Courtesy of the GDC Vault comes a free lecture from William Barnes of Blizzard Entertainment on how and why StarCraft II was localized in 11 languages for launch. Presented at GDC 2012, he discusses how the team approached the level of localization such that any player, regardless of locale, would experience the game feeling it was made specifically for them. Among the many challenges, Barnes looks at the QA structure, voice over with lip syncing, and user interface issues the localization team faced. Session Name: StarCraft II - Carte Blanche Localization Speaker(s): William Barnes Company Name(s): Blizzard Entertainment Track / Format: Localization Summit Overview:When Blizzard launched StarCraft II in July of 2010, it was lauded globally as one of the most thoroughly localized games ever. Jim Raynor enunciated perfect Korean, Dr. Hanson's French was sublime, and Tychus Findlay spoke flawless Russian. The multi-player unit VO was every bit as entertaining in Italian as it was in English. The melting pot city streets of the multi-player maps hinted at Ridley Scott's depiction of Los Angeles 2019. The in-game cut-scenes and pre-rendered sequences were tailored perfectly for eleven locales. And even the Map Editor was launched fully localized in 11 languages. Hear how and why Blizzard elected to localize StarCraft II as comprehensively as they did.

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