A mobile game can become a chart-topper anytime, anywhere. When a game becomes a global phenomenon, like Angry Birds or Clash of Clans, millions of mobile users become gamers overnight.
A spot on a top 10 chart is great for the bottom line--gaming research firm Newzoo estimates gamers spent more than $36 billion on in-app purchases in 2016--but creates new challenges for your customer support team charged with answering help chat or email requests from gamers in different countries. And hiring in-language agents, especially in these unpredictable markets, can prove costly.
A new player has entered the game: on-demand chat and email translation, performed by qualified linguists. Leveraging human linguists to provide rapid, on-demand translation services helps your customer support team seamlessly communicate with players around the world, no matter what language they speak. And by partnering with a language services provider that supports a multitude of languages (think upwards of 250 languages), you can easily scale into new markets and respond to unexpected growth.
Every country games differently. Mobile gamers in Japan prefer online role-playing games (RPGs), players in China love massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), and German and Italian users like to be challenged by puzzle and brain games.
Your game can become an overnight success in any country. That unexpected fame will come with demands, though: Gamers need customer support and an open line of communication to you (usually in the form of emails or chat windows) in their native language. As a game publisher, you should partner with a language services provider that offers email and chat translation support so that you can bridge communication gaps between gamers and your customer support team.
That’s what mobile game publisher NEXON M learned. The gaming company’s hit game DomiNations hit 20 million-worldwide downloads, and saw increased volume in support emails from non-English speakers. Responding quickly to every help request proved to be a challenge.
We partnered with NEXON M and immediately got to work. NEXON M's customer support team and GLOBO linguists worked together to translate, and reply to, a backlog of 12,000 non-English help requests. In just 45 days, every non-English help ticket was addressed, translated, and sent back to the appropriate player, returning NEXON M's service levels to its normal 24-hour turnaround time across all languages.
“If you want exceptional customer support that covers all your language needs, and scales with you, GLOBO HQ is the best tool out there for translation. It’s as simple as that.”
- Chris Whittington, Associate Director of Community & Customer Support, NEXON M
The lesson here is you don’t necessarily need to hire in-house language agents to provide multilingual customer support to your non-English players. Partnering with a language services provider who offers on-demand chat and email translation allows your customer support agents to quickly interact with and help gamers, no matter what language they speak.
Mobile gaming is big business; as Newzoo forecasts, mobile-game revenue will jump to $52 billion in 2019. There’s a clear financial incentive for studios to launch games in multiple markets.
Whichever approach your organization takes--a one-day, worldwide launch like Super Mario Run or a methodical rollout one country at a time like Pokemon GO--must include language support so your customer support reps can interact and communicate with new gamers immediately. The stakes are simply too high: Nine in 10 consumers end their relationship with a company because of poor customer service.
While mobile games tend to have short lifespans, popular games have loyal players and strong retention rates. When you’re able to communicate with all of your players, no matter their geographic location, the likelihood of player retention and loyalty is greater.
It’s clear that a scalable customer support model must be part of your growth strategy. If hiring in-language agents is a long-term goal, a language services provider can help publishers determine which high-demand languages they should staff (thanks to population data). Alternatively, as smartphone users download your mobile game across different markets, a language services partner can become a safety net that helps you adjust to unpredictable growth, and cater to the languages you don’t find yourself supporting as frequently. In all, this partnership enables you to scale faster, and efficiently.
Gaming studios should strive to launch titles with long lives. In other words, the goal of every developer should be creating an ecosystem that keeps gamers’ thumbs tapping day after day. But there must be a balance--bloated support costs can sink a publisher when games dip in popularity or a new game doesn’t achieve a developer’s previous successes.
Keep your gamers happy and engaged with excellent customer service by speaking their language. If your customer support team can’t interact with your biggest fans because of a language barrier, you’ll see retention rates dip over time.
By partnering with a language services provider, studios’ customer support reps can quickly respond to gamers’ requests, no matter the language they speak. And publishers can cost-effectively and rapidly expand into new markets.
It's nearly impossible to predict where in the world a video game will go viral. To best prepare for global popularity, gaming companies should equip their customer support teams with translation tools. GLOBO's language management platform, GLOBO HQ™, offers game publishers on-demand chat and email translation tools so they can support players from around the world without lag or gameplay interruptions.