---
title: "Game Localization Specialist"
description: "Translates and adapts video games for players in other languages and cultures, from dialogue and menus to jokes, names and marketing."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/game-localization-specialist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Game Localization Specialist

**Category:** Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media · **SOC code:** 27-3091 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 27-3091.00

Translates and adapts video games for players in other languages and cultures, from dialogue and menus to jokes, names and marketing.

Also advertised as: Localization Specialist; Game Translator; Localization Producer; Localization QA Tester; Localization Coordinator.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $60,170 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $28.93/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $37,070 to $103,660, with the middle half between $46,530 and $80,830
- **Total US employment:** 52,060
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +2.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 6,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 32/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 52,060 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $37,070 |
| 25th | $46,530 |
| 50th (median) | $60,170 |
| 75th | $80,830 |
| 90th | $103,660 |
| Mean (average) | $66,360 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $109,970 | $100,063 | 280 |
| MD | $88,550 | $84,366 | 1,150 |
| NY | $84,090 | $77,918 | 3,240 |
| RI | $82,320 | $80,485 | 200 |
| MA | $72,750 | $68,790 | 2,280 |
| CO | $71,790 | $69,664 | 800 |
| CA | $70,770 | $63,918 | 5,560 |
| CT | $68,340 | $65,959 | 280 |
| MN | $66,410 | $67,339 | 1,030 |
| OR | $66,300 | $64,144 | 660 |
| ID | $66,130 | $69,250 | 300 |
| UT | $65,770 | $66,526 | 850 |
| NM | $63,550 | $68,917 | 360 |
| ME | $63,470 | $65,399 | 90 |
| WI | $63,390 | $67,368 | 1,410 |

33 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 48 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/game-localization-specialist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/game-localization-specialist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 73,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 75,400 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,500 jobs, or +2.0%. Slower than average: 2.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 6,000 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 54.7% |
| Master's Degree | 27.9% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 8.0% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 4.4% |
| Post-Master's Certificate | 3.7% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 1.3% |

## What the work involves

- Translate game dialogue, menus and item text
- Adapt jokes, names and cultural references for target markets
- Fit translated text within interface and character limits
- Play builds to find localization bugs and truncated text
- Maintain terminology glossaries and style guides
- Coordinate translation vendors and multilingual voice recording
- Flag content that may be sensitive in specific regions

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- English Language — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Foreign Language — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Conventional (C), Artistic (A), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 4.97 |
| A — Artistic | 4.80 |
| I — Investigative | 3.67 |
| S — Social | 3.48 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.90 |
| R — Realistic | 1.89 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| INFJ | 74.3 |
| INTJ | 60.0 |
| INFP | 59.9 |
| ISFJ | 58.5 |
| ENFJ | 57.2 |

Best-fitting types: INFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Interpreter and Translator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/interpreter-and-translator) — median $60,170
- [Speech-Language Pathologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/speech-language-pathologist) — median $97,870
- [Foreign Language and Literature Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/foreign-language-and-literature-teacher-postsecondary) — median $79,350
- [Speech-Language Pathology Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/speech-language-pathology-assistant) — median $48,430
- [Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, and English as a Second Language Instructor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/adult-basic-education-adult-secondary-education-and-english-as-a-second-language-instructor) — median $61,540
- [English Language and Literature Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/english-language-and-literature-teacher-postsecondary) — median $78,760
- [Tutor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/tutor) — median $43,350
- [Proofreader and Copy Marker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/proofreader-and-copy-marker) — median $51,120
- [High School Teacher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/high-school-teacher) — median $72,040
- [Social Science Research Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-science-research-assistant) — median $61,990

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/game-localization-specialist