predictability and financial control became critical.
At the same time, quality pressures were increasing. Every market required consistent terminology, character tone, and narrative logic. For romance and narrative-driven titles, cultural adaptation needed to feel natural or the experience would lose its emotional pull. The publisher needed a model that could scale without compromising player trust.
SOLUTION
An ecosystem for global growth
To support its expanding portfolio, the global live games company partnered with EC Innovations as a core provider for multilingual content across more than 20 live titles. EC Innovations delivers translation, editing, proofreading, and in-game LQA, ensuring consistent terminology, character voice, and culturally resonant storytelling as global reach grows.
Phrase was selected as the AI-led language technology platform to anchor global delivery. Instead of adding more tools, the focus was on establishing a single shared environment for collaboration across teams and partners. This reduced manual handling and introduced clearer oversight across workflows, vendors, and markets.
Unifying delivery at enterprise scale
As the publisher evolved to enterprise client status, translation memories were migrated into Phrase and external providers were onboarded into the shared environment. This created one place where game teams, ECI, and other vendors could collaborate with aligned resources and consistent workflows.
Just as importantly, it made global delivery repeatable. Projects could move through a common system rather than being managed differently title by title.
Together, Phrase and EC Innovations operate as a unified ecosystem, giving the global live games company the structure, governance, and expertise needed to grow quickly while maintaining a high-quality player experience.
Scaling consistency and in-game quality
Within the shared delivery ecosystem, quality was scaled through a combination of structured resources, governed workflows, and in-context validation.
ECI developed dedicated terminology databases, character tone guides, and structured narrative references for each major title. These resources were maintained by ECI’s game language teams and synchronized in real time through Phrase’s Translation Memory and termbase sharing. This shared foundation ensures character voice and narrative logic remain consistent across languages, even as content updates continue to roll in.
Quality is reinforced through ECI’s multi-stage TEP (Translation, Editing, Proofing) process paired with in-game LQA (Language Quality Assessment) to validate how language performs inside live gameplay. Phrase’s AutoLQA supports this process by identifying potential issues early, reducing manual review effort and shortening QA cycles.
When platforms and specialist partners align around a single customer goal, scale becomes predictable. This ecosystem gives the customer a shared foundation to grow globally while protecting the player experience that drives loyalty.”
Edmund Ovington VP Global Partnerships & Ecosystem, Phrase
Strengthening governance and cost control
Following an internal restructure, account management moved to an internal content services organization. This enabled a transition from centralized budgeting to a pay-per-use model.
Each game or business unit subscribes to a defined volume of processed words, with usage tracked through Phrase Advanced Analytics. This aligns spend directly with production, improves cost predictability, and supports stronger vendor accountability.
CMS integration via Phrase API enables automated project creation, reducing manual handling and improving throughput across frequent updates.
The internal content services team continues to mature the delivery model, optimizing workflows and expanding analytics and quality automation to support future scale.
STATS & FACTS
60%
Improvement in in-game language quality across titles
99%
Consistency in terminology
98%
or higher LQA scores across multiple titles
THE IMPACT
A model built to scale
The joint approach delivered improvements across operations and player experience. Delivery moved from fragmented coordination to a governed global system. Phrase enables shared project execution, clearer vendor collaboration, and visibility into usage and cost by title, language, and partner.
ECI’s quality model now operates at scale within the Phrase Platform, creating a shared environment for global delivery across teams and vendors.
Phrase’s Translation Memory and termbase sharing keep terminology stable across titles and markets, while character voice and narrative logic remain consistent in every language.
Multi-stage translation, editing, and proofreading, paired with ECI’s in-game LQA, protects quality where it matters most, inside real gameplay. Phrase’s AutoLQA supports this loop by flagging issues early and reducing manual review.
Advanced Analytics provides visibility into processed word usage, vendor performance, and cost by title, language, and partner. This enables the new pay-per-use model and tighter governance.
CMS integration via Phrase API automates frequent updates, reducing manual handling and speeding throughput.
Platform adoption is being further expanded, including exploringPhrase Orchestrator for vendor permission management and job error prevention, evaluating Phrase Strings with Job Sync for screenshot-heavy workflows, and testingPhrase Studio for subtitling and voiceover on promotional content.
These quality outcomes delivered clear market validation. In Japan, a newly launched title reached the top of the charts on both iOS and Google Play, with players describing the localization as “神翻訳,” or divine translation.
Player feedback reinforces the impact of language on player experience.
The global live games company now operates a delivery engine that can grow with demand while preserving what players value most: experiences that feel native, emotionally consistent, and culturally true worldwide.
Fantastic, and it’s even playable in Indonesian. Very few RPG games support the Indonesian language.”
Gamer, Indonesia
Our client is growing fast, and content demands will only increase. The ECI and Phrase ecosystem provides a repeatable global delivery model that stays consistent, governed, and player-first as the business grows. This partnership ensures clients can support expansion without compromising operational clarity or player experience.”
Lincoln Gong, Head of Gaming Division, EC Innovations.
LOOKING AHEAD
The joint model with EC Innovations and Phrase continues to evolve as content volumes, market coverage, and live update demands increase. Automation and quality monitoring will expand beyond current testing, enabling faster decision-making and earlier issue detection. Governance will continue to mature as the ecosystem grows, providing sustained visibility and operational confidence at scale.
Within this framework, the partnership continues to deepen. EC Innovations will further refine narrative resources, in-game quality assessment, and cultural adaptation playbooks, while Phrase advances the shared operational foundation through analytics, workflow orchestration, and AI-led quality support.
At the heart of every successful global game is cultural judgment. Our role is to ensure that stories, characters, and emotions resonate locally, so players feel the experience was designed for them, not adapted after the fact.
Lincoln Gong
Head of Gaming Division
The most effective ecosystems are customer-led. When technology platforms and specialist partners operate as one, organizations gain the clarity and confidence to scale globally without sacrificing quality or control.
Edmund Ovington
VP Global Partnerships & Ecosystem
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