[MUSAI] 2019 GOTY and HOTY Boost the Year-End Mood for Gamers

2019-12-19

Only few days left in 2019. The atmosphere seems to heighten as you can see by sharing greetings with partners or colleagues and there are many year-end events in each industry.

If you ask someone in the gaming industry about the first thing that comes to mind at the end of the year, it must be ‘Game of the Year’ awards as known as GOTY. It’s a great delight for gamers to see which game will win the most GOTY awards this year. Besides, there was a special award to catch attention of a localization geek. That was ‘Hangul (Korean alphabet) game of the Year’, called ‘HOTY’ which means the best game of the year localized in Korean.

What is GOTY?

Many talks about GOTY come and go among gamers, but not many of them know what GOTY is exactly and where it comes from. For briefly speaking, GOTY is an award by each media or organization to select the best game out of countless games released throughout the year. The awards are presented by various organizations ranging from reputable organizations of gaming industry such as Academy of Interactive Arts & Science (AIAS) and Game Developers Conference (GDC) to influential gaming news sites and the press like ‘Times’. That means GOTY is not the one certain award, quite a variety. After theses various GOTY are selected, ‘GOTY PICKS BLOG’ announces the final total and ‘The Big Winner of the Year’. How can it be possible missing this exciting event as a gamer?

What is HOTY?

In Korea, several organizations and gaming news sites choose GOTY as well, but it was hard to find the awards for the best localized game. Konsoler, a Korean news site specialized in console games, has been running this event for 3 years. They are running the poll not only for 2019 GOTY but also 2019 HOTY on their website.

2019 HOTY Nominees

The nominees for 2019 HOTY by Konsoler are below.

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (localized both Korean voice-over and translation)

2. Gears 5 (localized both Korean voice-over and translation)

3. Ring Fit Adventure (localized both Korean voice-over and translation)

4. Borderlands 3 (localized both Korean voice-over and translation)

5. Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain (localized both Korean voice-over and translation)

6. Focus on You (localized both Korean voice-over and translation)

7. Pocketmon Sword and Shield (Korean translation only)

There was something interesting we found out – all of nominees except ‘Pocketmon Sword and Shield’ are the titles with both voice-over and translation. It can be a proof to show the trend that fully “Koreanized” video games are getting increased. In addition, it possibly signifies that the users in large numbers prefer titles with both Korean voice-over and translation.

It was a huge pleasure that the titles dubbed in Musai Studio are included in the list of 2019 HOTY nominees – ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’, ‘Gears 5’, ‘Ring Fit Adventure’ and ‘Borderlands 3’. Each of the four titles was very  attractive, so that we put full of passion and efforts on them. Nothing happier for us if one of them was chosen.

2019 HOTY by MUSAI STUDIO

We, Musai Studio, also spent this year working with various titles. Among the works that we have done voice-over this year, ‘Total War: Three Kingdoms’, ‘E-Football PES 2020’ and ‘Apex Legend’ were also highly rated in terms of the Korean dubbing. (It would have been nice if they had been listed for 2019 HOTY by Konsoler with four other titles nominated.)

Furthermore, if we pick the good works with Korean translation only, we would like to choose ‘Monster Hunter World: Iceborne’ without hesitation. Among the work that we have done localization this year, they took the longest time to complete and we had a lot of fun to work with the clients of the titles in a perfect teamwork as well. They are unforgettable project for us not only because of the efforts we put, but also the positive feedback and love from Korean players.

What if ‘G-Star’ opens a ceremony for  ‘Localized game of the Year’?

If you turn your eyes overseas, there are countries that have a policy that imported video contents must be dubbed with their own language. For the case of France and Germany in Europe, it’s mandatory to broadcast programs dubbed in their own language for TV under the Act on the Protection of Language. No need to go further, Japan and China are same as well. The purpose of the system is protecting their own language and caring for the socially disadvantaged, rather than seeking profits. In Korea, dubbing is optional. For game contents, to be specific, only big titles tend to do voice-over in Korean.

In the perspective from game localization company, we hope that more games are fully localized both translation and voice-over in Korea. What if the attempts like HOTY are happened by various organization as for the first step? If G-Star, the international game exhibition in Korea, with support by media opens an award for the best localized game of year, it may encourage the environment to upgrade the quality of localization as well as the interest of users. We are looking forward to seeing more masterpieces fully localized in Korean in 2020.

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