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Sekai Project depends on crowdfunding entirely too much


douggle

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As the title suggests,  I seem to notice that Sekai Project is relying on kickstarter for what it seems just about every VN project they have, I dunno about you guys but I really have a problem with this, there is nothing wrong with using kickstarter for the independent VN or the one off project like Mighty Number 09 or Little Witch Academia, but I think that its getting a bit ridiculous, they have like 3 campaigns going and just announced another.... on top of the Clannad and Grisaia ones... according to kickstarter they have  8 created · 18 backed thats ridiculous.

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Kickstarter is a fine way to legally steal money. Even it things don't go all the way, they don't have to refund.

It's guaranteed money in the bank.

 

It's much harder to come up with a real plan when it comes to communication, advertising and business plans. Why would they go the hard way when people throw money at them ? And they don't even have to deliver. How awesome is that ?

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But you forget, Sekai Project aren't actually making the projects, indie companies are. These VN's would be up there regardless of if Sekai project was involved or not, all their doing is helping them get to a bigger market and investing a little into each project. 

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from my point of view that only works, because there´re viewed by people as some fresh & hip newcomer, who needs them fans backing them up abit. but as time goes by peoples thoughts on them might change, regarding overuse of kickstarter, not soo..uhm well done product policy (sortiment) & other stuff.

edit: guess he´s NOT talking about the smaller indie game kickstarters going on, more them ones from bigger announcements, like the one upcoming (rewrite?)

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Some of these kickstarters are like the Human Reignition Project where Sekai Project doesn't actually get the money, the devs do. They're just pitching in their name to help raise awareness. I dunno, Kickstarter is a pre-order platform where they can also back out if not enough people show support. I don't have any problems with their continued use of it, their customers obviously like it and will give them plenty of money. Yes, MangaGamer and JAST don't use it, but why should that mean SP shouldn't? That's MG and JAST's own foolishness for not taking advantage of that platform. Also...

 

Yeah its risky but, JAST and Mangagamer both manage to do fine without this, as I said theres nothing wrong with the 1 off kickstater, but to have so many created, and they announced on twitter yet another one. Its a poor strategy to take imo

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nah its been mentioned by dovac on their forum that they are going to announce one game frequently requested in their forum thread, thats why its possible the twitter post might be related to it

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Sekai Project is clever, they don't produce almost anything themselves, they're just retailers and advertisement for other devs and translators.

 

I remember seeing the creator of Starlight Vega in another forum asking for feedback way back when they first launched their kickstarter, and then a couple of weeks later I saw it featured on Sekai Project's recap video, and when I went to check info on Starlight Vega again I noticed the creators were now partnered with SP and SP was pretty much handling the publishing and needless to say after that the Kickstarter got funded.

 

Whether this is questionable or not is debateable, I think it's just a different way to approach the market. And a safer way too (a bit pushy for consumers, but safe nonetheless).

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Some of these kickstarters are like the Human Reignition Project where Sekai Project doesn't actually get the money, the devs do. They're just pitching in their name to help raise awareness. I dunno, Kickstarter is a pre-order platform where they can also back out if not enough people show support. I don't have any problems with their continued use of it, their customers obviously like it and will give them plenty of money. Yes, MangaGamer and JAST don't use it, but why should that mean SP shouldn't? That's MG and JAST's own foolishness for not taking advantage of that platform. Also...

 

Are you taking this tweet seriously? That's clearly a Simpsons reference/joke. They are probably going to do another kickstarter eventually but that wasn't an announcement of one. 

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It made sense at the beginning since they were just starting out and didn't have the funds to translate big projects. Now that they are finally starting to release things that were kickstarted they should start getting enough money to fund their own projects. Either through kickstarter or other means I don't really care as long as we get good localizations.

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If by "depend too much" you mean that the problem is a moral one and not a financially risky one—I don't see how the latter could be the case—then I entirely agree. Excuse my capitalist inclinations, but in an ideal system of business, the profits of a company should be proportional to how much customers are accurately expecting to get out of and thus pay for a product; if this proportion does not exist, then somebody, either the business or the customers (but most often the customers, of course) is being treated unfairly. JAST and Mangagamer get by on this. Kickstarter is a clever way to draw money from people without any guarantee of ultimately delivering the "supply" aspect of "demand and supply," an artifice on which South Park has a nice episode. Naturally, the inherent justification for this business behavior is that the customer is consenting to paying this money, as stated above ("blame the people who fund all their projects if anything"). I personally believe, however, that full consent requires full knowledge, and I see the Kickstarter funders as victims, not criminals, of this misbusiness, even if many of them are indeed stupid. In the United States, at least, I'm aware that the government (very occasionally :sleep:) cracks down on pseudo-science companies that advertise health supplements at exorbitant prices, which, in actuality, obviously benefit one's health in no manner, but customers who are unaware of this consent to purchasing them anyway. I do not deem those companies to be in the moral right.

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Are you guys saying that you don't like them bringing to us Grisaia + Clannad + probably more Key titles? I don't think that without KS it would be possible... Key's starting to see that it's worth to bring us some of their VNs.

Aww, but if the new "big" title will be Rewrite, I'll be damn sad... And it will be a bit hard to gather enoguh amount of money, because it's already out in english (good translated) and also because it's not the best of Key's titles...

I might kick some money if it'll be Little Busters or Angel Beats(for this one for sure) 

If it'll be Rewrite, then I guess Key just want to sell worse title which didn't had much success in JP... I'll say it again, Rewrite would make me so sad :(

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ITT

 

:salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:

 

 

Don't like it, don't fund it. Simple as that. Every project they have done has reached its goal. So whats the problem? All you say is that its a bit much. So what? If it works and it gets us novels, what does it matter. Give me a legitimate reason why they shouldn't be using KS as much. Otherwise, this just sounds like pointless bitching

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ITT

 

:salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:  :salt:

 

 

Don't like it, don't fund it. Simple as that. Every project they have done has reached its goal. So whats the problem? All you say is that its a bit much. So what? If it works and it gets us novels, what does it matter. Give me a legitimate reason why they shouldn't be using KS as much. Otherwise, this just sounds like pointless bitching

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If they kept on using Kickstarter and failed like every single time, then yeah, they should stop.

But they are still doing good with it, and people are still throwing money at them, so what's the problem?

And actually, what's wrong with using Kickstarter? It's not like it's some kind of illegal backdoor fund-raising or something.

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It's going to come back to bite them eventually if that's all they do.  You can't run a business venture based entirely on donations unless you're a nonprofit that operates entirely on cultivating donations through goodwill.  Sekai Project is a for-profit company, obviously.

 

I don't like how Kickstarter is being used recently, either.  I have nothing against Shenmue or the people making it, but they essentially turned the site into a pre-order retailer without admitting that's what they were doing.  We all know that Sekai can most likely afford to fund things themselves now, considering how popular the Sakura series is, for some reason.  I was hesitant to use Kickstarter in the first place, but if things continue like this, no Kickstarter project will see any money from me unless they can prove that they aren't just gauging interest, and the project won't be funded no matter what.  It goes against the very purpose of the site.  AAA publishers and developers using the site is moronic.

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It's going to come back to bite them eventually if that's all they do. You can't run a business venture based entirely on donations unless you're a nonprofit that operates entirely on cultivating donations through goodwill. Sekai Project is a for-profit company, obviously.

I don't like how Kickstarter is being used recently, either. I have nothing against Shenmue or the people making it, but they essentially turned the site into a pre-order retailer without admitting that's what they were doing. We all know that Sekai can most likely afford to fund things themselves now, considering how popular the Sakura series is, for some reason. I was hesitant to use Kickstarter in the first place, but if things continue like this, no Kickstarter project will see any money from me unless they can prove that they aren't just gauging interest, and the project won't be funded no matter what. It goes against the very purpose of the site. AAA publishers and developers using the site is moronic.

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