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Anime Central Speculation and Announcement Thread


Decay

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10 hours ago, Decay said:

Why? It's not like anyone has already paid for it or anything. What, exactly, is wrong with this?

Seriously? You see nothing questionable about this? I really regret backing Karara now as it seems quite obvious that was a huge mistake. Sekai Project is bloody going to indiegogo and kickstart every single one of their japanese vn products and while that decision is theirs to make I myself do not agree with it. The success of their karakara indiegogo campaign is obviously to blame for this. Had that failed they likely would not have decided to do this. I am a huge reader let's say that a book is announced for sale but a release is not scheduled immediately because the author needs to finish it. One year later after the author has announced they've finished it instead of releasing it they hold it hostage behind a kickstarter or indiegogo. You want this book you are going to have to back it. People have been waiting for this release and the publisher has been giving information on its progress for over a year and never mentioned of its release contingent on a campaign that may not even succeed now. Because this is what Sekai Project is doing. They are essentially saying the game will not be released unless you indiegogo/kickstarter campaign. It does not help that it comes down to expectations. The majority of their adult titles have not had a kickstarter/indiegogo campaign. People expected this to especially be true of a game announced a year ago that they've been showing english screenshots for, website of, information about its release 'coming soon', 66 percent translated, etc...when really that is a blatant lie because now the game is only coming if the indiegogo succeeds for it. 

Indiegogo is sketchy itself because of the way people collect money. If Sekai Project is doing this to determine limited releases of the title then my entire argument is out the window. Since I am not currently sure how it is going to be organized and can only speculate based on past releases via kickstarter/indiegogo my expectations may be subverted. If Sekai Project announces an indiegogo campaign but mentions that the game will be coming regardless of whether it succeeds (and essentially uses it as a glorified pre-order system with a way for people to get extra content and physical editions and that type of thing) then I would begrudgingly be okay with it. If however the game is contingent on a successful campaign to being released then yes I will call them out on it.

What if Mangagamer and Jast pulled this? I think people have gotten used to Sekai Project's bullshit antics that they think it doesn't matter. How will anything change though if we become accepting of conditions which are simply not something we as fans should expect. If Mangagamer and JAST tried this stunt people would outrage but because it's Sekai Project people have gotten used to it. That itself is dangerous thinking.

If Sekai Project wishes to take the kickstarter and indiegogo approach for all of their Japanese visual novels (and some OELVNs) then that's fine. Hell the title in question I have no real interest in to begin with however I can't make an exception just because it's a title I don't want. It's the indiegogo campaign, however, that is something I'm personally not comfortable with them doing and so I'm boycotting the purchase of their kickstarted/indiegogo attempts. I'm not saying I won't buy the games if they succeed in their campaigns I'm merely saying I will not be backing any of these campaigns. If this means some products don't get made then so be it. What difference will one person make? Probably nothing but at least I will hold true to my convictions on the topic if nothing else. 

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[nitpicky mode] I should probably clear up something. Holding someone hostage is when a person is taken from someone else, and held against their will until certain conditions are met. As a guarantee or blackmail or some such. If you want to apply it to an object, it would be something taken away from someone else and held until certain conditions are met.

Sekai haven’t taken anything away from anyone, the game isn’t the community’s to demand. ‘Hostage’ is one of those emotive words people misuse when they want to make someone’s actions seem worse than they are.[/nitpicky mode]

That being said, it’s only smart to be choosy over which kickstarter campaigns to support. But to be honest, I’m incredibly unmoved by the ‘I want this product but I won’t back it to get it. How dare they employ a business strategy I don’t agree with!’ argument. The world is full of products people may want but they are unable to obtain, for one reason or another. One more added to the list because of philosophical or moral differences isn’t going to make me cry great soppy tears for those who miss out.

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@kyrt I agree with you on various points. Although I am actually quite a fan of crowdfunding in general, I am easily bothered by companies which come to Kickstarter/Indiegogo multiple times. Even when it's a different project entirely, it just sets off some annoyance meter in my mind. When companies fail to meet their self-imposed release dates announced on crowdfunding campaigns it furthers my annoyance. I'm sure the same is true for some others here as most seem displeased whenever Sekai Project announces a new crowdfunding project. I myself stopped backing their campaigns but know that it's still pretty tempting at times from a visual novel collector perspective.

Since we're on the topic, I am going to share some general numbers on Sekai Project with regards to crowdfunding which I have been keeping an eye on for a few years now.

As of this moment, Sekai Project is the official publisher of 110 games. This includes their non-visual novel properties, indie releases, alongside crowdfunded and noncrowdfunded visual novels. Of this number, 42 have come to Kickstarter or Indiegogo (including the upcoming Ne no Kami). This includes many projects run by indie teams who had SP as a publisher from the start, gained them during the campaign period, or announced the publishing at some point after the campaign, as well as SP run projects.

Sekai Project themselves have run 11 video game crowdfunding campaigns (and 1 non-gaming project). Finally, SP have their name attached to 54 released games (which includes very hands-off indie publishing deals to direct translation/localization projects). 

Anyone feel free to do what you will with these numbers. If you'd like to take a look at the list I keep, here is a link

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1 minute ago, Rooke said:

[nitpicky mode] I should probably clear up something. Holding someone hostage is when a person is taken from someone else, and held against their will until certain conditions are met. As a guarantee or blackmail or some such. If you want to apply it to an object, it would be something taken away from someone else and held until certain conditions are met.

Sekai haven’t taken anything away from anyone, the game isn’t the community’s to demand. ‘Hostage’ is one of those emotive words people misuse when they want to make someone’s actions seem worse than they are.[/nitpicky mode]

That being said, it’s only smart to be choosy over which kickstarter campaigns to support. But to be honest, I’m incredibly unmoved by the ‘I want this product but I won’t back it to get it. How dare they employ a business strategy I don’t agree with!’ argument. The world is full of products people may want but they are unable to obtain, for one reason or another. One more added to the list because of philosophical or moral differences isn’t going to make me cry great soppy tears for those who miss out.

Yeah I'm well aware that hostage is not the proper word I was intending when I wrote it and have such changed it as for the life of me I can't remember the proper wordage that was supposed to be used in place of that one. I also want to say it was leveraging but even that sounds off. 

To be completely honest Rooke it probably has to do with the relatively newness attributed to this type of business strategy and I'm simply old fashioned and not exactly quick to accept this change which I admit I do see coming and also admit I'm not happy about it. I'm not used to a company essentially preventing a release of something if it doesn't get enough sales. Remember indiegogo they collect all the money regardless of if the campaign succeeds. Like I also said though if they plan to use it as a pre-order service of sorts then I have less of a problem with it. Can you image if Hollywood or a big game company were to say You're only going to get the next "such and such" if you kickstart/indiegogo the product. There would be an outcry. People give Sekai Project a pass because they are a smaller company but considering they are one of the Big 3 for visual novel companies there is a certain expectation people have of companies in leadership positions. I personally don't care about the game as I mentioned and if I did want it I would just wait. I've had a multitude of problems with kickstarter (specifically with Sekai Project) so this just was the final nail in the proverbial coffin for me personally as far as supporting this business strategy goes. As I said I still plan to occasionally buy games they release I'm just not going to be one of the people to back them. This if anything helps me rather than hurts me as my decision to not back means I can buy games for the price they were meant to be sold as or different products altogether rather than spending more money to try and help a game get released. I simply don't care anymore. If a game gets released and funded great if I have an interest in it I'll purchase it. If not, then that's that I can spend my money elsewhere. Regardless my personal opinion is I think the kickstart/indiegogo thing is a bad business strategy and I believe eventually Sekai Project will see this as people start feeling backers fatigue or decide to spend money elsewhere. For as much as I dislike Sekai Project's consistent backing business strategy I also do not want them to go out of business. They do give us a niche commodity and I want them to succeed. If this is how they do it then all the more to them. I will take the old fashioned method of purchasing products though. 

 

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I will never understand these hostage analogies.
Who wants the games? You. Who pays for the games? Also you. Who gets a cut for being the intermediary? Them.

What's the problem? If enough people pay for the game, want the game, they release it. Else they don't. Most of the time kickstarters and indiegogo's even offer more rewards for those willing to spend more money for them.
Kickstarter assures a company turns in a profit, regardless of the game's sales - EDIT: Which in turn assures the intermediary remains in the game, contacting more Japanese companies and bringing more stuff over, faster than any of the 3/10 Fan Translation Teams which deliver anything after years of slow progress.
It also gives the fans more merchandise, cheaper prices, and more info and control over the direction they take (via Prefundia, for example - Some vehement complaints suggestions have changed a company's mind in aspects that, if they hadn't made a kickstarter, we wouldn't even know about until release. Muv-Luv's initial 'editing of the existent release' turning into 'pretty much retranslating the game' or Sharin no Kuni's "devilish" DLC policies being done away with).

I don't get the supposed disadvantages of Kickstarter... What does it matter to you which black hole the money gets sucked into? If enough people want the game, are willing to pay for it, they'll get it. But if everyone kicks up a fuss over things that don't matter (a company whose sole objective is to make profit is being greedy? Better call the papers), nobody gets anything.

EDIT: Of course, failure to meet the conditions imposed on the Kickstarter with no valid justification is good enough reason to stop backing a particular group. "Fool me once..."

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Finally got around to reading the information on Mangagamer announcements lol:

I'm probably one of the few people looking forward to the umineko release. It seems Mangagamer has been listening to people at least and is giving a multi-language release for the game which is pretty cool, along with an option for the normal sprites or the newer-ish ones (honestly not a fan of these so I'm happy for the normal sprites), the original bgm, uncut content, etc... The fact episodes 1-4 are also releasing for only 22 dollars and no DRM means I really have no reason not to buy this. 

Kyonyuu Fantasy: While I am not one for nukige titles I have to admit this pick up and partnership was pretty sound for Mangagamer. Kyonyuu Fantasy has a number of sequels and Waffle is apparently a decent nukige company so it seems like they will have a number of titles to pick from in the future (4 of which are actually in the kyonyuu fantasy series if it sells well). I likely won't pick this one up but the partnership is certainly good for their nukige lineup.

Other Mangagamer Announcements: Mixed bag really. While physical editions are nice I do not personally think they should take an announcement spot, nor should games that have already been announced and just now have a release date (umineko and higurashi). Admittedly I will probably pick up Kara no Shojo 2 in the near future since I haven't been able to play it yet thanks to my stance against DRM. Outside of that not really interested in any of the other games. Hopefully this is the lackluster part of the announcements from them for the year.

JAST: I'm surprised by their website announcement that they will never edit their games and do actually have a new announcement planned for "in the near future" as of a week ago. I think this is essentially confirming a SDCC or AX announcement. I think we can expect Seinarukana Steam, Sonico, Sumaga, Bitch, Sweet Home, and possibly Trample to all be released by either this year or within a year's time. The progress on all of these are at least 80% translation or in editing. Perhaps that's too much to hope from JAST but hey maybe not. Then again they may just want to release some of them periodically over the next year or two to make it seem like they have a decent amount of games still releasing...

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Sorry for the wait folks:

 

VisualArts/Key:

Working on getting that audio fixed up and uploaded. Anyone have suggestions on where to put just pure audio? They had a ton of security to prevent people from recording so i got the best I could.


Sekai project:

 

First video youtube decided to flip for whatever crazy reason. Should flip to normal soon™....

MangaGamer

 

 

 

 

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24 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

If their partnership with Waffle was about licensing their most recent nukige I could be somewhat happy, but Kyonyuu Fantasy? Meeehhhhh.

Well, now that they're partnered with Waffle, and given that KF is probably going to sell pretty well, I think we can expect them to license more titles from them in the future. Hopefully, that's going to include that one. Might take a year or three, though.

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I'm sure the people working on the Angel Beats patch are pretty salty (unless they were bought out I guess).
This is why you don't translate titles from companies that have entered the localization world.

Also, I can't help but glance at that "Jun Maeda plans to do more with Charlotte". Please, don't. Seriously, just don't, there's so many great things you could invest your time on.

2 minutes ago, KuroganeHomura said:

Well, now that they're partnered with Waffle, and given that KF is probably going to sell pretty well, I think we can expect them to license more titles from them in the future. Hopefully, that's going to include that one. Might take a year or three, though.

One can hope I guess, but Kyonyuu Fantasy is so far off from what I expected that it really disappointed me lol. Seriously we don't need more games in this genre, there's so many great fetishes to explore!

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5 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

I'm sure the people working on the Angel Beats patch are pretty salty (unless they were bought out I guess).
This is why you don't translate titles from companies that have entered the localization world.

They post on Reddit if you want to read what they think: https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/4kas0n/visualarts_planning_angel_beats_localization/

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3 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Seems like they didn't expect it to come so soon, and also that they're not involved in any way. I feel for them, but they really should have known this was a likely scenario with Key licensing all their big titles. This is why I abandoned the idea of translating SonoHana Nyu Jene after MG partnered up with the company. As much as I love the game, it's just not worth the risk.

I think the "Well shit" sums it up, but I also appreciated this mention

Quote

I should've been wiser with my choice of a VN to TL, just like what the people on Fuwanovel told me when I first started.

We almost did it guys!

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16 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

Also, I can't help but glance at that "Jun Maeda plans to do more with Charlotte". Please, don't. Seriously, just don't, there's so many great things you could invest your time on.

Did anyone like Charlotte at all?

And we still have to endure Rewrite's anime. Ugh.

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16 minutes ago, Okarin said:

Did anyone like Charlotte at all?

And we still have to endure Rewrite's anime. Ugh.

 

3 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

Japan loved it. It was number 1 in so many rankings.

Edit: Just checked blu-ray sales, Charlotte is still averaging 7,200 copies sold per volume.

Yes, I loved it.

No sarcasm, I really loved the anime. :wafuu:

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So, Sono Hana games: "we can't say anything at this time, ask again after AX."

Guh. I hate these replies.

Meh, at least they released both a drama CD and a physical edition of Kindred spirits, and they have a new yuri title coming. Pretty good time for yuri freaks to follow MG.

(But come on guys, get on Nyuu Jene! :saber: )

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1 hour ago, Nosebleed said:

Granted, perhaps this announcement could mean Charlotte gets some sort of VN? Wouldn't be unheard of. Though it'll probably be for the PSVita which would suck.

That's what I'm hoping for. Further anime content probably wouldn't make me happy, since that ending doesn't need a sequel, at all. However, I feel like they could easily fix the problems with it given another chance to tell the story, and I'm sure they could make it work in VN format (to the extent that Key VNs work at all; obviously they're fine for me, not so much for a lot of people around here).

5 hours ago, XReaper said:

angel beats getting an official tl

This is actually the first time I'm hearing that; surprised people weren't talking about it more yesterday. That's the most exciting announcement out of ACen, for me.

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14 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

This is actually the first time I'm hearing that; surprised people weren't talking about it more yesterday. That's the most exciting announcement out of ACen, for me.

like already mentioned here & elsewhere the info did come up pretty nonchalantly during keys q&a session.

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I would be willing to try a Charlotte VN if they release it on PC, but anime based VNs usually get released on portable consoles and I don't own one.
But then again Front Wing released 2 Grisaia games as bonus for the anime, so there's some shred of hope in there that Key will do the same.

And I agree the Angel Beats official TL is a huge annoucement and I'm surprised it's gone by so unnoticed. However, having played the game, I can't say I'm too excited since I didn't really like it (very little oiginal content and cliffhanger ending being the main reasons for that). Nonetheless, it still does do a better job than the anime at telling its story and it is definitely a treat to any Key fan.

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8 hours ago, Funyarinpa said:

It is utterly beyond me how someone can be disappointed by the lack of moege being translated. This is like Stormfront idiots going "WHITES R UPPRESSED BWAAAA" man, lol. There's more than enough moe stuff coming out already, moege is the last thing to complain about.

Impressive that Euphoria is getting a limited physical edition lol

That said, I'm hyped for Higurashi and Umineko! Con-fucking-gratulations Gangamamer for releasing only two episodes of Higurashi in a whole damn year. I'll be a second-year at university before they even get to work on the "extra" arcs they promised to translate at this pace. For fuck's sake (I'd probably have pirated the fuck out of the original TL already, but Vokoca discouraged me and also that one only has PS2 graphics).

I agreed with the whole moege thing, but I don't really want to go on another rant against the genre. :miyako:

3 hours ago, kyrt said:

JAST: I'm surprised by their website announcement that they will never edit their games and do actually have a new announcement planned for "in the near future" as of a week ago. I think this is essentially confirming a SDCC or AX announcement. I think we can expect Seinarukana Steam, Sonico, Sumaga, Bitch, Sweet Home, and possibly Trample to all be released by either this year or within a year's time. The progress on all of these are at least 80% translation or in editing. Perhaps that's too much to hope from JAST but hey maybe not. Then again they may just want to release some of them periodically over the next year or two to make it seem like they have a decent amount of games still releasing...

>JAST

>releasing more than 1 game in a a year.

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6 minutes ago, Dionysus42 said:

5pb is against a Steam release

pretty dick-ish move, if i were to be asked, i mean muv-luv & consorts are also getting released on said plattform, so what´s the deal?

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