Localized certification: When LQA meets Compliance Testing

One of the bright sides of working as a language specialist in any sector is the chance of gaining expertise in fields galaxies away from your linguistic training.

That is also true for professionals working in videogames localization, given the vast variety of gaming products and universes created each year.
Perhaps even more than translators, LQA testers often face a wide variety of requests which can span from the linguistic viability of the game itself to testing the implementation of marketing content on platforms and online.

In concrete terms, experienced LQA testers will build first-hand knowledge of consoles, in game stores and websites on top of their linguistic skills.
All of which will come in handy when, one day, the words ‘‘compliance testing’’ will reach them too.

Often an unknown part of developing, compliance testing (also referred to as “certification”) aims to ensure that a game will meet the requirements and standards of the platforms that will support it.

This testing is crucial, as a product cannot be published to run on consoles produced by manufacturers such as PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo unless the requirements set for each platform are met.

For this reason, candidate builds for certification by first party are tested by Compliance QA teams - often specialized in one console/manufacturer only - before being submitted for approval. Failing a Certification submission can cause additional production costs and release delays, making compliance testing a non-negligeable step.

All localization professionals, from translators to testers, should be aware of certification criteria and keep them into consideration when approaching a new localization project for a game.

Knowning on which platforms the title will run is crucial, because some of the requirements concern localized languages as well. This can be a grey zone in QA testing, where both Compliance QA and LQA teams will be asked to run specific tests.

While some criteria can be easily verified, others require linguistic knowledge to confirm that there are no violations. This is where the LQA team becomes essential in ensuring that the localized version of the game is not only of good quality, but also compliant to platforms’ requirements.

As mentioned, different platforms have different standards: while some are similar, it is possible for a game to get Certified by Sony for PlayStation®5 5 and fail its Nintendo submission for Nintendo Switch 2.
Microsoft's requirements for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S can be consulted on their website: let’s have a look!

It is not our intention to dismiss any other platforms’ requirements.
Unfortunately they are not as easily available to be consulted by the general public – that is the only reason why this article will not mention them in detail.
Sincerely,
a Spiderman and Mario Kart enthusiast.

Before even talking about MSF requirements, it is worth mentioning that Microsoft details a series of tests to check if it is even worth submitting a game build for certification. They are called BVT and one of them is all about supported languages.

BVT-05 Languages states that a game must launch in any supported language, must not crash nor become unresponsive, must not contain any language related debug nor stability issues.

While these standards might sound basic and sensible, delays in localization are very common. Worrying about the status of translation and implementation progress too late could lead to postponing your submission, possibly endangering the release timeline.

(If you’d like to know more about localization and LQA cycle, check this guide we have prepared for you!)

Xbox consoles requirements are commonly referred to as XRs.
They are numbered by category, and each requirement presents a series of tests that the game must complete successfully to be compliant. Almost at the top of the list we find another language support criterion, similar to BVT-05: XR-003, more specifically, subsection XR-003-02 Title integrity.

Under the examples of accepted results for a pass, XR-003-02 mentions that ‘‘localized text displays correctly in all areas where supported’’.

This definition might sound vague and up to interpretation; however, it establishes a key requirement for any game being localized: upon submission for Certification, the product must be fully localized and display text correctly.

In other words: not only all applicable strings of text must be translated, but they must also be correctly implemented and displayed in game, no matter the settings a user might apply.

For example, if the Arabic version of the game is not correctly displayed RTL, your title might fail Certification just because of one poorly implemented language.

Under XR-018 User-Generated Content, Microsoft details their requirements to report and/or censor inappropriate content. More specifically, a list of terms that MSF qualified as forbidden must always be censored in game.

Some of these terms are not in English and it might fall on the LQA team to test the profanity filters of the title to ensure that each forbidden term gets censored as intended if a player tries to use it in game.

This requirements applies to different areas of a title (all to be tested) such as character’s creation or in game chats.

In short: make sure that your players cannot name their characters using a slur – may it be in French or in English.

XR-036 In-title pricing information requires that all prices displayed in game must be the same as shown in the Xbox catalogue and in accordance with the region/language the game is set to.

From a linguistic perspective this means that launching the game in Spanish/Europe should display European prices and currency symbol.
Therefore this requirement should be tested for all supported language and their corresponding region(s).

IF needed, anyone with a reference list of pricing and currency symbols, as well as sufficient attention to details could perform testing for this requirement. However, LQA testers could be less likely to miss inconsistencies in how numbers and symbols are localized.

While XR-055: Achievements and Gamerscore does not mention localized content specifically, it could still use some LQA testing.

Among other requirements, XR-055 states that achievements must be unlocked only when the defined criteria are met. A similar rule exists also for PlayStation’s trophies.

"Expected Result

All achievements unlock according to their criteria and maximum possible Gamerscore for the base game's launch is 1000G spread between 10-100 achievements. All achievements represent a thorough exploration of or engagement with game content."

If the translation provided for the definition of any Achievement is inaccurate, it could inadvertently create a violation of this requirement, as the player would be under the impression of having unlocked an achievement without fulfilling the described criteria.

We just reviewed a few areas of Compliance testing that can benefit from LQA expertise. While language support verifications seem obvious, other requirements demand at least a minimal knowledge of first party standards and skills to navigate a title beyond a basic cycle of launch – play – save – close.

For this reason, collaboration across QA testing teams can facilitate a successful Certification submission.

But what if submission fails?

Obviously, the title must be submitted again for certification, after implementing the corrections communicated by the manufacturer. It is only fair to mention that it is rather rare for a game to fail submission exclusively because of linguistic issues.

If we refer to the list of most failed requirements for MSF, only a limited number of them are related to localized content: notably XR-003, XR-055 and XR-022.

If you are thinking ‘‘XR-022? This was not mentioned”... you’d be right! XR-022 refers to MSF Official naming standards, a requirement commonly referred to as terminology, that is a vital part of compliance testing across all most popular consoles’ manufacturers.