Yesterday, I came across this post on r/IndieDev.
Apothema, the developer of the puzzle game ‘Hexzen’, decided to share their riveting insights on Arabic localization.
Among their claims, only one is (just broadly) correct. That being the fact that Arabic is hard. Thing is, it takes some serious work to make it even harder.
Now, normally, I’d cut developers some slack. Unlike agencies, localization just isn’t their thing.
But this one was special in a way that’d make Dunning & Kruger proud.
So let’s break it down.
A - Mirrored Interfaces.
A completely unnecessary expense the majority of players wouldn’t even want. It’s disruptive to the way Arabic speakers are used to reading UI.
Arabic only needs Right-to-Left orientation for the text itself. Anything extra can and will likely become a QA headache for a very minuscule ROI.
B - Censorship.
I can assure you that MENA rating boards will not give a shit about any random game unless the developer/publisher pays them and sends them a copy to give their blessing, a blessing that is pretty much worthless unless they’re launching physically.
Indies are too small to extort for rating fees, so they pass by default. There are literal softcore-porn games on local PSN/Switch stores. The majority of players aren’t religious brutes either.
C - Dialects.
Dialects in Arabic localization are a non-factor.
Almost all Arabic media uses Modern Standard Arabic, a unified form of the language designed to be understood by all Arabic speakers. This is basic knowledge you could find with a quick google search.
The fact that they phrase it ‘Normally, the people in charge of translating your game will handle this, but it’s still a challenge.’ says a lot about their pipeline, which, based on how their presskit sounds in Arabic and multiple other languages, is likely just some AI blowing plausible-sounding smoke at them.
D - “Arabic players play in English”.
Right. And it took you trying to implement Arabic (without launching with it) to figure that out?
But alright, let’s tackle this in good faith.
English literacy is disproportionately low among Gulf players, and North African players tend to speak English as a third language (French usually being their second).
There’s a very good reason why games that support Arabic tend to get a lot of attention and coverage in the MENA region.
E - Arabic Numerals.
Unless you’re using Roman, your game already supports Arabic numerals.
Contrary to popular belief, 123 are not Western numerals. ١٢٣ are not Arabic numerals.
123 are Arabic numerals, and ١٢٣ are Indian numerals. This is also something you can figure out with a quick google search.
It takes a special kind of ignorant to do no research, do everything wrong, then drop extremely misinformed takes as objective wisdom.
It reeks of anglo culturesplaining at best and straight-up racism at worst.
The cherry on top was adding “including full right-to-left Arabic” as a marketing point in the game’s beautifully MTL’d presskit.
Wonder how Arabic-speaking players will feel about this one.
By Seif Chaib.
Originally posted on Linkedin.