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Opinions on VN companies' being close minded to the western market


VirginSmasher

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The title says it all. What are your guys' opinions on this issue? As we all know, some VN studios are still not willing to release their content in the West, which sucks to see in this day where translating companies are getting bigger and bigger. True, a lot of companies have opened up to this idea. Key is a major one, releasing Harmonia, their next VN release, in a simultaneous release in Japan and the West. This is the type of mindset I'd like to see from more VN companies, not to the extent of what Key are doing, but thinking of the west more. Let's hear your opinions

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Its certainly an annoyance for western VN readers who honestly wants to pay for the product, but is not allowed due to "Japanese sales only." The in house translation is what it is. Is it even going to be English, or will it come out "Engrish?" Only time will tell. Like you said, it isn´t necessary to take it quite that far, but seeing more titles lisenced and translated would be a great thing. Even something as small as opening for western IPs to purchase their games would be a step in the right direction. 

Sure there are "methods" to get past the IP blocks, but the fact that these "methods" have to be used just goes to show how little appriciation is shown for the western consumers of these VNs. 

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2016 is looking pretty good on this front, with nekopara vol.2 and harmonia coming out with both English and Japanese releases at the same time. Hope it continues that way forward. Like mentined above, the close minded attitude many companies has is annoying for us western scrubs :vinty:

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1 minute ago, Dergonu said:

2016 is looking pretty good on this front, with nekopara vol.2 and harmonia coming out with both English and Japanese releases at the same time. Hope it continues that way forward. Like mentined above, the close minded attitude many companies has is annoying for us western scrubs :vinty:

That is a reason why I want more companies, but also more exposure for your VN and your company if you bring your content over to the West.

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7 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

That is a reason why I want more companies, but also more exposure for your VN and your company if you bring your content over to the West.

Well it would mean their sales would increase, and it would cut down on pirating somewhat. It might not be the case for every western consumer, but I know that some would jump at the oportunity to legally buy the Japanese VNs if they had the chance. (Me being one of those people.)

So yeah it is rather strange... Why block out some parts of the world? It only means they get less profit for their game...

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4 hours ago, VirginSmasher said:

That is a reason why I want more companies, but also more exposure for your VN and your company if you bring your content over to the West.

technically they already have exposure for their game, the west will just bring less profit since its not very popular and many americans dont consider vn a game. this is why i give up translation on my vn for english, no one in america willing to look into the game without some kind of high PR. also yes the bad english just didnt help but more importantly the americans are never going to consider vn like they do with anime, thats a fact and unless the americans do vn won't get anywhere.

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the west is a completely different market. If they want to release in the west, they must make western titles. Internal thoughts aint gonna cut it. Americans want action. On top of that, the market does exist because comic/graphic novels have never done better at this current period of time.

A graphic novel is no large stretch from a visual novel so long as you make the same kind of stories. American stories are fast paced, omniscient perspective, and avoiding archetypes get you the biggest bang for your buck.

 

3 hours ago, firecat said:

technically they already have exposure for their game, the west will just bring less profit since its not very popular and many americans dont consider vn a game. this is why i give up translation on my vn for english, no one in america willing to look into the game without some kind of high PR. also yes the bad english just didnt help but more importantly the americans are never going to consider vn like they do with anime, thats a fact and unless the americans do vn won't get anywhere.

I have around 4k followers in my social media pages for my game. Mostly black or hispanic. All fans of Graphic Novels. I advertise my game as "A Pan-African Masterpiece of Gaming." Black Sands - Interactive Graphic Novel.

We know better but americans do not. Thus we must talk "american"

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1 hour ago, Narcosis said:

So, they don't want to localize their games on our market?

TIME TO LEARN JAPANESE

Quoted for truth. I have far better success with this. Do it and it will help you pick up Japanese chicks/guys at a bar too especially if you say it in a funny accent.

/real life confessions

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8 minutes ago, CeruleanGamer said:

Quoted for truth. I have far better success with this. Do it and it will help you pick up Japanese chicks/guys at a bar too especially if you say it in a funny accent.

/real life confessions

say it with a french accent. Man I crack up when I hear the french characters in Shokugeki

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6 hours ago, VirginSmasher said:

The title says it all. What are your guys' opinions on this issue? As we all know, some VN studios are still not willing to release their content in the West, which sucks to see in this day where translating companies are getting bigger and bigger. True, a lot of companies have opened up to this idea. Key is a major one, releasing Harmonia, their next VN release, in a simultaneous release in Japan and the West. This is the type of mindset I'd like to see from more VN companies, not to the extent of what Key are doing, but thinking of the west more. Let's hear your opinions

Well the thing is, Japanese people, and many Japanese companies by extension, are very xenophobic, you have no idea how surprised i was last year when I heard Mangagamer managed to snag up Alicesoft as a partner they've been anti-west for a long time. There are alot of companies that I would love to see start working with the West, light being one of them and GIGA being another, Minatosoft would also be a good one to see, so perhaps as Key and Age and even Keroq now starting to release Products here,maybe we will get some of the studios with the games I want in English... 

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2 hours ago, Narcosis said:

So, they don't want to localize their games on our market?

TIME TO LEARN JAPANESE

I wish I had realized this earlier like back in 2015 where I though VN companies would be happy to release their VNs in the west :amane:

 

53 minutes ago, douggle said:

Well the thing is, Japanese people, and many Japanese companies by extension, are very xenophobic, you have no idea how surprised i was last year when I heard Mangagamer managed to snag up Alicesoft as a partner they've been anti-west for a long time. There are alot of companies that I would love to see start working with the West, light being one of them and GIGA being another, Minatosoft would also be a good one to see, so perhaps as Key and Age and even Keroq now starting to release Products here,maybe we will get some of the studios with the games I want in English... 

This is just wishful thinking. I gave up on this mindset already. It's either we have to rely on fan translations or we have to learn Japanese as Narcosis said.

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4 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

I wish I had realized this earlier like back in 2015 where I though VN companies would be happy to release their VNs in the west :amane:

 

This is just wishful thinking. I gave up on this mindset already. It's either we have to rely on fan translations or we have to learn Japanese as Narcosis said.

I wouldn't go that far, especially as fan translations are on a decline. As far as learning Japanese myself, I am in my mid 30's it would be pretty tough for me to  just go and start learning another language, though I have tried in the past.

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9 minutes ago, douggle said:

I wouldn't go that far, especially as fan translations are on a decline. As far as learning Japanese myself, I am in my mid 30's it would be pretty tough for me to  just go and start learning another language, though I have tried in the past.

I'm glad I'm younger and have time to learn how to read Japanese :sachi:

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2 hours ago, Black Sands Entertainment said:

I have around 4k followers in my social media pages for my game. Mostly black or hispanic. All fans of Graphic Novels. I advertise my game as "A Pan-African Masterpiece of Gaming." Black Sands - Interactive Graphic Novel.

We know better but americans do not. Thus we must talk "american"

dude we haven't heard of your game in the hispanic side, you dont communicate with us or know where we are on the web. also the number of followers could be fake, youtubers have done done this with their channel, facebook as well, tumblr with hype train, blogger.com, etc you get the point.

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1 hour ago, douggle said:

I wouldn't go that far, especially as fan translations are on a decline. As far as learning Japanese myself, I am in my mid 30's it would be pretty tough for me to  just go and start learning another language, though I have tried in the past.

tell me about it, I started 3 months ago and im in my mid twenties.

Not that it cant be done ofc, but I feel ya, for being an anime fan for almost half my life im kinda embarrassed that I didnt get to it before.

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1 hour ago, douggle said:

I wouldn't go that far, especially as fan translations are on a decline. As far as learning Japanese myself, I am in my mid 30's it would be pretty tough for me to  just go and start learning another language, though I have tried in the past.

I find ways to multi-task. I have my podcast for learning Japanese whenever I jog. There's always a way to learn language and it's actually much more convenient nowadays because you can go learn it without ever stepping into a classroom. My friend said he used Rosetta Stone and managed to learn Vietnamese in less than a month! Vietnamese is one of the hardest languages to learn too because it stems from many southeast Asian languages. 

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58 minutes ago, firecat said:

dude we haven't heard of your game in the hispanic side, you dont communicate with us or know where we are on the web. also the number of followers could be fake, youtubers have done done this with their channel, facebook as well, tumblr with hype train, blogger.com, etc you get the point.

Oh I know. I built this up from the ground over 3 months. I would say I have roughly 800 unique commentators on instagram.

By all means tell me where the secret societies of hispanics are. Most of the hispanics that see my game are affiliated with blacks, I E nyc and la hispanics.

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23 minutes ago, CeruleanGamer said:

I find ways to multi-task. I have my podcast for learning Japanese whenever I jog. There's always a way to learn language and it's actually much more convenient nowadays because you can go learn it without ever stepping into a classroom. My friend said he used Rosetta Stone and managed to learn Vietnamese in less than a month! Vietnamese is one of the hardest languages to learn too because it stems from many southeast Asian languages. 

I mostly just follow Tae Kim's guide and I'm currently memorizing Hiragana completely. His guide is very helpful for learning and I'm making decent progress with it.

 

30 minutes ago, Kawasumi said:

tell me about it, I started 3 months ago and im in my mid twenties.

Not that it cant be done ofc, but I feel ya, for being an anime fan for almost half my life im kinda embarrassed that I didnt get to it before.

I'm the same way. I can't believe I only recently thought of learning Japanese. Then again, I never dived any deeper into VNs than the TLed ones :makina:

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20 minutes ago, Black Sands Entertainment said:

Oh I know. I built this up from the ground over 3 months. I would say I have roughly 800 unique commentators on instagram.

By all means tell me where the secret societies of hispanics are. Most of the hispanics that see my game are affiliated with blacks, I E nyc and la hispanics.

what is wrong with you... we don't look like them or talk like they do. some of us are white so we easy can blend in if trump wins and declares us useless, we also talk english i'm living example so don't think we don't know what you are talking about. NYC is filled with mostly cuban people, they are the ones who talk fast spanish with few cuba words mixed. la hispanics what? or do you mean L.A because even they don't know what your game is about, maybe you were talking to the american hispanics that have lived in america since birth who might forgotten spanish.

my evidence

http://www.hispanicresearch.com/index.php/hispanic-market-data/hispanic-market-profile-and-demographics/112-a-closer-look-at-the-largest-hispanic-city-new-york

NYC2.png

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2013/09/17/growing-up-speaking-only-english-young-latinos-making-effort-to-learn-spanish/

Quote

“We have research and studies that show corporal punishment was used in elementary schools to deter students from speaking their native Spanish language.”

 

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