Popular VNs on Steam

[haruki]

8 minutes ago, Kiso said:

My mistake then, I am always trying to find novels with great stories. Which, in this case OELVN are not offering VNs in my standard. Let's say Subahibi can be an example of what I consider good.

on the off-chance that you're not trolling:

 

If you're judging solely based on stories, you can easily find OELVNs comparable in quality to Japanese VNs (like Analogue: A Hate Story). There's no reason that an English-language author should be any better or worse than a Japanese author. And, if you're judging solely based on stories, then most Japanese VNs are shit.

[Hayashi]

Just now, haruki said:

on the off-chance that you're not trolling:

 

If you're judging solely based on stories, you can easily find OELVNs comparable in quality to Japanese VNs (like Analogue: A Hate Story). There's no reason that an English-language author should be any better or worse than a Japanese author. And, if you're judging solely based on stories, then most Japanese VNs are shit.

You sure you are using "Most" ? How many untranslated games have you read?

[haruki]

Just now, Kiso said:

You sure you are using "Most" ? How many untranslated games have you read?

how many OELVNs have you read?

[proxygames]

20 minutes ago, Kiso said:

My mistake then, I am always trying to find novels with great stories. Which, in this case OELVN are not offering VNs in my standard. Let's say Subahibi can be an example of what I consider good.

I get not everyone wants a good story. Sometimes they just want H-content. But it's ignorant to say all OELVN'S are crap. It's kind of rude to creators who actually put time into their work and try to make something good even if it's just meant for fan service. First try playing a good one before you make assumptions like that or if you're not going to play, don't post that all are crap. It's immature and kind of tiring honestly when people say that. You don't have to like them, but don't go around saying they are all bad. 

[Hayashi]

2 minutes ago, haruki said:

how many OELVNs have you read?

Would appreciate it if you answered my question with an answer, not another question. 

But the ones I have read are, let's see.

Katawa

Gogo JP

Clannad fan game (don't remember name)

Dysfunctional Systems

[Kurisu-Chan]

Long live the queen, anyone? 

[Toranth]

 

28 minutes ago, Kiso said:

30 minutes ago, haruki said:

on the off-chance that you're not trolling:

 

If you're judging solely based on stories, you can easily find OELVNs comparable in quality to Japanese VNs (like Analogue: A Hate Story). There's no reason that an English-language author should be any better or worse than a Japanese author. And, if you're judging solely based on stories, then most Japanese VNs are shit.

You sure you are using "Most" ? How many untranslated games have you read?

Actually, Haruki is right.  Most Japanese VNs are doujin, aka amateur, works.  These are the equivalent of most OELVNs - people that want to make a VN and (usually) use a free engine to do it.  Individuals or small teams, little to no budget, small release or limited to digital only, and so on.  And there a relots of them.

To give you an idea, there are 56 'major' releases this month (9/1-9/30) according to Getchu.  It's hard to tell how many doujin games are published, but Getchu, DLSite, and dmm show somewhere between 5 and 10 releases every single day during September, with 20+ on the last few days - a total of 200-250.  You're looking at something like 1/5 or less being 'professional' titles.

The vast majority of those doujin games are crap.  Cheap knock-offs, barely re-labeled fanfics, 2nd grade art projects, etc.  In fact, most 'professional' titles aren't very good.  Sure, there are gems in there:  Tsukihime, or the ChuSinGura 46+1 original release.  But very few, out of thousands released in a given year.  This shouldn't be surprising, very few non-professionals produce high quality works. 

The OELVN market is the same way - most works are amateur, and most of those are crap.  But they're crap because they're low-quality amateur works, not because they're English.

[haruki]

1 hour ago, Kiso said:

Would appreciate it if you answered my question with an answer, not another question. 

But the ones I have read are, let's see.

Katawa

Gogo JP

Clannad fan game (don't remember name)

Dysfunctional Systems

I'd like to point out that one of the bad OELVNs you've read (Gogo JP) was actually made by a Japanese developer, Overdrive...

You can't generalize and say that all OELVNs are bad after having read just four (three if you don't count the Japanese one). I'm not saying OELVNs are good, in fact I'll be the first to say that most of them are bad. But, there are some hidden gems to be found, and the quality of their stories and art makes me think that if they had the same financial backing and experienced production teams that Japanese developers benefit from, they would be of the same quality as great Japanese VNs.

But to answer your question: I'll admit that I haven't read that many Japanese VNs. The only really good ones I've finished have been Aiyoku no Eustia (https://vndb.org/v3770) and Tsukihime. I tried to read Shiei no Sona-nyl (https://vndb.org/v4936) but couldn't finish it, the Japanese was too hard. That said, I've also read some fandisks, as well as a lot of shorter VNs I didn't like. Off the top of my head, stuff like Juukishi Cutie or Maro no Kanja wa Gatenkei... I've read many more translated VNs, though.

From those experiences, I can definitely say that there's a big sense of accomplishment and mystique that comes with reading a good VN in the original Japanese. I love Japanese culture (like you, I suppose), and I'd much rather read a great VN in Japanese than in English.

None of that changes the fact that a lot of Japanese VNs tend to be very bad, whether it be in terms of story, art, music, gameplay, or whatever. It's not a knock on Japanese VNs, it's just a fact that in every market and artistic medium there tends to be a surfeit of poor-quality content and a small amount of very good content that distinguishes itself from the rest. And, you have to recognize that that problem is exacerbated by the unique characteristics of the Japanese VN market. It caters to an audience that often cares more about h-scenes and moe than innovative plot, gameplay, or art, meaning it has no incentive to challenge itself and produce quality content. It's very corporate and formulaic--there are many companies just like Winged Cloud in Japan that pump out nukige after nukige and manage to break even by targeting the lowest common denominator. Like Toranth pointed out, there are also huge numbers of doujin developers that flood the market with works of essentially the same quality as OELVNs.

I'm sure you know all that, because it sounds like you read a lot of untranslated VNs. But it's just undeniable that the very nature of the Japanese market means a majority of Japanese VNs will be bad.

[Ariurotl]

Either way, most of the shit OELVNs are shit because they're written by empty-headed otaku who are determined to mindlessly copy every tired trope from Japanese VNs. So essentially, BLAME JAPAN!

[Lucius]

Honestly, at this point of time in 2016, I wonder why people are still surprised that anybody - professional or amateur - could produce shit content, regardless of the country they're from or the language they speak. Putting aside what Toranth already said about the amateur developers for VNs, even if you consider the professionals, whether something is 'shit' or not is ultimately subjected to that particular something... (I can't believe I have to remind people of this) What was it, what was it...? Oh right - focking opinions.

Like, some people find Fate/Stay Night to be the greatest piece of ass dug out from the goldmine of TypeMoon, right? But then others (like myself) find their content to be rather pretentious at times, and I know that's an overused criticism to describe something, but then again, you and your supporters in this thread use such arbitrary and meaningless remarks like "cancerous" and "plebians" so... pots and kettles unite?

But the point is, the main reason why we aren't exposed to as many quality OELVNs has absolutely nothing to do with your weeaboo reasoning of how Japanese goods are all sacred in quality. If anything, it has more to do with the marketing and funding, and just how the more talented OELVN producers are overshadowed by the attention driven towards Japanese VNs and our mentality to favor those types of VNs over OELVNs. It's not just dumb to presume that the race of the producers has anything to do with the quality of a content, but just downright racist. You know that word? I'm pretty sure you should be familiar with that term by now in our era of anti-bigotry.

[Clephas]

20 hours ago, Kiso said:

So let's get this straight, I dislike the fact that popular/great VNs are slowly entering the steam market. To me, it's not the platform itself, but it's cancerous community with those AAA games elites, price complainers, "and ples where is the hentai?" groups of people. And what's more, I don't want to see high quality VNs in the same store as OELVN, they ain't comparable. What prompted me was last time when I was browsing through Meikyuu steam community, I have seen some many posts complaining and nagging about the prices.

"novel games are over priced" "not paying 20$ for cut H game" "kajitsu is longer why dis same price" 

Stuff like this really triggers me, do you secondary weeb (oh no here we go) know how much I am paying for every original hard copy VN? To the point where I am starting to think these people don't deserve to even be able to view VN, tho it might be going against Fuwa ideals. And I ma moving towards the learn JP or don't read it, path. 

What do you guys think? Fuck you Sakura series, little shitty misrepresentation of a VN to the West.

Mmm... what can I say to this, except that... you actually listen to what people say on Steam?  That's like actually paying attention to 4chan posts...

Another thing, people who complain about cut h-content are anti-censorship and so they have that self-righteous rage making them spew stuff that is counter-productive (I figure Valve will eventually put up a separate 'adult' content section for those of you who really want the stuff if it can be proved there is enough demand to justify the risk of putting up adult content... and it is a risk) or that they don't even really mean (I mean, it isn't like an inveterate pirate is going to buy anything in the first place). 

Another thing you should keep in mind is that there is no point in one-sidedly bashing content other people like.  The Sakura series has made me smile wryly or in disgust frequently in the past, but they are just catering to the moe-ero addicts. 

Also, people who complain about prices for a download version are pretty much a universal plague on all digital gaming communities.  Yes, there is absolutely no reason to pass the costs of non-existent production to the consumers, but companies will keep doing so from now until the end of the world, no matter how much people complain.  That doesn't mean that there is any point in getting emotional/raging about it yourself, lol.

[Nandemonai]

7 hours ago, Kiso said:

You sure you are using "Most" ? How many untranslated games have you read?

Oh, certainly.  If you restrict yourself to looking at popular VNs, or VNs from companies with a proven track record, you'll find that most of them tend to be fairly good quality.  And I'll even grant that if you look at the best of both markets, Japanese games currently are way out in front of OELVNs.

But that's not what "most VNs have crap stories" means (which was the original quote).  Most of them ... have got crappy stories.  Because "Japanese VN" includes everything.  Including all the super low-budget stuff, like Appetite and Softhouse Seal and Hentai Industries.  And let's not forget all the doujin stuff you can find on DLSite.

If you take all the pizza delivery simulation nukige, and all the highly derivative stuff that comes out, and all the low-budget bargain labels, and throw them into the mix along with your Liarsoft and Innocent Grey titles, you will find that ... most Japanese VNs have a crappy story.

Sturgeon's Law would like to have a word with you

[andzalot55]

I only bought a couple of VNs from Steam but I regret buying 'em 'cause of the terrible translation. Take IMHHW (Kono Oozora), I heard that translations from Steam were bad, and it was recommended to get a fan translation patch for it. Because of that, I either read VNs that have been patched or it is recommended if translation doesn't matter.

[Lucius]

I feel like Steam translations are like the Crunchyroll translations of visual novels.

[littleshogun]

3 hours ago, andzalot55 said:

I only bought a couple of VNs from Steam but I regret buying 'em 'cause of the terrible translation. Take IMHHW (Kono Oozora), I heard that translations from Steam were bad, and it was recommended to get a fan translation patch for it. Because of that, I either read VNs that have been patched or it is recommended if translation doesn't matter.

If I may comment here, unfortunately saying this is another misconception here after something like Japanese VN was far more better than English VN in this thread.

The reason I said this because from what I recall, I think only Konosora which got some flame in regard of translation although the reason shouldn't be because it was sell on the Steam. But rather it's the publisher mistake who apparently from Japanese and didn't knew proper English there (Also with ripped content controversy), therefore made many mistake in regard of the translation although personally I didn't care too much about translation though.

Besides, there were many VN at Steam which had good translation ie didn't had much complain, like Tokyo Babel, Gahktun, and Clannad. My conclusion here would be the VN translation quality wasn't depend on the either sell on Steam or fan translated, but depend on the translator. And for more info, both of Gahktun and Tokyo Babel one were quite competent from what I'd heard.

tldr - Steam VN translation quality wasn't depend on the platform for selling it, but rather on the translator themselves. So I wouldn't said that all of Steam VN were had bad terrible translation here, and therefore you need to avoid Steam to get the VN there.

[Nandemonai]

If I'm not mistaken, IMHHW was actually translated professionally, just by a group that kinda sucks.  I heard (don't remember from where) that it was translated by the people who translated the Dark Souls series (which is known for having a serviceable but not great translation, poorly translated patch notes, and mistranslations in the lore) and some other video games, but IMHHW was the first time they'd ever tried anything so large.  Also, the route that they had to make up (because the original unavoidably included sex) is supposed to be much much worse than the others (probably because it was done last minute).

There are plenty of games on Steam that are translated okay, and a few that ... aren't.

[haruki]

It's unfair to blame Steam for the poor quality of some translations. Steam is just a distribution platform, it has nothing to do with the translators/publishers. That said, it's unacceptable that fan translations are often better quality than commercial ones.

[Lucius]

Well, the thing is, it's a logical conclusion that with fan-translation, people who did it for free, for the passion of it, would naturally put in more effort than someone who's just making a quick buck.

[Darklord Rooke]

1 hour ago, Lucius said:

Well, the thing is, it's a logical conclusion that with fan-translation, people who did it for free, for the passion of it, would naturally put in more effort than someone who's just making a quick buck.

Unfortunately, most people doing professional translations in the VN community are better qualified to translate than those in the fan-translation community. This is especially true at this moment in time where localisers have recently snapped up most of the fan-TL talent.

Which is an example of passion not equating to quality.

Most of the terrible translations on Steam are by Japanese development studios who seek to 'do it themselves'. Like IMHHW, for example. Chusingura looks pretty bad, also.

But the best translations are officially localised. Grisaia, Tokyo Babel, and others.

[Lucius]

8 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Unfortunately, most people doing professional translations in the VN community are better qualified to translate than those in the fan-translation community. This is especially true at this moment in time where localisers have recently snapped up most of the fan-TL talent.

Most of the terrible translations on Steam are by Japanese development studios who seek to 'do it themselves'. Like IMHHW, for example. Chusingura looks pretty bad, also.

But the best translations are officially localised. Grisaia, Tokyo Babel, and others.

And yet, money is still a huge factor in determining the quality of the production. Though the 'professionals' might be able to get the translation much more accurately, it doesn't mean much when they censor adult content to cater to a wider range of audiences. Some VNs being censored don't present much of a problem, but censoring the more mature stories is contradictory of the kind of stories those VNs were trying to tell in the first place, distorting the spirit of the stories.

In other words, the accuracy of a fan translation can still be better than a corporate-produced VN with executive-meddling, despite the lack of professional skills. In terms of faithfulness to the original VN anyway. If you want a family-friendly VN with the adult humor butchered, look to nowhere else but Steam, kids.

[Darklord Rooke]

5 minutes ago, Lucius said:

And yet, money is still a huge factor in determining the quality of the production. Though the 'professionals' might be able to get the translation much more accurately, it doesn't mean much when they censor adult content to cater to a wider range of audiences. Some VNs being censored don't present much of a problem, but censoring the more mature stories is contradictory of the kind of stories those VNs were trying to tell in the first place, distorting the spirit of the stories.

In other words, the accuracy of a fan translation can still be better than a corporate-produced VN with executive-meddling, despite the lack of professional skills. In terms of faithfulness to the original VN anyway. If you want a family-friendly VN with the adult humor butchered, look to nowhere else but Steam, kids.

It really depends which VN you're talking about. Steam doesn't remove adult-centric humour, that was MoeNovel's (think that's the name) own decision in their quest to target a younger demographic. 

Story VNs often have sex scenes shoe-horned in to target the horny demographic in Japan. Some of these could have the h-scenes removed, or censored, with minimal disruption to the plot because the h-scenes weren't a part of the original intent. But obviously not with stuff where sex is central.

So case by case. Patches available for Steam copies that restore h-scenes are also an option.

[Narcosis]

On 2016/9/30 at 4:27 AM, Ariurotl said:

Either way, most of the shit OELVNs are shit because they're written by empty-headed otaku who are determined to mindlessly copy every tired trope from Japanese VNs. So essentially, BLAME JAPAN!

Saying most of the so-called japanese "scenario writers" are any different

That and Subahibi is a pretentious piece of shit

[Lucius]

1 hour ago, Rooke said:

It really depends which VN you're talking about. Steam doesn't remove adult-centric humour, that was MoeNovel's (think that's the name) own decision in their quest to target a younger demographic. 

Story VNs often have sex scenes shoe-horned in to target the horny demographic in Japan. Some of these could have the h-scenes removed, or censored, with minimal disruption to the plot because the h-scenes weren't a part of the original intent. But obviously not with stuff where sex is central.

So case by case. Patches available for Steam copies that restore h-scenes are also an option.

That underlined point is quite significant in terms of what I was trying to say, and not just purely with h-scenes either. What if the content was non-sexual, but controversial anyway? Contents with racism? Sexism? Misogyny? How far would the censorship go to earn more money? It simply bugs me a little when it comes to the 'official translators' that the publishers are the ones who decide the type of content you're going to get, not the original creators themselves.

A fair example would be the recent Grisaia no Meikyuu, which I've heard received quite a bit of content-cut compared to the R18 Japanese version. Now, I know that it's not a significant cut that would affect the main story, but the fact of the matter is, even if we disregard the h-scene removal (again, perfectly justifiable), with the kind of other non-hentai mature content in Grisaia VNs, just what other stuff did they remove from the VN itself? Let's not forget that one of the characters is an adolescent potty-mouth. It's stuff like that that makes me think that Steam (or Steam publishers, whatever) cut out more than just the h-scenes, and I just couldn't really trust their decision-making.

Here's another example: Tomoyo After: It's A Wonderful Life. I apologize that all of my examples are secondary accounts of what other people said, but I would just like to confirm if these concerns of mine ring true. I heard that one of the bad ends of Tomoyo After was either changed or removed, and that it was replaced with a happier (probably more generic) ending. Now, whether if that is true or not, it's just an example of what might happen when corporations take over the decision-making on a creative project (not just VN-translation), to manufacture it into something they can sell, and in that sense, manufacture into something not incredibly offensive or outright controversial. While I know that this isn't always the case, I believe there's a fair amount of official productions that go through the same factory-produced packaging process.

Just something I would look out for among official translations.

[Darklord Rooke]

2 hours ago, Lucius said:

Just something I would look out for among official translations.

To be honest, if all you're worried about is the removal of h-content, the option SHOULD be available to buy it from the localiser's site. So, Mangagamer for example, any localisation hosted on their site is pretty decently translated (these days) and should be uncut. Sekai is slower to get adult versions out, though. But anything which appears on denpasoft would most likely have all h-content intact. So if you don't want to buy from Steam, that is an option. Their adult versions will (in future) be released on Nutaku, and they have some minor censorship issues so that would be something to look out for. Nothing very major I think (although other people say otherwise.)

Tomoya After, I have no clue what they've done but once again it's a Japanese developer company doing the job themselves. Key did the localisation, and released it on Steam, so I continue to think that official translations done by the Japanese developer tends to have the most problems. I should point out that during these instances, the whole argument of 'the original creators don't get to make the decision' sorta goes out the window.

2 hours ago, Lucius said:

That underlined point is quite significant in terms of what I was trying to say, and not just purely with h-scenes either. What if the content was non-sexual, but controversial anyway? Contents with racism? Sexism? Misogyny? How far would the censorship go to earn more money? It simply bugs me a little when it comes to the 'official translators' that the publishers are the ones who decide the type of content you're going to get, not the original creators themselves.

You're assuming a lot here, that the original developers don't decide what is modified. MoeNovel, for example, is owned by the same parent company as the one that the developers work for. That is, the decision to modify content originated from the creators. 

Keeping in mind that 'creators' are different to 'writers' and 'artists' because writers and artists that work for a large dev would have very limited input as to what is included.

The Japanese are very wary of h-content in the West since the Rapelay incident, so don't be surprised when censorship decisions originate from the company that developed the game. That is, the original creators.

People attribute a lot of worth to what the original creators want, but keep in mind that the original creator is a company who's primary concern is making money, and the individual artists involve are (to a large extent, and of course exceptions apply) bound by what the company wants. Writers don't get a great load of artistic freedom (in general, again exceptions apply) unless they go to novels, or comics, or stuff like that. Which is partly why some do. Because even when company gives writers 'free reign', it really means 'free reign but do keep in mind the budget, and our target audience, and a whole bunch of other stuff'.

[Lucius]

1 hour ago, Rooke said:

To be honest, if all you're worried about is the removal of h-content, the option SHOULD be available to buy it from the localiser's site. So, Mangagamer for example, any localisation hosted on their site is pretty decently translated (these days) and should be uncut. Sekai is slower to get adult versions out, though. But anything which appears on denpasoft would most likely have all h-content intact. So if you don't want to buy from Steam, that is an option. Their adult versions will (in future) be released on Nutaku, and they have some minor censorship issues so that would be something to look out for. Nothing very major I think (although other people say otherwise.)

I guess I should have emphasized in my last post that I wasn't talking about h-content at all, period. I even said it was perfectly justified for h-content to be cut because it's pretty obvious why publishers want to censor that kind of shady shit. I was referring to the more controversial non-h-content, VNs that deal with rape (non-hentai and non-eroge versions where rape is used for drama), terrorism, misogyny (as I mentioned); that kind of stuff. It isn't really unthinkable for the business-minded to can a product because these topics don't really make a product appealing to certain demographics.

 

1 hour ago, Rooke said:

Tomoya After, I have no clue what they've done but once again it's a Japanese developer company doing the job themselves. Key did the localisation, and released it on Steam, so I continue to think that official translations done by the Japanese developer tends to have the most problems. I should point out that during these instances, the whole argument of 'the original creators don't get to make the decision' sorta goes out the window.

I should point out that the Steam version of Tomoyo After was based off the Memorial Edition of the VN, and that if content was cut, it was already cut in the Japanese ME version. That being said, whether if Steam is involved in cutting content wasn't my point. I'm not interested in just Steam itself. Rather, I was referring to all official parties that aren't fans/independent translators, and how fan translations would be less likely to censor anything because they have no obligation to profit from specific demographics.

 

1 hour ago, Rooke said:

You're assuming a lot here,

Well, yes. Like I said, all of my sources stemmed from secondary accounts, and I apologize, but like I said, I just needed to voice out my concerns and, in the process, clarify them.

 

1 hour ago, Rooke said:

Keeping in mind that 'creators' are different to 'writers' and 'artists' because writers and artists that work for a large dev would have very limited input as to what is included.

The Japanese are very wary of h-content in the West since the Rapelay incident, so don't be surprised when censorship decisions originate from the company that developed the game. That is, the original creators.

People attribute a lot of worth to what the original creators want, but keep in mind that the original creator is a company who's primary concern is making money, and the individual artists involve are (to a large extent, and of course exceptions apply) bound by what the company wants. Writers don't get a great load of artistic freedom (in general, again exceptions apply) unless they go to novels, or comics, or stuff like that. Which is partly why some do. Because even when company gives writers 'free reign', it really means 'free reign but do keep in mind the budget, and our target audience, and a whole bunch of other stuff'.

First of all, thanks for clarifying that the Japanese devs were involved in the censorship process as well, I appreciate it. But as I mentioned in my previous point above, that's not my concern. My concern lies with all official parties involved in the translation process - Japanese or otherwise - and how fan-translations, as I said, would not be obligated to censor anything.

And again, just to reemphasize, I'm not talking about T&A, or h-content.