To thrive in the gaming industry, providing outstanding multilingual player support is a necessity.

With a global player base, a projected revenue of $455.30 billion, e-sports, and disruptive tools like AI, the gaming industry is absolutely booming.

And so are players' expectations.

Gaming is no longer just leisure—it's a serious business, and players demand high-quality, functional products. Creating an exceptional player experience means offering technical support whenever and wherever they need it.

This article explains why multilingual support is crucial and shares tips for designing a flexible support model that fits your business and game.

The importance of multilingual support in the gaming industry

Customer service has a massive impact on your brand’s reputation and success. This is especially true in an industry that creates sophisticated, evolving products that come with patches, additional content, updates, and other issues that require expert assistance to solve.

But aside from being an essential standard practice, multilingual support services also offer several advantages that can up your studio’s game.

Competitive edge

Most companies offer little to no customer support. According to Netomi’s Customer Service Benchmark Report, only 53% of gaming companies worldwide have accessible email addresses. Shockingly, 76% either ignore customer service emails entirely or respond without empathy.

Just offering reliable game customer support puts you ahead of most game studios.

Improved player experience

Dealing with in-game issues or bugs is frustrating. Providing player support shows that you genuinely care about the player’s experience and the game you’ve created. And your efforts don’t go unnoticed—83% of customers feel more loyal to brands that respond to and resolve their complaints.

Removing the language barrier makes it easier for your community to search for solutions, understand them, and follow instructions. Solving problems quickly allows you to transform a negative experience that took them away from their game into a positive one that makes them feel valued and cared for.

Greater outreach and inclusivity

Localization and multilingual player support services make your game more accessible to a global audience. Being sensitive to cultural norms shows that you value your players no matter where they are in the world.

Plus, people appreciate a personalized touch! 71% of users reported increased loyalty to companies that offer support in their native language.

Boost in revenue and Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Taking care of your players significantly increases the chances of repeat business. According to Salesforce Research, 88% of customers say good customer service makes them more likely to purchase again.

What’s more, satisfied players will talk about their positive experiences. With platforms like Reddit, these positive experiences can reach a wider audience, building your game's reputation and drawing in new players.

Deploying multilingual operations

Setting up an effective and sustainable global support team requires careful planning and consideration. Before you start hiring, it’s important to address several key factors:

• Budget—determine the costs of deploying and maintaining multilingual operations
• Coverage—what languages, locations, time zones and availability do you need to provide?
• Inquiry Volume—get an idea of the anticipated volume and type of inquiries per region.
• Support Channels—determine where and how people can find support and the quality of support you provide.
• Staffing—plan the size of your team and assess the training requirements.
• Tools—choose the tools and technologies your team will use.

The biggest challenge is finding the right people for the job. Qualified game support agents fluent in foreign languages are hard to come by and in high demand.

However, designing and building a team independently may not be the most effective approach. It’s quite common for game studios to outsource multilingual support services.

Finding a multilingual support model that suits your needs

Many businesses in the industry specialize in providing specific game development and player support services, including multilingual support. There are a few different support models that cater to game developers and publishers with unique needs at different stages of growth.

Shared models

A shared multilingual support team works with several companies and offers predetermined coverage patterns. These shared teams offer some flexibility because they allow you to select a response package that aligns with your needs and budget.

One downside is that these teams are typically structured to meet standard coverage needs only. Depending on the package, your support team may only be available during regular business hours (based on their location).

Dedicated models

A dedicated model works best for companies with a large customer base, diverse inquiries, and for those that want to provide the highest quality player support. With this option, you essentially have a multilingual team that covers all the bases. They can handle extra tasks like analysis, VIP support, projects, and knowledge management.

However, you want to make sure you need the full package. Dedicated models tend to be more expensive. Depending on the volume of support requests for a particular language, full coverage may be excessive.

Hybrid support models

A hybrid model combines a dedicated team with an MT solution like RESOLVE. It makes knowing the exact volume per non-English language less important and allows you to focus more on hiring support staff with more technical knowledge. Plus, this budget-friendly option is scalable as your inquiry volume increases.

A common concern is the reliability of machine translation. However, tools like this are designed to assist, not replace, your support staff. Part of the RESOLVE solution involves assessing machine-translated replies and routing them to native human post-editors for quality control.

The only drawback is the possibility of a slight delay in response speed due to the additional quality control steps.

Transitioning from shared to dedicated models

Of course, the solution that works for you today may not be adequate tomorrow. As your game grows in popularity, so will the demands for support and coverage. Eventually, the volume and type of inquiries may exceed the capabilities of the shared multilingual team you’re working with.

Transitioning should be a gradual process to keep operations fluid. If your game is live and inquiries are consistent, you’ll want to keep the shared service until your dedicated team is informed, armed, and ready.

Case study: Getting back on track with RESOLVE

A client of ours created and runs a mobile gaming platform with millions of users and hundreds of games. However, being as popular as they are, they encountered an influx of tickets in several different languages and were struggling to keep up—until RESOLVE came along.

The Challenge:

With nine player support staff, their team was dealing with a backlog of 2,400 tickets, while managing 2,000 translations per month in multiple languages and 800 tickets per day. This required their team—that was already stretched thin—to help on weekends to deal with the increase in volume.

The Solution:

Given their broad coverage needs (Korean, French, Italian, German, and Spanish), team size, and inquiry volume, it seemed that our multilingual support solution RESOLVE would be the perfect fit. And indeed, the results were quite interesting.

The Result:

Thanks to RESOLVE, our client saw a significant improvement in support staff efficiency and overall output. They were able to respond quickly to users across all languages while maintaining the service levels set and consistently outperforming a customer satisfaction score (C-Sat) above 75%.

Over six months, the same nine members of the support team were able to grow from a ticket volume of 1600/month to over 3000/month for non-English language inquiries.

Leveling up with multilingual player support services

Gaming is by far the biggest player in the entertainment industry, and everyone knows it. As games become more sophisticated, the need for exceptional customer and player support services will only grow.

While creating a global support team is now a necessity, it also presents a great opportunity to better understand and connect with your audience. However, it’s crucial to design and build a team or support model that’s right for your game.

If you have questions on how to design a multilingual player support model or are looking for some help choosing the right outsourcing partner, we’re happy to help.