Localization SIG Past Events

International Game Developers Association

[edit] Past Events

June 9, 2008 - Games Localization Roundtables at Localization World (Berlin): Some members of the Loc SIG organized a rountable discussion on game localization at the Localization World event in Berlin. The full day of roundtable discussions took place on the pre-conference day, June 9, 2008. For more information, access the Loc World site here: http://www.localizationworld.com/lwber2008/programDescription.php#WS3.

May 13, 2008 - ION Conference (Seattle): Tom Edwards presented a lecture entitled Online Worlds and Offline Worldviews - Managing Geocultural Expectations in Game Content at the ION Game Conference (formerly known as OGDC) in Seattle (the conference took place May 13-15). For more information about the talk, access the ION Conference site here: [1]

February 20 & 21, 2008 - Game Localization Sessions at GDC 2008: The Localization SIG was busy at GDC 2008 with two sessions, a group gathering and a SIG meeting. See the section below on GDC 2008 Results to catch up on the news.

November 9, 2007 - Game Localization Session at the IGDA Leadership Forum: Heather Chandler presented a production-oriented overview of localization at the IGDA Leadership Forum in San Francisco. Further information can be found here: [2]

October 26, 2007 - Localization SIG launches presence on Facebook: In order to further broaden the reach of the Localization SIG, a Facebook group has been established called "IGDA - Localization SIG". The group can be accessed here: [3]

October 16, 2007 - Games Localization Roundtables at Localization World (Seattle): A day of roundtable talks on game localization took place at the Localization World conference in Seattle on Tuesday, October 16, 2007 (this was the pre-conference day). More information about Loc World is available here: [4]

September 26, 2007 - Localization SIG Announcement at DiGRA Japan Conference: A brief talk by Tom Edwards announced the formation of the Localization SIG to those attending the DiGRA 2007 conference in Tokyo, Japan. More information can be found at this link: [5]

September 5, 2007 - Games Localization Session at Austin GDC: Tom Edwards delivered a presentation entitled "Capturing International Markets - Game Localization Done Right!". The session was sponsored by the Localization Institute and Multilingual Computing. More information can be found at this link: [6]

August 1, 2007 - New Poll for Prospective SIG Members! In order to ensure that this SIG better serves the games localization community, we've developed a brief poll to understand your needs and challenges. Your time and answers provided are greatly appreciated! The poll is located here: [7]

[edit] GDC 2008 Results

Thank you for everyone's participation at GDC! If you weren't able to attend GDC this year, we're sorry we missed you! The Localization SIG had an excellent launch, thanks to all the people who were able to attend and join the SIG meetings. The following events were on the agenda:

Loc SIG Meetings:

As our inaugural year at GDC, we went into the event a bit blind in terms of knowing how many people to expect, as we're scattered across a Yahoo group and a Facebook group. We had spread the word about our activities as far and wide as we could but we still didn't know what to expect in terms of numbers. In the end, our group gathering at the IGDA booth on Wednesday morning saw about 25-30 people, which was fantastic! Then we took a gamble and held our SIG meeting at 8am on Thursday, but even there we had about 25 people show up - with some overlap from Thursday but not entirely. By the end of GDC, our SIG sign-up list contained 54 names and emails, representing a broad cross-section of functions (translation, audio, management, etc.), companies (EA, Sony, Nintendo, LucasArts, etc.), and locales. Between the new names acquired at GDC and our 2 existing online groups, our current SIG roster currently stands at over 120 people, so thank you again for your interest!

As per Jason's advice (the IGDA executive director), it's one thing to build a list of people, it's another thing to motivate them to action. There was obviously a lot of enthusiasm and excellent ideas put forward for SIG projects and goals, and we’ll be following up soon in another email with details of the project ideas, as well as a call for members to start forming Working Groups around specific localization topics (e.g., translation issues, audio, tools, etc.).

Localization Talks:

• Sponsored Panel Session [Feb. 20, 10:30-11:30]: Attendance: 135 (standing-room only), Overall Evaluation Score: 4.0 (out of 5). The session was entitled: "Rethinking Game Localization as Global Game Development." The impression from in-person feedback at GDC was that the session did exactly what we intended to do - raise the issue of localization's importance as a core part of development. The link to the slide slides for this session on the GDC site will be posted shortly; information about the session is located here: [8]
• Tom Edwards' Lecture [Feb. 21, 12-1pm]: Attendance: 55, Overall Evaluation Score: 4.2 (out of 5). The lecture was entitled" "Self-Censoring Potential Content Risks for Global Audiences: Why, How and When." The in-person and evaluation feedback was very positive, while being clear that it's time for more in-depth talks on culturalization issues (this lecture walked a line between introductory and substantive). The slides for this talk can be obtained on the GDC site, at: [9]

NOTE: All SIG members (whether existing or new) who attended received a really cool "IGDA Localization SIG" badge ribbon to proudly display on their badge holder. This went over very well as a good method to raise awareness of the SIG and we still have a lot left, so we'll be using them at future events. An image of the ribbon can be found here: [10]

Back to the Localization SIG Main Page: http://www.igda.org/wiki/Localization_SIG