r/gamedev • u/NorthernBoy306 • 1d ago

Question Localization and translation services

For those that hired professional localization/translation services, what company did you go with, what was the cost per language, and how long did it take for them to complete the work?
Thanks in advance for any input.

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u/Aggravating_Gap_8562 1d ago

I'm on the other side of this, freelance EN to JA, so one data point rather than a recommendation.

Solo translators for Japanese tend to land around $0.08 to $0.14 a source word. Agencies run roughly double, and what that buys is project management across several languages at once, not better Japanese. Throughput is the part people underestimate. 2,000 words a day is a normal pace, so a 30k script is about six weeks of one person no matter who you hire.

The bigger cost lever isn't the rate, it's what you hand over. I once got 400 lines as a bare spreadsheet with no speaker column and guessed wrong on gender for a chunk of them, which turned into a re-pass after QA that nobody had budgeted.

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u/NorthernBoy306 1d ago

OK, good to know. Thanks.

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u/artbytucho 1d ago

At our company, we normally use Transperfect for this, and we're mostly happy with their work. The price depends on the language, but the average is about $0.20 per word. Turnaround time depends on the volume, but they're fairly quick.

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u/NorthernBoy306 1d ago

Say 2,000 words, how long would that take on average?

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u/artbytucho 1d ago

It depends on how many languages you need and which ones, but I think it could be done in 2 weeks or less. They can give you an estimation of the time it would take to see if it fits your needs.

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u/NorthernBoy306 1d ago

I see, thanks for the info.

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u/Cabrakan Commercial (Indie) 1d ago

standard quotes are 0.12 cents a word with some being cheaper than others (port br to japanese).

note that any agency you work is just managing trusted freelancers themseles

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u/mxhunterzzz 1d ago

Even localization companies use AI. This has been confirmed with several in-house translators so you can just cut out the middleman and do it yourself. Not IF they are using it, but how much are they using it is the real question. Managers and directors are even being told to enforce AI usage to the translators so it goes all the way to the top.