On Aug. 30, BLEND, a Tel Aviv-based language service provider (LSP), shared a case study breaking down the importance of localization for gaming brands.
In an analysis of the 50 most widely frequented gaming websites (as ranked by Similar Web), BLEND found that nearly half offer a multilingual experience, with 48% supporting four or more languages. BLEND, which provides localization and translation services, noted that offering linguistically diverse and accessible services allows gaming brands to gain traction in a diverse field, with nearly 3 billion consumers across the world.
“The study demonstrates that no matter where in the world a gaming company may be situated, the majority and top companies use localization to cater to specific nuances and subtleties of each target market they intend to reach,” said Hila Shitrit-Nissim, chief marketing officer at BLEND.
With the gaming market poised to grow significantly over the next couple of years — some experts predict that it will be worth $340 billion by 2027, up from just under $200 billion in 2021 — the company behind the report claims that localization will be a big part of this growth.
The 50 most-frequented gaming sites include a wide range of companies, from major companies like Twitch, Nintendo, and Electronic Arts to smaller ones like Norway’s Kahoot and the US-based Epic Games. Among the company’s findings, BLEND reported that 33 of the top 50 gaming websites generate more than 20% of their traffic from external sources outside of the country in which they’re based. For large companies like Steam, that number rises even higher: Steam, which is based in the United States, receives 85% of its traffic from sources outside its home country. Denmark-based HLTV topped the list of sites in terms of external traffic, with 93% of its traffic coming from outside of its country of origin.
According to BLEND’s report, Nintendo, Xbox, and PlayStation all offer versions of their websites in 40 or more different languages, which makes sense, given their particularly large international customer bases (BLEND notes that all three companies receive more than 60% of their traffic from countries outside of where they are based).
Last year, BLEND released a similar report, looking at data from the most frequented eCommerce sites. Finding quite similar results (of the top 50 eCommerce sites at the time, 46% offered services in four or more languages), the company noted that a “multilingual expansion plan” is key to a brand’s worldwide success. Given the large global consumer base of video games — from mobile games to PC games and everything in between — a multilingual expansion plan seems to be important for gaming companies looking to capitalize on the industry’s recent growth.
