ChuSinGura 46+1 Kickstarter comes out of nowhere (with added Engrish and sketchyness)

[Deep Blue]

I like how they created the campaign (atrocious one, on the verge of being a fraud or a joke of a troll) and then they just disappeared xD are people actually this dumb running business this days? How is it even possible :/

This vn has so much potential, just by doing the minimum they can manage to fund it but they are not even doing that, again this is if we assume they are not a fraud or trolling which I want to believe because I refuse to believe this is a serious campaign 

[VirginSmasher]

3 hours ago, Deep Blue said:

I like how they created the campaign (atrocious one, on the verge of being a fraud or a joke of a troll) and then they just disappeared xD are people actually this dumb running business this days? How is it even possible :/

This vn has so much potential, just by doing the minimum they can manage to fund it but they are not even doing that, again this is if we assume they are not a fraud or trolling which I want to believe because I refuse to believe this is a serious campaign 

These guys take laziness to a whole other level. They set up the Kickstarter and then abandon it in hopes it will get funded. That's a pretty stupid plan. Also, I believe this company is serious. They just don't know what to do with Kickstarters and are an overall lazy company who will put up Kickstarters and see which ones will get funded while not caring if they don't. This Kickstarter is gonna fail and I'm happy about it. This game deserves to be brought over, but by a company that actually gives a shit.

[EdwardWongHPTIV]

24 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

These guys take laziness to a whole other level. They set up the Kickstarter and then abandon it in hopes it will get funded. That's a pretty stupid plan. Also, I believe this company is serious. They just don't know what to do with Kickstarters and are an overall lazy company who will put up Kickstarters and see which ones will get funded while not caring if they don't. This Kickstarter is gonna fail and I'm happy about it. This game deserves to be brought over, but by a company that actually gives a shit.

They actually have done something! They posted a greenlight on steam. Seriously though they're going to get some serious negative reaction.

*edit* Actually they've updated the page quite a bit. I'm surprised. They've outlined the tiers and gotten rid of the otome bit at the end. They even mention Gloczus is doing the localization. Which is... yeah. Sill feels sketchy to me.

Edited March 14, 2016 by EdwardWongHPTIV

[Maxel]

Even if they would give everyone full-voiced version of the game in english for 10$(instead of 60$ right now) no one should pledge, they're ignoring all the users, since the beginning, and typos are not fixed. I'd prefer for this KS to not exist...

If u however want a "towl" then go on and pledge. Hopefully you hear from the CSG KS creators before campaign ends.

[Zenophilious]

5 hours ago, kingdomcome said:

When I thought of Mikandi I made the recommendation on the assumption they would also translate it.

They wouldn't relinquish a Kickstarter and TL job to another company, as much as I wish they would.  This is them trying to break into the TL scene, as laughable an attempt it may be.  It'd be ludicrous for them to shoot themselves in the foot like that.

[Nosebleed]

If this actually gets funded, I'm going to start a Kickstarter to localize Dies Irae and then put everything on Google TL because who cares about a presentable translation amirite.

Seriously though the fact this has already raised over 5000 dollars is frightening. I doubt it can reach the goal, but it does show people really don't care for research as long as it has cute 2D girls. Dunno if I should be surprised or not.

Note I'm not saying the game is bad, it definitely does not look like it, but people should still be wary of terrible campaigns and not blindly fund them because "lol 2D boobs".

[VirginSmasher]

4 hours ago, EdwardWongHPTIV said:

They actually have done something! They posted a greenlight on steam. Seriously though they're going to get some serious negative reaction.

*edit* Actually they've updated the page quite a bit. I'm surprised. They've outlined the tiers and gotten rid of the otome bit at the end. They even mention Gloczus is doing the localization. Which is... yeah. Sill feels sketchy to me.

This Kickstarter has been sketchy since the beginning. I don't know why anybody is actually willing to fund this other than people who just looked at the girls and immediately funded.

3 hours ago, Zenophilious said:

They wouldn't relinquish a Kickstarter and TL job to another company, as much as I wish they would.  This is them trying to break into the TL scene, as laughable an attempt it may be.  It'd be ludicrous for them to shoot themselves in the foot like that.

Funny because they've already shot themselves in the foot with this Kickstarter and giving it up to another company would be the equivalent of shooting themselves in the head.

[EdwardWongHPTIV]

19 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

This Kickstarter has been sketchy since the beginning. I don't know why anybody is actually willing to fund this other than people who just looked at the girls and immediately funded.

Guess you didn't detect my initial sarcasm. That was my point. No matter how they dress it up now it's left a nasty taste. I was just surprised they even bothered after starting the KS like that. If they had just waited a few days and released it in it's semi-corrected form, hardly anyone would be the wiser.

[VirginSmasher]

Just now, EdwardWongHPTIV said:

Guess you didn't detect my initial sarcasm. That was my point. No matter how they dress it up now it's left a nasty taste. I was just surprised they even bothered after starting the KS like that. If they had just waited a few days and released it in it's semi-corrected form, hardly anyone would be the wiser.

There's still the bad tiers and a lot is still wrong with the Kickstarter so it probably would've made more money if it hadn't have been released the day it was, but it would not have made its goal. It's way too high for a VN without a giant fanbase like Grisaia, Clannad, and Muv Luv do.

[EdwardWongHPTIV]

8 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

There's still the bad tiers and a lot is still wrong with the Kickstarter so it probably would've made more money if it hadn't have been released the day it was, but it would not have made its goal. It's way too high for a VN without a giant fanbase like Grisaia, Clannad, and Muv Luv do.

Yeah, according to their chart I saw earlier only 50% of the money is going to localization and I believe there are 3 translators? They claim they'll have it done in 6 months. So roughly speaking they are paying each one 35k for the job (or 70k FT salaried). I'm not sure how that compares to other projects but I'm guessing that's on the high side. Still the KS goal is steep comparatively and I have no idea the size of the script.

[VirginSmasher]

32 minutes ago, EdwardWongHPTIV said:

Yeah, according to their chart I saw earlier only 50% of the money is going to localization and I believe there are 3 translators? They claim they'll have it done in 6 months. So roughly speaking they are paying each one 35k for the job (or 70k FT salaried). I'm not sure how that compares to other projects but I'm guessing that's on the high side. Still the KS goal is steep comparatively and I have no idea the size of the script.

The VN is over 50 hours long according to VNDB so I'm sure there is a massive script.

[Zenophilious]

1 hour ago, VirginSmasher said:

Funny because they've already shot themselves in the foot with this Kickstarter and giving it up to another company would be the equivalent of shooting themselves in the head.

I'm sure they have (and actually thought that before I posted it  lol), but I still doubt they're going to hand it off to someone.  If that happened, inre will have backed out of whatever they agreed to (if indeed they did agree to anything and this campaign is actually legit) and offered it to someone else.  It's in their best interest to stick to this attempt until the end, no matter how pathetic and ill thought-out it was.  I doubt they'd just give up.

Here's their Greenlight page.  Please vote no.

[VirginSmasher]

6 minutes ago, Zenophilious said:

I'm sure they have (and actually thought that before I posted it  lol), but I still doubt they're going to hand it off to someone.  If that happened, inre will have backed out of whatever they agreed to (if indeed they did agree to anything and this campaign is actually legit) and offered it to someone else.  It's in their best interest to stick to this attempt until the end, no matter how pathetic and ill thought-out it was.  I doubt they'd just give up.

That's my thought process as well. It'd be stupid to back out. This is Inre's attempt to get their VNs out to the West after all. It's just a shame that they picked the company that they did to do it because it was a massive mistake. Inre should've seen the signs after they saw Beastmaster failing.

[Zenophilious]

No idea why they picked Gloczus in the first place.  They have no experience translating anything, and only seem to have handled porting stuff to phones.  That's pretty damn inept for what the job of translating pretty much any VN requires, much less one that has ancient Japanese in it.

[VirginSmasher]

Just now, Zenophilious said:

No idea why they picked Gloczus in the first place.  They have no experience translating anything, and only seem to have handled porting stuff to phones.  That's pretty damn inept for what the job of translating pretty much any VN requires, much less one that has ancient Japanese in it.

This was more of a bad decision on Inre's part. They should've checked more about the reputable translation companies like MangaGamer, JAST (usually), even Sekai Project would do a better job than those hacks.

[Decay]

1 hour ago, EdwardWongHPTIV said:

Yeah, according to their chart I saw earlier only 50% of the money is going to localization and I believe there are 3 translators? They claim they'll have it done in 6 months. So roughly speaking they are paying each one 35k for the job (or 70k FT salaried). I'm not sure how that compares to other projects but I'm guessing that's on the high side. Still the KS goal is steep comparatively and I have no idea the size of the script.

There are also editors, proofreaders, testers, programming/scripting, project management and other overhead costs, etc. 

[Toranth]

1 hour ago, VirginSmasher said:

The VN is over 50 hours long according to VNDB so I'm sure there is a massive script.

Worse than that normally sounds - there is no common route.  Each of the chapters is entirely new text.  On top of that, it's all Japanese history all over the place.  Notice how the characters are introduced with the "Estate: xxx Koku" line?  That's rather important, but how many Westerners do you think are going to understand it?

Translating this would be a Grade-A [female dog] of an effort to begin with.  6 months on the cheap?  No way in hell.

[VirginSmasher]

1 minute ago, Toranth said:

Worse than that normally sounds - there is no common route.  Each of the five chapters is entirely new text.  On top of that, it's all Japanese history all over the place.  Notice how the characters are introduced with the "Estate: xxx Koku" line?  That's rather important, but how many Westerners do you think are going to understand it?

Translating this would be a Grade-A [female dog] of an effort to begin with.  6 months on the cheap?  No way in hell.

I'd imagine even for a translator like Gare, it would take him more than 6 months to do. Over 50 hours of text to translate won't be finished in 6 months no matter how much or how fast you translate.

[Decay]

50 hours of text can be translated in 6 months by 3 dedicated translators. That's not really an issue at all. I mean, Grisaia was translated by Koestl by himself in less than 18 months while he was still in college.

[EdwardWongHPTIV]

2 hours ago, Decay said:

There are also editors, proofreaders, testers, programming/scripting, project management and other overhead costs, etc. 

Well, yeah. I was trying to keep it simple. Management, overhead, and programming should be in the other categories. Well in theory, but their budget only accounts 10% for "development". You're right though. The devil is in the details and it seems like a lot of people only look at the big picture - the goal of a KS versus other KS in the same genre. 210k is a drop in the bucket for a normal business with several FT employees. In retrospect I'm surprised higher goals like this aren't the norm. I guess it also depends if the KS is the only source of funds.

All I know is that a great many OELVNs seem to under appreciate the costs involved in making a VN. Or try to low ball things by using talent around the world. Only to be shocked that they either weren't that dependable or unwilling to do additional work for peanuts. That's just my wild arse guesses/theory though.

44 minutes ago, Toranth said:

Worse than that normally sounds - there is no common route.  Each of the chapters is entirely new text.  On top of that, it's all Japanese history all over the place.  Notice how the characters are introduced with the "Estate: xxx Koku" line?  That's rather important, but how many Westerners do you think are going to understand it?

Translating this would be a Grade-A [female dog] of an effort to begin with.  6 months on the cheap?  No way in hell.

So they'll do a hack job and strip out anything that is even remotely hard to translate and still take over a year? Time to play the crowdfunding shell game. Kidding.

[Fred the Barber]

8 minutes ago, EdwardWongHPTIV said:

210k is a drop in the bucket for a normal business with several FT employees. In retrospect I'm surprised higher goals like this aren't the norm. I guess it also depends if the KS is the only source of funds.

Totally with you on this point. I think there are a variety of ways these localization teams scrape by on such low funding. Here are a few things which I think are true and which would contribute to that substantially:

• The wages being paid are seemingly quite low (not minimum wage, I'm sure, but probably not more than, say, double minimum wage) despite the high amount of domain knowledge required.
• Probably literally none of the people paid out of that Kickstarter money are full-time employees, thus saving on big costs like employee health insurance
• They likely have no physical office (or at least these people probably aren't in one), reducing some of the costs of "keeping the lights on"

It's definitely an astonishingly small sum of money when you consider that they're basically trying to operate a small business on it, though.

[EdwardWongHPTIV]

2 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

Totally with you on this point. I think there are a variety of ways these localization teams scrape by on such low funding. Here are a few things which I think are true and which would contribute to that substantially:

• The wages being paid are seemingly quite low (not minimum wage, I'm sure, but probably not more than, say, double minimum wage) despite the high amount of domain knowledge required.
• Probably literally none of the people paid out of that Kickstarter money are full-time employees, thus saving on big costs like employee health insurance
• They likely have no physical office (or at least these people probably aren't in one), reducing some of the costs of "keeping the lights on"

It's definitely an astonishingly small sum of money when you consider that they're basically trying to operate a small business on it, though.

Hmmm.. so basically the ideal translator is young, most likely in college or beginning the job search, and looking for work on the side for some pocket change. Yeah employee benefits and taxes add quite the overhead. Offices are so old school. Who needs em?

Why drive around when there's so many ways to handle things remotely? Well until AR becomes ubiquitous I guess showing up in person is better than trying to walk people through things over the phone. Lets hold off on the robots and ROTM for now.

[VirginSmasher]

5 hours ago, Decay said:

50 hours of text can be translated in 6 months by 3 dedicated translators. That's not really an issue at all. I mean, Grisaia was translated by Koestl by himself in less than 18 months while he was still in college.

Even if those translators are dedicated, I doubt that the translators this company hired would do a good job within 6 months.

[Maxel]

What the fuck... Getting first message after a week? Cool.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/57909428/chusingura46-1-a-visual-novel-with-moe-samurai-gir/posts/1518237

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/57909428/chusingura46-1-a-visual-novel-with-moe-samurai-gir/comments

I wanted another company to handle this localization... Not some shady guy from some shady JAPAN CONTENT b2g... 

They decided to relaunch the pathetic english translated Kickstarter... If they won't fix their english(aka. do the tiers etc. with translators help) and won't promote the game, and won't communicate with people....

Let's try to give them a second chance, even if it's shady as f***, and their first impression is already really bad. If they fix almost everything, we'll see, if not, they can go to hell.

[Arcadeotic]

I'm always hoping for the better, but eh, not really that optimistic.

We'll see, as always