Loekalization Blog
Japanese/Chinese/Korean/English/Dutch game localization
Month: January 2025
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Nintendo Bans Foreign Cards as Banks Shun Adult Content
Nintendo has once again decided to shake things up, and this time, it’s not with a new console or a surprise Mario remaster, but by banning overseas credit cards and PayPal accounts from Japan’s Nintendo eShop and My Nintendo Store. As of March 25, 2025, if your payment method wasn’t born and raised in Japan,…
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Suddenly Japan Loves Your Game. How Come?
If you’ve been keeping an eye on global gaming trends, you might have noticed something weird. Again and again, when an indie game from overseas unexpectedly takes off, Japan somehow ends up as the second-biggest market. Not the U.S., not China, not Germany—it’s always Japan. Take Dungeon Crawler for example. A roguelite crane game RPG…
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Indie Dev Finds Out The Hard Way: ChatGPT Sucks As A Translator
In the world of Japanese localization dreams of a global indie hit were swiftly derailed by the terrifying specter of bad translations. If you thought ghosts were the scariest thing in Subway Exorcist Girl, you haven’t seen what happens when AI decides to take on a language as nuanced as Japanese. Spoiler alert: the ghosts…
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From Samurai to “Warrior”: Did Ubisoft Just Nerf Yasuke?
Ubisoft has done it again, folks—turning history into an awkward branding exercise while somehow managing to stir up confusion about one of the most fascinating figures in Japanese history: Yasuke. Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, the latest installment in the franchise, has found itself in hot water, not just for yet another release delay but also for…
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KPN: Koninklijke Puur Niks
Imagine this: you’re living your best Dutch life, sipping coffee in your gezellig home, and you decide it’s time to embrace the future with KPN’s lightning-fast fiber-optic internet. After all, it’s not just any company—it’s Koninklijke KPN N.V., the largest telecommunications provider in the Netherlands. “This is a company with over €5 billion in annual…
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Why Democracy Is Killing Your Game: The Case for Dictators in Development
Game development, as Shimaguni Yamato eloquently argues, is a balancing act between chaos and control—a process that sometimes feels more like a battlefield than a creative endeavor. In his blog, Shimaguni Yamato no Dochikusho (Shimaguni Yamato’s Unfiltered Truth), he dives into the messy, often absurd dynamics of creating games in today’s sprawling industry. His latest…
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From Kimono to Cowboy Hat: The Cultural Makeover of Animal Crossing
This is a charming tale of how Animal Crossing, a game bursting with quiet Japanese cultural quirks, underwent a radical makeover to woo the international audience. This isn’t just a story of localization; it’s a saga of cultural reupholstering so thorough, you’d think the original game was sent to a spa in Kyoto and came…
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Exploitation, Cover-Ups, and Possible Subsidy Fraud: The Rotten Core of Media Localization
Let’s take a moment to marvel at Blu Digital Group, a company that has somehow mastered the art of being terrible on all fronts. If there were an award for treating translators and subtitlers like dirt while simultaneously making sure everyone knows about it, Blu Digital Group would be the undefeated champion. This is not…
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Switch 2: The Internet’s Said It All, But What Do Japanese Gamers Really Think?
In the Japanese gaming community, the commentary on a new Nintendo console is as nuanced and layered as a meticulously crafted bento box. It’s an elegant blend of anticipation, skepticism, and the occasional “why does this exist” existential dread—seasoned, of course, with the salt of past disappointments. Let’s start with the bemused reaction to the…
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How Split Fiction’s $27 Strategy Is Winning Over China’s Gamers
The glorious announcement of Split Fiction—Hazelight Studios’ latest gift to the gaming world—has sent ripples of joy and a flood of fiery debate through the internet. And rightly so. Not only does the game flaunt its shiny new Chinese dub, but it also boasts a global rock-bottom price of 198 RMB (about $27 or €25)…
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