VNDB - Several Questions About It

[Infernoplex]

Even though I knew about VNDB since like back in 2010, I had started using it only recently, somewhere in the late 2015/beginning of 2016. I am still learning about it and I have even dedicated some time on editing tags and other related info as character traits and so on for every visual novel that I read at the time. I have stumbled upon this thread some time ago and recently decided to check it out again and I have even learned some new things about it. With all of that said, I have created this thread in hopes of finding some more answers on some of the questions that have been on my mind for some time now. There should be people on this forum that know more about this then I do. I hope I am not posting in the wrong section, VNDB Tips n' Tricks thread was also posted here so I think it is the right place for these questions (if not, mods should move it where it's appropriate). So here are the questions:

1. For every VN that I have read in the past year, I have given it a rating based on my opinion and experience of it. So far, I have always been in favour of giving only whole integer numbers with no decimal points since I really hated giving numbers like "7.5" and similiar, I kind of didn't like the option of giving floating point numbers as a rating and I tried to avoid fractions as much as possible since I didn't consider them as real ratings. That was only recently until I have read Edelweiss and thought in myself how I cannot really rate it good enough with integer numbers because I don't like giving it a 7 nor do I like giving it an 8. And so I was on the edge and finally succumbed to giving it a fractional "7.5". That also prompted me to revisit some other VNs I have read earlier and give them fractional ratings too because that's closer to how I really felt about these titles. Now my question here is how are these fractional ratings taken inside the statistics ("vote stats" on every VN page)? Are they taken with a lower or a higher mark? For example, if I rate something as 7.2, is it taken as a 7 or as an 8? Same question for 7.7 and similiar. How does it take 7.5? Is it taken as a both a 7 and an 8? I don't really care that much about this, I am just curious on how this part of it works (I tried figuring it out on my own, but I think my browser is bugging so I can't confirm how the statistics changed based on my input);
2. This is also one of the questions that sparked my curiousity ... How is VNDB funded? O_O That's a thought I had in my mind for several months now and only now I decided to ask if somebody knows how. I have disabled adblock for VNDB and I still don't see any ads on it. I also don't see anywhere a donation tab. So I am rather curious about it, who funds VNDB? It seems like a very good visual novel database that's operated by a community dedicated to visual novels and I am rather curious on how do they pay their montly hosting costs. I am not sure but I have been paying attention lately and I have noticed this everytime I open the homepage of VNDB:

   Quote

   VNDB.org strives to be a comprehensive database for information about visual novels.
   This website is built as a wiki, meaning that anyone can freely add and contribute information to the database, allowing us to create the largest, most accurate and most up-to-date visual novel database on the web.

   Is VNDB just a Wikipedia offspring? I didn't think about it earlier but I have noticed this only recently and I thought in myself how VNDB really does function similiar to Wikipedia (i.e. random people can edit content). But it has its own style and presentation, when I look at it like this, it has a form of an entire website, I never thought of Wikipedia when I was looking at VNDB like this.

3. Final question ... Am I able to make myself a custom theme on VNDB? I have recently discovered the option to change the theme of VNDB style and I picked "Tsukihime" but below down I see "Additional CSS" ... I know CSS is related to HTML and so I was thinking if it's possible to code myself a totally different style and presentation on VNDB? xD What's the use of "Additional CSS"? ... If it's possible I might want to create myself a totally different style, that would be good usage of my Web Designer course that I am studying at my school

 

[Deep Blue]

I'm kinda curious to know about how vndb stays founded too since there is a lot of traffic going on, with many images that you can even hotlink, so i'm sure it's not a cheap thing to maintain. Costs are probably very high..

[Infernoplex]

33 minutes ago, Deep Blue said:

I'm kinda curious to know about how vndb stays founded too since there is a lot of traffic going on, with many images that you can even hotlink, so i'm sure it's not a cheap thing to maintain. Costs are probably very high..

That's what I have been thinking too ... Just look at the numbers on the left side where the "Database Statistics" box is located ... It says that now there are 109 364 users registered ... I know not all of them are online all the time and some never even come but I am sure that at least ~20 000 people regularly come online and many of them like me are editing pages ... That's bound to make some traffic and put some pressure on the servers ... And they store lots of images besides just regular text ...

Look at Fuwanovel for example ... This forum requires external hostings for images and even it requires some kind of donations to keep the site afloat and Fuwa surely doesn't have as much as traffic as VNDB ... So there must be somebody who pays for the server costs ... And if I am not mistaken, AniDB is also by the same people who created VNDB? (I think somebody mentioned that somewhere but I am not sure if it's true) ... I am guessing they are both hosted at the same place if that's the case ... There's heavy traffic going on, that I am definitively sure of ...

[Tyr]

1 hour ago, Infernoplex said:

How does it take 7.5? Is it taken as a both a 7 and an 8?

Math, do you know it?

[Infernoplex]

1 minute ago, Tyrosyn said:

Math, do you know it?

7+8=15 ... 15/2=7.5 ... Am I missing something? xD

[Silvz]

Well, 7.5 is usually considered 8 in these cases.

Even Wikipedia asks for donations, so your question is very interesting.

[Infernoplex]

1 minute ago, Silvz said:

Well, 7.5 is usually considered 8 in these cases.

Even Wikipedia asks for donations, so your question is very interesting.

That kind of makes me sad (the 7.5 part) ... That's why I asked that, I am kind of against allowing Edelweiss to get an 8 from me xD But I guess I will just have to deal with it (maybe I should lower it to 7.4 then, ahaha ) ...

Yeah, Wikipedia is also on donations as far as I know, anyway, I guess we are going to learn the truth soon because now the question is also posted on VNDB ... I have learned that VNDB was created in 2007 and that the main administrator of the site and its creator was someone by the handle Yorhel ... He is the main developer of the site, I am guessing that he will maybe answer on the question of funds if and when he sees that thread on VNDB ...

[yorikbad]

3 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

Yeah, Wikipedia is also on donations as far as I know, anyway, I guess we are going to learn the truth soon because now the question is also posted on VNDB ... I have learned that VNDB was created in 2007 and that the main administrator of the site and its creator was someone by the handle Yorhel ... He is the main developer of the site, I am guessing that he will maybe answer on the question of funds if and when he sees that thread on VNDB

Well, Wiki founder asks visiters to support the site from time to time, but it's not the case with VNDB. I've been using this database since 2012 and have never seen any requests about money.

Your topic gave me the motivation, so I made the thread. We'll see if it'll give us the answers, but I do not think that the main devs are ready to descend to us for such petty reason. Besides, it's clearly to me, that VNDB is funded by elfes. With neko ears. Who wants to ruin this magic story?

[Infernoplex]

Okay, @yorikbad , thank you, somebody answered on my questions on VNDB right now, I will just quote him here:

Quote

To answer those Fuwanovel questions:

1) It's rounds up or down normally. So 6.5 - 7.4 is 7, 7.5 - 8.4 is 8 and so on.

2) For the first few years VNDB was funded by the admin, Yorhel from his own pocket. For a while now though there are advertisements: there are links for J-List and MangaGamer store pages on the pages of VNs that they sell. Like Edelweiss: you can see the "Available at" section, those are sponsored links. Since the site is pretty minimalistic in design, that's enough to fund the expenses, or at least that's what Yorhel said a while back.

3) Yes, if you don't like any of the available presets, you can make a custom CSS design and VNDB will just use it for your account.

Now that's interesting, about the funding, I did notice these links for store pages on English localized VNs but I never thought those were sponsored But it makes sense now, I guess ... Though I don't know if it's enough to fund VNDB ... I am guessing Yorhel still donates some of his money for the site's cause. He seems to be really devoted to VNDB, I never knew VNDB was so old (9 years so far) ...

[yorikbad]

2 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

thank you, somebody answered on my questions on VNDB right now

Don't matter. I wanted to know this myself. I was being lazy

3 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

Now that's interesting, about the funding, I did notice these links for store pages on English localized VNs but I never thought those were sponsored But it makes sense now, I guess ... Though I don't know if it's enough to fund VNDB ... I am guessing Yorhel still donates some of his money for the site's cause. He seems to be a really devoted to VNDB, I never knew VNDB was so old (9 years so far) ...

From my experience for such site as VNDB you need at least a "couple" hundred dollars to maintain the server support. Can you earn this sum with sponsor links only? Well, MG and J-List both have several hundred thousand visiters per month. No kidding, VNs are really have become a thing in the last years. And Fuwa is popular like the Rolling Stones. So, I guess Yorhel has some solid income from those abovementioned companies. No sure about Sekai 'cause they're always in the red... 

[Infernoplex]

3 minutes ago, yorikbad said:

From my experience for such site as VNDB you need at least a "couple" hundred dollars to maintain the server support. Can you earn this sum with sponsor links only? Well, MG and J-List both have several hundred thousand visiters per month. No kidding, VNs are really have become a thing in the last years. And Fuwa is popular like the Rolling Stones. So, I guess Yorhel has some solid income from those abovementioned companies. No sure about Sekai 'cause they're always in the red... 

I have been looking up now and it seems that only MangaGamer and J-List are popping up in "Available at" sponsored sections ... For Sekai titles, it doesn't link neither to Steam store page nor the denpasoft site ... Look at Grisaia for example

Grisaia is available at J-list and play-asia store for PSP ... It looks like Sekai isn't sponsoring on VNDB so only MG and JAST are there on the site as sponsors so far.

[yorikbad]

9 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

or Sekai titles, it doesn't link neither to Steam store page nor the denpasoft site ... Look at Grisaia for example

You need to make two clicks and go to homepage from here https://vndb.org/p162

Same with Denpa.

9 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

It looks like Sekai isn't sponsoring on VNDB so only MG and JAST are there on the site as sponsors so far.

Sekai need people to sponsor themselves

 

[Warfoki]

I ended up making an account to be able to answer here after all. I'm the guy who answered the questions earlier, I'm part of the moderator team on VNDB.

Sekai Project has monetary issues, because according to their own comments on VNDB, they spend a good chunk of their income to financially help Japanese VN companies stay in business with donations and such.

[Infernoplex]

16 minutes ago, yorikbad said:

Sekai need people to sponsor themselves

Ahahahaha LOL

14 minutes ago, Warfoki said:

I ended up making an account to be able to answer here after all. I'm the guy who answered the questions earlier, I'm part of the moderator team on VNDB.

Oh, sorry to bother you, I was originally hoping somebody on Fuwa will know the answers but I guess I should have posted on VNDB first (I am missing common logic sometimes xD)

14 minutes ago, Warfoki said:

Sekai Project has monetary issues, because according to their own comments on VNDB, they spend a good chunk of their income to financially help Japanese VN companies stay in business with donations and such.

Oh, I see ... Now that you mention it, I don't even remember SP doing any kind of real marketing ever ... Only time I hear about them is when the kickstarter session begins, I rarely see any kind of advertisement from them unless I hear it from somebody else (word of mouth approach) ... I remember Nekopara rocketing high because of youtube celebs so I guess if they ever wanted to really market a VN they published, they should pay youtube celebs xD ...

Edit: Okay, I am exagareting a little bit, they still do marketing here and there, I am not following them on twitter and such so I can't really say whether they are marketing enough or not ... I think I mostly hear about them on Fuwa, whenever something happens with them, I hear about it here on Fuwa so I think I could safely say that this site really do some kind of marketing for SP even though they aren't paid for that (as far as I know xD) ...

Edited November 9, 2016 by Infernoplex

[Warfoki]

5 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

Oh, sorry to bother you, I was originally hoping somebody on Fuwa will know the answers but I guess I should have posted on VNDB first (I am missing common logic sometimes xD)

Oh, I see ... Now that you mention it, I don't even remember SP doing any kind of real marketing ever ... Only time I hear about them is when the kickstarter session begins, I rarely see any kind of advertisement from them unless I hear it from somebody else (word of mouth approach) ... I remember Nekopara rocketing high because of youtube celebs so I guess if they ever wanted to really market a VN they published, they should pay youtube celebs xD ...

Meh, nevermind, I took like half a minute to make an account.

Yeah, paying YouTube and Twitch celebs for coverage can be very costly. An example, just to put in context. A Japanese dev team made a competitive card game, Shadowverse. Now, the biggest name in this genre is obviously Blizzard's own Hearthstone, so to help advertise their stuff, the Shadowverse devs paid the top Hearthstone streamers to promote their game. one of the most popular HS streamers, Kripparrian, said on stream (if I remember correctly) that he gets around $2 000 per hour for streaming Shadowverse instead of Hearthstone. Obviously VNs are nowhere near as popular as HS, so coverage would be somewhat cheaper, but yeah, if you want to buy the time of really poplar youtubers and twitch streamers, then that's not going to be cheap.

[yorikbad]

26 minutes ago, Warfoki said:

I ended up making an account to be able to answer here after all. I'm the guy who answered the questions earlier, I'm part of the moderator team on VNDB.

Thank you for your trouble.

26 minutes ago, Warfoki said:

Sekai Project has monetary issues, because according to their own comments on VNDB, they spend a good chunk of their income to financially help Japanese VN companies stay in business with donations and such.

I don't know, how much MG or Jast are willing to spend on VNDB but I just have hard time to believe it's such enormous sum of money they can't donate. But apparently they have enough to move to the new office and hire new people.

 

21 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

I don't even remember SP doing any kind of real marketing ever

That's not correct. Their projects have better coverage then MG or Jast. They did many interviews on some popular sites, even with Decay http://fuwanovel.net/2016/05/interview-with-sekai-project/ not long time ago. With the Steam boom they put a lot into advertisments. They have been trying to present themselves as Disney of the VN indusrty. Releasing visual novels for everyone. The problem is that everyone means all-age today. But VNs aren't for everyone. It's a niche genre and it'll always be. Sekai doesn't understand this that's why they are loosing money and support.

26 minutes ago, Warfoki said:

they spend a good chunk of their income to financially help Japanese VN companies stay in business with donations and such.

You can't run the business on charity. They have to get rid of the ballast. Or the economy will get rid of them.

[Infernoplex]

2 minutes ago, Warfoki said:

Yeah, paying YouTube and Twitch celebs for coverage can be very costly. An example, just to put in context. A Japanese dev team made a competitive card game, Shadowverse. Now, the biggest name in this genre is obviously Blizzard's own Hearthstone, so to help advertise their stuff, the Shadowverse devs paid the top Hearthstone streamers to promote their game. one of the most popular HS streamers, Kripparrian, said on stream (if I remember correctly) that he gets around $2 000 per hour for streaming Shadowverse instead of Hearthstone. Obviously VNs are nowhere near as popular as HS, so coverage would be somewhat cheaper, but yeah, if you want to buy the time of really poplar youtubers and twitch streamers, then that's not going to be cheap.

Yeah, exactly, that's a good example you gave ... I edited my previous post because I think I exagarated a little bit ... I know that major players in the twitch/youtube scene get good cash for some of their streamings and that's not the only source of their income, there's an entire bussiness going on behind streaming and I think that's one of the best ways of marketing games ... I know visual novels can't compete with "real games" so I am not really expecting that much from Sekai ... VN localization bussiness isn't that profitable and nobody is going to get rich on it, I think MG also had financial issues at the beginning when they were starting (SP is in that phase right now, if I am not wrong, they exist since 2014 or 2015) ... I know they cannot pay that much for marketing purposes so they have to rely on the already established VN fanbase that's dependant on JAST and MG ... Speaking of that, I think that Nekopara's success was a mere lucky coincidence ... Just look at Corona Blossom, it's a similiar approach but not even close as a success that had Nekopara ...

[Warfoki]

As far as I know, those links work as referrals, so just having them there doesn't mean any money. People have to buy something through those links for VNDB to have a cut. Ironically enough Erogegames is also using such referral links for the MG titles.

[Infernoplex]

1 minute ago, Warfoki said:

As far as I know, those links work as referrals, so just having them there doesn't mean any money. People have to buy something through those links for VNDB to have a cut. Ironically enough Erogegames is also using such referral links for the MG titles.

Yeah, that about erogegames part, I have noticed it too several months ago ... I didn't even know that those were referral links What an irony!! Speaking of it, how come not one of these VN localization companies aren't coming after that site? It's been in bussiness for so long and I always wondered how it survived, all piracy sites that I know of usually die after several years of service ...

9 minutes ago, yorikbad said:

That's not correct. Their projects have better coverage then MG or Jast. They did many interviews on some popular sites, even with Decay http://fuwanovel.net/2016/05/interview-with-sekai-project/ not long time ago. With the Steam boom they put a lot into advertisments. They have been trying to present themselves as Disney of the VN indusrty. Releasing visual novels for everyone. The problem is that everyone means all-age today. But VNs aren't for everyone. It's a niche genre and it'll always be. Sekai doesn't understand this that's why they are loosing money and support.

Yeah, I exagarated a little bit on that part, sorry ... It's just that I always feel like MG and JAST are doing more on promotion, especially MG, they are always doing interviews and they seem to be very active on social media.

[sanahtlig]

12 minutes ago, Warfoki said:

As far as I know, those links work as referrals, so just having them there doesn't mean any money. People have to buy something through those links for VNDB to have a cut. Ironically enough Erogegames is also using such referral links for the MG titles.

To reiterate this, affiliate linking is not sponsorship.  It's business.  The companies are paying you to refer potential customers to them.  It's sort of like commissions-based sales work where you're paid per sale.

[Warfoki]

Just now, Infernoplex said:

Yeah, that about erogegames part, I have noticed it too several months ago ... I didn't even know that those were referral links What an irony!! Speaking of it, how come not one of these VN localization companies aren't coming after that site? It's been in bussiness for so long and I always wondered how it survived, all piracy sites that I know of usually die after several years of service ...

I remember reading a discussion on that from MG. Now, don't quote me on this, since it was a while ago, but as far as I can remember MG is keenly aware of Erogegames existence. However, EG is operating form Ukraine, so outside of EU and USA jurisdictions. SO to get them, MG, would have to enter a legal battle in Ukraine, where the digital copyright laws are more... relaxed. So it would be a costly court case on foreign soil with no guarantee for a positive outcome for them. MG siimply doesn't have the money to throw around for that. Also, it could create a bad precedent, should they lose. And they can't do much about the download service either, since as far as I remember downloadani.me is run by the same guy who runs EG and is also operated from outside of the EU and USA jurisdictions. So they let EG get away with their referral, because that way at least some people might use them to buy the games after / instead of downloading it, somewhat mitigating their losses.

Again, it's been a while since I looked up all this, so I might remember some details poorly, so don't quote me on this.

[yorikbad]

17 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

It's just that I always feel like MG and JAST are doing more on promotion, especially MG, they are always doing interviews and they seem to be very active on social media.

Well, you can call 4chan a social media... in a sense. Good Haro, MG's stuff member always lurking there. But I don't see MG doing interview so often. They sell mostly 18+ titles and nukige so their options are limited. 

9 minutes ago, Warfoki said:

the digital copyright laws are more... relaxed.

I can confirm, we don't have any copyrights at all. US goverment named us as the most "piracy" country in the world.

9 minutes ago, Warfoki said:

Again, it's been a while since I looked up all this, so I might remember some details poorly, so don't quote me on this.

There was such discussion. IIRC after the MG's store collapse.

 

[Infernoplex]

3 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

To reiterate this, affiliate links are not sponsorship.  It's business.  The companies are paying you to refer potential customers to them.  It's sort of like commissions-based sales work where you're paid per sale.

Okay, my bad, so it's not sponsorship, referral links are useless if nobody buys through them ... @Warfoki did Yorhel ever mention how much of these referral links actually brought any real money for the site? I remember you said that Yorhel said it was enough but did he say how much is actually enough for the site to run?

Okay, I will not quote you on that but it seems very likely true I know Ivan is from Ukraine and I know that Ukraine is kind of a piracy haven for sites like EG ... I think Kickasstorrents was also based in Ukraine or its owner was from there A lot of piracy is going on in Ukraine and Russia ... Though don't get me wrong here, I also use piracy to get VNs (right now, the only viable option for me to buy some VNs is through Steam but that's pretty limited considering I am mostly into adult titles, I am not from USA) ... I find interesting what you said about EG, especially the downloadani.me part ... This is the first time I am hearing of it being by the same owner. Though I find that one rather hard to believe because I remember that Ivan used Mediafire and Rapidshare early on and he even mentioned several times some European laws on data storage or something like that ... I find it hard to believe he suddenly decided to run a cyberlocker site ... But I guess it could be true O_O ...

Anyway, thanks for your valuable input

[yorikbad]

2 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

I think Kickasstorrents was also based in Ukraine or its owner was from there

In Poland. But its owner is ukrainian immigrant.

 

[Infernoplex]

5 minutes ago, yorikbad said:

But I don't see MG doing interview so often. They sell mostly 18+ titles and nukige so their options are limited. 

I used to read about MG a lot on Siliconera and there's been a recent interview on dualshockers with them ... Here too ... This one is about the MG scammer ... And so on, every now and then, MG is featured in some media ... At least that's the impression I am getting though it's probably related to the fact that I generally follow these things, it's not like they are doing anything special I guess ...