Since the launch of the new Localization tools, we’ve been wondering how many Roblox developers have started translating their Roblox games into other languages.
Here are a couple of questions to discuss:
Are you planning to translate your game(s) into other languages?
Have you translated your game(s) into other languages? If so:
What effects has supporting multiple languages had on your game(s)?
Have you encountered any challenges when translating your game(s)?
Feel free to include more discussion items.
Localized Games Tracker: (Last Updated: March 18, 2018)
Robloxian Highschool - Currently Supports: English, French, Portuguese and Japanese.
MeepCity - Currently Supports: English and Spanish.
I don’t feel it’s worth the effort unless I see some solid stats showing otherwise
Especially for smaller games that aren’t consistently on the front page
I’m thinking this might actually be great for smaller games trying to gain some ground since it opens the game up to a wider audience. It might be a challenge to get all the text in your game localized, but it would greatly improve the reach your game has on other players and the community in general, because of how diverse the site is.
I have currently translated Mining Simulator. It might take some time but I’m guessing @ObscureEntity or @JustMomma will have some stats
I personally think it is tremendously important to consider translating your game to show support for international players. I’d say it’s essential for growth, although statistics are yet to prove that.
Could we get some information on what countries our players are coming from?
That would help a lot in deciding what languages our games should support.
Is there anywhere we can view the statistics that show us just how frequently other languages are being used on the site? I would definitely use the localization tools if I knew the target audiences preference.
The way I see it is if there is a demand for a specific language then I would more than happily accommodate.
I am still fiddling with the tools but I am trying to translate my games into my home language. The fact that the only supported languages in the plugin toolset are english and spanish is still a bit frustrating, though. There’s no other way of changing the locale to other languages without using the command bar on studio and no way to change it for the client either.
Stats would be super useful - it’s great to be nice to players but the reality is that it’s not sustainable from a business perspective to add translations for people who may not even be there/need it in the first place.
We’ve been working on supporting a bunch of languages for Stylz Makeover as we expand platforms. Spanish should be coming pretty soon, followed by Portuguese and French in the upcoming weeks.
I’m not sure if I understand how the new tools work, but it still seems time consuming to do these things. I think before it comes widespread, we need a better system than recording while in play-solo to track where text is within the game. However, I have no suggestions on how to make that system better.
Coming from a developer standpoint, we have no statistics on where our audience comes from, and we don’t have any full reason to localize until we know anything about that.
After watching this video a few years ago, I realized that translating software is just a giant can of worms that is better left closed. Dates, names, number formatting, grammatical gender, words changing form based on what else is in the sentence, right-to-left text meaning having to flip the entire interface the other direction, it’s just a mess.
I’ve talked to a lot of people who would rather just use software written in English than deal with poorly translated or implemented localized versions. Even if you hire a real translator, it’s a logistics nightmare getting it to look like a native game in that language. Roblox’s tools don’t even scratch the surface in that area, and they might not even be able to design tools that are adequate, because languages are just that complex.
I’m also not sure that there’s a substantial amount of players on Roblox who don’t know enough English to get by, as Roblox is primarily played by English-speaking users, even as a second language. The argument that translations will make people happy even though it’s a small target audience don’t really work, because even if a game is translated, it won’t feel native. And the opportunity cost to truly make a game feel native to a non-English speaker is unspeakably large and not worth the effort when that development time could be used on other game features.
I think I’ll just make my games in English. I want my five (!) plugin button slots back.
Absolutely. We are going to get Dance Your Blox Off set for Spanish and French when we have the time to figure out how.
I wish we had a way to track how many players are coming from different parts of the world, or playing with Roblox set to different languages, similar to how players by age bracket is tracked. That would make it much easier to determine which languages we need to support first.
You can look on other platforms for stats like from YouTube.
Here’s some examples (old but relevant)
These videos mount to a few million views, and millions of subscribers. I think thats a pretty good indicative that we have a large Spanish and Portuguese audience.
Also very important to note that Roblox toys are sold WORLD WIDE. This opens up the entire platform and your game to a lot of different languages.
When I say statistics, I mean based on our OWN games, not the platform itself. Just because Steam’s has a large majority of customers seems to be around Europe & Asia, doesn’t mean they all play a specific game.
These videos that I posted are of my own game. The Roblox site is a large part of where you get statistics for your own game but theres tens of other platforms where you can get this type of information from.
Yeah, it makes sense that people will produce their own content about Roblox in their native language, but most of those people speak enough English to play the game as it is now. What I mean is: I’m not sure that translating a game into Spanish would bring in a lot of Spanish-only speaking players. I might be wrong, but I feel like players you will gain from translating your game even on a basic level will be much smaller than the potential gain of just making a better game in general. It just doesn’t seem like a good time investment from a developer perspective.
I’ve been gathering some statistics on languages in some games, and the data I have collected reinforces your statement. Also, surprisingly large amount of Russian and Turkish from what I’ve seen so far.
Put yourself in the spot where you’re playing a Japanese game that is purely in Japanese. Maybe you’ll get around clicking buttons but theres no way that you’re going to have the BEST experience possible if you don’t understand everything. For a tangible MONETARY result, if players in countries like Russia and Mexico can understand what they are buying with out having to be confused as they would be not knowing the language, I think its pretty clear they they would be more inclined to make a purchase. I personally wouldn’t purchase a product in Russian if I don’t understand what it is.
