In the 21^st century, the Games Industry is emerging as a global entertainment industry with over 3.24 billion gamers across the globe. With this, the need for localization and the supply of translators signifies that ‘Localization and Globalisation go hand in hand.’

But What Is Localization?

Localization refers to the process of making something local. So in linguistic terms, it means to take a product or service and make it linguistically and culturally appropriate to suit the understanding of the target locale. Hence, Games localization is a broad term involving translation from the source into the target language and technical aspects of adjusting strings.

Games Localization Future in India and How Hindi Is Important Here?

India is home to approximately 1.38 billion people. One out of every six people lives in India. India has 22 official languages with Hindi as the most commonly spoken language. I believe that the data itself justifies the title. Let’s delve in with some more realistic facts-

1. India with its 10% of the total global gaming audience, second-largest smartphone user base, and 649 million internet users, is a potential market for the Games Industry.

2. Games Industry is an emerging Industry In India with over 200+ games companies and many more to come. India recorded about 365 million online gamers in FY 2020.

3. The Indian Games market saw an increased investment of USD 544mn between August 2020- Jan 2021 and is likely to grow in upcoming months focusing both on large and small players.

4. India is one of the youngest nations in the world with more than 50% population under 24 yrs. Younger Indians have a high propensity to play online games.

5. India ranked first in apps download in 2020. For Games developers and publishers, localization is the best way to tap this opportunity in terms of revenue. Localization in target audience language with the right keywords help in more search volumes results and higher download rates. More searches give way for more ad revenue.

Though not the most profitable market like the US, China, Japan, and South Korea in Games Translation; India being the 5th largest and fastest-growing economy, is promising a fruitful market with its higher download rates which are capable of deriving more organic traffic.

A Common Misconception- The New Generation Knows English so Why Spend Dollars on Translation into Hindi?

A big no!

Not all Indians are familiar with English. India has a wide variety of gaming audiences from different age groups ranging from children to adults including homemakers and old people who accept gaming as a stress-buster and mood-booster.

Freelancing is a continuous business and the freelancer who gets done away with expanding one’s outreach stops growing. It’s crucial to enhance one’s contacts and apply at different agencies. However, in a vast market like Translation where expecting complete transparency still remains the Achilles’ heel, even reputed translation agencies and freelancers fall prey to Translation scams.

Louis J. Freeh once said, “The fraudster’s greater ability is the certainty that fraud is too clever to be detected.” While working in the industry, I have come across several fishy things (obviously through emails) and very well understood that freelancers are always at the centre of fraudulent emails where the source agency uses phishing tactics to either get work done for free or impersonate professional translators while applying in the reputed agencies.

I have been working in the Translation industry for quite a while now and want to share my recent experiences in dealing with what seems to be questionable. We all are here to earn a living and amid the testing times like Covid, a freelancer in any field must be cautious of the scams that target their skills without paying.

Types of Scams in Translation Industry-

There are different types of scams in the Translation industry ranging from ID fraud, non-payment of services, misuse and duplication of email, overpayment scams ( was most common in the 1980s)-

1) ID fraud- CVs of experienced translators are stolen and misused by fake scammers where the latter impersonates the former while applying for work in reputed agencies. In case the agencies’ vigilance gets blurry by good resumes, they fail to conduct proper screening and fake scammers get hired. This results in agencies getting the substandard quality of translation and affecting the reputations of professional translators’ whose CVs were stolen.

2) Non-payment of services- Translators are mandated to take test tasks before their final selection in the agencies. Many scammer agencies manage to get through the list, provide test tasks and flee away with finished tasks after which you never hear from them again. In reality, it’s not the test but a part of a real project which they must have accepted from a real client and got it completed by translators on the pretext of test for selection.

I got a translation test task from an agency with a non-domain email address, without the sender’s name or position at the bottom of the email. They provided me with a Hindi translation test and an English editing file. They kept sending me English editing file despite my continuous explanations that I am not an English editor. After submitting my Hindi test, I humbly requested them to send a Hindi editing file and received a response that they don't need a Hindi editor. I never heard from them again even after several follow-ups for my results.

Sounds weird! Right!

I realized after a month that I was scammed. I even reported the agency on Blue Board but my review is not published till now.

3) Be cautious if the sender’s email is not in the company’s domain. E.g.- XYZ@gmail.com. The professional email confirms the reliability of the company. Proz Blue Board is a friend in disguise in helping service providers to make informed decisions.

The above image is for reference purposes only.

3) Weird greetings- I keep myself away from judgments but I have faced rude answers from the team’s spokesperson such as “That does not matter” while confirming the rejection of emails for sending CVs. It raised red flags. The writing style and grammar also said a lot about it.

4) Cheque scam- The fake agency/scammers send a fake invoice carrying a higher payment than the quoted price to the service provider. Then the fake agency contacts the service provider about the accidentally sent over-quoted amount and asks the latter to return the extra amount through wire transfer citing an excuse of hassles in sending the cheque again. The service provider sends extr̥a money through the wire. Fake agencies run away with the money. To the service provider’s shock, the cheque bounces and he/she has to bear the cost for the bounce.

5) Agencies asking for bank details before detailing the selection process or any NDA signed raises red flags.

How to escape from Translation scams?

Well aware of the stealing of content and misuse of names, I would say the best you can do is-

1) Avoid putting your CV in simple word format & prefer PDF format. Though it would not prevent stealing of your name by the scammers but will stop scammers from directly copying & pasting it.

2) Doing background research on new clients/agencies on the web by searching for their websites and Proz Blue Board rating- Ratings over Blue Board tell us about the performance, payment commitment, and professionalism of agencies towards service providers. The highest ratings indicate the good reputation of the company in the Translation business (I always prefer ratings of more than 4 in the recent past, especially the last 12 months).

3) Referring to the agency’s past five-year rating and past twelve-month ratings on proz.com, Blue Board gives a clear picture. It warns us with its clear ‘Note from site staff’ dialogue box if the agency has been banned due to its repeated bad ratings after considering reviews flagging the agency's malicious activities.