[MUSAI] The rewind of ‘Football Manager 2021’ Korean localization process: “Satisfy the enthusiasts of the steady long-running game”

2020-12-22

On November 24^th, ‘Football Manager 2021’ was finally released.

As many people know, the ‘Football Manager’ series is a game which has a lot of enthusiastic users and fans who have been playing for many years, and also well-known for having many translation issues in Korea. For years, the game was criticized for its somewhat disappointing localization quality, however it has changed this year. The ‘Football Manager 2021’ is now receiving favorable reviews in many aspects after improving the game and its translation quality, and implementing a bulletin board for the Korean language. The existing scarcity, of course, is being monitored constantly to improve quality too.

In this article, we are reviewing the Korean localization process of ‘Football Manager 2021’.

Fulfill the expectation of enthusiasts

As mentioned earlier, a lot of enthusiastic players are already addicted to the charm of this game. Moreover, the content of the game basically requires a deep understanding of football. Therefore, since it was clear that someone who really understands both football and the ‘Football Manager’ series was needed in order to come out with the translation results enough to satisfy the users, Musai organized the team with the best members for this project.

Furthermore, the enthusiast and their playstyle had to be considered in terms of the translation style as well. A lot of people tend to skip long texts while playing games (we all agree with that), and especially many of the long-time-players of FM are already familiar with the game system, so they are more prone to skip it. That’s why we had to find a way to make the translation more intuitive and easier to read.

Make the social media interesting!

Most parts of the updated content annually are related to press conferences and social media feeds (e.g., a panel which displays general news about games, transfers, players, clubs, and competitions, etc.). When these appear, the social media contents in particular, it must seem real so that it looks like someone has really posted the feed on their own social media. The conversational tone and sarcastic expression of the translation helped the feed sound more natural.

User comment: this is so real lol

Existing translation errors are constantly being fixed!

‘Football Manager’ series has been running more than 10 years since it was first released, but the overall content or system of the game has not changed. Rather, changes and improvements are being made on roster and engine every time a new series was released. This is also true for its localization process. Each year, newly added contents such as new UI text, press conference system, social media feed, etc. are being translated, while the old contents remain the same.

The existing errors on the old translation are mended during the localization QA, the final stage of localization process, but the schedule is always (or usually) not sufficient. Some of you might already know what we are trying to say here. Yes, the errors that are caught during the QA process will be fixed, but even after all of the process is over, there still is a chance with some of the errors being left unattended.

Developer’s attention and the hard work of the localization agency

Starting this year, the developer company has been operating a bulletin board dealing with the Korean localization issue and receiving good user-responses about it.

Football Manager Korean Language Discussion Link:

https://community.sigames.com/forum/817-football-manager-korean-language-discussion/

The attention from the developer company might seem to be a load of pressure as for a localization agency. However, we do believe that this is a great opportunity to provide better localization services. We, the Musai team will work towards to provide better localization service in the 2022 version when it is presented to you in the future.

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