International Audio for Videogames

PR Program Sponsor

Binari Sonori

Date: August 31 (Tue) 16:30 - 17:30
Format: Session (60min.)

Expected Skill	The speech is targeted to Game Producers, members of Sound Department, members of Localization or International Department, with a basic understanding of audio production.
Ideas Take Away	Attendees will learn about the specific issues and methods of dealing with multilingual productions for international markets. Guaranteeing actors’ performance in a non-linear entertainment scenario, recording in dispersed locations, minimizing recording “pick up” sessions, making sure that the international soundtracks premastering and mastering are such that the playback engine can easily import the localized assets: these are just a few topics that will be treated in this session.

Expected Skill

The speech is targeted to Game Producers, members of Sound Department, members of Localization or International Department, with a basic understanding of audio production.

Ideas Take Away

Attendees will learn about the specific issues and methods of dealing with multilingual productions for international markets. Guaranteeing actors’ performance in a non-linear entertainment scenario, recording in dispersed locations, minimizing recording “pick up” sessions, making sure that the international soundtracks premastering and mastering are such that the playback engine can easily import the localized assets: these are just a few topics that will be treated in this session.

Using the well established movie dubbing industry as a reference, this session reviews similarities and differences compared to videogames audio production for international markets. Typical scenarios and specific techniques used in pre- and post- production as well as in the voice recording sessions are analyzed. Voice casting, recording, A/V asset management, files pre-mastering, local recording practices, as well as the international quality assurance processes are covered. Some theoretically aspects are also described, such as the typical constraints that need to be accounted for during the speech voice recording phase in order to allow the software to seamlessly load, mix and combine audio assets coming from various countries and recorded in different times.
Drawing from the experience gathered on the production of the international version of reference titles like Fable 2, Monster Hunter 3 and Uncharted 2, the speaker will also highlight the most common issues publishers and developers have to cope with in multilingual projects.

* The session contents are based on the information provided by the speakers.

Fabio Minazzi

Founder/Account Manager

Binari Sonori

Graduated in Physics, with a background in digital audio technologies, in 1988 Fabio Minazzi pioneered audio production for interactive media at Philips. For the last 20 years Fabio has been localization project leader for games published by reference clients like Microsoft and Capcom. He is a member of the IGDA Localization SIG Steering Committee and has delivered countless speeches on localization and international production at the most relevant game industry events, including GDC and AES Conference.

[Message]

With production budgets often exceeding 1 billion of yen and development teams made of hundreds of members, AAA videogames are more and more similar to Hollywood movie productions, with huge amounts of audiovisual contents, produced and processed according to the state of the art entertainment technologies. Games are also becoming more and more international, and proper international audio is a key component to the success of exports. Hopefully all the attendees of this session will benefit from these concepts, allowing their products' success to extend beyond the Japanese market.