So I have been chatting with Makoto from JAST USA…
I said I want to be honest to the companies in Japan. I want to be completely transparent about how the users in this scene actually consume these goods. Right now, only the most hardcore of fans actually pay for their fan translated games. It’s $100 a pop + Japanese proxy, we can’t expect everyone to be able to afford that price let alone newcomers to do the same just to try the game? So instead, I propose we supply pre-installed, pre-English-patched visual novels via torrent so that the average Joe can give it their first spin. Licensed titles we don’t touch, only fan translated titles.
While I was debating with Makoto, time and time again he referred to how my actions will cause licensing to become harder in the future.
He made a good point and since Peter Payne doesn’t support it, I have no place in trying to ‘pretend’ to support the industry and just opt to go the full pirate route like anime-sharing (which I really really didn’t want to do). That was how I thought until 3am last night I woke up and couldn’t sleep. I thought over everything that had been discussed and then … it dawned on me.
I am so naive.
The thing that tipped me off was how much Makoto emphasized the licensing of existing fan translations. You see for JAST USA, fan translations are free dollar signs. Those scripts are cheap, they can be exploited. This is because a part of the cost is negated by the fact that the fan translator was willing to do it for free anyway. And so for JAST USA, it was a matter of harvesting the ‘ripest’ fan translations, matching them with the ‘cheapest licenses’ available from Japanese publishers and then cashing them in for self-gain. What a strategy!
…But that wasn’t it.
[18:32] <MakotoJAST> The best way for people to get games licensed is to buy the games that are already available from JAST and MG.
[18:33] <MakotoJAST> Because what Japanese companies care about is numbers.
[18:33] <MakotoJAST> And being able to show them sales figures is the only thing that will make them agree.
At the end of the day, the Japanese publishers only care for numbers. Sales numbers. That is how you secure licences.
I see this as an unfair ploy, by trying to convince me to abandon my project with so called issues in future licensing, it is actually self-motivated by a desire to cash-in as many fan translations as he can, otherwise why so much emphasis on licensing current fan translated titles? Why not go translate your own game?? Well… because the fan translation route bring in bigger bucks. And fuwanovel will take some of those free dollars away. Because remember, I already explicitly said I don’t distribute licensed titles! But for JAST USA, licensed or unlicensed, they don’t care. Both of these grab-bags are their candy.
But regardless of whether I see a conflict of interest in their argument or not, there are some much more pressing issues.
[18:23] <MakotoJAST> There’s also the fact that you are encouraging people to translate more games unofficially.
[18:23] <MakotoJAST> Which is not a way to make Japanese companies feel secure. [18:16] <MakotoJAST> You’re doing it to attract more fan translators so more games will get translated.
[18:16] <Aaeru_> yes
[18:16] <MakotoJAST> Not to attract Japanese interest.
[18:16] <MakotoJAST> So more games will get licensed.
[18:16] <Aaeru_> yes we force japanese interest
[18:17] <Aaeru_> by increasing demand (*)
[18:17] <MakotoJAST> It will have the opposite effect.
But what truly infuriates me the most is that JAST USA is discouraging fan translation.
Fan Translation is defined in Wikipedia (and in context of VNs) as localizing titles “that had never been available outside of their original country of origin”. To me, fan translation is amazing!! It is some of the best things to have come into existence in our day and age. Devoted people who fall in love, at the remarkable sight before their eyes, something so special that they know it must not be kept a secret. They volunteer their time not for personal gain but by the urgency to share the goodness that is captured in these works of love.
The spirit of fan translation is irrefutably good…
but now JAST USA argues that they are… bad?
Have you actually ever spoken to the individual Japanese authors themselves and offered them – Here, we offer to spread your game, JP -> EN service included, completely free of charge, to AN AREA OF THE WORLD WHERE THEY WOULD HAVE HAD NO CHANCE OF EVER REACHING ANYWAY. For the true artists the answer is YES. Of course YES! Eroge authors work in the lousily paid eroge industry with its taken-for-granted ultra-long hours and sub-standard pay, it’s certainly not for the money, but because they love what they do! In this job they can create and communicate ideas! They can touch people’s hearts, change people’s lives.
Fan translation is doing just that! So on what ground do you argue for them to go away?
It’s this very method of putting a pricetag on an art piece, calling them ‘products’ and then measuring everyone and everything around them in the vocabulary of dollars and yen that angers me.
‘Youre killing the industry!’ <– is utter bullshit.
What you mean to say is that we are putting you (the publishers) in an unfavourable position because we are reaching out for the actual creators (the artist, the writers, the musicians) translating and distributing their work in place of you. We are doing your job and that’s making you upset. We are giving them free publicity and making their hard work known to the whole wide world so that more people could be touched by its love and become willing supporters.
So yes, in a sense of course we are hurting the industry. ‘YOUR industry’.
You see, the internet is powerful, it can put publishers out of business. The reason why is because with the internet, we can reach out to the actual creators (the artist, the writers, the musicians), [Do you realize they are just one tweet away?] Fan translators have Japanese skills. Is there really anything that’s stopping us from contacting the creators themselves? We can organize the development of a system to interface with their games, and with the properly built checks and balances, we can even ensure that almost 100% of our money goes to the authors and not into the platform itself. But that is much much much further down the line.
So please stop trying to convince fan translators that they are criminals, nothing they do is immoral, we don’t seek to harm anyone’s livelihood. The view you cast on us is so unfair and the logic is twisted.
But STILL no matter which line of reasoning JAST USA employs, it pales exceedingly in comparison to this:
Through the passing months and years, I literally see hundreds upon hundreds of titles that come out for the Japanese market. Really amazing titles, both on the Bishoujo-ge side and on the Otome-ge side. What are the chances that a Grisaia gets green-lit for commercial translation? What about Aiyoku no Eustia? What about Oretsuba? What about Mirai no Nostalgia? Koisora? What about Clochette’s games? Palette’s games? Liar-soft’s games? Alcot branch or Akatsuki branch? Giga? Maybe a Key work? What about Dies irae? Dunamis15? You name one title that has been given a commercial translation, I can name a hundred if not several hundreds that have come and gone that are truly remarkable games (each in their own way). And what are you arguing? You are arguing that fan translations should not expand? WTF?
The more this utter arrogance is forced upon us, the more you convict us to be criminals the more I want to press the Fuwanovel button. You see, the internet is bursting at the seams to bring these games to the West. We can’t help but make visual novels spread! STOP INHIBITING FAN TRANSLATION out of motivations for profit. Fuwanovel’s vision is ‘Visual Novels for the Whole World.’
I’m not writing this to boycott the current industry. Heck writing this piece was the last thing that I had in my mind until yesterday night (just read my original proposal www.fuwanovel.com). JAST USA are pioneers in bringing visual novels to the West but I don’t feel like some of these statements Peter issued have been particularly justified. Yumina license is certainly impressive, but those massive advertising budgets on nyaatorrents and oreno.imouto and a dozen of the biggest piracy sites and then you ask us to stop fan translation from spreading? That’s inconsistent! I congratulate Peter for developing such a successful business model. But sometimes excessive is just excessive.
If you are a fan translator, think about the time when you first initiated your project. It was not motivated by money, it was just so that others can enjoy this work that you enjoyed.
If you wish to sell your translation to JAST USA, sure go ahead. We’re not going to blame you for it. What is yours is yours to do however you so wish. But I feel like selling your translation to JAST USA would be a waste. I have a much greater goal in mind, and I invite you to join this cause instead of losing it to theirs. (Sorry Peter I am selfish I have agendas. I only care about VNs getting more translations.)
Thank you
Aaeru
Please visit fuwanovel.com for the original proposal which is much less neutral in tone than this.
The forums are forums.fuwanovel.com
The wiki is wiki.fuwanovel.com
Fuwanovel is completely non-profit and the expenses are all shouldered by generous community members. We will not be running any affiliate programs. Banners to JAST USA and Mangagamer are provided for free.
note: I am looking for a web programmer, graphics designer, those with marketing/PR skills, Game hacking skills, and many many more hands and many different skills to help with the development of Fuwanovel.com Please drop me an email aaeru3@gmail.com. If you love visual novels and you want these things to spread please lend us your aid. Thank you~
Also, SOPA/PIPA must NOT happen.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget but it really is just me on my own with these big ideas. I am just one ordinary girl who lives in the Northern parts of Sydney who is obsessed with visual novels. Thank you to Raide for the support. That made a huge difference. Thank you~
Also here is the full chatlog with MakotoJAST http://pastebin.com/g1awutkp
Fuwanovel
Hau~ Omochikaeri~!
As a fellow Italian fan VN translator, I wholeheartedly agree with you, Aaeru. What we do is not shameful in the least. We’re not providing illegal downloads for the games. We’re not charging money. We’re not corrupting the industry. Heck, my group is not even accepting donations! And as you said, nothing can stop us from contacting the authors directly – in fact, Ryukishi07 was more than happy to know what we were doing and kindly give us permission to translate Umineko in a country he wouldn’t have reached otherwise. We sacrifice our free time just out of the love we have for the authors and their works, to spread what we think to be beautiful. I hope people will understand this soon enough.
which was the sad case for minori when Wind was translated… they turned down the idea… but it took years before the project resurfaced
A user made me notice that I should probably state my PoV better – now that I got a better gist of the whole project.
I agree that fan translation is something to be encouraged.
I agree we should contact the authors about our work, whenever possible.
I agree that offering our patches, free of charge, does not disrupt the market. If anything, it helps making the product known.
However, I don’t completely agree with the fuwanovel project. As I stated in my reply, I’m fine as long as fan translations groups don’t promote piracy of charge for their patches.
I’d be fine with it if it didn’t plan to host illegal downloads but simply helped the user find English (or whatever language you speak) patches for VNs easily.
or* charge. Typo.
fantranslations are illegal to begin with, chap
you’re using other people’s work without their authorization, and you know very well that ryukishi is the exception, not the rule – berne convention and all
I disagree. Fan Translations are merely translating the work. They do not give them links to free copy of the work. I think translations should be encouraged unless the authors/creators say otherwise.
I’m just going to leave it here for any fantranslator that your translation is COPYRIGHT you. You have the right to license that translation and collect royalties on it. So don’t feel you have to sell your translation for a cheap price because you didn’t license the game. (The license is for distribution purposes only really.) If they do use your script without your permission and sell it, you have the right to sue them.
Example is the movie industry and the alternate language subtitles for movies. The subtitles aren’t illegal, it’s just putting the subs on the movie and selling the movie would be illegal if you didn’t own the license to the movie.
From Article 8 of the Berne Convention:
Authors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall enjoy the exclusive right of making and of authorizing the translation of their works throughout the term of protection of their rights in the original works.
That means, yes, fan translations are considered illegal and Japan is very, very obligated to send a pack of lawyers to sue you out of house and home. The right of translation belongs to the publisher of the eroge you’re translating.
The Berne Convention’s a terrible law, and copyright in general is self-seeking than society-improving. I won’t say no to anyone who seeks to reform copyright law or even make a new legal framework for copyrights. But until then, remember that what we’re doing is actually illegal.
unless provided the fans translators did get the approval of the developer for the green light of the translations which in turn defeats its purpose
Yes Algester, thank you.
But it’s quite rare nowadays that a fan group would go up to a company like age and say “Let’s work something out.”
You’re quite right to say that in the early days, the folks involved took the time to actually go and speak to the creators. Would you do so today?
@drmchsro in that respect because of all the events that happened in the past few years… RapeLey, minori closing ef translations and gave it to mangagamer… that wont be the case right away… unless you know there are still some people in the business out there who see the point of all this “crap” were doing for them
Yeah, his name is Bamboo and he’s the Japanese advocate for Mangagamer. he’s also the CEO of OVERDRIVE.
And there’s also everyone working hard at Mangagamer and people who support them.
I’m aware of Mangagamer’s past and all that, but they ARE doing their best, despite all the shit they get.
Who are you to say what a fan translation group does? If a group wants to see their work make it to a commercial, polished product that’s able to reach a large audience, so be it. If they want to keep it to their own little circle as is, that works too. I think the biggest difference here is that the commercial release will most likely have the original UNCENSORED artwork as opposed to the mozaiced to hell art that’s in the Japanese releases. Furthermore, when you support a commercial release, more funds will flow back to the original studios that made them.
actually in this very market its actually the licensor that benefits from the market share… do you see why the very ones who develop the game license their own games?…
A single question (with potential follow-ups):
Direct artist-fan translator collaboration is possible, but has it actually been done? If it has then we’ll need some proof; a substantial hint would be enough. If not, what’s stopping them? You should realize that if they actually had the active support of the original creators then the tides of the fan translation scene would be severely turned around.
Proof here–> http://witch-hunt.com/index.html
Witch-Hunt works with 07thExpansion and Hobibox to bring Umineko overseas in English.
This is a tried and true example already. While good for pointing it out, what I’m asking for would be any other writer-translator collaboration that’s been potentially going on. Two or three more examples of recent (2005-present) collaborations would be good.
but considering 07thExpansion is a doujin group they are open to the idea… I mean considering the anime from higurashi did get a license even furthers that deal… it all depends on how much exposure does a company have to these things can they easily decide what is best for them… right now with the hundreds for eroge companies in JP they too are in the dark with this respect
There’s al|together and Narcissu.
Narcissu being the big elephant in the room that no one cares to address.
Now then let’s raise the statement a bit:
Have fan translators tried direct collaboration with some big-name companies? (We know which they are.) It’s pretty apparent that small groups would like these collaborations. However, how prospective (or the opposite) are larger companies concerning this matter?
I am not defending JAST nor I am against them, but if a direct collaboration were possible then going through JAST would be unnecessary. The contrary, which would be direct collaboration being a thoroughly hard method of cooperation, would require some sort of middle ground (JAST) in order for the two parties to acknowledge each other.
(This is, all the while, setting aside JAST’s practices, and just seeing their supposed role as a middleman.)
minority or was it inori did back then when they started Wind they were rejected flat out… yes minori the very minori we know… ef… eden* makoto shinkai OPs… TENMON music but right now im not sure about their ideas… right now. as for the reason why they rejected the choice this I’m left in the dark…
well heres my cents from somewhere in the lines of a self-proclaimed middle man as well I do Pirate these games after all but will buy given the chance I’m not afraid of doing so because I too like it that way. I do agree that we do bring these type of games into certain attention, what is the point of doing reviews if we don not attempt to open the market in fact I can prove this with my SOPA post a couple of days ago but of course I see it in the Pirate’s POV with my morals. Give or take I will take history into consideration remember the very first few games out there that was fan translated? Wind from minori comes into mind which was then fan translated by minority they had issues with this as we knew back then when the minority team actually asked minori that they are willing to fan translate their game minori turned them down which gave the Wind translation a no go for that moment it was not until it went underground did they actually finished the translation without minori knowing about it and so the same team who did the translation for Wind reattempted the same thing with ef this time without the permission from minori fully knowing the same thing will happen yet again. And this is what sparked the entire fan translation = not good for business view by minori and attempted to shut down minority’s translation project which then sparked the attention of MangaGamers… ever since then the fan translation world never became the same it was back in 2000.
But little did they know it was because of Wind gave the world’s attention to minori so did the fan translations for Fate/ series that gave the western attention for Type-moon, which then gave them the western fanbase needed for a new product push which I think they were ignorant of.
To us consumers this would be the case especially to gamers who want to try out the non-mainstream stuff, cause we do know the western market are filled with FPS, RTS and Simulator like the SIMS games. I think if you have been reading the World THat God only knows manga this is actually lampshaded, sadly we are not like Keima whose’ very words are like the bible to VN companies.
As for your question to Makoto on the reason why do they get the fan translated game and not translate their own… my presumption is simple the market for VNs right now in the west as you can see is very very small compared to its local country Japan, right now I can presume JAST is still in the dark spot on what games to get because they can not get a marginal market grasp on what people want, and this is where the aspect of fan-translations comes in do take note fan translations are made by fans therefore they know what their common peers want; this is where I think why JAST gets the fan-translated ones because the ones they get are the ones that is made sure to SELL because a lot of people already have known this certain product and already has spread to a number of people that are now willing to share it to their fellow peers via a translations. But how do people hear about these games… well simple asides from depending on EGS which we know can be also a hit or miss the best way to get inspiration is to share it to fellow peers who think like the same guy saying “you know what this game is good etc..etc..etc…” and to get that reaction one must get the said game in either legal or illegal means just to try it out and say “yeah your right this game is really good”…. and this is where I feel like JAST is lacking at something… they are not Genre Savvy enough to not read eroge related boards I mean peoples opinion about these type of games as I can see it is the best single edge weapons for both licensor and developer, after all were the type of people who are considered the “awkward” types so I guess with these set of opinions they can pretty much get what people want and the license group will not provide that want to meet the need.
TLDR PEOPLE WE NEED TO COOPERATE and GET ON THE SAME PAGE
PS this is coming from a guy whose’s country is so saintly (christians) conservative and with a government which has a very loose view on porn consider these very good illegal… reasons WHY I SERIOUSLY NEED TO GO TO JAPAN AND SMUGGLE THESE GOODS like how I did to get koichoco and kisaragi gold stars. eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth indeed.
PSS I found out I made a type… its actually people want and the license group will now provide that want to meet the need.
while i agree with you that some developer make their work as a hobby. vn company usually start from comiket, they publish work for little extra tip of money
Actually, some are not, like alicesoft, key or other successful company. and admit it… piracy does reduce the sale… so my opinion is…
for fan translation work; if a company want to publish them officially in english market, why not? (if a pirate is a pirate, he will pirate anyway so no loss in audience.)
and the primary advertisement of vn is anime and manga… the chance of a person goes to vn is slim when he’s not a fan of one of those two… so yeah… eroge, niche market..
i have suggestion for fuwanovel, get a hacker and upload as many script as you can(make them easily accessible to translators), then the only problem left is translating…
Reblogged this on Unkind's Eroge Blog and commented:
This is some pretty awesome stuff, check it out! (And Hanahira! is coming along nicely, still doing just about 1-2 scripts per day, it WILL be done in a month ^^)
I can understand them getting pissy if you’re releasing the actual game itself, but as long as you’re only releasing the English patch and not the game itself, why should this matter? -.- I guess if there’s a free English patch on a game, it makes it hard to license that particular title, but in that case, fan translators should just translate titles that have no hope in seeing the light of day here (less popular stuff) to drum up interest in VNs.
It’s true, lately JAST isn’t translating stuff, just licensing fan translated works because is cheaper and faster. All the hard work is done, you just have to pay a cheap amount to the translation because they done it for free, so any money is good for them right?.
It’s unfair for the translators who do it on their free time for the love of it. They won’t get paid for the nights they didn’t sleep trying to release it faster, neither for the whole invested time, just a fraction of it.
JAST position is definitely not shed on a good light. Certainly, their current business pattern is nothing short of cutting corners, considering they hardly translate anything themselves.
However, I’m more or less skeptical how this article paint them completely black, while us fantranslators are completely white.
From a company perspective, if the result of a product is the same for a lower cost, why would they bother? It is a “sad” truth but, pragmatically speaking, it is the most efficient method. Now the thing is: is it the only factor to consider?
Generally speaking, fan translated games were initially moderately popular VN that people wanted to read it in English. As result, following the demand instead of choosing a niche game is a bit diffcult, business wise, and I’m unsure if the fans would really be ready to spend money on an obscure game (I think people will agree that a certain amount of VN translated by MG are a bit obscure).
Alternatively, some really hugely popular VN (the likes of Type Moon and Key) would be too much a hassle to deal with the royalties etc.
Now, the other point in this equation is how an english publisher can have the attention of the japanese companies for more licences. Of course, I’m implying extended contracts with other franchises, like what Jast was “promising” with Nitroplus. Indeed, in order to bring numbers to these companies, a sizable amount of copies must be sold within an appropriate timeframe. Therefore, expecting them to do that quickly by translating VN from scratches is not really feasible, unless they have large funds to begin with.
I’m not defending JAST in any way, since there is no doubt the main factor was the obvious cost cut. But at the same time, you can’t deny such method is also necessary for a company to pierce through an extremely niche market.
Now, as for the other point of the discussion: even as part of the “lawful” fan translation side, I can’t really compute this praise being completely rightful.
Indeed, fan translation, especially when VN are involved, require patience, time and especially motivation and passion. However, while the motive and intent might be “pure”, I can’t say it would be exploited exactly how the translation group wanted.
Patch by themselves are inherently free, which is indeed proof that the groups aren’t trying to get profits from a work they didn’t own to begin with. However, it is the very reason that would permit people to abuse the property of the japanese company, since the translation group are by no means able to filter this (they do not own anything, save perhaps their own translation per intellectual property, although it is based on the property of a complete different entity).
Furthermore, expanding VN is one thing, but serving the said VN this way is a complete different manner. I see your intention as trying your hardest to share your passion to others, but the method is not exactly the best, with all due respect.
I really doubt japanese companies appreciate their works being available for free on the net, but it would be even more infuriating for them if a website is promoting this, no matter what was the initial intent.
Even though the english publishers make money, you have to remember that the japanese companies do get their rightful share as well, while they absolutely do not with fan translations (save few exceptions such like a vast minority of the fanbase willing to import the games, or other systems).
This is where Makoto’s point cannot be denied whatever you may think: fan translation does not attract Japanese companies one bit, since it is extremely rare for fan translation groups to engage with legal licence procedure.
Therefore, engaging in a ruthless path would make things even worse on the long run. You should already realize that japanese companies are no longer unaware of the foreigners interests for their products, which is proved by the increasing amount of VN with a region lock.
Since it is even more difficult to gauge an “alien” market by themselves, it isn’t even surprising they contact publishers for such job, and essentially speaking, fan translation do not exactly mesh well with official releases (although still less shady than anime subs, for obvious reasons).
Attracting more fans to the VN medium is fair, but as far as I can see with fuwanovel, you are dangerously slipping to a “self righteous piracy” path, which will generate more issues than there already are.
Agree, but the problem is, it’s not the patches that’s the problem for these companies, it’s the piracy.
Fuwa’s objective is just to cut out all the needless stuff (regional languages settings) and chuck the game in. It’s ALREADY available on different torrent sites to begin with. If the companies want to address the problem seriously, then sue the pants off TokyoTosho, NyaaTorrents, file-sharing sites and all that stuff.
I don’t really care what you believe and want to do, but I can’t say I find it very pleasant how you demonized Makoto just for saying it like it is. He never said fan translations are bad, just that they are not necessarily conducive with the spreading of corporate licensing with the industry’s current state. He was very realistic and down to Earth, and you didn’t like the reality of it so you threw a temper tantrum, spouted a bunch of idealistic bullshit, and then shot the messenger.
A real class act.
It’s called a difference in ideals.
I suppose you’ve never argued with your friend about both your main principles in life while debating furiously what a certain proposed action will imply or do. Some people can sound heated-up when they’re explaining / defending or doing what they require of their principles.
I seriously wish you would get some reading comprehension skills instead of slinging insults towards someone who’s an actual fan translator, unlike you. I read the entire log and he never said what you claimed he did. Basically all he did was tell you the facts about the VN licensing project, and how this would affect them and you decided to make him out to be some horrible, egregious existence just because you didn’t like the facts he was pointing out.
You seem to have conveniently missed the part where he says:
[18:15] Okay, then you should probably drop all pretense of doing it for the industry.
in your quote, which changes the whole context of his words, he wasn’t saying that fantranslations are bad, or that there should be less, he just wanted you to realize that what you’re doing does not contribute towards any “community” which is the truth.
Again I really wish you would read thinga properly, or at least not conveniently forget to add in key contextual information, so you can demonize someone who’s done more for the fan translation scene, official localizations, and Japanese developers than you ever will.
err the “community” should have been “industry”
don’t know how i messed that up.
Also quotes like:
[18:28] All I’m saying is that if what you’re trying to do is convince more Japanese companies to license games, that is not the effect you will have.
[18:28] If what you’re trying to do is simply get more games translated, whether they’re legal or not, then that’s a different story.
were left out and reduced to space in a link in your footnoted. These lines clearly showed his point and what he was actually trying to say, through through the things you quoted in your post, as opposed to how you interpreted it.
As part of HGTP to translate Rance Quest, I know the feeling how hard the job of translator…
to make it simple, I’ll state my own point of view:
Fantranslator doing this for FREE and spend a lot of TIME and SACRIFICE to do it! We are better share the complete english patch for FREE to everyone than let some business company buy it and claim as their own!
if you think I’m wrong, you can try to translate these lines:
45001 今も、その『本業以外の仕事』の一つを終えて
45002 町へ戻ってきたところで、
45003 人々に囲まれた社員たちの足元には――
45004 一人のカラーの娘が縛られていた。
45005 その娘は、周りの人間を睨みつけ、
45006 身動きが取れない状況でも、臆していないようだった。
45007 「信じられない…
45008 本物の生きたカラーを見られるなんて」
45009 「そうだろう、そうだろう。
45010 しかもコイツは、ただのカラーじゃない。
^ that’s only 10 lines, while Rance Quest having 100,000+ lines.
want to vomit?
yeah, we too.
but we will prevail to the end! ^^
btw, aaeru,
u took a lot of attention on /jp/ now
http://boards.4chan.org/jp/res/8464629
Previous thread : 8457329
Time to change your username, Aeru. And I’m not being mean here. I honestly think you should do it.
There are people there calling you an idiot and shit, and honestly, as much as I disagree with you, I can’t condone that.
Why is it that people on the internet can’t have sensible discussions without telling eachother’s moms to suck a dick? C.G. Jung would have a field day.
There’s a lot of oversimplification in this article, so despite being absolutely right on some major points, the conclusion you reached couldn’t be more wrong.
First, the part you’re right about is that the commercial market has absolutely no hope of translating the vast majority of the VNs that deserve translations. This is why fan translation is morally sound in principle (despite being illegal), and why I’ve been doing it for years with a clean conscience. A fan translation only becomes morally problematic once an official translation for the VN in question becomes a serious possibility. Until then, the only impact they can have on the official licensing industry is building a bigger VN fanbase to make future licenses possible.
Second, if we really want to help the Japanese companies, and if we really want to make VNs more popular outside of Japan, we should be doing everything we reasonably can to make official licenses work out for games that are actually worth people’s money (i.e., not nukige). No individual fan translator has any duty to make such attempts (translating anything at all still helps because it gives more people a reason to start reading VNs), but we should actively encourage anyone who does want to try and make it work.
Third, the one and only reason it is not normally this simple is because the English licensing companies and/or the Japanese VN companies (sometimes it’s very hard to tell which is really at fault) have a long track record of not being open with fan translators who approach them about how well the license is actually going and whether it has a legitimate possibility of working out. When it’s the licensing company doing it, there’s absolutely no excuse. When it’s the Japanese company doing it, they have the excuse of low sales figures. But to me it’s still an excuse because why would you accept a licensing deal in the first place if you weren’t going to put even the slightest quantum of effort into making the release decent (in particular I’m thinking of N+ delaying Demonbane for a year ostensibly to fix the backlog but then never actually fixing it). As a result, many of us who have attempted licensing in the past simply cannot trust the companies involved and may never bring ourselves to attempt it again.
So, what we really need is some breakthrough license that actually works, where the VN company, licensing company (and possibly fan translators) agree to translate a game that’s actually worth buying, they’re all open with each other and the fans about how it’s going, and they release a decent product without ridiculously pointless delays.
I really hope Steins;Gate comes closer to being this breakthrough game than MuvLuv Alternative did.
We know from experience that even if the translation is provided for free, problems remain:
Problems such as legality; some companies impose region-locks on their works out of a genuine fear that their products may contain subject matter that is illegal in some jurisdictions, and they don’t want ignorant end-users (or themselves as the original game maker) to find themselves under the eye of the law. By making these products available in other markets, are you accepting the legal risk?
Problems such as licensing; some companies don’t own 100% of the rights to even their own works, and are not allowed to have it distributed in other countries without paying additional royalty fees to other partners. The more popular the work becomes, the more potentially-difficult it is to negotiate with all the requisite parties and come to an agreement. What will motivate these other parties to agree in this business model?
Problems such as devaluing the product; some companies would be rather concerned to see the games they sell domestically for 8,800 yen be officially made available for free overseas, which implies that the value of the product they sell is effectively zero. Whether or not you believe that this is the right business strategy going forward, most companies are not going to be ready and able to accept such a drastic business model change overnight.
Problems such as recovering costs; even if they receive the translation for free, some companies simply aren’t interested in giving the rights to their products away for free even in markets they weren’t previously reaching, even as some sort of “long-term investment”. They would rather see the money in their hands then see their product otherwise out there. No money down, no rights. How do you address this concern?
Problems such as having to deal with incompatible ideologies like your own; most companies simply don’t believe (yet?) in your idealized future where everyone can easily and legally download full games for free, and then maybe some people will choose to support them as if providing a donation. They didn’t create the games with that model in mind, and if they’re going to move to some sort of a similar model, they would want it to be on their terms, not your own. Because after all — to be frank — who are you to tell them how they should run their business? What evidence can you offer to convince these companies, many of whom have been in business for years and years, that you can offer them the path to future profitability and success? Do you really believe that the artists are so enamoured with the concept of bringing their works to a larger audience that they can completely abandon the business models they’re used to and pursue this new model on your word that it’ll all work out in the end somehow?
The content industries around the world are undergoing a massive change that will completely redefine the way products are conceived, packaged, sold, and distributed around the world. But it’s not going to happen by mobilizing an army of somehow-dedicated volunteers whose general goal is to stick it to everyone currently making the industry work by making sure that as many people as humanly-possible get the chance to play English-translated visual novels specifically without having to pay for that privilege upfront. I recognize from past conversations that this reflects your own personal beliefs and philosophy, but it will take a lot more than that to build the path that brings the industry forward.
“Problems such as having to deal with incompatible ideologies like your own; most companies simply don’t believe (yet?) in your idealized future where everyone can easily and legally download full games for free, and then maybe some people will choose to support them as if providing a donation.”
This. Unfortunetely, this wouldn’t work in our time. But hey, they said 2012 is the end of the world… What if we interpret that as the end of capitalism?
That’s when it’d work.
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I honestly don’t think eroge developers are very keen on fan translations save for doujin ones.
I mean, there have been a ton of projects out there that received C&D notices. And most of them didn’t get an official release (in fact, the only one that comes to mind is Kara no Shoujo). I don’t understand WHY a developer wouldn’t want the game to be translated, even if it is by fans. Because a book of rules says so? If that’s the case, I must face palm at them.
But to be honest, I still think the whole idea is naive. Interesting, but naive. What JAST does is actually pretty clever: get translations made by fans so that the publishing can be made at a lower price. They’re not trying to get fan translators to sell-out or anything, they’re just being clever.
But just like some of the commenters above, I’m a tad skeptical on your idea. You could say your idea is “noble” (I really didn’t want to use that word but whatever), but not exactly down-to-earth.
To be honest, I don’t really understand much about the VN market in order to make a proper comment on it, but I do understand that some companies are realizing the potential that the West has with their products. True, not everyone can afford their games (like me), but they realize that expanding their market might not be such a bad idea.
However, I wouldn’t say that fan translations completely destroy the possbility of certain VNs to be licensed. Just look at Saya no Uta. Its translation was released almost 3 years ago, yet JAST still decided to release it, even when almost every fan already played it. They’re clearly attempting to reach out to a broader public.
All of this reminds me of the people who are “complaining” about the Steins;Gate translation being sold to JAST. I say that in quotes because it’s more like they’re throwing a temper tantrum than anything else. It infuriates me how these people just can’t comprehend the situation properly. Hell, I’m even more baffled when they said that VNs can’t get popular here, and then Katawa Shoujo hits Top 10 on GameFAQs.
In the end, as much as I dislike the whole concept of property, money and shiz, I still prefer to be realistic and say that official releases of translations is not a bad thing. I mean, everybody wins: JAST and the VN developer makes cash rain for another day, fan translators may get paid for what they’re doing (if they want to, that is. Some of them prefer to do it for free anyways), and we get awesome VNs released here for our viewing pleasure, even if they’re at a considerably high price. What matters is that they’re in English.
Well, I’m probably gonna be lambasted for this, but I lend my support (which counts for nothing, really) to your project. Mostly because I don’t see how the project can cause any actual further harm.
As you’ve already said, most fans of Japanese VNs outside of Japan don’t really purchase the visual novels they read anyway. And as horribly blunt as that sounded, I don’t really see a problem with it, since the VN devs themselves likely never meant for their product to reach such foreign shores.
It’s like if 50% of the male population suddenly had the urge to wear bras. And instead of buying them like good capitalists should, they just grabbed random bits of cloth and sewed together their own pairs. Yes, the bra industry is technically losing a large potential customer base here, but it’s not like they were producing their products with the intention of selling it to grown men anyway. They don’t gain anything, which is a shame, but they don’t necessarily lose anything either.
Although if Square had never taken the gamble of localizing their Final Fantasy games for western audiences, FF would just be another obscure J-RPG series, instead of the multimillion dollar international franchise it is today. I can’t imagine any visual novel achieving a similar degree of success, but still, you never know … I mean, Phoenix Wright hit off pretty well, din’t it? It’s not a household name or anything close, but it’s still got a pretty fanbase in the west for a game that’s technically a visual novel. Then again, PW has some decidedly un-VN qualities to it, which is probably why it was picked up for localization in the first place.
The issue of distributing the game files themselves is also a bit of a gray zone. It’d probably be a “safer” approach to just host patches. While the vast majority of people that download those patches will likely just pirate the games from other sources, its better for PR if you don’t help them, you know? Less likely for people to jump onto your table and start calling you a filthy communist pirate. Cheers.
I pretty much agree here. As a medium, Visual Novels are very difficult to obtain and expereince here in the west. It’s inconvenient and most people wouldn’t go through the trouble. Making that process so much easier will provide Visual Novels with the chance to actually flourish in the western demographic. I believe fuwanovel, if it really does come to be, will give Visual Novels that opportunity to get acknowledged and build up a significant demographic over this side of the world.
As you said Nissan, there is no significant loss from pirating Visual Novels here in the west. I’m sure there are corporations in Japan that wouldn’t be that happy about it, but I don’t believe the demographic is big enough for them to be willing to do anything about it. If your intention with fuwanovel, aaeru, is to stick to lesser-known unlicensed titles, then there shouldn’t be a problem. If the Japanese authors voice that there is a problem, then it’s just a matter of taking it off the site, right? I think it just takes communication. And back to my point, by getting Visual Novels the attention they deserve, perhaps that will open the channels for a significant market to emerge in the west. And if that happens, perhaps fuwanovel will have completed it’s purpose, and no longer be necessary.
It may be naive to think that all the authors are writing because they love to, sure. But there really is a great deal of love and passion in the industry. For the most part, these really are people who want their work out in the world, especially those no-name authors who aren’t yet driven to write for loadsamoney. The key here is to be humble about it. We’re not here to steal profits, we’re here to create them by creating a market where one currently does not exist.
Well, this is what I see it as anyway.
One thing missing in all of this is that there are value to middleman, the publisher. It’s not just naive, but ignorant, to think JAST or MG doesn’t add value to it by extracting their share.
I mean, sure, those companies are trying to save money and time by working with fan translators, and to be honest that can’t be a bad thing. If stuff falls out from afterwards it is due to poor execution, not because it is a bad idea per se.
The point I just want to say is that AFAIK nobody fan-translated Kirakira and it is MG’s second best selling title. Why is this? Because of MARKETING. Lots of well-read sites reviewed it, it was a game that got reviewed beyond the usual VN-focused sites. THAT is how you bring these games to more people. You cannot dismiss JAST or MG and say you can do a better job bringing a game to more people. It’s not just naive, but a complete lack of business sense. And what’s more it’s probably going to be more harmful than helpful to the overall mission of bringing more people to play these games.
As a nobody, I personally thought it’s actually ok to sell the translation, even when it’s very encouraging to see the fan teams release full patches in public. Since it’s only solid proof to potential JP studio saying they are interested and really to go “look, we have some work already done on this and want to make this work, mind having a chat?” without bleeding out some eye-watering digits in dollar sign. Having translation on the cheap always help with costs.
Motoko got the relation other way around: it is because when there are increasing number of translations (both in numbers and in speed) that JP studio becomes interested and starts to think about this issue. A few years back they barely batted an eye lid at english scene where it was moved at a glacier pace (and far fewer number C&D, except ~uguu~ eyes ala Key), when even the supposed pirate-filled chinese internet has gotten more official translations. Like it or not, fan translation forces the studio to acknowledge there is a case, whether they want to solve it via C&D or other alternatives, it’s up to themselves. Also from what happened, current scene groups are quite supportive of any potential sign of english commercial release by halting, removing, etc, of their work-in-progress. To lay blame on JP studio’s reluctance to license on that is a touch too far (it’s potential licensee’s job to negotiate and persuade, after all).
On regards to sales number, and that alone, it stands that much of the development cost is sunk cost (unless you are nuts in case of ef, where printing/press costs way too much), a marginal sale gained is a gain, and they only stand to benefit from any foreign sales at all. Words need to be spread to gain potential sales, and is no way in “devaluates” their work, if their real concern is just on pure numbers alone. Yes, large existing sales would be encouraging, but what can do you when 1) the market is at infantile stage as far as sales numbers go, 2) thus customers’ tastes aren’t as refined and distinct, thus making future license sales visibility more murky? Chicken and egg? Not quite, as far as enterprise goes, they can only know by taking more risks, or pull back, and there is only one way to find out.
>>Eroge authors work in the lousily paid eroge industry with its taken-for-granted ultra-long hours and sub-standard pay, it’s certainly not for the money, but because they love what they do!
This is the part that’s naive, not whatever you were saying earlier. I’m sure some of them do enjoy it, but I assure you that if there was no money involved, you would not see these “hundreds upon hundreds” of “really amazing titles”. Eroge companies exist to sell their products for money. That’s how business works.
This. While some of them do enjoy working on the industry, others do so simply because they don’t have a choice and it’s the only thing they’re good at.
and this is why I think M3rry is quite about right on how he describes your blog… LULZ
Only peasants care about fan translations, or English translations at all for that matter. There is nothing good about the western VN market, the vast majority of Japanese developers do not care about it, and I hope it dies. The western VN market will never be big enough to matter, and translators should do whatever they want with their translation.
Ahem…. Katawa Shoujo? Doing pretty well around the net?
Most of it’s popularity stems from it’s association with 4chan. Also considering it is free it is not part of the ‘market’. Also I must apologise, but in my post I was referring specifically to Japanese VNs, and fan/English translations. Katawa Shoujo is neither.
Hmm, touché.
Ok, I was actually going to refute you but I’m not exactly sober right now. So maybe later. orz
Taiyou no Ko anime????!!!! =DDDDD
I can’t possibly be the only one who noticed this on the screenshots…
I hope you’re not just trolling… my favorite scenario writer is wayyy overdue for an anime adaptation of one of his works (by a good studio of course).
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As a last word, I’d like to address the way this post was written. And I’ll be blunt here:
No matter how vocal you are about your opinion, don’t make it look like fucking sensationalist propaganda. Constructive is good, slight destructive is insightful, but this was just all over the place. Your argumentation isn’t cohesive enough to be convincing, nor is the reasoning.
Think it out better next time.
Agreed. I had to sit back and seriously wonder if you were some 13-year-old who had an idea she thought was alright and then did everything to make it happen, only then pausing to pass a thought at technicalities.
Posting like this, with all the colours, sensationalism and weirdly formatted text makes you look young and naive. With a serious and wide-reaching plan like this, you need to be able to talk on an adult level. This isn’t just playing around; you’re working with people’s jobs and passions and knowingly doing something illegal. At least be sensible about it.
As an anime fan translator, I’ll have to say your views on fansubbing are absurd.
First of all, you do not own the rights to your translated work.
“What is yours is yours to do however you so wish”?
That can only be said for the Japanese publishers for creating original content and holding valid copyrights. What fansubbers including myself are doing is nothing more than making a translation and slapping it on pirated copies of works by publishers from a country that is part of the Bern Convention.
This is supporting piracy therefore not technically not legal. If you uploaded the original VN too, then it’s just blatantly illegal. We live in a civilized society governed by law, and we should be abiding them. You can justify breaking the laws for your ideals (as I do myself as a fansubber), but that doesn’t make it any less illegal.
Second, this distributor JAST is being pretty reasonable for actually paying for fan translated works. Since fansubbers actually possess copyrights to their works as mentioned above, it’s public domain. They can just steal your work so there’s not a damn thing you can do about it in court. They must be doing it to avoid negative publicity, and you should be glad they’re not straight up suing you for it.
Third, this Makoto person seems to understand how the industry (the Japanese industry, not ‘YOUR industry’ as mentioned) works, not you. Just think about it. Assuming they secured North American license for “Title-A”. If Title-A didn’t wasn’t fansubbed already, it would sell far more than one that was fansubbed already and floating around the internet. You would probably say “why should we care about these greedy publishers?” Well, because it will trickle down to the Japanese publishers. The Japanese publishers would have more bargaining power for licensing or direct commission if their licensed work would sell better overseas. Knowing a stable overseas income source would encourage titles that would’ve been rejected for being too niche to be published in Japan, and who knows? Maybe it will even encourage the writers to write more because they can make a living off it rather than it being strictly hobby like Key, and hire more people who can make a living doing things they like.
Fourth, you’re sadly mistaken if you think you’re supporting the industry. Your statement was probably accurate 20 years ago when nobody was around to legally distribute, but they exist now (since our predecessors had done their job) and there’s already a sizable market for VN or anime. Especially now that this guy from JAST approached you to talk about this, what you’re doing is nothing more than disrupting their business and in turn, the Japanese industry as stated in “Third”. So they’re in it for the money. Well, they’re a legitimate business so obviously making money is one of their goals. What they’re doing is spreading the Japanese culture as a result, and that’s should be in line with most fansubber’s goals. You complain about translated VNs costing 100 bucks, but have you thought that if those works didn’t leak in advance, they might have sold 5 times as more and maybe they can break even or make even more profit for 30 bucks each? All the distributors are from capitalist societies and they can’t maintain $100 price for their products if other distributors can offer for lower. The only reason it is $100, is because nobody else can offer same value for lower price.
Finally, if you claim to be true a FAN subber, you would support the industry, and you would not have a problem selling your translation to JAST because they’ll basically provide greater number of (and legal) views of your hard work AND the Japanese title that you liked enough to invest time on. However little they pay for fan translations is a good deal. In fact, it’s a good deal even if you gave it to them for free.
Typo: “Since fansubbers actually possess copyrights” -> “…don’t actually possess copyrights”
(☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞
I agree and most of this is accurate, but I’ll correct a few points since you seem to be missing some context:
About the $100 thing, Aaeru is talking about people who import the Japanese games to play them with the translation patches. As you would expect, this is a very small percent of the English VN community and most of the people who claim to do this are probably lying. The actual localized games by JAST, MG, etc are much cheaper than in Japan (e.g. Osadai was $35 compared to the original price of ￥9,420) because otherwise no one in North America would pay for them.
Also, the major problem people have with JAST localizations isn’t the sell-out itself, it’s the fact that JAST buys fan translations when they’re almost ready for release, and proceeds to delay the official release by years because they have to sort things out with the Japanese producers. If they released the game in a timely manner, no one would complain because they can still pirate it either way. It’s just that a game that could’ve been ready in a week is now delayed indefinitely.
—
Personally I have no issues with JAST buying fan translations. It’s the translators that did the work; let them do what they want. If they can get paid for it, that’s only more incentive to keep translating more.
As for Fuwanovel, it’s a pretty damn bad idea to openly admit to piracy like that. Maybe you haven’t realized this, but sharing VNs is *illegal* regardless of how shiny your webpage is. We’re getting away with it right now because the community is small and not out in the open, but if you plan on promoting a site like that then you’re just asking for trouble. Despite what you think, there is no way Japanese companies will ever approve of this, because in the end you’re just stealing their products.
I’m not saying that it’s a bad idea to create a new VN community and share translation patches, but uploading the VNs themselves is just 100% illegal (free games aside).
This is a pretty dumb article and I’m not sure it’s worth my time to reply in great detail. Long story short, if you really liked VNs and really liked the medium, you wouldn’t hold such outlandish views. You are in it for the notoriety and probably out of a messiah complex too, fancying yourself handing the first burning stick to a tribe of cavemen.
You’re wrong.
Your view of how the world, copyright, Japan – hell, anything, works – is inordinately skewed and at best fit for satire.
@fnord
Ah be quiet. All I see here is an upgraded look of erogedownload, and I don’t hear you or anyone else complaining about that admins site. The only thing I see wrong with Aaeru’s post is the entire chat log misunderstanding.
After working in the Eroge industry in Japan for 5 years now, I really wish this industry itself was doujin based and not commercial. Things get complicated when you add business and the fact that people’s lives depend on how well the games sell. Most Japanese eroge companies can’t even think about the English market because they are too busy concentrating in the Japanese market – They need to put all of their resource into creating and promoting their next game all the time to make a living, and thats what they enjoy doing too.
Unfortunately there isn’t enough demand to make up for that income in the English market. If you look at the whole picture, fan translators don’t help the industry much because added sales of the japanese copy is pretty minimal too. (Putting aside the potential pirates that upload the copy of the game and damage caused by that)
Companies like J-list and MangaGamer is in an even more tighter situation. There are certainly people in these companies who made their way up in there because they love the industry and they want to do more than just being a fan translator. But in order to run the business, there have to worry about additional stuffs that they didn’t have to deal with when they were just fan translators. For example, in order to release “title A” that they want, they might have to release 10 other games in betweeen.
So yeah, I think a plain bitchy attitude on the fan translators side doesn’t help the industry grow… A support and understanding on both sides are needed.
Support and understanding can only be achieved when both sides want to put aside their differences and actually want to work something out.
After Ixrec’s little stunt, I am NOT too confident on this front, given how fragmented the community is and how painfully political it usually becomes. Gone are the halcyon days. People are getting more and more distrustful of their own leaders, to say nothing of their would-be business partners.
I can’t say for sure understanding is gonna happen. I’m more certain it WON’T HAPPEN.
I like the idea (and the design especially) of the site and all, but any advocacy of piracy is not really productive if you want any sort of cooperation with JP companies.
Less piracy and more promotion would be a better route in my opinion.
Chill out, guys and gals. Simple bashing will not do any good as well.
I was thinking whetever there’s any sense to add anything more into this discussion and plenty of people already made many good points… but whatever – I’ll just get straight into my own rambling.
Aeru – I like your general straighforward attitude and I must congratulate you for being such a honest person. You are an active fan in our western visual novel community and, with no doubts, have plenty of good intentions. Unfortunately, your current move isn’t the right way to go. It’s based on a purely idealistic view without enough concrete knowledge to support it in the slightest bit. I know it’s sad, but the world we live in does not work like that. It’s all down to hard business and money. Ideals mean nothing to most of publishers, and people just want to earn for their living. I know you propably aren’t even concerned about the industry (which would be bad, nonetheless) and want to have more games translated. Isn’t that selfish a little bit too much?
I can not agree with the fuwanovel project in it’s current state, and I can’t agree with you supporting piracy in such open condition… as long as it’s the thing you want to do. It will just harm our slowly awakening market. You have to know, that the japanese vn industry in it’s current state is having problems as well – it’s oversaturated, where plenty of companies are very small and barely make a living out of what they do. I wouldn’t be surprised if they would see such move here as a threat that could potentially put them out of their jobs and dreams, not to mention that any potential agreements might come to an end because of it. We just can’t ignore business side, if we want to work towards common goal. If that’s not the case… there’s plenty of space for improvement, and I’ll be glad to lend a helping hand.
Many of you are missing the most basic point in all of this disscusion, that utterly goes to nowhere. From all of you, besides people openly buying visual novels, be it from our publishers or from Japan, only a small part of community does a really great job here. You want visual novels? Then work together to expand community, and do it in a legal way:
1. Spread the word about visual novels and work to present them as a proper medium with valuable merit towards our culture and reachable to a wider audience, not just the fans of anime, manga or japanese culture. There’s plenty of people interested in new things here and plenty of them reads a lot as well. They will make a good target audience for starters, and it would help us all a lot.
2. Help to build our own market. Right now It basically means helping our established publishers license and get as many visual novels on sale, as they possibly can… No, really – it would help if fan translators would give translations even for free. We have to pay that price. And as far as I know, MG and Jast USA are still interested paying for them, even if just a little. Isn’t that good? There is no space for selfishness here.
Consuming also helps, as the more we will consume, the bigger will the market grow. It’s actually the only thing that might help us all the best. We need our own visual novels. We need more people like 4LS, Dischan, Moacube, Studio Nihi, Sakevisual or Mystery Parfait. Just look at Katawa Shoujo. Then look at the society. Then look at Katawa Shoujo again. And you say there’s no interest in such things as visual novels here on the west? How ironic.
You want to help our community? Make a high quality western visual novel. We consume. We produce. That’s the right circle. Without any of those, everything will die. Stop relaying only on japanese. Make a fresh start. Create a proper ground for ideas to sprout. Spread the love for visual novels, and don’t hurt others in that process. I’d love if Jast or MG could help our independent developers sell their own works as well. That would be great. We need to build our own industry and our own market, otherwise visual novels will always stay in the niche.
There’s plenty of things, that can be done with Fuwanovels – It’s still a concept, after all. It can become a hub for visual novel translators and their work, for easier and more coherent reach. It can become a ground for japanese-western agreements on the terms of translations. It can help japanese publishers to find good and reliable translators willing to do the right job. It can even become a new publishing/marketing online visual novel platform, steam-wise. That would be awesome. You see, it’s just always the hardest to make that first step.
It’s not a reluctance to license. The companies are aware that the Japanese market has noticed the West. And hell, they’d love to dive in. But there’s the exposure thing. And then there’s CNN’s botched Rapelay article and the fact that America is a fucked-up country with fucked-up morals. And well, any good company has to be somewhat profitable, no?
For the age thing, talks were going on fine. Slow, yes, but that’s the nature of business deals. And for crying out loud, anyone who’s ever closed a business deal would tell you that the talks are strictly confidential and there was no need to know.
There was a communication problem, yes. BOTH SIDES were at fault for it. It takes two fucking hands to clap.
I do my fair share of promoting Mangagamer because I actually like the company, I believe in their goals and for the hell of it, I think Bamboo is a baller guy to be friends with. The people in there are decent and they actually PAY fan translators for their work. I think, for the last bit.
As for the community thing, well, I’m no stranger to drama, especially with the fanTL community. (BTW Message is an epic-level troll, A++ would get trolled by again) It happens all the time because we’re dealing with PEOPLE. It is highly unfortunate that most of them would stir up the drama llama than talk things out peacefully, but this is the Internet. It turns otherwise ‘decent’ people into dickbags because of its “anonymous” nature.
You want to improve a community? Start acting like a decent person online. And then go at it with full speed, with zero regard for self.
If anything, take this as a call to support Mangagamer.
In regards to “closing a business deal”, something I’ve wanted to say about that for a while: A business deal is made by employees. Employees get paid money for their services. As part of a fan translation group which was in talks with MangaGamer, we were never offered any payment other than coupons for free games, and I have heard from other translators who have worked with MangaGamer that they have had the same experience. (Well, apparently, some were promised money and then paid in coupons instead…)
Working for free makes one not an employee, but a volunteer. And it seems perfectly reasonable to expect more open communication as a volunteer. If no contract fee changes hands between publisher and translator, there’s no business deal, just an agreement based on mutual understanding – which can and should be scrapped when that understanding break down.
Also, enough juicy tidbits reach me on the grapevine to make it clear to me that JAST has no problem keeping everyone they collaborate with updated as to what’s going on with the releases in their pipeline. The obsession with confidentiality, and willingness to engage in outright deception, is a problem unique to MangaGamer.
Sometimes I wish I had more time for my hobbies and a more stable source of income.
It’s more like “if we could beat them at their own VN game, build up an industry here, they’d follow in”, But it isn’t something that can be achieved fast, nor with such methods. It takes time and a lot of effort.
Eitherway, this should become our priority as a community. Gain enough attention, support and self-sufficiency, so the japanese devs and publishers wouldn’t roll their eyes every time they hear about the western fanbase. As for now, we barely started to crawl on all fours.
You should be even more honest you know:
“Why should I care if they’re unhappy with what I’m doing? I said I wanted to support the English VN industry, not make a few individual companies happy. I’m aware they’ll hate me for this, and that’s just fine.”
“The creation will always be more important than the creators. The creators importance only goes as far as they can be expected to create more works on par with what we already have. Sure, I’m grateful to them for what they’ve given us, but let’s be real here.”
“For the last time, I really could not care less if Japanese companies are happy with me.”
“The reason they can’t get sales is because the fanbase is so small. That is precisely the problem I am trying to solve here.”
+1
Not sure if you were being supportive or disparaging with this comment. Either way, it sounds pretty convincing to me!
Just thought I’d thrown in my 2 cents in regards to otome gaming. Most GOOD otome games are now PSP and PS2 only. I don’t know if you can easily apply patches for those things as you can for PC games. Sadly most otome PC games are R-18 garbage full of stupid rape crap that nobody in their right might likes.
As far as Japanese companies are concerned, yes it’s true they really only care about numbers. In fact trying to convince Japanese people of anything is difficult. I can say this from working at 2 Japanese companies. They are VERY DIFFICULT to change, especially if the one in charge is some old geezer whose ways are set in stone. No one will step up to that person because that will make them stick out like a sore thumb. Nobody will ever please the Japanese companies which is why the most important thing is for companies HERE to take care of everything and just present the “final product/proposal” to the Japanese staff.
Some companies will be willing to work with you, others will tell you to f yourself, that’s just how Japan works. I couldn’t exactly understand the point of your post other than saying you just want to freely translate games. Go for it honestly. If you aren’t making money from it, I don’t see why any translating companies should give a crap. If they don’t like it, they should do what Crunchy Roll did with fansubs and put in the effort to simulcast fansubbed episodes before the fansubbers can get to them.
AS far as otome is concerned I think Aksys is taking a big step by releasing Hakuoki for audiences in the west. Their translation is probably crappier than anything you guys do, but I can tell you a LOT of people I know have pre-ordered the limited edition already as it’s translated for them and it doesn’t cost and arm and a leg which is why its up there. HOWEVER, these are most people who are already aware of what otome games are thanks to things like the starry sky patch & the Hatoful Boyfriend patch. So that’s proof right there that translated patches do indeed help but as far as otome games are concerned, the best games are PSP and I’ve not seen anyone try patch translating those (maybe it’s not possible? maybe its too hard? I don’t know.)
Good luck with your project but sometimes I feel like I wish you guys would be paid for your efforts instead or use the effort to actually start your own company and try licensing games and prove that they do have a place here in the west. I don’t know about eroge fandom but I can surely say that there’s an otome fandom outside Japan. Sorry for the tl;dr (´･ω･`；)
Except she’s not even talking about translating the games herself. She’s not talking about just releasing the translated patches, which would be fine. She’s talking about releasing the patches WITH the game, all ready for free download. This is somehow supposed to convince Japanese companies that we want their business, instead of, you know, showing them that westerners are just going to pirate their games anyway, with or without their games on the market.
yea I realized after I commented that she wanted to release uh pirated games and then in that case I can’t say I support it. That’s just silly. In that case that makes you no different that the people who post pirated games up for download ヽ( ￣д￣;)ノ Aeruたん落ち着いてくださいね。If anything I’d offer your services to companys who are more willing to work with you like maybe Aksys if JAST USA is being uncooperative. Otherwise you should just release patches or translations or scripts but I wouldn’t go posting the full game download…you’re just digging yourself into a copyright hole at that point.
http://maddox.xmission.com/
Everybody, read this.
Dear Aaeru,
Go fuck yourself.
Sincerely, /jp/ anon
Aaeru, I’m a fellow Sydneysider and also lurk in #denpa. I see some of the other regulars have already chimed in and felt the need to add a little.
While I agree with the vision you describe (and I love the proposed site design, it’s the kind of slickness that the community could really use), I can’t support what you propose.
I think people like Ixrec and DXS covered this pretty well – the long and the short is that this simply can’t be done without some regard for the status quo. By no means comprehensive, I’d like to address a couple of points raised.
* JAST and Mangagamer aren’t the bad guys here, at least not as much as you’d like to believe. They’re desperately trying to make this market work, and that’s hard. People have to make a crust, and this is business. Saying that western pirated copies don’t count as a loss is an indefensible position.
* Regarding the harvesting of almost-ripe translations, why feel so cut? The position that you propose would have people working for free anyway. I think what you feel is “exploitation”, because someone is selling “your” work. That’s a matter for the translators. Amusingly, that matter is open to the “but they were never going to get paid anyway” argument.
What do we get out of the last two points? I think it’s, “noone wants to feel like a sucker”.
* Makoto of course can’t advocate or defend unofficial fan translations. You simply can’t do that in business. That aside, money makes the world go around. Fan translations are a great way to try and build a market, but they can’t *be* the market at this time. We need to support JAST and Mangagamer as much as possible – They Are The Market. If you like it, buy it. If their shit stinks, tell them so.
“So yes, in a sense of course we are hurting the industry. ‘YOUR industry’.”
Aaeru, that’s *your* industry, too. If the fan translators could make themselves commercially successful, they would. Meanwhile, middleman companies like JAST and Mangagamer actually have some of the necessary business acumen to negotiate and make it happen.
* To your rhetoric, “Have you actually ever spoken to the individual Japanese authors themselves and offered them… etc”.
The answer is Yes. Yes, yes, yes and yes. It’s hard to comprehend, but many companies simply do not respond. Out of latent racism, fear, or simply lack of resources, many companies are just not interested and are content to stick with what they know. There is little we can do about this. Doujin circles are much easier to work with (eg. 07th Expansion), commercial companies are much harder.
Aaeru, I hope you can find some success in this, whatever form it ends up taking, but I do think a deeper understanding of the little universe that visual novels inhabit is necessary.
>>It’s hard to comprehend, but many companies simply do not respond. Out of latent racism, fear, or simply lack of resources, many companies are just not interested and are content to stick with what they know.
I think it’s because most Japanese developers still look at westerners as “blood thirsty psychos” kind of gamers. It really is a matter of gaming history.
Japan got Final Fantasy. The US got Doom. There’s an enormous line dividing both places. The Japanese simply look at western gamers as the kind of people who prefer to shoot a girl in the head instead of banging her.
And let’s not forget all that crap with feminazis a couple of years ago. That pretty much set the nail in the coffin for the possibility of visual novels going mainstream.
>FAN translations
>Copyright issues
>Pot calling the kettle black.
While I do appreciate your initiative for Fuwanovel, I think this article is nothing but a retarded waste of time.
As for ‘coding’ help, what exactly do you need? If you have a set goal, I may be able to help out.
Aaeru i agree with everything you wrote your ideas are nice.
Dont let these people- who can only write hateful comments discourage you.
Hateful? Some of us are simply stating our opinion here. Saying opposite opinions are hateful makes you sound like some tea party nut.
It amazes me how many people equate the law with morality. They have not, and never will be the same. If all games were pirated there would be no more commercial releases. On the other side of the dildo, I would have never experienced VN’s if not for fan translations. I can’t wait for the day I can go to *insert store* and buy quality visual novels that aren’t nukige or junk titles from some online middleman who stole the scripts from TLwiki. Copyright law as it stands is bullshit. Apple steals indie apps and makes them firmware…but that’s OK in the eyes of the law. Vanilla Ice jacked that beat and won in court. Big Pharma can renew their Viargra patent under a child boner clause. So if translators release a patch that makes a game playable for no charge and with no incentive other than altruism; I’m cool with that. It’s ultimately the end users responsibility to pay for the game.
That’s really nice.
Unfortunately for you, things become much more *practical* when the police are knocking on your door. You have to deal with what you have *now*, and right now you’ll have rather angry people coming after you if you pull this sort of stunt.
A bit unrelated. Just stumbled upon a chrono trigger fan translation and saw how non-Japanese speakers got screwed.
Btw, ACTA just happened.
School Days is being officially released by JAST.
Your argument is invalid.
JAST is not the bad guys, and they’ve never been. It’s pretty obvious to me that there’s really nothing actually wrong with JAST and their business model. They strike deals with fan translators to attain the rights to legally distribute more widely a Visual Novel that would have only been pirated by a few in the fan translation had stayed as the only means a non japanese speaker would have of accessing it.
Further and more importantly, when they’re taking on huge projects like School Days, and such, which require a ton of resources, and actually giving the fan translators that were working on it the resource needed to complete them, it’s difficult to believe that they’re sole motivation is money.
But JAST is in fact a business. And as it turns out… GASP!! BUSINESSES NEED MONEY… Will you believe that? So, yeah, they pay pennies for a translator and in sell the game and earn more than the translator, that’s kind of the way you have to be to keep a company alive these days, specially one with such a reduced market.
This whole discussion is nothing short of stupid, and Aaeru, you did a nice job of turning it unnecessarily hostile.
Good job.
There’s not much to say that hasn’t already been said better above. I’m regret ever clicking the link to this page.
It really pains me to see that what the translators have done, is considered as an illegal thing to do. What they have done is merely translating the game. They don’t acknowledge the game itself as theirs, and there is no profit for most of them (although there are some who want to make some profit). They only share the translation. Just imagine that you don’t understand English (or another languange) when you read a book. You ask your friend to translate it for you, so that you will be understand the content of the book (of course for free). Has your friend done something illegal just by doesn’t ask for the publisher/ the author’s permission? Remember guys, they are only translate and provide the translation of the game. And yes, any of licensing company can sell any translated games, but I think, they shouldn’t forbid the translator to translate. Just think of it as a minor patch for suitable version (Japan releases). (Why? I have bought a game which I had waited for the translation to come out, but after awhile, JAST has claimmed that they have bought it license)
i think everyone has the opinion.
but i think for osadai JAST is wrong.
why not to translate a new series?
why pick the VN that has fan translated ones?
coz the game is interesting?
there many more interesting game besides osadai….
“Fan Translation is defined in Wikipedia”
This made my day.