MONTREUIL, Dec 3 — Sensitivity to reading habits was just as important as sensitivity to cultural difference in making the Facebook game “Smurfs & Co: Spellbound” a success in the Middle East, maintains Ubisoft producer Yannick Theler.

Translation is step one, he said. That's localization. Culturalization is just as vital.

“Culturalization is asking yourself, where do people look? For me I look at the left side [of a screen] to find a certain button,” Theler explained, speaking with Polygon.

But that might be because Theler's trained to read from left to right. What happens if you've grown up reading Arabic text which runs from right to left?

“[People here] tend to look to the right side. That's what we try to address.”

And to some extent, that can mean reworking a game's user interface until it seems natural to Arabic-accustomed eyes — players can change the language of “The Smurfs & Co: Spellbound“ from within the app to see for themselves.

Is it worth making the effort? Ubisoft seems to think so, with an Abu Dhabi studio now established in the twofour54 quarter and aiming to have created 100 jobs by 2016.

“We have 1.5 million players in Arabic, which was our first try. It's done very well. The first Smurfs was in English. I think only 400 people from the Arabic region were playing. It's good feedback from the market.” — AFP-Relaxnews