Jump to content

New VN localization company: MoeNovel


sanahtlig

  

83 members have voted

  1. 1. Will you buy MoeNovel's debut title, "If my Heart had Wings"

    • Yes
      10
    • No
      31
    • Maybe
      24
    • Depends if there is H or not
      18

This poll is closed to new votes


Recommended Posts

I read the first post and immediately went to watch the PV. Without even knowing that this VN had H-scenes, I did find the PV to be very appealing. Very nice art and story looks good.

The thing I'm trying to say is that a normal person who never heard of the original game wouldn't really care if the H-scenes were removed. The game (story + art) itself looks very good and that's what counts. He'll play through the game and reach a normal ending, that's it.

I then read the entire thread after that...LOL! So basiclly, you guys are saying that the removal of the H-scenes could alter the story and make it look bad? I mean there a tons of stories with no H-scenes that are very good xD Removing them will only make the endings more innocent-like. Stuff like "Happily ever after" is also good sometimes...Although I never heard of de-H-ing a game before.

I might be biaised because I'm a complete baka on VNs, but I'm saying this as a casual VN player.

The marketing & publicity aspect of the VN is a completely other sory tho...LOL

I'll give this game a shot without playing the Demo. It's only 35$ for crying out loud xD

The issue is that they picked a VN with a high amount of sexual content, to turn into an All Ages edition for localization. I think what most people here are concerned about is the fact that a lot of the censored scenes could very well be story building, or character development. So while I personally don't think H scenes are necessary in most VNs, the fact remains its in this one, and its a sizable amount that will be removed.

You do bring up a good point that a casual gamer, or a random guy might not even notice, but he/she may end up with a patched together story due to the removal of those scenes that results in less willingness to try more. Thats the main concern, at least from my end.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll just leave this here:

Stance on censorship: MoeNovel acknowledges that this is a censored release. The decision was made by the developers with the approval of all parties involved, and there are no plans for an 18+ release. No content was added to the Western release to replace the removed content. Furthermore, MoeNovel has stated they have no plans to release original all-ages titles in the West, which must mean that their goal is to make popular eroge more accessible to Westerners by removing the ero content.

Sexual humor will be removed.

These changes are based on new information from a fan that e-mailed customer support.

http://vndb.org/t4084#19

"Stance on censorship" was compiled in part using this information:

Although this strategy is deemed as disrespectful, we have no plans in

producing a visual novel in English without censorship at the moment.

We understand your concern regarding this matter' date=' and through there are no current plans to release English versions of All-Ages games, the same might not be said for the furture.[/quote']
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, they might as well not exist to me now smile.gif

I just hope they wont touch any of my FAVORITE companies xD

btw how about we cut any shooting and killing and any gun and war references from war movies? xD

I think that would work fine :)

Oh wait, that's called elementary school war history lesson :o

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, at least they are honest and actually respond to emails. It would totally suck to find that game was heavily censored after buying it.

But seriously, "lips touching" forbidden? Didn't they confuse ESRB guidelines with some puritan sect manual?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Their standpoint is understandable from the point of view of a business that does not want to be subjected to regulation for adult content; there is a lot of legal red tape surrounding that and the stigma of normative society around it is still strong. Those who want adult content and translation will have to DIY, which is not anything new --- the bulk of the work of translation is done already, if the desire is strong enough patches will be made.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

if the desire is strong enough patches will be made.

a question to professionals, how hard it is to get the scripts from these localized games (MG, JAST) and apply them to the Japanese uncut version?

Is it possible to make it so the cut lines remain untranslated (such as for example in Little Busters, if you use the EX installation and the English patch that doesn't have EX) or would it be much harder because they make sure its not possible (and change the structure or whatever for the commercial release)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^ Well, both of those options are illegal in some way, probably. It might be difficult to re-add scenes that have been cut as well unless the game gets a good hack. Conventional wisdom applies: keep it down low if possible, and if you get a C&D go underground. Shouldn't really be harder than that, and patches are practically impossible to stop once they get distributed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

keep it down low if possible, and if you get a C&D go underground. Shouldn't really be harder than that, and patches are practically impossible to stop once they get distributed.

well in this case you just hack it, release the patch and thats all, there is no time for them to even send C&D email xD You cant C&D something that is already released because there is no action to cease and desist :P

And once on the internet, forever on the internet.

I'm more like asking from a technical standpoint, if it is hard to do for someone like REtrans

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No what I mean is that most companies won't care if someone patches their english release to include things from the japanese original since that might lead to them buying the english version. For example Mangagamer probably doesn't mind the Kara no Shoujo voice patch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

a question to professionals, how hard it is to get the scripts from these localized games (MG, JAST) and apply them to the Japanese uncut version?

Apparently not that easy, or otherwise someone would've added the adult content back into Aselia the Eternal by now (by applying the scripts to the Special edition). I wouldn't get my hopes up about a fan release with adult content. How many Hirameki titles with the adult content added back in have you seen?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm more like asking from a technical standpoint, if it is hard to do for someone like REtrans

If the content is largely the same it should not be any more difficult than a regular extract/insert, although maybe more time-consuming if one or both engines aren't anything we've seen before. If there are large amounts of missing/added content then it becomes more difficult since it will be necessary to change the script execution in addition to the text. There hasn't been as much interest in doing so, compared with demand to translate an untranslated VN.

(Another possible factor is the willingness of the community to complain being far higher than the willingness to take action... we hope the new culture departs from that.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

a question to professionals, how hard it is to get the scripts from these localized games (MG, JAST) and apply them to the Japanese uncut version?

I'm planning to do this to Aselia, and, possibly, to KonoSora once I'm done with current projects. Complexity depends on how much they edited the game, but I believe typical fuzzy matching algo's should provide good enough results even if they move stuff around in different files as long as original jp lines are similar and context is similar.

As for legal consequences — its quite hard to do something beyond sending C&Ds (which can be safely ignored if no copyrighted stuff is hosted online) w/out criminal investigation, and translation alone does not constitute a crime under Russian laws (and US laws too, AFAIK. Translations w/out redistribution are "fair use").

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe distribution of unauthorized modifications (derivative works) is a breach of copyright under US law.

Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's "exclusive rights", such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the copyrighted work, spread the information contained within copyrighted works, or to make derivative works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe distribution of unauthorized modifications (derivative works) is a breach of copyright under US law.

http://en.wikipedia....ht_infringement

And that's why we are anonymous (not the group xD) and can do this stuff (well I can't I'm too noob of a hacker xD)

And also yes, it is breach of copyright and is illegal if you reproduce the work as your own and try to sell it (which you would not be if it was fan patch). And that's why there are really easy ways around and that's why warez still exists.

And even if you want to make money of breaking copyright, there are still possibilities.

Ive been little involved in the filehosting services if you remember the time when filesonic started and was really popular - the affiliate program was so good. The point was you didn't pay for the material itself, you paid for the membership on filesonic and they also had ads on the site which generated revenue. And it wasn't filesonic posting those files, it was "the user's responsibility" - anonymous user. And there was no way they could lose a lawsuit, as proven by for example rapidshare. FS closed because they didn't want to pay the law expenses (they just took all their dirty money and lived happily ever after, nobody could have been arrested), but rapidshare just solved it by blaming the copyright breach on someone else which was actually true and worked for them and they are happily sharing newest TV series, games, movies and music to this day. And rapidshare is huge and there was and still is lots of light on that website - yet it is still running.

So the point is some small patch for game is not really a problem and has no chance of working against the maker of the patch.

So no legal issues here I think.

And if you mean from moral standpoint - I don't think many people agree with current copyright anyway so to feel bed breaching it doesn't really mean anything to them. It certainly doesn't to me, not after what power it shows to have - referring to the latest Nintendo youtube incident and many many many others before.

Copyright has 1 purpose - to screw people over. So to feel bad about breaking it is like feel bad about murderer who was under influence or whatever.

The rule of the internet applies to this matter:

People want H release + other people are willing to work on it = people will get it, for free.

You might have different standpoint sanahtlig so this might turn into complicated discussion where even Aaeru will join xD So we might want to move it to the other topic tongue.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quite a conflict, huh?

My first reaction to this was it's definitely nice that there's a new company in the market, since we'll get more releases.

Cutting the H-scenes from a VN is not that rare. Even if there's no H I can still enjoy the story.

However, you can't cut H-scenes if the game is based on them, or if a game has a lot of them. In those cases the H is usually quite important for the development of the story or deepening the characters relationships.

Even if it helps with story development, sometimes you still can cut the H from a game- If they decided to cut the H-scenes from Kagetsu Tohya I wouldn't mind that much.

However, it would definitely be catastrophic if there was no H in Alicesoft games, like any of the Rance series, for example.

This game focus doesn't look like H. However, there are a lot of sex scenes in it, with a great number of H CGs, so I don't know if they should cut them. Personally, in this VN I think it's past the point where they can just brush complaints off and say: "Oh, H is not really important, so we decided to cut H-scenes in the hope of being more attractive to a new market, while still appealing to the other customers."

This title is not really a smart choice if they wanted to cut the H.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was simply responding to:

translation alone does not constitute a crime under Russian laws (and US laws too, AFAIK. Translations w/out redistribution are "fair use").

Yes, it is against US law if the company sends you a DMCA notice and you refuse to comply. Translation is fair use. Translation and distribution of said translation (with or without the actual game) is not. As soon as you share that translation with someone else (for free or for money), it's a breach of copyright. Whether the company will actually press charges, or whether you agree with such law is besides the point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, it is against US law if the company sends you a DMCA notice and you refuse to comply.

Not sure though if you can send DMCA notice through forum PM :o

Which again shows that if there is nowhere to send C&D or any other law complaint to, there can be no such thing.

And if you want to have a website, few years ago Russia was really god place to buy a hosting in as the providers didn't take down the websites that were against American copyright. And since RusAnon is from Russia, he has it even easier :) (unless Russia changed the law somehow).

And if they did, there is plenty of other countries to have a fan website and the files hosted in. Only thing they can do is make you disappear from google - which isn't that big of a deal if the website is not depending on traffic anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The issue is that they picked a VN with a high amount of sexual content, to turn into an All Ages edition for localization. I think what most people here are concerned about is the fact that a lot of the censored scenes could very well be story building, or character development. So while I personally don't think H scenes are necessary in most VNs, the fact remains its in this one, and its a sizable amount that will be removed.

You do bring up a good point that a casual gamer, or a random guy might not even notice, but he/she may end up with a patched together story due to the removal of those scenes that results in less willingness to try more. Thats the main concern, at least from my end.

I agree with everything you say, but how does one know if he gets a patched story or not if he didn't play the original? I see alot of hate but I'm pretty sure (but I may be wrong) that 80% of the people hating on it haven't even played the original...

People are already bashing the game before it gets out :(At least let the game come out first. If it's ''bad'', then it's bad but I'm giving the chance to let the game come out first xD

I just played the trial and everything seems okay, maybe some lines are iffy but for now it looks good :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Years ago, back when I'd played a fair number of English VNs but didn't have the sort of "perspective" I have now...I bought Day of Love by Hirameki. I only realized recently that half of Hirameki's titles were censored eroge, exactly what MoeNovel is doing but even worse due to the limitations of DVD player format. Obviously at the time I didn't give it a second thought--and I can't imagine most of their target audience will have a more adverse reaction to the censorship than I did. I actually played eroge and was decently aware of the industry, after all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

"If my Heart had Wings" releases tomorrow. MoeNovel's Facebook page has over 16,000 likes.

A French blog interviewed MoeNovel's producer: http://projetsaya.fr/?page_id=308

Of note:

Saya : Why did you decided to cut off the ero content? Do you think it was not suited for the western market?

Fujisan : We decided that if we had sexual content it would not distribute (as easily).

The purpose of MoeNovel is to expand the presence of visual novels from Japan.

From our experience we understood that if we had the erotic content in the game we would be completely unable to deliver it to a wide and distant audience.

For the product to receive recognition, we thought it was important that we try to appeal to everyone. But because we cut the erotic content and replaced it with new content, parts of the novel were no longer consistent and so we had to fix and revise all of it. Of course we recorded new voices for those parts and made a higher degree of perfection for the visual novel.

Saya : What do you think you have to do to appeal to the western market?

Fujisan : Firstly, we need to try to expand the knowledge of its existence.

For example, we want 12 year old French girls who like anime to know about it as well, and make it so that there is no problem appealing it to these girls. Thus we will need to make it easy for such girls to tell their friends who also like the same type of anime.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12-year-old French girls? AHAHAHA. I highly doubt this would be the right VN if they are trying to appeal to 12-year-old girls.

Although, since they claim to have added new content to replace all the stuff they took out, I might be willing to give it another try.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...