Arab countries: new Klondike for developers
Alconost blog,
Game development,
Localization of products,
Monetizing games,
Sales management
The Southeast Asian market is gradually becoming saturated, and large companies have turned their attention to the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region).
Why is the Arab market attractive?
It is one of the fastest growing gaming markets in the world (25% annual growth);
22 countries with a population of over 400 million;
The gaming market turnover in the MENA region reached $ 4.8 billion and accounts for 23% of the global games market;
and finally, the Arab region boasts one of the highest ARPU (average revenue per user) in the world at $ 181 (compare to $ 48 in China).
Surprisingly, only 1% of the content on the Internet is presented in Arabic, with 70% of the Middle East population choosing Arabic for their smartphone interface. It looks like Western developers and marketers are overlooking an important market.
According to Habib Chams, founder of Digital Games Conference Dubai, "if your game is translated into Arabic, includes references to history and dialogue in Arabic, it will take off like a rocket."
At Nitro, a professional translation service, we spoke to Hadi Sharafeldin, a linguist and translator from English to Arabic, and asked Hadi about his experience in localizing games into Arabic and how to approach an Arab audience.
Although the focus of this article is on the gaming market, we hope these insights will be useful to many companies considering entering the Middle East market.
We pass the microphone to our guest, Hedi Sharafeldin.
Should I choose Standard Arabic or one of the dialects?
I speak Egyptian Arabic, but when translating from English to Arabic I use Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), also called Fusha.
Standard Arabic can be considered the universal language in the Arab world. When you localize a product, you are probably targeting all Arabic-speaking countries, right? Well, MSA - Modern Standard Arabic - serves exactly this purpose, so that all Arab users can understand localized content.
We use dialects in everyday spoken language, but MSA is generally preferred in books, online materials and any other written material. However, dialects can be heard on radio and TV, since the programs are aimed at a specific audience in a particular country where a particular dialect is used.
Some people argue that MSA, also called Literary Arabic, sounds too dry and formal. But when I was involved in localizing Battlefield 4 to Arabic, we stuck to Standard Arabic. If Electronic Arts is using this option and their users are happy with it, why not follow suit?
Other big companies are taking this approach as well: “We are considering using dialects in our future games, but text localization will always be on MSA to make sure all of our Arabic-speaking players understand the content,” says Malek Teffaha of Ubisoft Middle East.
Regarding dialects, I will note that the Egyptian dialect is one of the most understandable for Arabs. So if your game or application needs a more informal language, maybe even using slang, you can use Egyptian Arabic - as Sony did in their game Detroit: Become Human.
Square Enix released the title Just Cause 3 with Lebanese voice acting, which turned out to be a good decision, and the community from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf reacted very positively to the game. Arabic-speaking players noted that, despite some unaccustomedness of certain names, they understood the essence, and the Lebanese dialect blended well with funny gaming moments, says Malek Teffaha from Ubisoft, already familiar to us.
However, opting for a dialect may be the wrong move. When Ubisoft announced that The Division 2 would be dubbed in Syriac, gamers did not approve of this decision, and the publisher had to go back to the dubbing in standard Arabic.
To summarize, you can experiment with different dialects, but you should be careful so that players don't get unhappy. And of course the interface and subtitles should always be in standard Arabic - MSA so that all Arabic players can understand the texts.
Is Google Translate really bad for Arabic translations?
While Google Translate does a pretty good job with general topics, it can let you down in both idioms and individual words. Try to translate the Arabic word تنزيلات which means "discounts." So: Google Translate thinks that it translates "downloads" because machine translation can't figure out the context.
And here is another funny translation error that I encountered in my work: “later alligator” (joking “See you!”, Literally “later, crocod
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