The Age of FIGS is Over - White Paper
For as long as games have been around, FIGS (or more accurately, EFIGS) has been the standard for localization. French, Italian, German, and European Spanish had long been seen as the most important languages to include, providing access to players across Europe.
But, over the last few years the standard of EFIGS has been called into question time and time again. We’ve seen Simplified Chinese become regarded as a core localization language, among others, but has that change of perception gone far enough?
Most importantly, do our perceptions reflect the real change in global player-bases?
We wanted to know the hard facts, and we wanted to share those with the rest of the industry.
Steam’s Monthly Statistics
It’s well known that Steam publishes monthly figures for what languages players are using. The issue with gaining insights from these figures is that, naturally, they change every month. While Simplified Chinese may take the top spot for many months in a row, English typically retakes the lead once those numbers drop. The same changes happen with less popular languages on Steam too.
To gain real insight from these figures, we analyzed Steam’s monthly player-base figures over 2023 and 2024, looking into each language to ascertain exactly how these changes in Steam’s demographic affect real player-bases.
Direct Comparison
Steam Users in 2023 and 2024
Steam’s figures include the top 30 languages on Steam but let’s be honest - when was the last time you saw a game localized into 30 languages?
We took the top 20 languages, covering Europe, Asia, and South America, and derived average figures for the last two years.
What's Changed?
The most obvious aspect of the changes from 2023 to 2024 is that they’re not massive tidal shifts. Generally, what we see are incremental changes with most languages staying in their same position in Steam’s top 20.
The largest movements in language placement occur from positions 14 – 19, where we’ve seen some intriguing changes. The most notable of these changes, in terms of impact on localization, is that for the first time, Ukrainian has a larger percentage of Steam’s player-base than Italian.
This change mirrors other discussions that have taken place over the last few years, where Italian has started to be seen as less critical for localization than other FIGS languages. Since 2022, we have also seen the number of games including Ukrainian rise, but this data shows that it’s not just support that’s grown, it’s also the Ukrainian player-base. It seems this is a “chicken and egg” situation, where it’s unclear if the player-base growth began first, or after.
The other FIGS languages have had some interesting changes over this same period. German and French both grew slightly, increasing their overall share by around 0.1%. However, European Spanish reduced in share by 0.41%. These changes highlight that no colossal shift in French, German, and European Spanish seem to be on the horizon, but that there isn’t much growth in these player-bases. This is consistent with what we generally see across the industry, in that these regions are very established but most who want to play games already have some access to them.
Similar fluctuations can be observed in non-FIGS European languages too, including Russian, Polish, Czech, and Hungarian. English is the only European language to boast a notable growth rate, growing by 0.80%.
The story is a little different when we look outside of Europe, namely to Asia and Latin America.
In terms of consistent growth, nothing gets close to Asia.
Other than English, all of Steam’s top growing languages are for Asia.
While for European languages we’re noting 0.1% changes, Simplified Chinese’ Steam audience grew by 1.84%. That is a seismic change compared with all other languages, doubling even English’s growth rate of 0.80% (which has the second highest growth behind SC).
The rest of the top 5 growing languages are Japanese, Korean, and Traditional Chinese, which all grew from 0.2% to 0.28%. The fact alone that all of Steam’s top 5 growing languages are Asian or English shows the massive changes we’re seeing with the global player-base. This is unlikely to slow down anytime soon, with major titles from these countries bringing even more players to Steam.
Looking just outside of the top 5 additionally highlights a fascinating insight. The 6th and 7th strongest growing languages are Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. Both languages grew by around 0.15%, further securing their position as established languages for localization.
However, overall changes in terms of Steam’s player-base only tell us so much. Without factoring these changes into the language-specific player-bases, we can only see these as incremental changes. So, what do these changes mean in terms of actual player growth per language?
What Steam’s Audience Fluctuations Tell Us About Changes in Global Player-bases
Above you can see what these changes in Steam User Share actually mean in terms of growth and reduction of player-base size.
Let’s look at English as an example, which places in the middle of the factored top 20. As we mentioned above, the number of English players as part of Steam’s player-base grew by 0.80%. Considering that English was already the top language in 2023, with 33.85%, that 0.80% change accounts for a 2.35% growth in the number of players using English as their primary language.
So, how does it look for our Number #1 language by Steam user growth, Simplified Chinese?
Simplified Chinese grew by 1.84%. Factored into the already large Simplified Chinese player-base, this means that 2024 saw 6.12% more players using Simplified Chinese as their primary language. This is strong growth, especially when considering that Simplified Chinese is the only top 5 Steam language to grow its player-base by over 5% in this period.
What’s perhaps more notable still, is what languages had the largest growth in their player-bases?
While Latin American Spanish may have a small share of Steam’s overall player-base at only 0.48%, their 0.15% growth accounts for nearly a 45% increase in the number of LATAM Steam players. A nearly 45% increase between 2023 and 2024 is a massive change in the number of Steam players for LATAM. This growth should be monitored over the next few years to observe if it is maintained, and if so, what that means for localization. We’ve already seen Latin American Spanish grow as a localization language over the last decade, but growth like this could show that bigger changes may still be on the horizon.
Ukrainian’s growth can also be seen in a more insightful light with these figures. While it overtook Italian, the base growth is only 0.11%. However, as Ukrainian ended 2023 with an average of 0.56% of Steam’s users, that shows a massive 19.08% growth in the number of players. That is, by far, the largest increase in player base of any European language over this period. It’s clear that Ukrainian is a language to pay attention to when localizing, with further monitoring over the next few years to see if it can maintain this growth.
The rest of the top 5, notably, are only Asian languages. Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Japanese are the only other languages to have their Steam player-bases grow by over 10% during the monitored period. The number of Korean and Traditional Chinese players in particular both grew by nearly 20%, with Japanese following behind at just under 13%.
One important aspect to note here is that none of these countries are classed as “emerging” for games. All have had fairly consistent localization support over the last 10 years, with Japanese notably being one of the original standard localization languages going back all the way to 2006. You can read about those changes in our article series: Localization Support Changes From '06 to '22.
What do these changes mean for European player-bases?
The most obvious takeaway from these figures for European languages is that English, German, French, and European Spanish, are still performing strongly despite a lack of real growth. There’s little risk that any of these languages would stop being considered a standard for localization, especially with the rise of LATAM boosting attention to Spanish localization generally. However, this rise in LATAM players may explain some of the nearly 10% reduction in the number of players using European Spanish.
However, we may be reaching a critical decision stage for Italian localization. The fact alone that Italian is now the 15th most popular language on Steam, behind Ukrainian and just ahead of Czech, will create discussion around its viability for localizing, especially for projects with strict budgets.
Conversely, there’s now a stronger argument than ever before for including Ukrainian localization. Since 2022, we have seen some projects seemingly deciding between Ukrainian and Russian localization, despite the languages not being mutually intelligible. With Ukrainian’s strong growth, it’s possible we’ll see more projects including the language, and not just as an alternative to Russian.
Searching for Consistent Growth? The Answer is Asia.
As already covered, outside of English, all of the remaining top 5 for growth are Asian Languages.
Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Japanese have all shown strong movements on Steam with their linguistic player-bases showing 10-20% growth. Many of the countries that use these languages are already established in games. This may mean that these figures can be seen as a strong uptake in PC gaming at a minimum, or further growth in their gaming demographics at best.
And that’s before we even look at Simplified Chinese. It’s nothing new to say that Simplified Chinese is an incredibly important language for localization. But it’s not just that it’s important, it’s that it’s still growing. With over 6% more users using Simplified Chinese than 2023, 2024 showed that Simplified Chinese really can overtake English to be the largest language on Steam, consistently. Whether this happens in 2025 is still to be seen, but it’s not outside of the realms of possibility.
Gaming is Global
In localization it can often seem that we’re reacting to established narratives and processes, localizing into languages that historically have been the standard. Instead, we should sometimes be looking ahead to see where localization is going, not just where it is.
While these figures only cover the last two years, they disrupt certain established localization narratives while solidifying others. What can absolutely be gleamed from this however is that Asian Language player-bases have the most consistent growth of any region, Latin America has impressive growth but still only for a small player-base (but, with less languages required), and most established European player-bases remain strong.
The exact languages that will provide your game with the best growth opportunity will still need to factor in aspects such genre-popularity, platform, and more.
However, with these figures you will be better positioned to analyze those factors and find your audience, no matter where they are in the world or what language they speak.
The future of games is global; FIGS alone isn’t enough.
About ECI Games
ECI Games are a games services provider operating throughout Europe, North American, and Asia.
ECI Games are China’s leading games localizer, bringing projects from Indie to AAA to millions of new players. ECI Games provides solutions for accessing new gamers around the globe. It’s time to find your audience.
More information about ECI Games’ Localization, LQA, Audio, and Art services is available at: ECIGames.net
If you have any comments or questions about the white paper, get in touch directly at info@ecigames.net or connels@ecigames.net