The Austin Game Conference (AGC), which was held last September in the Texan city, is one of the main events for the industry worldwide. By participating in the last edition of that conference, Keywords International (to which Keywords Italia belongs) was able to present its linguistic localization, testing, and quality control services to major videogame publishers and developers that attended the event.
Giacomo Duranti, an engineer who is the Localization Manager at Keywords Italia, commented on the Austin Game Conference: ‘As in the Game Developers Conference held in San Jose, California, in March, 2006, the AGC gave Keywords’ managers the opportunity to meet with many clients and international partners. It was also an excellent opportunity to exchange views with other companies in our field in a stimulating environment, where initiatives were plentiful.
In addition to managers and technicians, Duranti added, ‘we also had the chance to talk to many young people and attendees who visited our stand and were interested in finding out more about the short video-films we produced in order to show the actual differences between an amateur localization job and a professional one. For this event, we used different versions of videogames that are widely known amongst the general public.
The objective of this initiative was to show that the work of localization and language quality tests are essential steps for a product’s success, including its technical design, the writing of captivating story-lines and the creation of heroic characters. It is this mix of components that makes a game appealing and exciting. Given the feedback we received from attendees and the number of requests for more detailed information, the initiative was a great success.
Here are some of the conclusions we reached and the results we obtained: At Austin we made contact with some of the major videogame developers – especially from the U.S.A. and Japan – with whom we are planning to establish new short- and long-term partnerships for the localization of new videogames that will soon be launched or are now in a development phase. Altogether, our experience at Austin allowed us to confirm once again that the efforts we have made to improve our services and the quality of all aspects of our work have paved the way of the future for Keywords International and Keywords Italia. Our secret, if I may call it so, is that we consistently aim to personalise services even more and integrate our processes with the production cycles of our partners and clients. The advantages are measurable, and not only in budget terms.
About the Keywords Group: With offices in Dublin and Rome and ten years of experience, the Keywords Group is now a major player in the international market of linguistic services.
The main services we offer are: localization of software, videogames and manuals; technical translations, linguistic and functional testing, quality control and consultancy on internationalisation projects.
These are some of the titles on which Keywords has worked: Halo 1 and 2, Rise of Nations, Age of Empires, Guitar Hero 1 and 2, Project Gotham Racing 1, 2 and 3, Perfect Dark Zero, Dead or Alive 3 and 4, Flight Simulator (several versions), Zoo Tycoon 1 and 2, Grand Theft Auto, and many more.
Keywords International is the sole provider of linguistic quality control services for all games produced by Microsoft.
For further information, please visit us at: www.keywordsintl.it Or write to us at: marketing@keywordsintl.it
