What is a Cultural Consultant, and Why Does it Matter?

Have you ever played a localized game and felt that something was off, but you couldn’t really put your finger on it? The translation seemed fine, you laughed at a couple of puns, the text flow was almost impeccable, but it still didn’t resonate—pardon for the cliché —with you.

If that’s the case, it may be a sign of insufficient cultural consultancy, the almost invisible work that gets your message delivered to its audience. Due to its subtlety, it’s impossible to convert into RoI or any other metric, but you immediately notice it when it gets done wrong (or not done at all).

In short, cultural consultancy is all the consulting work that brings your game closer to its target audience across languages, countries, and cultures. It encompasses market research as well as translation, adaptation, and transcreation guidance.

It comes in different forms and sizes: from quick sanity checks (made pro bono as part of our other services) to months-long close collaboration with developers to make that puzzle work in a new language.

We generally recommend having two rounds of cultural guidance: earlier at the development stage when you have already decided the languages and markets you’re conquering (to make your game more global as a whole), and later during the localization stage (to make each version of your game as local as possible).

Not in every case. While some cultural things are now considered common knowledge (e.g., mismatches between the meaning of gestures in different cultures), other aspects may not be so evident for someone outside of that culture or those who haven’t done proper research.

- Developing a fully voiced narrative game? Plan a dub in advance: without it, you won’t even get attention in certain markets. Some great games from big names failed for that very reason. (RIP to a certain smiling man…)

- Want your really cool font to become part of your game’s identity? Make sure it is consistent across all the planned languages and scripts. Remember that Medieval adventure with a distinct Gothic fleur? The developers didn’t see it coming when every Russian review mentioned how great the font was in English and how bleak it was in Russian.

Cooking a big update for your historical strategy with new characters? Get a sanity check across all your existing markets to not portray a dubious—at least for some countries—figure as a positive hero. Once, we spotted a direct reference to a convicted sex cult leader in a kid-friendly game: imagine how many an eyebrow it would raise if the text got into the game’s release version unedited.

Don’t get us wrong. We don’t support or endorse any kind of censorship or limitation to freedom of expression. But there are laws, regulations, common sense, and—finally—your audience’s expectations. Remember: you choose what gets into your game and what doesn’t; all we do is help you make an informed decision.

So now when your game is finally ready for localization, we start doing our translation magic. But the consultancy work doesn’t stop here: it just shifts from what fits the global audience—on the visual and mechanic level—to what makes your game local, i.e. on the text level.

While transforming your text into each language, our translators and editors always consider the local aspects of what the players expect from the text: if it’s a high fantasy, it should read like Tolkien in your language; if it’s a Wuxia, it should read like Journey to the West (and not like a historical drama translated by your local fandub streaming website).

And this is where tight-knit teams really shine. Most translation agencies randomly choose linguists from their pool and assign the one to translation, the other to proof-editing, disregarding their style preferences, subject matter expertise, and level of skill. This results in the translation quality being okayish, passing all the QC and QA procedures, while lacking soul, strong style vision, and breaking the player’s immersion.

Imagine a modern Yakuza member reporting to his boss and addressing him like an English constable from a Sherlock Holmes story. That already happened due to a calque translation of the word “sir” in a couple of languages for a certain game. Or when a traditional Chinese character’s name Mister Lee is left as is in all languages—because “we shouldn’t translate names”,—the player immediately thinks of a Chinatown thug from Rush Hour rather than a character of a Chinese folklore story (and when English is a pivot language or when the story takes place in non-English speaking country, one should be extremely important).

Having an established team and one point of contact responsible for the overall style guidance significantly improves the quality of the text and the player’s immersion. A team lead is usually a game’s dedicated proof-editor who not only has an in-depth knowledge of the setting but also possesses understanding of the target audience: what people like and what they expect.

And do players really notice such minor things as “style”?

Yes, they do. A real example: a text-based narrative RPG, thousands of hundreds of words translated by talented linguists, and… every review scolding its translation. What happened? The team lead made a style decision that didn’t consider who would play that game. And while the players sometimes dramatize (and continue playing the game nevertheless), you don’t want to have all that negativity in your Steam reviews section.

If you’re developing or publishing a game, start preparing for the localization as soon as possible. Get market research and plan your localization program in advance, then continue your development, keeping in mind that everything will be translated in 5–10 additional languages.

If your game is already being handled by a translation agency, ask for a copy of their internal style guide or at least a screenshot with communication regarding your game—to understand what decisions are made and whether you want to see it in your game. If they can’t provide any, perhaps your game is in wrong hands and it’s time to change your translation team.