Six ways to quickly translate marketing content for your game (with pros and cons of each)

You need a translation for your game ad right away, the description for the app store was due this morning in eight different languages, but somehow you missed French, Danish, Japanese and Simplified Chinese. If you work in game promotion, you've probably run into exactly this scenario!

Let's take a look at options that exist right now for speedy translations of small volumes of marketing content to assess which are most viable for game marketing. We'll also look at the advantages and drawbacks of each. As a bonus, we've made a table comparing them all, so read to the end!

1. Traditional machine translation (MT)
2. AI translation tools
3. Freelance translator
4. In-house employee
5. Online human translation services
6. Translation agency

Let’s explore them one by one, looking into the pros and cons of each.

Machine translation

For example, Google Translate

When someone needs a quick translation of a single phrase, or a few phrases, often they will go to use Google Translate. It's probably the most popular tool today, producing instant translations in a huge number of languages. For everyday needs, services like those can be a lifesaver, whether you're a student reading scholarly literature in an unfamiliar language, a tourist trying to find a drugstore, or someone trying to order off a foreign menu. But is that kind of translation good enough for localizing an advertising campaign or translating ASO texts for your new game? In most cases, no. Why?

AI translation tools

For example, ChatGPT

Translation tools that use artificial intelligence are similar to machine translation in that they are automatic and fast, with some improvements. Here, a large language model is programmed with vast amounts of data to predict the most likely translation. Also, you can prompt a LLM like ChatGPT to consider your style requirements and personalize the response for a specific user.   As with any type of translation, however, if there isn't a human involved, there is always a risk that the meaning of the original text will be distorted. And these tools don't perform equally well with all language pairs.

Freelance translator in an open marketplace

For, example Upwork

Freelancer platforms contain enormous numbers of specialized workers you can filter by various parameters. You can read reviews left by their previous clients, and payment is easily completed through the site itself once you've confirmed that the job has been completed. But quite often, the translator isn’t certified, specialized, and may or may not be using translation tools. The lack of knowledge about true qualifications is the biggest negative involved with this method for quick translations through freelance platforms.

In-house employee

Sometimes, game publishers assign short translations to their own employees, either staff translators or people in other jobs who happen to speak the language. This is most common in big, international teams, because smaller companies can't always afford to keep a translator for every language they need on the payroll.

Online, on-demand human translation services

For example, Nitro

Online rapid translation services offering native-speaking professional linguists do an excellent job with urgent marketing content. The job cannot be done instantly, of course, because it's being done by human beings (usually, it takes 24 hours). On the other hand, there are two huge advantages that might be decisive in game marketing work:

• humans overcome the semantic shortcomings of AI tools;

• you can explain the context in various ways, and include comments with your order.

These together ensure the translation will be as precise as possible in terms of meaning. 

In these types of tools, the services are provided on a self-service principle through an intuitive interface.

Translation or Localization agency

For example, Alconost

Game publishers often work with localization agencies for big translation orders. This includes the complete translation of a game, a website, or technical documentation, for example. Those are major jobs, and the translation process, from initiating the order to completing and quality-checking it, can be extremely complex and time-consuming. That's the normal route for fully localizing a game. But when you need quick, short texts instead, you might run into obstacles such as minimum-order requirements, slower order fulfillment, and the need for extensive personal communication with managers (which also impacts speed).

So which to choose?

These six are currently the most popular ways to obtain quick, short marketing translations. When selecting the right option for you, ask yourself the following questions:

1. How often do you need translations, and in what volume?
2. Is quality critical for you? Do you need to convey the meaning with 100% accuracy?
3. Is the text creative, emotional, or nuanced?
4. Are you prepared to spend a lot of time selecting and screening translators?
5. Do you want to spend time on a long order submission processes and communicating with managers?

We’ll sum it up for you: any time you're translating creative marketing content, it’s best to avoid any kind of AI translation: traditional MT or a LLM like ChatGPT.  Look for native-speaking translators, but keep in mind that simply knowing the language is not enough. To create high-quality marketing translations, a translator needs to be a language professional with experience in your industry.