MOBAs are the No. 1 target for game developers’ localization efforts

The global market for digital games is set to generate more than $94 billion in annual revenue, according to a recent research from market intelligence firm Newzoo. This prompted my company, One Hour Translation, to analyze industry marketing trends by examining about 9,550 translation projects of approximately 2,000 English-language video games in recent years.

The numbers were staggering. Fifty-four percent of all translation projects in 2017 exclusively covered the MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena), MMO (massively multiplayer online), and MMORPG (massively multiplayer role-playing game) genres. This is more than double the meager 22 percent in 2016. All other gaming genres had a notable drop this year.