Funnerific

The thing you don't see is that Downloading a game ≠ lost sale
It is the classic piracy argument everywhere and is confirmed truth.
The companies that realize that and stop fighting these pirates and focus on pleasing its customers will have much more success than a company sacrificing the satisfaction of paying customers to try to stop people from playing their game without paying.
 
And the luxury isn't the fact that you are able get a copy, the luxury is the feeling you were able to support developer you like and that you might help them make more games.
You cannot compare anything like this to physical goods, because in this case there is an unlimited supply and so everyone can have it. There already is enough stuff in the world that some people will NEVER be able to afford in their life, whether it is a car, expensive food, visiting certain locations, or even proper health care.
That's because there is limited supply of cars and so the more privileged people offer more money to take them first, there is limited supply of food, limited space in transport vehicles and hotels, limited amount of doctors able to provide health care. So people with more privileges can have more of those things already.
But when there is an unlimited supply where everyone is able to download a game and read it. It is not only for the privileged enough to afford it, it is for everyone.
 
You say that reading a VN is not required to live - I would rather say that reading a VN is not required to survive. But life is not about surviving, life is about living and the point of living is to live, not to survive.
You can be locked away, receive all the food and water that you need to survive, but would that really be a life? Many people live like that from day to day, just surviving in the world, hoping that one day it can change.
And VNs are a great way to make your life alive, they offer you information to absorb, they offer you emotions like love and passion, but even happiness and resolution after a sad moment, they can offer you closure to a story you can experience for yourself, a closure missing from your life of constant never ending survival.
And just like information, emotions are also required to live. You can survive without all of those but there is a reason human brain gets bored and that boredom can be so painful at times - at that point you are starving for those things, for information, for emotions. And even though you will not die, would life without those thins still be life?
I myself cannot imagine, because I was lucky enough to find all those things through the internet, where there isn't a limited number of those things and that's why everyone should get knowledge, everyone should get a book or VN to read and experience emotions. Everyone should also get a way to express their emotions and their thoughts, without being limited by government or whoever in their expression.
 
 
 
Lastly, piracy of games, movies, music and books has been here since the possibility of unlimited supply came - yet all those industries still work and shine. That is because piracy has no influence on the future of an industry, if the product is good, people will reward you - if money is what you want people will reward you with money. Because what else do people spend their spare money on - sure often times things they don't need, but most often things they like and enjoy.
These neo-pirates don't hoard the money in treasure rooms or on treasure islands, they use the money they have to support things they like, even though they cannot support as many things as other people can. Because money is worthless if you cannot use it. So it is not like these people have millions of dollars but are too evil to support a VN company. Once they get more money they will be able to support more. Or maybe they won't, maybe they will forget or never get the money to do so, they might just spread the world about it and make others buy it - or maybe they wont do even that. But in any of those cases there is nothing lost, the company is not deprived of anything, they still have the same amount of unlimited copies as they had before that happened.

This is going to be long so take a seat.
And don't you dare skimming through it or not reading any of the linked articles.

1. Misinterpretation of Fuwanovel mission statement

I will start with this as it should be simple to explain.
The portion of the mission statement that is used in the forum logo (and forum logo only) is just part of the whole mission.
As you can notice on the main website, the main logo there actually describes the website differently.

"Fan translated visual novels repository"
And if you browse the website and visit the mission statement section, you can see the mission is actually different from what the forum logo says, it is:
"Visual Novels for the World"
As even included with the logo of the section:


Following up in the mission statement, three main objectives are mentioned there

There are three main objectives, they are:
1) Make visual novels popular in the West.
2) Promote fan translation
3) Create a community that celebrates fan translation and fan sharing.


When the forums logo was made, only the first part of the mission statement was put there, because otherwise it would be too long. And many people misinterpret "West" as "America", where as it just states the general mission statement Visual Novels for the World but with different words.
West in that case means outside of Japan (where Visual Novels already exist), so basically the rest of the world.

What I am getting at is that nowhere on the whole website it states anything about promoting Localized copies, ensuring sales of Localized copies or celebrating success of Localization companies and commercial market.
Instead it focuses on fan translation, fan efforts, fan sharing, fan creations and fan improvements to the original version.

The only reason Fuwanovel doesn't share licensed versions was out of Aaeru's "good will".
She decided not to include those releases as a gesture of friendliness to the companies.
How those companies responded to this good will and attempts to build a friendly relationship is a different matter entirely.



2. Piracy vs Sharing

The whole word "Piracy" is just wrongly used since the beginning of the internet.
If you imagine piracy in a pirate movie, they invade a ship and deprive people off their possessions.
But in the case of games, movies, music - that is never the case. "Piracy" on the internet just stands for "Sharing", but people for some reason needed a word that sounds evil.
Instead of taking away possessions of someone else, you are being offered a shared copy of what someone already has. You are being offered a flower seed out of unlimited supply to grow your own flower and ultimately build your love for flowers to the point you want to support the people who originally imported these flowers from different parts of the world.


Aaeru and Fuwanovel was always for "Sharing" and as so you could say also for "Piracy" since they are the same thing.

The stuff about flower seeds and building love for flowers is much better explained in the "Spreading culture does not decrease supporters. It increases it." part of fuwanovel About section.
Please read the whole article if you haven't already done so.

You can notice there the part of why true fans pay money.



"Your labour IS the scarcity not the copies, for it cannot be pirated."

And are you going to argue that it doesn't work? Even the mentioned Steins;Gate release says exactly the opposite, many of the fuwanovel staff bought the copy even though we still direct people to the shared copy.
It is not because they had to buy it, they wanted to buy it, partially thanks to the fact that the game is popularized thanks to Fuwanovel.

The article mentioned above wasn't directed at localization companies however, it was mainly directed at Japanese developers and why Aaeru decided to share the copies with the improvements of additional language version.

You can even see similar examples here of people buying a Japanese version if they liked the fuwanovel copy. I can even say it for myself - I am struggling to make a living and pay rent, but after finishing Iroseka (shared torrented version), I became true fan of FAVORITE, It is one of my dreams that once I solve my situation and get some more money, I will not buy some expensive food or a car or any other pleasure like that, I will buy the games with all the stupidly overpriced little perks in the box, because I want the companies to make more of it.
But in the meanwhile, all I can really do is spread the word of how good the games are, link people to the Fuwanovel Hoshimemo page, praise Iroseka and make more people try to play it in Japanese now, make more people interested in translating it for even wider audience - because I know that I can find people who will fall in love with those games just like I have and maybe they will have the funds to afford the support to the companies. I was able to talk to a Japanese FAVORITE fan yesterday in pso2JP, uniting together we can get more and more fame to the company that deserves it, even though the Japanese person can buy the game with earnings from an hour or 2 of his time, and all I can do is spread the word. But I am willing to spread the word for many hours, writing reviews and comparisons, because that is all I can spare, my time.

If I haven't "pirated" the games in the first place, I would never be able to do this, I would never be able to extend the fandom because I would never be able to play the game.



3. Localized releases vs Fan TL releases

So as mentioned above, we are still trying to carry Aaeru's good will of not sharing localized copies, a good will even after all the things the companies have done to her in response. The good will might weaken in times of controversy we can sometimes see, but since we believe that evil should not be repaid by evil, that eye for an eye is just the wrong approach, we still continue this good will and are not sharing English licensed releases of games.

But there was never such will for Japanese releases, as with those, following the points mentioned in point 2 of this post, the creator will have more success in building fandom and true fans.

And as such we are sharing Japanese copy of Planetarian, a game Aaeru added to the website, improved by a collective fan effort many years ago. It is the same version a lot of you (Including me) were able to enjoy for free, thanks to the original fan effort and Fuwanovel sharing service. And the same version, translated out of passion for the game, shared between fans of Key to make their games even more popular.
Without this fan copy and all the other fan translated Key games, most of us would not be able to enjoy them. Without the effort of fan subbing, lot of people would not be able to enjoy Key anime.
And without that the English Key fandom would not become what it is today, a fandom that is able to organize a giant project like Key 15th Anniversary Letter.
A project that will even be collaborating with Sekai project to deliver their letter, signifying their dedication.
A project full of TRUE fans who will buy the official Sekai release even though they have probably played Planetarian several times.

And you are asking us to simply remove all that from existence so only you and other people in the past were so privileged to enjoy it for free and become a fan. That new people cannot join the club anymore, become a fan of a free version to later potentially evolve into a true fan supporting Key by buying figs and games all over the place, just like many Fuwanovel members do.

And the same goes for Grisaia, we are sharing a Japanese version of the game improved by fan translation, a version that was able to build pretty big fandom of its own. A favorite game of many thanks to the free fan translation and the free availability on Fuwanovel (among other places).
A fandom built thanks to a collaborative effort of not only translators and other people on the project, but also seeders on the torrents, page creators, article writers, even people just saying "I loved this game" in a public place - all those efforts however important or hard they might be created what Grisaia true fandom today is and as such tons of them will be able to afford the steam release, while others can keep sharing the word and original fan project for free, to get even more people on the board to be able to spend their money, time or effort or combination of those to further support their beloved game.


And in the end by removing the original fan translation patch you are not only depriving newcomers of things you were able to have yourself, depriving them of the sun that used to shine on you.
But you are also undermining all the efforts of the people trying to share and make the game as popular as possible with the means available to them. Some people have money to import the game from Japan or later buy the game on Steam, some people only have words.
But power of the words might in the end turn out more powerful than power of money. By sharing a VN and making more people be interested in it and talk about it, you are essentially trading words for words - effort and words of the original creator for the good words and effort of review writers or simply people telling their friends to play it. And in the end this trade will result in a profit for the creator, as more and more people will be interested in the words the creator has to say in their games, more and more people will want more of those words and become a true fan, patron and supporter, trading their currency for more words.


4. Fuwanovel as a negative profit website

Since this was already said, I will keep it short.
But Fuwanovel, unlike many other sharing websites such as nyaa, generates ZERO profit of any of this. Quite the opposite, running website and fees connected to this actually costs money and we rely on charity of people, paying their money to host and run the website, offering their seedbox so we can spread the game torrents as quickly as possible.
And even the times when many of us together collected the money to buy the forum software, with whatever we could put aside at that moment.
And still there is not a single ad on the website, not a single cent was generated on Fuwanovel and that is how it is going to remain.
Efforts of all the people working on maintaining the website, work put into coding and additional features, forum moderation, creating new pages for newly released projects, maintaining good upload speed by seeding - all those efforts are done with 0 compensation and 0 profit.
And as such everyone can expect everything on Fuwanovel be equal to everyone, whether you came a year ago or now, you will have access to the same games for the same equal price, 0.
That's because 0 is the ONLY price equal to everyone in the world and even though $1 might seem equal to all Americans, it is not equal to everyone in the world, only 0 is.

And as the mission statement goes, Visual Novels for the World.

From the creators of Onii-chan Sharing, we have a new Imouto game coming out in September
title translates as something like "Onii-chan, using your right hand is BANNED"
http://vndb.org/v15344
 
Will it be as good as oniichan sharing?  The girls on the cover sure look lovely~
 
 

Congratulations on speaking about a 'watered down' version of a game you've never even played. Firstly:



Name me one game where you could patch it to have full frontal 10 minute, multiple porn scenes. There is absolutely nothing like that on Steam. Are you seriously going to try and tell me that putting Grisaia on the biggest digital distrubution gaming software in the world won't increase sales at all? Grisaia isn't supposed to sell 100k, but it'll sell more on steam than anywhere else. That isn't something that can be argued. It has a better chance on steam than anywhere else. I hope you have some sort of history/sales records per time dedicated for the games on steam, because if you don't all you are doing is sprouting ignorance and bullshit.

Secondly, 'core community?' Are you the fucking core community now? If anything I've seen a 50/50~ ish split for people who are for all ages and against it, most of the time because people think that the game is just getting its H-scene's hacked off ala kono-sora. Which isn't true at all.

Grisaia's status as a game isn't harmed by the removal of H-scenes, and being on steam if anything only opens the avaliability of it. There is no harm done to Grisaia or to it's future sales if it goes on steam. So what is your argument here?

Oh look a realistic vn.

Smells of fascism. Look what happened to those guys.
That is awfully subjective. The world as it stands now has plenty of things a lot of people including me find interesting and beautiful, the fact that you can't see past the front page is nothing but your own flaw.
I, for one, find nature utterly boring, but there's a ton of people I'm sure would claim it's "only because I don't understand it"
Right, so a harmless girl who was obedient even before the change is now an enemy of a powerful creature? Apparently Saya is a monster in more ways than one, bringing suffering to people for no reason at all. She even raped her, does this count as xenophilia? Ah, right, this is only bad from a human's perspective, we're looking for a superior world here.

Hello I want to make VN or right said Kinect Novel in Ren'py engine but I don't understand script thing and I have tried to follow tutorial but that didn't work, so I hope somebody can Make Kinect Novel for me, which I explaine what Kinect Novel it's about and I can make the story plot and character which somebody can draw the character.
I have idea for good Kinect Novel so I want to make but I said, I don't understand much of Ren'py, so which somebody can make Kinect Novel for me in Ren'py I would be very happy and I wish I could pay for they so want to help me but I don't have any money but I want there to know at I would be most happy person for the help.

That's was all for now
Best regards Novel21

P.S. I hope it was alright I make my thread in General thread since I don't know where I shall post this and sorry for my bad English, I don't speak or write in English

Smells of fascism. Look what happened to those guys.
That is awfully subjective. The world as it stands now has plenty of things a lot of people including me find interesting and beautiful, the fact that you can't see past the front page is nothing but your own flaw.
I, for one, find nature utterly boring, but there's a ton of people I'm sure would claim it's "only because I don't understand it"
Right, so a harmless girl who was obedient even before the change is now an enemy of a powerful creature? Apparently Saya is a monster in more ways than one, bringing suffering to people for no reason at all. She even raped her, does this count as xenophilia? Ah, right, this is only bad from a human's perspective, we're looking for a superior world here.

http://vndb.org/v5281
 
I haven't seen any translated ones that do this for real, but you can always look in the depths of the nukige world.

In my experience it's easy to be friends with a girl if you hold romantic feelings for someone else.

>Hatoful Boyfrend will be playable at E3
Well, we've done it guys, VNs are popular in the west now. Time to pack Fuwa up and go home.

You know what? I feel like translating a super-cute moege. Oh, but I'm not a big fan of happy endings, so I will not translate them. Those are not a part of the "VN experience" anyway. No, it's just a form of fanservice, that drifts away from the experience actual VN was supposed to give. I can tell, I know things. It's only the very end of each route, no big deal, you'll get over 90% of the VN translated just fine. Praise me! ^^
 
Hmmm, on second thought, that won't do. Without endings, it kinda makes no sense. Oh, I know! I'll just edit it a bit. Nothing much, I'll only rewrite all endings to make the protagonist and heroines die in a very horrible and veeeeery gory way. This will be awesome! And that's certainly what the original author wanted to give to the readers - he was just forced to write generic, boring happy endings because of better sales. Yeah, that's exactly how this VN was supposed to be enjoyed (I can tell, I know things), and that makes my translation actually more faithful to the original than the original itself! Praise me more! ^^
Of course, I will still release it under it's original title, and call it a translation - after all, it's a perfect representation of the source material. ^^
 
On a less sarcastic note - there are writers who don't write ero, there are seiyuus who don't voice ero, there are artists who don't draw ero and there are companies which don't release ero. Nobody forces anyone to put H in their titles - authors do that themselves, because - like you said yourself - people want ero (-> better sales).
 
You can say whatever you want, but it doesn't change the fact that omitting any scenes in translation results in an incomplete translation at best. And if removed scenes happen to affect the rest of the story in any way, that results in a derivative work that's no longer a translation at all.

If you're a translator, you do just that - translate. Unless you're the author, you aren't really in a position to decide what should and shouldn't be there. The author put those H-scene there for a reason, whether because they thought they would genuinely add to the experience or just to sell more copies. Changing it in the author's stead is basically saying that you know what's best for the VN better than the author does.
 
Imagine the opposite - if a team picked up the translation of a completely all-ages VN, Clannad for example, found a couple of artists and added sloppily done H-scenes. Certainly, there's people who would thank them for it, but something tells me you would be one of the first people to be outraged about it.

They might simply make something different from the 3 routes in the VN and take some stuff out of each of them. I hope the plot won't just follow the Fate or UBW route though.

They might simply make something different from the 3 routes in the VN and take some stuff out of each of them. I hope the plot won't just follow the Fate or UBW route though.

Bell, Cocoro@Function!

食事にする、お風呂にする、それとも．．．わーたーし？
"The food, bath, or me" one always got me. I mean, it's not that common, but damn is it good when properly executed.

This is a list of good games to begin your journey into playing VNs in Japanese.  Inevitably, most of these games will be moege, charage, or nakige.  There is little to be done about this, as chuuni, sci-fi, and fantasy-action VNs have linguistic barriers that will be too much for someone still struggling with reading conversational Japanese.  In particular, the biggest barrier for someone who is used to dealing with Japanese that is 'spoken', rather than 'written' is the existence of literary Japanese.  The turns of phrase, different wording, etc. that an inexperienced reader might run into can either be seen as a learning experience or as pure confusion, depending on your level and state of mind.  As such, I am only putting down games that are readable for someone who understands spoken Japanese but is weaker in literary Japanese.  I will also put a 'second level' for those who are interested in challenging themselves a little but not too much.  This one will be for those who are willing to see if they can handle the easier action scenes, more difficult event descriptions, and the like.
 
 
First Level:
 
Maji Suki Marginal Skip
Suzunone Seven
Kamikaze Explorer
Tsuisou no Augment (this game is hilarious, and it is not a moege.  I recommend this to people who liked the atmosphere of Yume Miru Kusuri)
Akabanzu - Real na Sekai de Boku ga Kimi ni Dekiru Koto (this game has only minor scientific terms and jargon, mostly related to AI and MMO's.  Since it is distinctly possible you ran into these terms just watching anime, I went ahead and put this up.)
Chuning Lover (this game is just generally rofl)
Ichiban Janakya Dame Desu Ka (one of the few almost-pure comedy in my personal lineup)
Otomimi Infinity
Sakura Iro Quartet (this and the game above are for mimikko fetishists)
Ryuusei Kiseki (sci-fi moege, fairly easy.  Hardest parts are when the protag begins preaching about his hobby)
Shiawase Kazoku-bu
Sukimazakura to Uso no Machi (surrealist fantasy moege... mildly funny, interesting in general)
Toppara - Zashikiwarashi no Hanashi (use this as your crash course in youkai)
12/30/2014 edit
Love Revenge
Real Imouto ga Iru Ooizumi-kun no Baai
08/15/2016 Edit
Sakigake Generation
Minamijuujisei Renka
Primal Hearts
Primal Hearts 2
World Election
Koko Kara Natsu no Innocence
 
 
Second Level:
Irotoridori no Sekai (yeah, it is being translated, but it isn't done yet)
Konata yori Kanata Made (relatively low-difficulty action/event scenes, as well as being an excellent entry point into the utsuge genre)
Tiny Dungeon series (relatively normal conversational and event scenes, and the actions scenes are relatively low-difficulty, if somewhat fast-paced)
Draculius (similar to above in the action)
Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no (this game is probably one of the top three non-action/sci-fi/fantasy games I've played and it is harder than the games on the first level... but in exchange it is also a lot better, lol)
Hyper→Highspeed→Genius (relatively high difficulty to first level, but it is easier than the games I'd prefer to introduce people to, lol)
Koisuru Otome to Shugo no Tate - The Code Name is "Shield 9" (fanboys of fantranslations know this as one of the many dead projects)
Ore no Tsure wa Hitodenashi
Kaminoyu (this one and the one above are your source for non-human love in this stage, lol)
Otome ga Tsumugu, Koi no Canvas (higher difficulty than first level primarily due to the art terms)
Aete Mushisuru, Kimi to no Mirai
Akatsuki no Goei (first one only, later ones are too hard for Second Level)
Re: birth Colony Lost Azurite (this, Tiny Dungeon, and Draculius are probably the hardest games on this list)
Fake Azure Arcology (direct link to the game above, and ditto)
Kimi to Boku to Eden no Ringo
Koiiro Soramoyou (famous for certain VN fanboys)
Kimi to Boku to no Kishi no HIbi (recent release, fairly easy, good protag)
Lunaris Filia (a vampire charage, for those who want some of that)
Naka no Hito nado Inai!! Tokyo Hero Project
Dracu-riot
Sakura Tale
Tojita Sekai no Tori Colony (this game is pretty hilarious, especially if you insist on seeing all of the loop ends before getting to the true end)
Tsuki ni Yorisou, Otome no Sahou (similar to Koi no Canvas, in that the terms that will give you the most trouble are the technical ones - this time for sewing and clothing design)
12/30/2014 edit
Zannen na Oretachi no Seishun Jijou
Kimi no Tonari de Koishiteiru
Sekai wo Sukuu Dake no Kantan na Shigoto
Nanairo Reincarnation (borderline within this if you are familiar with the base concepts of youkai and ghosts as understood by the Japanese)
Sakigake Generation
 
 
 
 
Edit:  This will be the last in my series of lists.  I will edit them with additions occasionally, but I won't be making any new ones.  Have fun yall.

I think what he means is the first impression, before the story really gets going and you find out the truth. At least, that's how I see it.

This is what I don't get... there's a skip option that stops whenever something you haven't read before appears, so what's the problem with starting the game once again?

When  a story depicts reality so perfectly, people tend to get mad at it because usually the 2D world is for escapism not realism.
Though despite that I do still think School Days wasn't really good, I thought the characters were crap and the story wasn't interesting in the slighest since it's literally just about a boy letting his penis wreak havoc until he gets what he deserves. Sorry but I find this pointless. You can say it's about the human psyche and whatnot and how he's a stereotypical depiction of males in real life and why cheating is horrible but that doesn't take away the fact it's still incredibly uninteresting for a vn in my opinion. And we all already know these things that's why people don't actually have harems in real life (at least not in most countries, but let's not go there). 

I would say stick with the anime. It has cuter characters (the art style in the VN is a little outdated), better comedy (you know, Kyoto Animation and stuff) and a proper arc for Yukine (just a stump in the VN). You're only missing out on short stories for the mom&dad Furukawas.

I know right.
We have to protect this sanctuary of lolicons DFC fans