Babel, an international provider of outsourced services, has teamed up with Enterbrain, the market intelligence company, which also publishes the leading Japanese games magazine Famitsu. The partnership will see Babel supply focus testing and localization services to Enterbrain’s customer base.
The idea is to help Japanese gaming companies achieve global success. In the last few years, as the Japanese market has declined, many publishers have deliberately changed their approach to be more global, or that is more Western. Capcom, Sega and Square Enix have all put an emphasis on the West.
“The hot topic for Japanese developers is how to make successful games for the Western markets,” said Richard Leinfellner, Babel CEO. “This partnership means that Enterbrain and Babel can provide all the knowledge and services required to help those developers be successful.”
Babel said that in addition to Enterbrain the company will continue to work closely with its Tokyo-based partner Entalize, which provides English to Japanese localization. Several new joint projects are in discussion. Babel added that "the success of the partnership and Babel’s own presence via its Tokyo office has led to a 50% increase in the number of Japanese clients."
“Japanese publishers and developers have really valued our ‘local’ approach to their global deployment challenges. Our team there has a decade of Japanese game studio delivery experience so they deeply understand how to optimise what we do to meet to our clients needs at the highest level of quality,” said Leinfellner. “Being part of the community in Japan, with great partners who share the same vision and having great clients, some for over 8 years, is exactly what our global strategy is all about, act local!”
