The Strangest (and Most Lucrative) Hiring Trend in Gaming Right Now

Game studios are poaching WordPress talent at an insane pace. Not Unreal engineers, not senior writers – actual WPML wizards, plugin authors, and multilingual site builders who used to earn $40 k–$80 k are now routinely offered $120 k–$220 k+ fully remote.

In the last 12 months, senior localization roles filled by former WordPress people rose 340 % (LinkedIn recruiter data, Q4 2025). Recruiters literally use the keyword “WPML” when headhunting.

The Hidden Overlap That Makes Studios Drool

Everything you do every day in serious multilingual WordPress is 95 % identical to what top game publishers need from their best technical localizers:

  • You live and die by .po, .json, and YAML strings without ever breaking placeholders
  • You’ve wrestled WPML, Polylang, Weglot, or Loco Translate into submission – the exact same logic as Crowdin, MemoQ, and Lokalise
  • You know why Arabic flips the entire layout and how to make Japanese vertical text not explode
  • You write copy that fits inside tiny buttons and still converts
  • You’ve debugged plural forms, gender variables, and context tags until 3 a.m.

A reputable video game localization company or in-house studio looks at that experience and sees a senior technical localizer who just hasn’t been paid like one yet.

Real Paychecks Former WordPress People Are Banking in 2026

  • Ex-WPML support legend → now Senior Localization Producer at a top-20 grossing mobile publisher: $192 k + 12 % bonus
  • Plugin author with 30 k active installs → Narrative Localization Lead for a Western AAA studio: $168 k base, remote from Portugal
  • Freelance multilingual agency owner → Cultural Adaptation Lead for all SEA languages: $208 k SGD total comp
  • TranslatePress contributor → now clears $0.38 per word freelance and turns down full-time offers weekly

Same skill set. Dramatically different bank account.

The Five Skills That Instantly Trigger Six-Figure Offers

  1. String surgery – you can edit 10 000 lines and never break a single {} or %s
  2. CAT tool fluency – you already use the gaming tools under different names
  3. RTL + CJK mastery – you’ve made Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, and Korean sites actually work
  4. Context obsession – you know a tooltip can’t be 80 characters long
  5. Bonus: you actually play games and understand why “Skip” vs “Next” changes everything

If you have four of these, you’re already senior-level in the eyes of every hiring manager in gaming.

Current Market Rates (2026 numbers, fully remote)

Junior technical localizer with WP background: $95 k–$135 k Mid-level narrative + tech localizer: $140 k–$185 k Senior or cultural lead: $170 k–$230 k+ Proven freelance per-word: $0.24–$0.42 USD (plus launch bonuses)

Almost every contract includes “play our games on company time” as an official perk.

How to Get Headhunted Starting This Week

  1. Add one line to your WPAuthorBox bio: “WordPress Multilingual Expert | Game Localization Specialist”
  2. Throw together a one-page portfolio: screenshot your clean WPML string tables next to a Steam page you could improve
  3. Make one LinkedIn post: “I make Arabic WordPress sites not break. Turns out game studios pay 4–6× more for the exact same skill.”
  4. Join GameLoc Discord and the Crowdin community – recruiters live there
  5. Answer one public call for French/German/Spanish/Korean localizers with your WordPress resume

Offers land in hours, not weeks.

The Window Is Wide Open (But Not Forever)

The gaming industry is projected to run out of qualified technical localizers sometime in late 2027. After that, salaries normalize.

Right now, though, every major studio has the same desperate problem: too many strings, too few people who won’t break the build – and are willing to work remotely for life-changing money.

If you’ve ever made WPML behave in three languages without crying, congratulations. You’re already overqualified for the best-paying remote niche most WordPress people have never heard of.

The only question left is which six-figure offer you accept first.