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KARAKARA, Dovac, Twitter wars, and overcharging for adult content


sanahtlig

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7 minutes ago, Mkilbride said:

This is absurd. the 18+ Patch should be free, or like 5$ at most.  Charging double? I've heard how bad Sekai Project is, but this seals the deal for me. I mean, his argument is that the patch adds CGS and content, so it should cost?
 

Ignoring the fucking fact that...that content was originally in the game, and you just removed it to resell it?

The steam version gets dropped in price so the patch actually has a price, the only result of this is that steam kiddos get the game for cheaper. There's nothing for you to complain about. 

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16 minutes ago, Mkilbride said:

This is absurd. the 18+ Patch should be free, or like 5$ at most.  Charging double? I've heard how bad Sekai Project is, but this seals the deal for me. I mean, his argument is that the patch adds CGS and content, so it should cost?
 

Ignoring the fucking fact that...that content was originally in the game, and you just removed it to resell it?

Sekai Project appears to have actually been involved in development of the game, therefore the adult scenes exist in the first place because they financed them.

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Content gets removed, price goes down. Content gets added, price goes up. That much should be obvious.

The only real discussion to be had from there is what the pricing of the extra content should be, and whether or not it makes more sense to have everyone pay the same price (making it more expensive for Steam users) and give out a patch for free.

Personally, I don't mind paying for patches and I prefer it since Steam tends to have more sales and I gain a little extra change by selling cards.

As for why certain VNs' patches cost double the Steam version, it's probably because the Japanese version costs around $20. This is especially relevant for Nekopara and KARAKARA, which are both multilingual releases. For example, if you don't like the price of Nekopara Vol. 2 on Denpasoft then you can buy it on DLsite—but it'll still be $20 no matter what (I think it's even a bit cheaper on Denpasoft).

Giving out a patch for free would be undercutting their own sales since the original price is higher than Steam's.

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I think Dovac's frustration goes way beyond of just loosing the money for an upgrade patch. It's not exactly new information that sales on their Denpasoft site aren't particularly great. Dovac complained about that fact often enough and frequently used it as an argument to defend their all ages policy. And naturally, many people get upset about that, arguing that adult titles sell pretty well for MangaGamer.

However, what most people probably don't see is that Sekai Project isn't MangaGamer, and there is actually a vast difference between those two companies:
If it comes to all ages titles sold on Steam, both companies are more or less equal, because for a typical Steam user it doesn't really matter who's the publisher of the title he wants to buy. However, things are different if it comes to adult titles. Since those either can't be sold on Steam at all, or just as a stripped-down version, the own home site where adult titles can be sold comes into play. And with that we are slowly getting closer to the true reasons why MangaGamer are huge adult-freaks while Sekai Project just need to hear the word 'adult' to get into a bad mood and go tsun-tsun.

Overall, my personal estimate is that the MangaGamer site has about 10 - 20 times as much accounts as Sekai Project's adult site Denpasoft.

Now, what does that mean? First, it means that if MangaGamer sells an adult only title on their home page it would sell approximately 10 - 20 times better as if Sekai Project would sell it on their Denpasoft site. Second, it also means that titles which are also available on Steam can be sold on their own site which saves them the hefty 30% Steam fee. I'm a pretty good example for that myself. I've an account both on Steam and MangaGamer. And yesterday I bought Supipara on the MangaGamer site which means they didn't have to pay the 30% Steam fee for my copy. But I bought all the titles from Sekai Project so far on Steam because I don't have an account on Denpasoft, which means they lost 30% of my money to Steam.

So I think it should be clear that Sekai Project are in a significant disadvantage compared to MangaGamer if it comes to adult titles. But why has MangaGamer so much more accounts than Denpasoft?
I think that's also quite easy to answer. MangaGamer is a much older company than Sekain Project with an already established retail site for adult titles. Most people don't like creating new accounts (I personally hate it), so it simply takes time to convince people to create an account and you have have to give them a good reason for it.
But what has Sekai Project to offer on their adult site? Frankly, not much! Pretty much just a few adult patches for Steam titles where I can easily get the patch for free. And it's hard to make people feel guily just for downloading an adult patch if they actually bougth the title legally on Steam. And what has MangaGamer to offer? Lots of high quality adult only titles which were or still are very popular like ImoPara, Eroge, Koihime, Beat Blades Haruka and many more.

So what can Sekai Project do to get more accounts on their site? This is ironically almost a vicious circle. To get more accounts they have to offer something everybody wants which isn't available on Steam. A popular nukige for example, but who wants to give them one as long as their adult site is an account graveyard with an almost guaranteed sales flop? I'm sure this ridiculous problem makes them want to tear their hair out at times.
I personally think they have the best chances with Sayori's Boku to Koi Suru Ponkotsu Akuma since it's an absolute gorgeous nukige from a very popular artist with an already established fan base in the west. And while most people probably think that the Baldr Sky series is Sekai Project's most important license achievement this year, I tend to disagree. Baldr Sky won't solve the problem with their Denpasoft site but Boku to Koi Suru Ponkotsu Akuma might be able to. So I think for them this good for nothing nukige is even more important for their future than the hyper popular Baldr license. And if they really want to butcher this title for Steam (which might have been a condition from Smile to even get it), then I really hope that they are smart enough to delay the Steam release as long as possible. They absolutely HAVE to offer something exclusive on their Denpasoft site or people will continue to give a damn about it.

While this text wall won't make Dovac's answers more diplomatic, I hope it at least gives some understanding why he sometimes tends to overreact a bit if it comes to this topic. It must be absolutely frustrating for him to get constantly criticized for his all ages focus even if he tries to get his Denpasoft site going for years now. Steam and Kickstarter made the fast growth of Sekai Project possible, but unfortunately there's no 'adult Steam' site they could use. So their adult section will take longer for the simple reason that they have to establish their own site for it, and that can take years.

Actually, the best thing people can do who want more adult titles from Sekai Project, is creating an account on Denpasoft and buy every available title from there instead of Steam. Well, I'm admittedly a pretty bad example for that since I personally don't have an account there yet, but I plan to change that for the Koikuma release.

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3 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Yeah, I don't like both their attitudes to be honest. It just reflects more poorly on Dovac because of the position he holds.

He's not taking it down unless he's asked in a specific way? There's a difference between asking for respect and playing around.

There's also the question of whether or not someone who knowingly and actively provides easy piracy options for your content deserves your respect.

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2 minutes ago, Decay said:

There's also the question of whether or not someone who knowingly and actively provides easy piracy options for your content deserves your respect.

Yeah.

Also the initial request from Dovac was actually pretty pleasant, it's only after imoutoworks started stuffing around that he lashed out. I don't feel sorry for the guy. 

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While dovac might've been behaving unprofessionally, he was in no way obligated to give a "formal request" through email. The only formal request he's likely to give is a C&D order, which is certainly in his legal right to do so.

I don't know, in the end dovac is still the immature and young CEO of a visual novel localization start-up that he's always been, whereas imoutoworks is stealing from creators because baddie Sekai Project wants to charge money for extra content.

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I overall consider Dovac to be in the right here. But I am tempted to bash him anyway, if for nothing more than out of personal spite. Wouldn't hand that prick a blanket if his house burned down. 

 

Now, if someone who wasn't a huge baby that should work as a toll booth operator, discussed the matter in a more civil way... 

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13 minutes ago, RikiSanic said:

While dovac might've been behaving unprofessionally, he was in no way obligated to give a "formal request" through email. The only formal request he's likely to give is a C&D order, which is certainly in his legal right to do so.

I don't know, in the end dovac is still the immature and young CEO of a visual novel localization start-up that he's always been, whereas imoutoworks is stealing from creators because baddie Sekai Project wants to charge money for extra content.

Content that was in the game, that they re-sold. It's the same tactic EA has used for years now. Stripping a part of the game out, and selling it as DLC. Besides his unprofessional attitude, this is the issue people are seeing.

 

I also love the whole people talking about "Pirates not deserving respect / providing pirated content doesn't"

 

You do know that until a little over a year ago, FUWANovel was the biggest distributor of pirated VN content on the Internet?  Hundreds of releases.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/2wiow4/im_the_admin_at_fuwanovel_confirming_changes/

 

Almost everyone on this website has pirated a VN. PRobably has lately even. To top it off, many long time, big members of this community released torrents for said games.  Now those same members are saying pirates are scum. Love it.

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18 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

Overall, my personal estimate is that the MangaGamer site has about 10 - 20 times as much accounts as Sekai Project's adult site Denpasoft.

Problem: the premise for most of your post appears to be baseless speculation.

20 minutes ago, Rooke said:

He's not taking it down unless he's asked in a specific way? There's a difference between asking for respect and playing around.

Consider: what if some random dude on Twitter told you to take down some fan project you worked on?  You know, because he said so.  Imouto Works has no connection to the VN scene.  He had no idea who Dovac is.

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3 minutes ago, Mkilbride said:

Content that was in the game, that they re-sold. It's the same tactic EA has used for years now. Stripping a part of the game out, and selling it as DLC. Besides his unprofessional attitude, this is the issue people are seeing.

There's no way the 18+ version of a game like KaraKara is sold for $10, none of the major VN companies would ever do that. Instead of making every version of the game cost the same, SP decided to give a cheaper option for people who want less content.

EA sells games for the standard $60 and then sells DLC on top of that, that's a different story.

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3 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

Consider: what if some random dude on Twitter told you to take down some fan project you worked on?  You know, because he said so.  Imouto Works has no connection to the VN scene.  He had no idea who Dovac is.

The first thing he could have done was read the Twitter account. That Dovac talks about 'his company' and 'his staff' is a good starting point. And the amount of followers he has tied with the translation scene might have been a clue the account was authentic.

Also, now that imoutoworks does know he's the CEO, has he taken down the patch yet? Or is he still demanding an email.

Overall, I don't exactly buy his excuses. At best, he didn't want to know.

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17 minutes ago, Mkilbride said:

Almost everyone on this website has pirated a VN. PRobably has lately even. To top it off, many long time, big members of this community released torrents for said games.  Now those same members are saying pirates are scum. Love it.

Deploying the "hypocrite" card on a large scale like that is just going to get you piled on.  Don't do it.  On top of that, it shows your ignorance of the varied stances that people have towards piracy here and elsewhere. 

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17 minutes ago, Mkilbride said:

 

You do know that until a little over a year ago, FUWANovel was the biggest distributor of pirated VN content on the Internet?  Hundreds of releases.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/2wiow4/im_the_admin_at_fuwanovel_confirming_changes/

 

Almost everyone on this website has pirated a VN. PRobably has lately even. To top it off, many long time, big members of this community released torrents for said games.  Now those same members are saying pirates are scum. Love it.

Fuwanovel never was the biggest distributor of pirated VNs...

The big people who also made the torrents and seeded them the most quit...

Oh and the VN scene in the west was totally the same few years ago that it is now...

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Back then Fuwanovel indeed didn't deserve respect. I've pirated things in the past, and I would not expect anyone to treat me with respect for having done so, either. Pirates do not deserve to be handled with respect, period. We've been working hard to earn the respect we deservedly lacked for years of torrent use and you can't use that past as a weapon to invalidate the arguments being made here.

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18 minutes ago, Mkilbride said:

Almost everyone on this website has pirated a VN. PRobably has lately even. To top it off, many long time, big members of this community released torrents for said games.  Now those same members are saying pirates are scum. Love it.

As Sanah said don't go there mate, you're a little ignorant. And you have no clue how many old 'big-names' left due to Fuwa's change in direction.

Don't worry though there's good news - my stance has never changed. If you have the money, buy the game.

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2 minutes ago, Decay said:

Back then Fuwanovel indeed didn't deserve respect. I've pirated things in the past, and I would not expect anyone to treat me with respect for having done so, either. Pirates do not deserve to be handled with respect, period. We've been working hard to earn the respect we deservedly lacked for years of torrent use and you can't use that past as a weapon to invalidate the arguments being made here.

I'm who I've always been.  I'm not responsible for Fuwanovel's actions, just as Fuwanovel doesn't want to be responsible for mine.  We're a collection of individuals, each with our beliefs.  I'm a bit surprised you're biting at that bait.  The actions of the collective do not define the individual.

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As someone who has been pretty deeply involved with Fuwanovel the site lately, I felt like responding on behalf of fuwanovel, the site.

I do feel that people who post in a community has some of that community's values reflected back onto them, however. If you're posting harmoniously on Stormfront but only in the off-topic threads, I'll still label you a racist.

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There's a big difference between pirated shit and this. If you want to pirate the game, then just pirate the whole damn thing. Literally what is the purpose of offering this? For people who aren't cheap enough to pirate but can't be damned to pay 10 more dollars? The only thing these do is dissuade steam users from actually buying from denpasoft, which isn't a good thing for anyone. Not to mention this persons "excuse" is a giant joke. " If you don’t know how I work on my patches, it’s quite simple: if there is a Steam version and a japanese version (priority is disc > download), I usually make a patch for the Steam release. Some people, like me, prefer also to directly support the developers, so even though you are holding two copies of the game, you cannot transfer the content between them even though they’re the exact same game with the exact same files. I’ve been always pretty vocal about this stuff and how it’s terrible to make you buy a third thing (usually the patch) to use the content you already own. " Apparently they're for people who have the steam version as well as the standalone 18+ version? That makes 0 sense at all, and ironically enough I find it funny that all these 18+ patches are for Sekai games, and you find none for Mangagamer steam titles. Oh, and they even apparently have an affiliate link to buy off Mangagamer's store. All of that, on top of the fact that this person takes donations. Sorry, but that's pretty scummy. 

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We all have reasons and circumstances, generalizations of anything in life is a sign of ignorance and intolerance.

I suggest we try and steer this back toward SP and Imouto Works in any case - it's starting to go down a dark path. :makina:

 

EDIT: that was meant for the fuwa angle, Chuee stealthed in a post before me :P

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14 minutes ago, Chuee said:

There's a big difference between pirated shit and this. If you want to pirate the game, then just pirate the whole damn thing. Literally what is the purpose of offering this? For people who aren't cheap enough to pirate but can't be damned to pay 10 more dollars? The only thing these do is dissuade steam users from actually buying from denpasoft, which isn't a good thing for anyone. Not to mention this persons "excuse" is a giant joke. Apparently they're for people who have the steam version as well as the standalone 18+ version? That makes 0 sense at all, and ironically enough I find it funny that all these 18+ patches are for Sekai games, and you find none for Mangagamer steam titles. Oh, and they even apparently have an affiliate link to buy off Mangagamer's store. All of that, on top of the fact that this person takes donations. Sorry, but that's pretty scummy. 

I see patches for Umineko and Higurashi on his site.  Not 18+ patches, but MangaGamer titles nonetheless, and he's most definitely infringing copyright with these patches.

Imouto Works claims that he works on patches for titles based on requests from followers.  The biases of his followers could thus influence which titles he makes patches for.

Admittedly, he doesn't have ethical grounds to stand on with regards to why he's still hosting the Nekopara Vol. 2 and KARAKARA patches, even after Sekai Project asked him to stop.

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