How GameHouse Leveled Up its Global Reach with Phrase

Challenge

Too Many Post-Its and Not Enough Consistency

As Head of Game Operations, Tommy Nordkvist oversees the localization of games into nearly 20 European and Asian languages. Based in the Netherlands, his team supported by a global network of translators, manages numerous projects with tight deadlines.

The localization process at GameHouse involves receiving assets, extracting texts into .xls files, translating them, re-uploading into game builds, and conducting thorough QA before game updates. This relies on strict deadlines and visibility of project status.

Previously, the team used an outdated translation tool that lacked fuzzy matching and a robust translation memory, leading to translations being repeated and inconsistent terminology. Project tracking was managed with Post-It Notes and online calendars.

Upon joining, Tommy invested in a new CAT tool and translation management platform, ensuring terminology consistency, translation quality, and a streamlined overview of each project.

solution 

Phrase Powers-Up GameHouse’s Localization Process

Navigating the complex world of game localization, GameHouse needed a powerful localization solution to overcome various challenges. By adopting the Phrase Localization Platform, it unlocked a suite of capabilities that streamlined its processes, improved efficiency, and ensured top-notch quality.

• User-Friendly Interface: The intuitive design of the Phrase platform made it easy for both new and experienced users to navigate, reducing the learning curve and increasing productivity.

• Robust Translation Memory: Phrase offered a powerful translation memory that ensured previously translated content was easily accessible, reducing redundant work and ensuring consistency across projects.

• Advanced Fuzzy Matching: The platform’s ability to recognize and suggest similar strings saved time and improved the accuracy of translations, addressing a major shortcoming of the previous system.

• Comprehensive Project Management: With built-in project management tools, Phrase allowed Tommy and his team to track the status of multiple projects in real-time, streamlining workflows and improving deadline adherence.

• Collaborative Features: The platform facilitated seamless collaboration between the in-house team and the global network of translators, ensuring everyone stayed aligned and could communicate effectively.

• Quality Assurance Tools: Integrated QA tools enabled thorough reviews and in-game testing of translations before deployment, significantly improving the quality and reliability of the final product.

• Scalability: As GameHouse continued to expand, Phrase provided the scalability needed to handle increasing volumes of work and additional languages without compromising efficiency.

These features made the Phrase Localization Platform an ideal choice, empowering Tommy’s team to maintain high standards of translation quality, consistency, and efficiency.

benefits 

Why Phrase?

• Enhanced Localization Consistency and Quality Control: With translation memory and term bases, Tommy’s team can ensure consistent use of terminology across all translations, enhancing the overall quality of localized content.
• Efficiency in Translation: The automatic insertion of previously translated words and phrases eliminates redundancy, reducing time spent on repetitive tasks and improving efficiency regardless of file type.
• Real-Time Project Collaboration and Monitoring: The centralized platform provides a comprehensive view of all projects, due dates, completion statuses, and analytics, streamlining project management and eliminating the need for manual tracking methods like post-its and calendars.
• Automated Workflow Creation: Implementing automatic project creation from templates tailors specific workflows for different games and developers, improving efficiency and reducing manual setup time.
• Improved Efficiency: Cloud-based operations simplify interactions between project managers and translators, facilitating direct communication and the sharing of additional resources, like images, to provide clarity and reduce unnecessary emails.
• Fast Training with a User-Friendly Interface: The intuitive interface of the Phrase Platform requires minimal training, allowing new translators to start working almost immediately. This reduces the technology learning curve and keeps the localization process moving smoothly as new team members join.
• Positive Return on Investment: While the primary goal was to establish translation consistency and quality, the investment in Phrase TMS has proven financially beneficial. Over time, the use of translation memory, term bases, and fuzzy match recognition has led to significant cost savings, making the platform self-sustaining and delivering a positive ROI for GameHouse’s localization efforts. Tommy stated “Phrase essentially pays for itself.”

Conclusion

Phrase A Game Changer for GameHouse

While the technology is important and vital to producing quality translations, Tommy is very focused on maintaining the human element in his localization process. It was important to him to find a tool that centeredaround the translator’s experience because he values the translators as an extension of his internal team. “Translating is about being human,” says Tommy. “It’s a cultural product, you can’t reduce language into bits.” He’s establishing a network of trusted translators around the world to maintain the central term bases and translation memories in their respective native languages. Because the platform is cloud-based, Tommy, his team, and translators can always work with the most updated versions in real-time. Also, while email automation is an option in Phrase TMS, he prefers to manually email his translators with new jobs to stay in regular contact with them – maintaining the human element in the language industry.

With Phrase, Tommy and his team now have a combined CAT tool and translation management platform that is easy to use, utilizes translation memory and term bases to control quality and consistency, and also provides a bonus return on investment. They are now better equipped to increase the number of languages they offer and are exploring Phrase TMS’s API and latest technology features to integrate their systems and further streamline their game localization updates.