Happiness+

I asked this exact same question on the visual novel database yesterday . However, I’m curious to see what my fellow Fuwa friends think. I am curious to see what you guys think of the industry currently. Is it doing well? Is the industry getting smaller and smaller? What are some of the biggest challenges that developers face? I am all ears.

In all fairness, you did come across a bit fatalistic. You reminded me of those jaded JVN fans over at r/vns. Because I don't understand how VNs can remain unpopular as a medium. Everything you said asiade from that I agree with. However, it's a bit fatalistic to say, visual novels as a whole will never reach anime popularity. Especially, when we don't have any data on the matter. People said the same thing about comics, but now we have the MCU. Soooo yeah....... I don't really buy that because there's no data on this and I think isekai is a fad at this point. Are you talking about fan tranlators for VNs or for LNs because I cannot really say much on LNs. However, fan translations of VNs can be really good. Though, Fan-TLs are more of an art than science though, so arguing about translation quality is a bit pointless.

ehhhh, okay. I just didn't know how small polish would be then. Well, good luck anyway. (I kinda wish some studios would adopt a better editing pipeline.)

I am shaking right now. I donated $50 to their GoFundMe. I wish I could’ve donated more. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-kyoani-heal

I mean, how? What I consider niche market, truly is EVNs. Because nobody knows what they are. But in Japan, people know what visual novels are. Especially if they are anime fans or something like that. However, most people, even other otaku in America don’t even know about western visual novels. I don’t understand how JVNs are still niche, when Unlimited Blade Works had a movie. Then a damn good anime series by a reputable company. Then a movie series about what’s considered to the “best” route in fate stay night. If you wanna say F/SN is an outlier, cool, fine, I know. But I don’t understand is how can an entire medium remain niche when people are pouring money into it. If it was niche than fuck, Subahibi wouldn’t had that amazing kickstarter. “But subahibi bombed initially, Happiness+” Yeah because that whole VN was advant garde shit. Don Qxionte was not profitable, but that did not stop literary scholars from considering it one of the best novels of the western world. How the fuck does a JVN that bombed horribly in 2010 in japan amassed a kickstarer of over $100,000 in a few months for a English release? I’ve seen American indie games get funded for less. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/frontwing/a-wonderful-welcome-for-visual-novel-wonderful-eve My point here is that JVNs aren’t niche compared to EVNs. Now, Mahoyo is different. I wouldn’t even use that as an example if I were you. Because A. It’s not that well known even amongst nasuverse fans like tsukihime. B. Type-Moon usually doesn’t localize their VNs in America like some companies do with Sekai or moenovel C. The fan translation group underwent burnout immediately upon taking it up. I talked to Herkz about it, but like I told @Plk_Lesiak, translation isn’t usually done by one person. You need a team to divide labor. But before that, how did TM make their money to launch F/SN in the first place? Oh yeah Tsukihime. Unless you have data that JVNs have been declining over the years, you’re pushing the cart before the horse.

Last time I checked, niche markets don’t get production for full movie series. Furthermore, less niche is always better at what point does it stop being niche. It’s been increasingly less and less niche over the years. I fail to see your point here.

How many developers actually know Thai. The southeastern language. Watercress is actively looking for people who can translate in that very obscure language. And most EVNs are like way less than an hour long. Your argument will make more sense if someone was asking you to translate like ever17 for 500 bucks or the higurashi for $1000. Eventually all your hours you put into it will be below minimum wage. However, those visual novels have a huge following. It all depends, I’m surprised you haven’t even addressed the fact you could just go to the damn publishers. The funny thing is about this is that you won’t spend like 100 hours on a really short Japanese visual novel. And most often than not you will be on a team so It won’t be like just you cracking in all of these hours by your self. Ehhhhhhh...... I don’t know what developers you’ve been talking to but my friends surely don’t think this will be full time. In fact, I don’t know any studio aside from maybe top hat who would prioritize profit above anything else and their development cycle. Many studios are kind of like fan groups who decided maybe we should start making VNs ourselves because it’s fun. This is really fatalistic. I don’t know any developer that would downplay translation over editing. It’s usually the other way around like our users have pointed out earlier in the thread.

Well, I don’t know if they are polish only readers though. I can only imagine that. Unless most poles already speak damn good English already.

Damn dude. How is it gross? The idea of having high-quality prose is very important. Is it more important than making translations? Ummmm no, do you know remember my previous rant about the purity spiral of translators who are waayyy too pedantic about shit. https://forums.fuwanovel.net/topic/21633-if-you’re-a-fan-translator-thank-you I love how you are looking for profit in an industry that is virtually broke. If one polish dude comes to you and says “thank you @Plk_Lesiak for translating Saya” or something smaller then that should be enough, right? You made it possible for someone to enjoy a VN. You literally one of the people I look up to because you actively making visual novels popular in the west. We’re fans here. Not business people. We’re here because we love the medium. Plus, if you really wanted to make some cash. Just learn how to code like me. Be a scripter or an artist so you can offer commissions for devs. I only know ONE paid editor, and he’s been doing this for free since 2014 and recently started being paid at 0.06 cents a word. Maybe you can go up one those publishers like Sekai Project, Moenovel, etc. They always need translator and they will pay better than what I and many other EVN devs can offer you. I mean how to companies become popular in the first place. You’re downplaying the success of Clannad, MuvLuv, Steins;Gate, Ever17, Eden, Higurashi, etc. I know most of us are jaded but come on. How can people expect VNs to stay niche? That does not make any since. At least you’re being honest here. Most people are a lot more certain about the so-called demise of the medium especially from r/vns. But what’s your data? How do you know that? I came from VN conference 2019 and saw data rising regarding the popularity of mobile-first visual novels. Kickstarters for EVNs have grown significantly since 2014. @BunnyAdvocate Isn’t there any data regarding the popularity of VNs over time to westerners? Because if you’re right @Infernoplex, then come five to ten years time. Fuwanovel would a desert. The VN publishers would be broke. Watercress and Nachi wouldn’t exist anymore.

I feel like my studio director would disagree completely, because mainly I got into VNs because of fan translations. Editing to us, EVN devs is not that important as translating because you literally open up a new market when you do. When people don’t read the EVN, that’s more a marketing issue, than anything else. If the otaku community is big enough, then translation is worthwhile, because do you not know how amazing it would be to get someone into this medium because they read Fate/Stay Night or Ever17 in polish and fell in love instantly. Rant time. It’s been a while since I did a good rant. *cracks kunckles* *cracks neck* Every EVN dev worth their grain of salt would disagree with that. You know JVNs make bank right in Japan and Oceania as well. EVNs aren’t even remotely popular at all even among other otaku. But it’s pretty common nowadays to have a JVN associated with an anime kinda like light novels and fuck, I don’t even know anyone who reads light novels. I think JVNs are more popular than light novels, but how many light novel adaptations we’ve had since SAO. The weird thing about all of this, is back in the day, people said same thing about anime. Back when Funsubbing was really rare, I mean you had to wait years before titles would come to America via VHS. Nowadays, there’s anime adaption of a profitable live action movie by James Cameron. How the hell did the niche market of animation known as anime reach such levels of popularity? My mom literally told me she liked Alita when I was watching the movie on the plane yesterday. My 70 year old my actually likes this anime adaptation. That could not have happened if anime remained stuck without people actively translating it and helping the medium grow over the years. Heaven’s feel is a movie. A MOVIE ADAPTATION OF VN. How in the world can something like this stay niche forever when the anime industry is creatively bankrupt enough to try giving adaptions to long winded visual novels?

How’s the otaku community over there in Poland then?

I feel a bit shafted that you didn’t mention me. @Plk_Lesiak, but seriously though, what’s your native tongue? Because you should be a translator. Hell, I could set you up at the one of few studios I work at. Or I can hire you myself to “edit” my VN into your native tongue. Of course, you have to familiar with Renpy and if you’re offering your services for free, I think translating a small kinetic VN is a great start. But if you’re heart is dead set on editing vs translating, then well, it’s get complicated. You see, I had an editor because it can get really murky when you’re charge of vision for MY VN. I don’t wanna sound mean, but whenever I hire an editor, it’s largely for proofreading. No story edits. No style edits. But..... we’re reaching a point in the medium where prose should matter more. Meaning that an author, who puts a comma, in a particular place, is doing so, with intent. Non natives may not get that because the English you learn is “standard” meaning that grammatical mistakes are always a problem but you’re a smart person you would now if a character is doing a particular dialect or this broken run-on sentence without a any punctuation is a James Joyce reference For some larger EVN studios, writers just come up with stuff and the editor is in charge of voice. I am not the biggest fan of that. But in a studio of 20+ people, you kinda need to have a voice that unifies everything. I am surprised that no one else has mentioned this. I just don’t like sending over my voice and then comes back all different.

You’re looking for a dev? *raises head* I’m Happiness+, nice to meet you. I agree with @Plk_Lesiak, I am the resident dev around these parts. Maybe I am wrong on that. However, Fuwa is more for the fandom associated with VNs. Not really creating VNs. You will have better luck on Lemma or the devtalk discord. https://discord.gg/KhxwFxb https://twitter.com/Happine27386045

Hello there. I hope you enjoy the community.

Air. I dropped it after five minutes. The reasoning being is that I wasn't sure if I would like it over the anime.

@Plk_Lesiak I didn’t even see your response until now. Well since the VN is done, I can tell you everything. It was largely Wolf’s idea our studio director. I didn’t contribute much to the design of her character. The idea of Cheshire was to be a memento. I wanted a memento of Ji-Min like a museum of memories kinda thing, and someone brought up an avatar like Budapest from Watercress’s previous VN Palinarus. But, if you were expecting some meaning behind the story, sorry, the story doesn’t have any meaning outside of Grief. Personally, I don’t like writing stories without an arc or resolution, but the goal of “This was for you”, was for the reader to experience that grief has no resolution or arc, or any motif on it’s own. In your review, you brought up that you didn’t like the interactions with Cheshire and her twist. I agree with your criticism, however, giving her some poetic meaning seemed to antithetical to the whole theme of This Was For You. I thought about it too when we in our writing meeting, because I wanted the relationship to a bit more pronounced with flashbacks of Ji-Min or something however, the goal was for the relationship to be exclusively online. The characters just knew each other online and used Cheshire as a joke. In fact Cheshire is the joke, she was created by Ji-Min to troll MC. That’s why Cheshire is so damn annoying. She was designed for MC not to like her. Even giving her sentience, would’ve taken away from the whole grief theme we were going for. Honestly, our VN has no story. It’s the MC griefing for 30 minutes. Our goal was for the reader to experience that feeling of lost and not be so captured in a narrative arc. That’s why MC has no gender, no identity, etc, they are a self-insert. Imagine if you were there. It’s funny because as soon as I joined the studio in February, I was like “are going to make another depression simulator?” Everyone laughed on the Discord voice chat. Because This was for you is the quintessential Watercress experience. It’s our most polished VN to date. I contributed 25% of the writing. I did the audio splicing work lol. I did some of the GUI work. So yeah. Is that why you recommend it vs highly recommended it?

Finally. DO A FULL REVIEW ON OUR VN! @Plk_Lesiak

I heard about it, but after visiting their twitter I still don’t know much about it. What was it?

Welcome back

Do you have a discord? You might be able find someone here. https://discord.gg/VzM6DeQ

I’ve been searching for shirts and stuff that have my favorite characters from Subahibi, Kara No Shoujo, and Saya no Uta. I found posters for the last two, but I cannot find any merch for subahibi. I know those sites exist but I cannot get over the language barrier, since I am an English only reader. Any help here?

https://watercress.itch.io/this-was-for-you

So this isn’t the one I am making for the summer. This is one that was created by my employer, Watercress, for NaNoReNo. https://watercress.itch.io/this-was-for-you Let me know what you think, it’s really short at 8k words. Be honest with me, I would love to hear all your feedback. I did the writing and GUI programming.

Shit. Man. Why do you have to make me cry? I will give you something special. Just wait after March, you're going to get something real special when I am done with my first NaNoReNo VN.

Holy moly. Those are the kind of questions I wanted to ask you lolz. Honestly, I think a VN that can garner some universality like a novel can. It depends on the target audience. I know shounen anime fans would enjoy something like F/SN because of all the action. Mystery and Sci-fans would love Steins;gate. It's hard to say without an example to work with, like for Colorless, we're making an EVN right now. But the debate right now is who gonna read an EVN moege essentially. The specific elements that I know will guarantee appeal is.....furry LGBTIQ hentai. It may sound like I am joking but it's true... furries for some reason make so much money and they pay so well. Hentai sells. We can get political points if we add LGBTIQ characters to appeal to such an underappreciated market. Other that, going that far. I have one other crazy idea to make a VN popular enough to appeal outside of those niche markets. Add some relevant social commentary. Put on mobile. The problem is that many VNs still talor to anime-minded people with the aesthetics and all. But personally, we need to be more experimental. Write a VN in past tense. Write a VN in third person limited. Marketing is very important as a hype machine. Many studios rely on social media since otaku don't see the day of light. However, I think outside of using SEO and word of mouth via social media, we could just create a public image of ourselves by going to various otaku conventions. Setting up a booth and creating a press kit is a wonderful idea, even though, it's really expensive and not many people have the irl social skills to pull it off. Should new developers like yourself invest resources in marketing, publicity, and community engagement, or should they leave that to publishers and sales platforms and focus on making games? It depends on the studio and the resources they have. The weird thing about outside marketing firms is that, you have to explain what the hell a visual novel is. And as I learned from my thesis on this last summer, defining that is hard, like how do you explain to someone who has no idea what anime is or a vague idea of what anime is, what a visual novel supposed to be? Most people will think, graphic novel like Watchmen, and no........ it's not lolz. However, despite that, I think it's worthwhile to go through that struggle because that's how we break this damn barrier. We have to do that. We are creating a new damn genre of entertainment. Of course it's going to be hard, I wonder how hard it was for people to explain what a movie was about a hundred years ago. Or a book thousands of years ago. While otaku can market their own VN, I would recommend they should budget enough to have a normie marketing team handle that for them so they can reach other normie people. Because otaku only market to other otaku. I feel like the questions are going to get even harder from here on out. BRING IT ON!!!!