We keep internal statistics on the most popular languages among our customers to help with planning, and to better understand the needs of game developers and their audiences. In this article, we’ll dissect our statistics and share the main localization trends in 2023 and forecasts for 2024.
Our top-ten most popular languages for localization in 2023 were:
As you can see, the classic set of European languages (FIGS) is in the lead. Note that Spanish appears twice in the graphics, in both European and Latin American versions. Developer interest in Turkish is also increasing, as the country offers a large number of players (especially on mobile devices) and low advertising costs, making it an interesting market for various projects.
It is worth considering that European studios most often create games initially in English, even if the developer’s native language is different, as English is often in the greatest demand by their audience. In China, the situation is different: developers there focus primarily on the domestic market, and only then plan for release abroad. In the case of Chinese studios, English is a transitional language, as it is easier to find good linguists in zho-en and en-target language pairs than in zho-target language pairs.
The following popular language pairs are also worth considering:
In general, East and Southeast Asia continues to attract more and more interest from developers, due to the increasing number of players and fast economic growth.
To choose which languages to translate a game into, you should be guided by both other developers and market needs. We talk about game markets around the globe in monthly reviews on our website, as well as in our general report on the global video game market.
