MENA Archives - DeafCat Studios

Helping Chinese Video Games Publishers Enter the MENA Market

DeafCat Studios — Sat, 14 Sep 2019 12:13:29 +0000

VideoGame Publishers In the Mena Market

The MENA region has the fastest growth rate in the videogame market, with more than 4 billion dollars of total revenue in 2017. We’re confident that the future of the videogame industry in the Arab world is promising and DeafCat Studios is happy to be part of it. Our main objective in the coming years is to localize more Chinese games into Arabic.

There’s no doubt that for foreign video game developers and publishers, tackling the Arab market can be quite tricky. Recently we were at Gamescom in Cologne and had the chance to chat with various publishers such as EA, Ubisoft and Microsoft and we felt that there’s a big appetite from these global companies to grow their footprint in the MENA market. The biggest appetite of them all was definitely that Chinese publishers who currently are rejoicing the Chinese government, lifted the freeze on new video game licenses according to the Economist. At one point China was producing more than 9,000 new games every year before the freeze and now the giant machine is back on. We met with top Chinese video game publishers and they all had their eyes on the Arab gamer. Most certainly the biggest validation to this, comes from the gaming giant Tencent Games that recently picked Dubai as their MENA headquarters.

News

The good news for the Chinese is that the Arab videogame market is real and lucrative. But the bad news is that Arabs consumes content primarily in Arabic and not English and especially not Chinese and this is where we can help. As a matter of fact, for the past five years, DeafCat Studios localized video games into Arabic. We have been working with global publishers such as EA to help them localize some of their biggest titles into Arabic including World Cup 18, FIFA 19, FIFA 20 and also Battlefield 5. Our best added value to EA is the fact that we are a dynamic team who acquired unique video game localization skills. We also like to believe that we have the necessary middle eastern cultural know how fused with an international mindset and that allows us to easily bridge between Arabs and the rest of the world. Our presence in both Beirut and Dubai solidifies our Arab roots and expands our international spirit which is attractive to most global publishers. For those reason we believe we are in a best position to localize Chinese games into Arabic.

Now if you are a Chinese publisher reading this article, the following message is for you. DeafCat Studios is more than your typical localization company. We are part of a trio set-up made up of three other companies that have digital marketing and advertising as a core service offering. The trio set-up is perfectly positioned to localize and drive highly targeted converting traffic to your IPs or video games. We can help you enter and grow the MENA video-game market quickly and efficiently.

To learn more about our services, feel free to contact us or chat with us by clicking the chat icon on the bottom right of the screen.

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Modern Standard Arabic Voice Over for Cartoons!

Deafcat Studios — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 21:49:03 +0000

A couple of days ago a producer at a TV network contacted me for a potential business collaboration. The project at hand was dubbing into Arabic cartoon series and animated movies. During our conversation, he asked me a few questions that you can find below in this Q&A.

Q: What is the difference between all the various Arabic dialects and which one in your opinion is the best sounding?

A: There are more than 30 dialects in the Arabic language and they are very different from each other. Some dialects are really heavy and influenced by other languages and other dialects are light and closer to the modern standard Arabic, hence the lighter the dialect the more understandable by the majority of Arabs. If you look at mass media in the MENA region, they usually opt for anchors who speak a lighter dialect like Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrian or even Tunisian so that all Arabs can understand. It is very difficult for me to choose the best sounding dialect since it is very subjective; however, if I was to pick one, I would select a dialect that is light and modern such as Lebanese or Egyptian.

Q: Should Arabic voice over for cartoons be performed in modern standard Arabic or in a specific dialect?

A: Well if the cartoon is to be broadcasted to a mass regional audience, then it would make more sense to record it in modern standard Arabic and not a specific dialect.

Q: Do you think modern standard Arabic can be used for comedy roles or would it be better to opt for the local slang?

A: There is no doubt that some Arab regions are more relaxed than others, and people of these regions are usually very sociable and have a great sense of humor. Therefore, their local dialects can also be perceived as humorous. However, modern standard Arabic can be equally humorous if not more. We have dubbed funny cartoon series into modern standard Arabic and they were highly successful. I would definitely recommend it over a local dialect.

You can watch below some of the cartoons that have been dubbed with modern standard Arabic voice over.

Get in touch with us today and we’ll provide you with the most comprehensive offering while committing to high quality service at a smart cost.

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Syrian dubbing projects, Pros and Cons

Deafcat Studios — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 19:31:29 +0000

Like everything else in the entertainment industry, there are hypes that come and go and it is the same for dubbing projects. Syrian dubbing projects have been increasing very quickly for the past couple of years, especially that MBC (which is the biggest TV network in the Middle East, gulf and the Arab region) decided to adopt Syrian as the official dubbing dialect for most of their soap operas and foreign TV shows. All of that started with the success of the massive Turkish TV series “Hareem al Sultan” who took the region by storm and it was dubbed in the Syrian dialect. Consequently, all the other TV networks wanted to ride the wave to acquire or retain viewership by dubbing their own Turkish soaps in the Syrian dialect.
Moreover, TV stations have also started to dub foreign movies into Syrian. We’ve been receiving multiple requests to dub Indian movies into Syrian as well Iranian and Korean and we at the studio had to adapt to cater to our clients’ needs.

What are the pros of dubbing into the Syrian dialect?

What are the cons of dubbing into the Syrian dialect?

Although we are getting a lot of business dubbing into the Syrian dialect, yet we have a feeling that this is only a passing wave and we believe that classical Arabic will pick up again. Meanwhile, we are open for business and we are casting Syrian talents to cater to a growing demand.

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Arabic E-Learning Project

Deafcat Studios — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 19:27:24 +0000

So it seems that E-Learning is a multi-billion dollar industry, and we had no clue. Well that’s until we were approached by a very cool client who was tackling this growing sector in the Middle East. Apparently, big corporations in the MENA region and more specifically in the GCC (UAE and Saudi Arabia), invest a lot in their HR departments and encourage employees to take extra curricular educational lessons to improve their knowledge and skills. That’s where my client’s company plays a bridging role between international educational institutions and regional companies by providing E-learning solutions in Arabic for employees. We provide him with high quality recording and mastering for the Arabic scripts.
Not to mention that the whole team at DeafCat Studios is very excited to work on these e-learning projects for two reasons:

1- They allow us to cater to a relatively new e-learning industry in the Middle East.
2- We are actually learning from these courses… for free.

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