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What is exactly a “cultural consultant” and how can they benefit your game?

June 29, 2021

A cultural consultant is a professional that ensures a respectful portrait of a particular culture in your game and verifies that your game does not contain anything culturally offensive for the countries that represent your game’s market. Consultants should be involved from early development and design.

Cultural consistency in a globalized world is really important. Why? For several reasons, let’s have a look at some examples:

– Gestures. Gestures have different meanings depending on the language. You want to make sure you are conveying the right emotion.

– Music. If you want to play Chinese music in the background to add some flavor to a specific location, make sure the content of the song is not offensive or inappropriate for the setting.

– Signs. An episode of your game takes place in Russia and you want the signs on stores, hotels, and the like in Russian. Great! But please, don’t trust Google Translate for that! Ask a pro!

– Rules. Your game portraits a homosexual relationship. Make sure the regions where you intend to ship your game are not against homosexuality, otherwise the game will be banned.

Culture includes both the situations that are shown in a game, but also the conversations we have to translate to all target languages.

These are just some examples. Other key topics are historical events, religion, and so on. Stay away from cultural pitfalls and hire a cultural consultant.

Native Prime is your one-stop solution for game localization. We’ll guide you through cultural consultancy in your game.