Localisation Manager
Jagex

Anna W

00.00 My name is Anna W and I am localisation manager at Jagex. It’s quite difficult to explain to people what localisation is. The simplest answer is that I help making games and I help making games in foreign languages. If we are localising a game into a new language it’s going to be my job to make sure that it’s done correctly. So its mainly project management job, but also we have three teams here and its altogether twelve people so there’s the part as well that’s people management as well.

00.32 I always wanted to work with computers. When I was little I begged my parents to buy me a PC and they did after I got a really high grade in the computer science at high school. I was an average student really, I was really bad at maths and in high school we had one of the teachers. She really wanted to make sure that I would leave high school with a basic level of maths so she called me to do the tasks on the board every single lesson. When I start my studies during the first year, at the very end of the year we had really big maths exam and there was seventy students in my year and only ten passed the exam and I was one of them. And so after that I sent her a thank you note saying well thank you for bugging me that much because thanks to you I was able to make my dream come true and then study computer science and actually be successful in this as well.

01.30 My dad is a historian, he teaches history. My mum is a psychologist. My parents were really supportive, they said you should just do what you want to do and that’s your passion you should definitely follow it. And my mum is the proudest person ever, she is really proud of what I have achieved. Obviously she paid for my studies, I went to private college. I graduated and she was obviously very proud when I finished my studies.

01.52 I worked as a game reviewer on one of the game websites and my manager recommended me to the localisation manager at Electronic Arts and she decided to send me to the US and make me test the Sims 2. It was the beginning and it was absolutely brilliant, I loved it. There were sixteen people altogether from all over the world. It was my first ever flight, it was my first ever trip abroad and it was a bit like someone thrown me in the deep water really. It was one of the best trips of my life really.

02.30 The way I got the job at Jagex, I saw the advert on job websites so I contacted my job agent and I asked him if he can send my CV to Jagex and there was really a lot of going back and forward between me and the agent one agent and the other agent. So in the end after several months I decided to email one of the recruitment advisors via linked in, I did so and he replied straight away and two weeks later I got an offer.

03.04 I have a really boring hobby, I make greeting cards, that’s how I express myself creatively. Apart from this my biggest dream ever was to be able to ride super bike. So I decided to do the course and I will start the course in January and hopefully by March I will be able to buy my superbike.

03.25 I always wanted to become a localisation manager and now this dream came true I need to find myself a new one so I think the next step would be may be localisation director if that’s at all possible, but for the time being I know there is still a lot for me to learn and I am quite happy to stay where I am for the next few years.