SlatorPod

#47 Lionbridge Mega Deal, Altagram CEO Marie Amigues talks Game Localization

November 13, 2020 Slator
SlatorPod
#47 Lionbridge Mega Deal, Altagram CEO Marie Amigues talks Game Localization
Show Notes Chapter Markers

Marie Amigues, Founder and CEO of Altagram, joins Slator Pod and talks to Esther and Florian about how she runs the fast-growing game localization provider

Marie recounts her experience of launching Altagram and growing the business internationally, and discusses the ins and outs of game loc.

In part 1, Florian unpacks the sale of Lionbridge’s AI division to Canada’s TELUS International nearly one billion US-Dollar. He talks about the success of Lionbridge’s private equity owners, HIG Capital, in selling just one part of the business they acquired in late 2016 (Lionbridge) for nearly triple the amount paid for the entire company. Lionbridge, meanwhile, is left with around USD 500m in core translation and localization revenues. 

Esther shares some recent financial highlights from LSPs Summa Linguae Technologies, Stratus Video and ZOO Digital, whose dubbing revenues soared in the company’s first half. 

The two delve into machine dubbing and discuss a recent paper from DeepMind and Google, which used ASR, MT, speech synthesis and lip movement synthesis to (semi)automate dubbing for educational videos. The potential applications are considerable; so too are the concerns around deep fakes and consent issues.

Agenda and Intro
Unpacking Lionbridge's mega deal
DeepMind does automated dubbing
Marie joins the pod
Anakan / Exequo days
Marie's inspirational founder story
What's special about game loc
New console cycle
Keywords as a competitor
Selling game loc
MT and other AI tech in game loc