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Inferior releases.


Akshay

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So Jast just released Eiyuu Senki. The thing is it has already been fan patched. Further the fan patch imported a lot of content from the ps3 version. Similarly, mangagamer released umineko,(unvoiced), while the earlier fanpatch had voices imported from the console version. 

When you release something officially so late, a lot of people would have already played it, so wouldn't it be harder to market their product? Further, when the fan patches actually have more features/content, why do they make the official releases lack these things. Doesn't that discourage people from getting official releases?

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Well part of this issue is licensing. The content from the console port doesn't belong exclusively to the original company, it also belongs to the company who publishes the game for the console (eroge companies generally don't have much money compared to so they need to turn to these guys for an all ages port) then there's also the voice acting which is tied to the studios and they can be pricey too.

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16 minutes ago, Nandemonai said:

You've also just identified a large part of the reason things that have already had a fan patch released to the public don't often get full releases.

Well that opens a can of worms; are you saying fan translations lead to less official releases? Overall I'd say they lead to more for (insert a million reasons here) compared to the releases that don't happen as a result of them.

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26 minutes ago, ittaku said:

Well that opens a can of worms; are you saying fan translations lead to less official releases? Overall I'd say they lead to more for (insert a million reasons here) compared to the releases that don't happen as a result of them.

More like, in the current environment, careless fantl releases have a tendency to reduce the likelihood of an official localization.  When the VN community was badly starved for translations of any sort (think when the total number was under forty VNs) and none of the current localization companies save JAST were in operation, fantranslations were the only way for the Japanese-incompetent to play a Japanese visual novel. 

A VN pretty much has to be first-class to get a successful (profitable) official release if a fantl is already out.  That's simply human nature at work, lol.

Edit: To clarify, I do not deny the efforts of fantl groups... being one myself.  Without fantls, the current industry wouldn't be able to exist.  However, there is a distinct difference in the effects on the industry between selling an unreleased fan translation to SP or MG and releasing a patch for free.

Edited by Clephas
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MangaGamer's words on the matter are far more eloquent than mine.  Here is the Wayback archive of an answer on their ask.fm account (which was deleted with no explanation a year or two ago):

Quote

Does MangaGamer have a message to fan-translators out there?

Dear Fan Translators,

Please take the time to consider the actual effects your actions may have on the market.

Keep in mind the fact you may actually significantly damage the sales potential for a title when you release a finished patch. Most people don't play lengthy visual novels more than once, so with a full fan-patch released, they’re very unlikely to pick up an official localized version of the title. When a company is interested in or considering localization, an existing, publicly released fan-patch can not only harm the potential sales of a title, but also sour Japanese developers on ever wanting to deal with the western market.

It’s true that fan-patches for visual novels means that fans might get to play the game in English, but we're now in the age where official licenses are much more common, and quite more likely. But this also means that fan-patches have greater potential to do real, monetary harm to the developers you care about. Translating public demos is a great, easy option for promoting and sharing the game while avoiding the risks.

Keep in mind that most professional translators are fans just like you as well, because the niche nature of this market means making a living here is only bearable through the love shared for the products produced. If you can produce quality work, it's quite possible for you to work professionally and see more titles (that you care about) officially released. Honestly, the truth is that those of us working in the industry would love to have those of you with talent and skill join us on this end. If there’s a game you’re particularly fond of or passionate about, consider approaching us (or our fellow visual novel localizers) first.

-MangaGamer

 

Edited by Nandemonai
Jeseus Christ Fuwa, why is it so hard to put a quote in manually
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1 hour ago, Nandemonai said:

MangaGamer's words on the matter are far more eloquent than mine.  Here is the Wayback archive of an answer on their ask.fm account (which was deleted with no explanation a year or two ago):

 

MG probably thought that their statement as written was counterproductive... since it is.  I hate to say it, but at least some people who fantl are contrarian by nature (think at least half).  People who would normally go to an 'official' localization company with their translations will sometimes release them instead if they get a C&D at the wrong time, as an example. 

As a rule of thumb, the type of person who would do that would generally react dismissively or negatively to this kind of statement, even if they felt neutral to the company before. 

A shorter, less confrontational post would probably get the message across without setting off that particular stick of dynamite, lol.  That kind of admonishment has to come from within the community for it to be effective.  When a company starts talking about money, a lot of people just turn off their brains.

Edit: In the last few years, the localization companies have been avoiding statements like that while aggressively buying fantls.  This has turned out to be a far more effective and efficient strategy than the original 'Bash, threaten, and admonish from high above' strategy that they used previously.  The sheer number of fantl projects trying to release independently has definitely decreased and the number of official localizations has increased massively as a result.  Occasionally, you will hear about another C&D, but that has become far less common than it was.

Edited by Clephas
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1 hour ago, DharmaFreedom said:

What is the difference with the Jast release of Eiyuu Senki and that fan patched one? is it lacking a lot of content?

 i thought people were saying that version is really buggy before.

The patched one imports sprites/content from the console release (pc + console content). Which is why I found it confusing that they are rereleasing where the new version is inferior to the old one.

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Yea I dont quite get this, surely their time would be much better spent translating a moderately popular game with no hint of a translation than translating something that already has a fan translation (which is even superior). Personally even if a fan translation has some spelling and grammar errors (even a substantial amount) it doesnt bother me, its not like I dont know what it means (can certaintly still understand it better than Japanese), I dont see the point in releasing it as an "official" translation.

Honestly I have huge respect for the fan translators and would probably use a fan translation even if it was slightly worse lol. (that being said I am grateful to any and all translators). I guess I get what mangagamer are saying above tho.

The exception to this being any translations which are mainly machine translated ofc.

Edited by FinalCloud
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6 hours ago, Clephas said:

More like, in the current environment, careless fantl releases have a tendency to reduce the likelihood of an official localization.  When the VN community was badly starved for translations of any sort (think when the total number was under forty VNs) and none of the current localization companies save JAST were in operation, fantranslations were the only way for the Japanese-incompetent to play a Japanese visual novel. 

A VN pretty much has to be first-class to get a successful (profitable) official release if a fantl is already out.  That's simply human nature at work, lol.

Edit: To clarify, I do not deny the efforts of fantl groups... being one myself.  Without fantls, the current industry wouldn't be able to exist.  However, there is a distinct difference in the effects on the industry between selling an unreleased fan translation to SP or MG and releasing a patch for free.

I equate our current position in time in the VN development world to that period in anime propagation when fansubs started having a massive decline and official localisations started rising in number quite abruptly. Not long after that we had official localisations for the bulk of the anime being produced and even simulcasts of the material. This to me was when we had succeeded in our fandom for creating a market where there wasn't one before through the efforts of fansubs to show there was a niche market and the businesses came to fill it. Fansubs have persisted after that stage but to me they're redundant and they became the raison d'etre instead of filling a missing niche which would inspire markets to create official localisations. They've become more about e-penis. We used to go to great pains to point out that our translation was free and that should an official localisation come out we stopped all distribution of our subs and encouraged people to buy that instead. VNs probably will never get to the popularity in the west that anime has seen due to a whole swag of reasons that has been discussed to death in other threads but nonetheless we are now finally getting what we wanted in the VN world with lots more localisations but some are continuing to fan translate things that are already being, or have been localised, because "we can do it better". As far as I'm concerned the fan translation scene for VNs has succeeded since we are now seeing a plethora of new translations appearing (compared to the JAST days @Clephas mentioned.)  Unlike anime though, there will be thousands times more VNs available than those being translated so I can't see the worth for fansubs going away any time soon for more fringe works (leave the stuff that's obviously going to be translated to the official groups.) I'd never partake in a fan retranslation of an official localisation for so many many reasons...

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So ... everybody's talking about Eiyuu Senki "fan-translation" ... But ... If I remember correctly, wasn't the fan-TL actually the official TL by Fruitbat Factory for the console editions (PS3 I think it was) of Eiyuu Senki? The team just pulled out the translation from there and inserted it into the PC edition. And then surferdude from Hongfire added in the translation for H-scenes (and some other content as well). So technically, it's a 90% official TL already, not really a fan-TL? xD Just like with Steins;Gate 0, I am bothered to hear it called "fan-TL" when in fact it was just translation taken from consoles and ported to PC instead.

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1 hour ago, Infernoplex said:

So ... everybody's talking about Eiyuu Senki "fan-translation" ... But ... If I remember correctly, wasn't the fan-TL actually the official TL by Fruitbat Factory for the console editions (PS3 I think it was) of Eiyuu Senki? The team just pulled out the translation from there and inserted it into the PC edition. And then surferdude from Hongfire added in the translation for H-scenes (and some other content as well). So technically, it's a 90% official TL already, not really a fan-TL? xD Just like with Steins;Gate 0, I am bothered to hear it called "fan-TL" when in fact it was just translation taken from consoles and ported to PC instead.

Yes. I guess its not a true fan tl.

However it added a significant amount of content


-Includes all exclusive PS3 and PSVita content (characters, events, CGs, voices). 
-Inserts subtitles for battle/map voices.
-Translates all configuration menus
-Adds a difficulty selector: Normal, Hard, Very Hard, Nightmare
-Includes 2 translated Gawain H-scenes from Eiyuu*Senki GOLD
-Expands Galleries to accommodate the newly added content

In other words, they even added more h-content from eiyuu senki gold. Most of the people with errors, have one of the older patches. The latest patch (1.7) works well on my/all my friends computers.

My main thought was that, normally when a patch exists (fan-made or otherwise), people may still opt to buy the licensed version (to support the writers, get a better translation).

However, when the content of the licensed version is less than that of the previously released patch, wont a lot more people have motivation to use the old fan-made patch rather than buy the licensed version? Even more than a normal localisation after a fan patch?

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10 minutes ago, Akshay said:

Yes. I guess its not a true fan tl.

However it added a significant amount of content


-Includes all exclusive PS3 and PSVita content (characters, events, CGs, voices). 
-Inserts subtitles for battle/map voices.
-Translates all configuration menus
-Adds a difficulty selector: Normal, Hard, Very Hard, Nightmare
-Includes 2 translated Gawain H-scenes from Eiyuu*Senki GOLD
-Expands Galleries to accommodate the newly added content

In other words, they even added more h-content from eiyuu senki gold. Most of the people with errors, have one of the older patches. The latest patch (1.7) works well on my/all my friends computers.

My main thought was that, normally when a patch exists (fan-made or otherwise), people may still opt to buy the licensed version (to support the writers, get a better translation).

However, when the content of the licensed version is less than that of the previously released patch, wont a lot more people have motivation to use the old fan-made patch rather than buy the licensed version? Even more than a normal localisation after a fan patch?

Again, main issue here is Licensing. Sometimes it's just impossible to get all the rights necessary to have this accomplished. And if you can't get the rights you are liable to be sued. Do remember that these official companies are profiting of these releases and as such the original companies that put in work are able to sue if proper steps are not taken. 

Fans on the other hand don't have this handicap and can literally, LITERALLY, do whatever the fuck they want. I could, theoretically, add in Linkin Park music as the OST or add in functionality to the game that wasn't there before. And not only do I need not get the rights to either the company who made the game, I don't even need to bother with music licensing.

And in regards to ALL of this, if you are going to sit there and go "well I'm not going to spend money because there is a free, better, version out there" then do just that. I personally have bought many visual novels and never opened them purely because I played the fan translated releases when they came out but I do in fact want to support the developers. Just like games I used to pirate long ago I all have in either a digital or physical paid copy. If content is so important to you, get the fan translated edition, play the fan translated edition. But if you want to support the sales of a game you enjoy, go purchase it, regardless of which version you play.

Add to this is a person didn't even know of everything you are talking about they would still purchase the game, play it, and that's that. It's not like the company is going "Hey everyone buying this product, look there is a fan version out there that has a shitload more content then the one we put out...just saying."

If the customer doesn't know, the customer won't care. So you might give a crap because you know, but many others who actually buy the game might not know this and therefore don't care.

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Never mind being sued.  You never deliberately release something you don't have rights for, if you ever want to do business with any licensor ever again.  NuTech found this out the hard way.

And that's the difference.  Fans can do whatever they want because there are no consequences to them personally.  They don't need to worry about their reputation with the rights holders, because they're already ignoring what the rights holders want.  They don't need to worry about being sued, because it's a waste of a lot of time and money (that the rightsholders don't have) and generates huge amounts of ill will.  They don't need to worry about their company (which in the case of J-List has been around for more than 20 years) being destroyed, because they haven't got one.  Fan translators ignore all the rules and do whatever they want.

The same rules apply to them, in theory.  Fan translations are illegal.  But all the penalties for breaking those rules are toothless, when it comes to dealing with people like fan translators.  There's no way to punish them.  So they have nothing to lose.  A real company will have its business destroyed if it ignores the rules.  Fan translators have no such problem.

So that's why the fan translation has all this extra stuff in it.  Because the people who made it didn't give a crap about what the rightsholders wanted and just did whatever they wanted.  And if that makes the fan patch look more attractive than the legit release, and that in turn causes sales to suffer?  Then maybe the lesson Jast USA takes away is 'maybe next time don't license the game with an already-released fan patch'.

Edited by Nandemonai
missing word
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2 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

Odd, I thought that title was already released in English ages ago. Guess that was just the PS3 version then. :unsure:

Well at least Jast got their (only?) release out for this year to offer solid prove that they are still alive.

 

Complaining about Jast's slow release schedule is like complaining about death, taxes, and the weather.

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That's why fan TL's should revert to translating demos once again, like in the past. It not only does not harm the developers (aside from those, who might get salty over fans cracking their in-house engines), but helps promote the product to a wider audience. It's always a win-win situation for both parties and most wouldn't even mind to see their demos/trial versions translated. In fact, they are probably hoping to see big numbers on their downloads.

Edited by Narcosis
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