Localization is only one part of the Mabinogi game, but to take a country’s situation and tradition into heart and to realize that you can accrue new wisdom, even at our age, is truly enlightening.
Making a complete game is important, but preparing it in a way to fit a user’s taste is paramount. Whenever we take up a new project, we enter with a renewed mind and heart and it always turns into a joyous experience.
The first thing we take into account when performing any localization process in mabinogi gold is the various cultural differences among regions.
For example, Korean and Japanese users have very different dispositions that dictate how a game should be, so when we were making mabinogi gold game for these two regions, we felt that we were making an entirely new game for each one.
The contrast in the responses we received from the two countries is best exemplified in a particular contest that received dismal responses from mabinogi gold users in Korea, but was wildly popular in Japan. Because of this contrast, there were instances when we distributed different patches that had particular contents that we did not release in the other one because of the contrast.
Another aspect to consider is differing time zones. Since Korea and Japan are very close in proximity, there was only a three minute difference in time zones.
However, the sixteen hour gap between Korean and North American regions really pushed us to our limits. In North America, the sixteen hour time difference issue was the biggest hardship we faced.
When localizing a product, we need a communication link with the person in charge of operations in each country.
However, due to the time difference, we had a limited amount of time to discuss important matters in mabinogi gold game. The North American branch leader and I decided to work the night shift in order to extend the time that we were able to communicate with other branches.
