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 Features
Localizing Brands and Licenses
 Pitfalls
Make sure you have the right to recycle previously recorded voices. This is not trivial: you don't want to play this game with actor's unions. If legislations are different depending on countries, most of the time actors are contracted for one game only, not all by-products.
In France for instance, to avoid contract breach, the game needs to have the exact same title. Let's say you port a PS2 game to PSP: the PS2 voices will be recycled and a few new cues will probably be recorded so that Sony's additional content standards are met. Of course, your marketing people will rightfully tell you the game needs a new title. Your vendors' studios must clear issues with all actors beforehand (if you know there will be a port) or negotiate when it's time (usually a proportional additional fee for actors).
Money money money. In Japan you will need to pay again for all PS2 voices: Japanese actors' unions require paying a full fee for each platform, even if the audiobase has only been recorded once).
Let's say your PS2 voice budget for Japan was $18,000. You will need to pay another $18,000 for your 360 version and another $18,000 for the PSP, plus new voices, etc.
Leading actors hold strong negotiating positions, all the more when they've been dubbing your favorite game heroes for years, and some might eventually ask for unreasonable money (that applies to US versions too). Others are too busy to be booked in a well-timed fashion. Weigh actual added value versus risks and costs.
Okay, you've been using this guy for ages and he's good. But what if he wants to triple his fees? It happens. What if he's so busy you can't secure a three-day recording session, but half a day here and half a day there? This will jeopardize the delivery of your U.S. and localized voices1 and negatively impact the allocated time for audio post production and integration, QA and debug.
Useful Documentation
Casting. Send your vendors a new character brief with detailed descriptions and updated info on recurring characters, as they often change from one game to another (note how much physical change Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia has gone through).
A character brief provides "final" visuals for main characters, along with voice and acting feel, frequently using Hollywood references such as: "XXX is a bad tempered cop / anti hero archeologist morph. Think Indiana Jones and John McLane with a zest of Austrian accent."
Make sure all listed models ring a bell on the other side of the world. Everybody knows Die Hard and Terminator, but isn't necessarily familiar with all U.S. TV shows or other vernacular references.
Translation. Creating bibles and glossaries is a good idea, and simple to put together. An Excel spreadsheet with a column for English and one for each language listing existing translations (as they are in-game) for important items such as character names (they are sometimes adapted), names of locations, ships, weapons etc.
In the Harry Potter license for example, there is a lot of witty noun use (characters, place names etc.) that bears meaning and therefore requires adaptation for each country.
Hogwarts becomes Poudlard in French.
Cornelius Fudge becomes Cornelius Caramell in Italian .
OWL (Ordinary Wizarding Levels) becomes TIMO (Título Indispensable de Magia Ordinaria) in Spanish. Please note that TIMO is an actual word meaning cheat.
1. You need the US audiobase to properly record localized audiobases. It serves as reference (especially for time and animation synch constraints). Recording foreign versions without the US audiobase is very risky (unless your lip synch and animation AI are so über powerful they can adapt to each language and your recording script is bullet proof and provides all necessary documentation on alt takes, volume, distance between characters and so on).
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