Post date: Sep 23, 2026
We have this “family car”, a 30 year’s old Toyota Corolla, that still runs great, and still gets serviced by the same guy that sold it. And that made me think about some very frustrating things that happened in the past and will certainly happen in the future, in our own weird industry of game localisation.
So, here’s a thought:
If your mechanic has kept your car in pristine shape in every maintenance call, why would you change mechanics every three years?
Think about it.
If someone has maintained your car for ten years, knows its history, knows the strange noise it makes when turning left in the rain, that your right front tire always needs 0.1 Bar extra, and has consistently kept your car running, you don't suddenly decide:
“You know what? Let's put this out to tender and let a completely different garage have a go.”
And yet, in game localization, this seems to happen all the time. ALL-THE-TIME!
A publisher finds a provider (aka MLV) for 10 languages. The provider hires 10 teams, a mix of two inhouse teams, and 8 single language vendor teams. Things are good to go and they work on Game 1. Three years later, bam… Game 2. Those teams built terminology. They establish tone. They understand the characters, the lore, the jokes, the UI constraints, the weird little naming conventions, the decisions that were made three years ago and — absolutely crucially — why they were made.
Then Game 3 comes along… And someone changes the multilanguage vendor (MLV). And there are many valid reasons to do that. Let me be clear, this is not an argument against doing that, but instead it’s an argument to raise awareness about one simple fact: MLVs are not the whole localization ecosystem. You have SLVs, translation teams, freelancers, inhouse folks, part timers, internships, consultants, specialists, advisors and everything else imaginable.
Unfortunately, there’s a mile long track record of MLVs that act towards their clients as if they do all their translations in-house, or with their own (freelance) translators. Which is simply not true, and only decades of “credits suppression” has allowed that façade to endure.
In this particular I really must summon Local Heroes, since not only they are 100% transparent about their supply chain (if you book a project with them you know who’s doing all the languages from the get go), also, to my current knowledge, they are unique in that regard, as they were the first to flat out credit their partners and include them as a real part of the team, and not hide them behind an unreal sales pitch mask.
My opinion on this matter is biased, but if I had a franchise to localize in X languages, I would surely be a lot more comfortable going through a list of loc teams and their pedigree, than looking at a shiny workflow in PDF, with all the potential scenarios and remedies, etc, and very neat spreadsheets, that are absolutely meaningless to my target audience.
And its also a telltale sign of a good MLV. You can differentiate yourself by protecting, nurturing and retaining the right SLV relationships rather than constantly rebuilding the language supply chain, and having loads of different teams fighting for your scraps. And these relationships are priceless when it comes to predicting the quality of your supply chain.
Circling back to Game 3 situation, once that trigger is pulled without looking at the big picture, all that accumulated knowledge the loc teams got in Game 1 and Game 2 is now worth less than a cooler in the north pole.
Because when the multilanguage vendor changes, there is suddenly a very real possibility that the language you handled in Game 1 and Game 2 gets handed to someone else — potentially a very talented, very professional, very competent team — who nonetheless is different.
And this also isn't an argument against new vendors. Competition is healthy. Fresh eyes can be valuable and sometimes a change is absolutely necessary.
But there is a difference between changing a supplier and throwing away years accumulated expertise.
For a small single-language agency like Locsmiths, this creates a particularly bizarre situation. And while companies like ours are, in many ways, the building blocks of game loc, they're often the least visible part of the equation.
Imagine having localized Insert Franchise Game 1 Here. Then Insert Franchise Game 2 Here.
You've worked with the terminology. You've shaped the characters. You've developed a style. You've accumulated years’ worth of memory, brainstorms, documental background, you know every single translator and reviewer and what exactly they did in those games.
Then Game 3 gets announced. And instead of a reasonable and logical thought process, like:
“OK, we want a new multilanguage vendor for reasons A, B and C. However, languages X, Y and Z always had great feedback, so perhaps we should at least try to force the hand of our new multilanguage vendor into reeling in these guys. Let's make sure they're involved.”
No sir...you get: “Ok, we want a new multilanguage vendor for reasons A, B and C.” Full stop, and you are totally out of the equation.
And if you want to get back to the equation… well, you get to play Where's Waldo: Vendor Edition.
You are in business for over 25 years, so a lot gets to you by the grape vine, so you learn Franchise X has a new multilanguage vendor… and you are totally out of the loop.
So you start knocking on doors.
One door. Two doors. Five doors. Ten doors. Twenty doors.
“Hi! Just checking! We worked on Games 1 and 2! Are you perhaps the new multilanguage vendor for Franchise X? We believe we can bring a lot to that table!”
Sometimes we get to dodge the bullet and keep working in the franchise through another MLV we have a working agreement. What almost never happens, is what should happen every time… The new MLV reach out for the teams that have been known to work in the said franchise with very good results, in an effort to maintain continuity, even if that “detail” was missed by the publisher. And unfortunately, sometimes we do get a contact, but the conditions offered are not compatible with our working culture, and those times it feels even worse. Feels we were haggled out of the process for measly pennies.
Because continuity isn't just about having a glossary and a TM. It's knowing that Character X has always used a particular expression. It’s knowing that a seemingly insignificant term in Game 1 becomes critically important in Game 3. It’s knowing why the team chose one translation over another. It’s knowing what the team was trying to achieve — and sometimes even more importantly, what they deliberately wanted to avoid. And don’t even get me started on the number of times franchise plot holes have been plugged by the sheer knowledge of the usual translation teams.
So, to bring all of this to a close… This is not an argument against changing vendors. It’s not an argument against MLVs. It’s not even an argument for SLVs.
This is an argument for conscious decision making. To take in account everything and everybody when you decide to pull that trigger and create a potential chain-reaction of havoc down the pipeline.
Because if the same mechanic who has serviced your car for fifteen years is available, you probably wouldn't give the engine to a stranger just because someone changed the procurement spreadsheet, or someone offered a penny less per hour. No sir, you wouldn’t. Before making any decision you would take in account fifteen years of trust, respect and results. And if we really want to make a change, perhaps the question we should ask when dealing with franchises isn't:
“Who can translate this game?”
but:
“Who already knows this game?”
Because that’s where a ton of incalculable value gets, pardon the pun, lost in translation.