moenovel is releasing "A sky full of stars"

[Codesterz]

MoeNovel devs gave me a warning on the steam discussions for this topic http://steamcommunity.com/app/745960/discussions/0/2906376154330413460/

It's the most I've ever heard from them though, now if only we could get the same for the censorship. For those interested in seeing the warning message I'll put it below. It's just a typical response you'd expect though. I put little edit on the bottom of the steam post to try keep it from getting deleted again.

"Hi, I'm afraid that I have to issue you a warning regarding your post. Both the original post and this post have been flagged to us as encouraging hate within the forums. As much as we want to allow our users free speech and the freedom to express their opinion openly, we still have to abide by Steam's rules. Should this thread deteriorate down into a hate-encouraging speech, we will be forced to remove it again. We hope that you will understand this and consider the Steam forum rules. 
MoeNovel"

[jetpack003]

Looks like the message is getting across so that's a good thing. Although, I would have written more about Moenovel not listening to the fan's feedback.

If I was being harsh, I would have said that we should have another company translating these games instead of them because this is just stupid for what they're doing.

 

Also we need an obligatory 12-year-old French girls quote too.

Edited December 19, 2017 by jetpack003

[novurdim]

10 hours ago, br4zil said:

A Sky Full of Stars sold about 1.345 + or - 1.300 units on Steam, thats a pathetic number, considering even Princess Evangile's fandisc sold about about 1700 + or - 1200 on its first week.

So we can just as well assume that sfos has sold 2645 units while evangile fandisk only 500. And then it's a success. Really, steamspy is as useless as it gets until the game has sold at least 5k, Galyonkin himself noted it numerous times.

[kyrt]

Pulltop/Moenovel deserves to fail if they don't listen to the people who actually care about their games. The visual novel market is saturated with both quality and crap everywhere and now people are cautious about picking a product up and no longer are limited in what is available to them. I like pulltop games but I won't support a censored or poorly translated release. We have plenty of options to choose instead of them. Hope the sales of this game make them realize that.

[ratboi]

10 hours ago, xGreyHound said:

I go by: No 18+ patch, no buy.

true

[littleshogun]

On 12/19/2017 at 5:27 AM, Dergonu said:

I don't think you do. It would make a difference specifically because the lack of sales comes from the localized game. 

No one wants to just take money from Pulltop in general. People here are their fans, after all. This is a protest to show that we don't want censored games in the west. 

If Pulltop compares their sales of If my heart had wings to Miagete, and sees that they are terrible in comparison, and at the same time they see us complain about the lack of H, it is easy for them to connect the dots. 

Whether this will actually lead to them listening or not, we don't know, but it is the best bet we have. Sure, they make money from their JP titles, but that doesn't mean they are okay with making nothing from their western releases. Actually, Akabeisoft 2 broke because of similar issue during their Sharin no Kuni kickstarter. People weren't pledging because of the lack of H, so they added it in the end, and the game was funded. Of course, kickstarter and a game on steam are different things, but the idea is the same. Companies wants to sell games, so the best chance we have of being heard is by not buying the English version of Miagete specifically. 

Well perhaps you might be right about that there's a chance that Pulltop might be learn from this incident, but after seeing that they did the same mistake thrice in regard of no H scenes for overseas release I think most of the people won't easy enough to give them chance. In the end, it's still up to Pulltop though to either change their policy in regard of 18+ for overseas and apply that by making the 18+ patch, or perhaps just stubbornly ignore the fact that the overseas sales was less than they expected because no H scenes and therefore just make money from mostly Japanese release (They probably okay with that). Quite a shame that they still didn't take a clue after both of Konosora and Lovekami mess here, since I'd find that Miagete was quite interesting.

PS - I knew that they warned @Codesterz here in regard of his thread at Steam, which at least implied that Pulltop really worried about their Steam sales. But unfortunately the milk was already spilled here, so nothing we could do here other than hoping that in the future Pulltop REALLY take a hint in regard of this mess.

Edited January 3, 2018 by littleshogun

[voidpointer]

They spilled some really amazing milk though... 

[Codesterz]

15 hours ago, novurdim said:

So we can just as well assume that sfos has sold 2645 units while evangile fandisk only 500. And then it's a success. Really, steamspy is as useless as it gets until the game has sold at least 5k, Galyonkin himself noted it numerous times.

Most people would buy Evangile from MangaGamer's website so using it as a comparison to A Sky Full of Stars is no good. You need to find a high profile VN that only released on Steam with an 18+ patch available for it.

[bakauchuujin]

Btw does anyone know how much a VN usually sells at roughly full price? Don't really know if steamspy is a good measurement since a lot of the sales are at times with heavy discount. Kind of hard to know what is considered bad sales during the start when I don't really know the average.

[br4zil]

20 hours ago, novurdim said:

So we can just as well assume that sfos has sold 2645 units while evangile fandisk only 500. And then it's a success. Really, steamspy is as useless as it gets until the game has sold at least 5k, Galyonkin himself noted it numerous times.

I dunno how that can be "useless"

We dont work with extremes, we work with averages.

Your aware we can clearly see the growth of the game, right? Its not that it gets reliable depending on how many it has sold, its how much time as passed since a great wave of purchases of a given title, the numbers get more reliable as time moves on.

Right now, a Sky Full of Stars is sitting at:

"1,595 ± 1,179"

So we can guess around 2200ish copies, since the margin of error is decreasing and only 200 units were added. But in time we will have better numbers (gotta wait after christmas sales).

 

But anyhow,

You think thats a success? thats already worse than a fandisc that costed 35USD, while SFOS costs 15 bucks.

The point isnt exactly calculating how many copies were sold... you think 2000 or even 3000 copies are anything compared to If My Heart Had Wings's 15.000+ purchases that happened on its first weeks?

SFOS is, without a shadow of doubt, a pathetic (in terms of $$$) release when compared to IMHHW.

 

Edited December 20, 2017 by br4zil

[novurdim]

On 12/19/2017 at 6:00 PM, br4zil said:

We dont work with extremes, we work with averages.

We don't, you highly overestimate average vns in the West, selling 500 or 3000 is a huge difference and a matter of success for them.

On 12/19/2017 at 6:00 PM, br4zil said:

 

On 12/19/2017 at 6:00 PM, br4zil said:

So we can guess around 2200ish copies, since the margin of error is decreasing and only 200 units were added. But in time we will have better numbers (gotta wait after christmas sales).

No, that's exactly the point: until a certain point steamspy numbers are completely random so it could have just as well sold 300 copies, steamspy can't decently track small numbers.

On 12/19/2017 at 6:00 PM, br4zil said:

you think 2000 or even 3000 copies are anything compared to If My Heart Had Wings's 15.000+ purchases that happened on its first weeks?

I'm not sure where the numbers are from but yes, absolutely. IMHHW is an anomaly, the first and only real vn on steam for so long. Nowadays the market is oversaturated to hell so they would never get close to IMHHW even with the 18+ intact.

 

On 12/19/2017 at 1:44 PM, Codesterz said:

Most people would buy Evangile from MangaGamer's website so using it as a comparison to A Sky Full of Stars is no good.

Not really, I remember MG staff saying (probably in their annual summary?) that their games are usually selling significantly better on steam.

[bakauchuujin]

They now have a 20% discount on steam. Pretty sure it was lower than that before, maybe 10%. I would assume that it indicates that they are somewhat desperate to sell more copies.

[voidpointer]

1 hour ago, bakauchuujin said:

They now have a 20% discount on steam. Pretty sure it was lower than that before, maybe 10%. I would assume that it indicates that they are somewhat desperate to sell more copies.

I still see 10%

Edited December 20, 2017 by voidpointer

[bakauchuujin]

Odd I see 20%

Edit: For some odd reason it is 10% on steampage when looking through chrome while it is 20% when I use steam itself

Edited December 20, 2017 by bakauchuujin

[Veshurik]

How I can name it? They answered in every Steam topic (soundtrack, good reviews, problems etc.), but there are ton of discussions 18+, and they only reacted by deleting that?

 

To be honest, I'm just feel not so good when MoeNovel says "we're really happy, that you like our game, we will fix this problem ASAP". But they don't even try to see the bigger problem before their eyes.

 

About prices. Please, don't forget about regional prices. Usually that's why I always buy on Steam. Princess Evangile costs for us like 10$. Not 45$. I'm so happy about that.

[br4zil]

Hoshizora No Memoria came out yesterday and its selling more than SFOF.

Is it fair to compare? Hoshizora had the whole kickstarter to begin with, but then again, i was quite suprised that the kickstarter even got as much $$$ as it did for such a old VN getting re-translated (and getting its fandisc).

 

All in all, even if you dont trust Steamspy or think 500 or 1000 sales make that much of a diference, i think its quite clear at this point that SFOS didint sell well, not even by "high quality, big publisher" standards.

By "high quality" i mean the original work, not the localization hackjob.

 

If anything, i feel like SFOS's release perfectly shows that people are displeased with their policy, other publishers, with lesser (in production quality) VNs managed to outsold SFOF.

Edited December 21, 2017 by br4zil

[littleshogun]

On 12/21/2017 at 1:59 AM, Veshurik said:

How I can name it? They answered in every Steam topic (soundtrack, good reviews, problems etc.), but there are ton of discussions 18+, and they only reacted by deleting that?

To be honest, I'm just feel not so good when MoeNovel says "we're really happy, that you like our game, we will fix this problem ASAP". But they don't even try to see the bigger problem before their eyes.

At least they didn't abuse the space bar like Hikari Field in regard of your response, if I may say something.

On 12/21/2017 at 9:12 AM, br4zil said:

Hoshizora No Memoria came out yesterday and its selling more than SFOF.

Is it fair to compare? Hoshizora had the whole kickstarter to begin with, but then again, i was quite suprised that the kickstarter even got as much $$$ as it did for such a old VN getting re-translated (and getting its fandisc).

All in all, even if you dont trust Steamspy or think 500 or 1000 sales make that much of a diference, i think its quite clear at this point that SFOS didint sell well, not even by "high quality, big publisher" standards.

By "high quality" i mean the original work, not the localization hackjob.

If anything, i feel like SFOS's release perfectly shows that people are displeased with their policy, other publishers, with lesser (in production quality) VNs managed to outsold SFOF.

From what I read here, I agree that Steam Spy might be not accurate here. Also there's the matter that Hoshimemo did get the KS while Miagete was not, which mean that Pulltop didn't take the advantage of KS to determined the potential consumer (Divisive method aside) and most importantly to cover the localization fee of 18+ content (If any). Anyway, in regard of this I think while Miagete was almost as good as Hoshimemo from what I saw - even have the advantage against Hoshimemo because Hoshimemo release was redundant while Miagete was new translated VN, unfortunately the lack of 18+ patch surely won't do any good for Miagete in general ie made Pulltop loss the advantage and gave Hoshimemo advantage instead imo. Not to mention that both VN did have the same basic premise (The stargazing). So yeah, I think in regard of this I will supported Hoshimemo here even though the release was redundant here, because at least there's 18+ patch for the Steam version.

PS - I knew that Hoshimemo did have the new translation here, but even with improved translation I think the old player of Hoshimemo should already knew the story and therefore make the release redundant.

Edited January 3, 2018 by littleshogun

[kyrt]

2 hours ago, littleshogun said:

PS - I knew that Hoshimemo did have the new translation here, but even with improved translation I think the old player of Hoshimemo should already knew the story and therefore make the release redundant.

You have to remember that the kickstarter for hoshimemo also managed to achieve getting a translation for the the fan disk as well (eventually) so the kickstarter wasn't redundant from that aspect.

[littleshogun]

8 hours ago, kyrt said:

You have to remember that the kickstarter for hoshimemo also managed to achieve getting a translation for the the fan disk as well (eventually) so the kickstarter wasn't redundant from that aspect.

Now that you mention it, yeah they indeed also have the plan to translated Eternal Heart as well. So at the very least there's still some benefit from the KS then, although I think most of older fans of Hoshimemo would likely just wait for Eternal Heart though for obvious reason. But if one want to support Sekai by purchasing Hoshimemo, then yeah it's good that Sekai finally release this.

[voidpointer]

So just to summarize what people have said about this TL from MoeNovel: Everything is 100% original to the Japanese version, except the H scenes. No other content gating. Is this accurate? So it seems that the only thing missing is an 18+ patch, otherwise this steam release is on par with how Sekai and Mangagamer do things. Please let me know if this is correct.

[Freestyle80]

11 hours ago, voidpointer said:

So just to summarize what people have said about this TL from MoeNovel: Everything is 100% original to the Japanese version, except the H scenes. No other content gating. Is this accurate? So it seems that the only thing missing is an 18+ patch, otherwise this steam release is on par with how Sekai and Mangagamer do things. Please let me know if this is correct.

i am playing it and yeah, even the bath scene is intact the TL is much better though they are messing with first name and last names for some reason....

[littleshogun]

On 28/12/2017 at 1:21 AM, voidpointer said:

So just to summarize what people have said about this TL from MoeNovel: Everything is 100% original to the Japanese version, except the H scenes. No other content gating. Is this accurate? So it seems that the only thing missing is an 18+ patch, otherwise this steam release is on par with how Sekai and Mangagamer do things. Please let me know if this is correct.

Like Freestyle80 said, they keep the girls at the hotspring naked which is quite a big deal considering that back at Konosora we have Kotori with towel at the bath. Other than mess the name, the girls nipple was covered by steam (No pun intended) and Akito showed his (Sorry) c*ck was altered (The real SD CG was quite graphic). Also there's a fact that Pulltop still pulling their trick to hide the H scenes by changing that with kiss, and seeing that there's 17 sex scenes cut for English release (And 35 out of 111 CG that have the sex scenes was cut as well) it mean that we'll gonna see at least 17 kissing scenes. Other than those censorship, at least they didn't use 'eyes' as euphemism for breast anymore.

Edited December 29, 2017 by littleshogun

[Kaito1]

On 12/27/2017 at 12:21 PM, voidpointer said:

So just to summarize what people have said about this TL from MoeNovel: Everything is 100% original to the Japanese version, except the H scenes. No other content gating. Is this accurate? So it seems that the only thing missing is an 18+ patch, otherwise this steam release is on par with how Sekai and Mangagamer do things. Please let me know if this is correct.

Yes, it still contains all the fanservice scenes like underwear, bath scenes, lewd conversations, etc. So it's exactly the same as the Japanese version except for the 18+ scenes, which are either are removed or altered since Steam doesn't allow 18+ scenes.

The other Moenovel games, the two Love Kami games, are similar in that everything is the same as the Japanese version except for the 18+ scenes.

So basically this Steam release is on par with Sekai and Mangagamer except for the 18+ patch release.

Edited December 31, 2017 by Kaito1

[br4zil]

On 19/12/2017 at 1:47 AM, Codesterz said:

MoeNovel devs gave me a warning on the steam discussions for this topic http://steamcommunity.com/app/745960/discussions/0/2906376154330413460/

It's the most I've ever heard from them though, now if only we could get the same for the censorship. For those interested in seeing the warning message I'll put it below. It's just a typical response you'd expect though. I put little edit on the bottom of the steam post to try keep it from getting deleted again.

"Hi, I'm afraid that I have to issue you a warning regarding your post. Both the original post and this post have been flagged to us as encouraging hate within the forums. As much as we want to allow our users free speech and the freedom to express their opinion openly, we still have to abide by Steam's rules. Should this thread deteriorate down into a hate-encouraging speech, we will be forced to remove it again. We hope that you will understand this and consider the Steam forum rules. 
MoeNovel"

Btw, i replied in basically every thread conserning the +18 content.

Whoever goes to the forum, will see all the flak its getting

 

Also, bought both Hoshizora and Dal Segno, those publishers at least dont screw us over.

Edited December 31, 2017 by br4zil

[Stormwolf]

Unless you convince steam users how the censorship ruins the story and makes certain things not make sense, i doubt you'll get much sympathy. Steam users are used to reading all ages. The lack of fapping material is likely not a reason that will change a lot of hearts over there.