Localization Tips & Product Updates

Every week, Hypixel Studios pushes new content to its player base across nine different languages (now even more). Not once, but every single week. For most game studios, this would be a logistical nightmare: a cascade of translation delays, quality inconsistencies, and frustrated international players waiting weeks for localized content. However, Mewen Page, the Lead Gameplay Programmer at Hypixel Studios, has built a localization system that doesn’t just keep pace with weekly releases but actively harnesses community energy to improve translations while maintaining editorial control. In this episode of The Agile Localization Podcast, Mewen joined host Stefan Huyghe to discuss the intersection of game design and localization in the development of Hytale.

Bitrefill is the world's largest crypto-only store. Launched in 2014, Bitrefill provides digital gift cards & mobile airtime refills using the Lightning Network technology. Their mission is to turn crypto into everyday purchases. Bitrefill’s products serve people all around the world, and they want everyone to be able to use their services in their native language. Sam Kuritzén, Bitrefill’s Localization Manager, was responsible for modernizing how the company handles translations.

A Crowdin project at 100% looks the same whether the translations are excellent or just functional. Strings are filled. The release ships on time. RTL renders correctly in Arabic. From a pipeline perspective, the job is done. From a user perspective, that's only half the story. There's a category of localization problem that doesn't show up in the workflow at all. It shows up three months later, in market performance data. Conversion in the UAE is lower than expected. Engagement in Korea is flat. The product hasn't changed. The feature set is identical in every market. What changed is whether the localized experience actually lands for the people using it. Shipping and performing are different problems. Most localization infrastructure is built to solve the first one, and does it well. The second one is a different kind of work.

Last year, we introduced Agentic AI to the localization world. It was a milestone designed with a singular focus: mastering linguistic tasks and assisting linguists within the Editor. But the vision was always bigger. Now, we are excited to introduce Crowdin Copilot – a new generation of AI that doesn't just translate your strings but helps you manage your entire localization ecosystem. By bridging the gap between LLMs and the Crowdin API, Crowdin Copilot can execute complex workflows that previously required manual labor, custom scripts, or engineering support. It doesn't just tell you information about your projects, it can act on them.

Turo is the car rental marketplace that is reinventing rental to unlock independence for all. But unlike booking a room, car sharing requires a unique layer of confidence. Guests aren't just looking for a place to stay; they are trusting a vehicle to move them safely through the world. This focus on reliability has fueled Turo's massive growth into a $1 billion business. Today, the company successfully operates across the US, Canada, the UK, France, and Australia. For Turo, localization is the "bare minimum" required to build this essential trust with both hosts and guests. Leading this global expansion is Gideon Hod, Turo's Director of Product Operations. Gideon views his role as the center of a massive feedback loop, bridging the gap between high-level product strategy and the boots-on-the-ground reality of local users. While traditional product management often focuses on top-down roadmaps, Gideon’s approach to Product Ops is built on velocity and execution. Under his direction, Turo sped up their workflow shifting from a manual localization process to a high-speed, AI workflow within Crowdin. <table> <thead> <tr> <th class="align-baseline">SUMMARY</th> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <th>Metric</th> <th>Traditional Workflow</th> <th>AI Workflow</th> <th>Improvement</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td> <strong>Time to Market</strong> </td> <td>3–4 Months</td> <td>1 Week</td> <td> <strong>90% faster</strong> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <strong>Total Cost</strong> </td> <td>$10,000+ (Est.)</td> <td>AI Tokens + QA</td> <td> <strong>98% cheaper</strong> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <strong>Human Intervention</strong> </td> <td>100% Manual Review</td> <td>Near-zero (Fallback only)</td> <td> <strong>Almost 100% AI Translations</strong> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

There’s a running joke in the translation industry: two linguists can’t agree on whether a translation is correct. At Crowdin, we don’t think the problem is the linguists – it’s that different humans (and AIs) have different quality standards by default. If requirements are communicated clearly enough, two people and an AI should arrive at the same conclusion. We also see this reflected in the data: the same LLM model, on very similar content, produces wildly different post-edit distances across different clients. This isn't because the model is inconsistent, but because different clients have different expectations. Some require good-enough compliance, while others require strict adherence to specific national spelling rules. Without a shared standard, every variant becomes a potential critical error. While our AI Pipeline and Copilot can produce high-quality, coherent translations within a single file, the challenge has always been: How do we guarantee consistency across thousands of files? The answer is Style guides.

Translation management systems used to be the center of everything in localization. If you wanted to translate, review, manage, or ship content, you went through your TMS. However, in The Agile Localization Podcast, Jourik Ciesielski, CTO at ELAN Languages, makes it clear that this model is starting to break. AI hasn’t just added new capabilities. It’s exposed deeper limitations in how TMS platforms are designed and how teams think about them.