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What are your least favourite things that VN localization companies do?


VirginSmasher

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Hello again, you degenerates. Today, instead of trashing one specific part of VNs, why not tackle everything wrong with VN localization companies in general? Mainly doing this because I feel like shitting on the reason I even get good VNs in the first place. 

Well, here we go. No turning back from here

Mangagamer is easily my favourite localization company, yet this doesn't mean they don't have problems. First of all, the low pay that their editors apparently get. Editors do a lot more work than they're given credit for and unfortunately, they don't get enough respect and it shows in their paychecks. Also, maybe respect the opinions of beta testers more than you actually do. Damn, Mangagamer isn't that appreciative of jobs that catch mistakes before release, huh. This last one is a personal complaint for 2018. Stop flooding the market with so much moege. I get that you need to make money and all, but seriously. The amount of companies popping up that have been dedicated to this stale genre is quite appalling. I do respect this company the most though. My many complaints will be saved for later.

JAST is my second target and there's a lot to talk about with these guys. So much so that I'll split them up into numbered sections.

  1. Make a damn release schedule. This company is the epitome of dropping a VN on people without so much as a release date at times. They're an incredibly unreliable company when it comes to knowing when things will come out. Hence all the memes about them.
  2. Check their translations before putting out terrible demos. The Flowers debacle definitely didn't put the company's image in a good light and made us question whether or not Makoto was their only competent translator that they have hired at the moment. Luckily, they added Meru to fix up the next edition in that series.
  3. #FreeMakoto
  4. Release another worthwile Nitroplus game in this century. They've got such an amazing license in them and it's completely wasted on such a botched company.
  5. #FreeMakoto
  6. Hire more worthwile translators for their projects. Then maybe we'll get more than 1 or 2 VNs a year from them.

Sekai Project. Well well well. There's a lot to complain about here. I'm sure @Barry Benson would agree. Well, let's get on with it.

  1. Stop using Kickstarters as a safety net. It shows that they clearly don't believe that the VNs you localize will sell well and that doesn't give VN companies a very good image of them.
  2. Make an actual release schedule. Same criticism as with JAST
  3. Check their translations. The fact that two botched translations came out in the same month is telling of how much they care about quality, and that needs to change.
  4. Manage their localization projects better. It's because of these recent blunders that shine light on how terrible their project management is at the moment.
  5. If they're not gonna be able to handle projects well, why get so many licenses? There's no point in handling as many projects as they have when they can't even properly release a quality translation.

SoL Press and NekoNyan Soft

  1. Make sure to earn our trust. I'm usually extremely pessimistic about new VN localization companies popping up with some sort of ambition and both SoL Press and NekoNyan (God I hate that name) have questionable English in their demos and/or synopsis' and a certain reputation of certain people involved in said new companies. Mikandi is associated with SoL Press and we all know how botched their first release was. NekoNyan has people involved that worked on the botched releases of Saku Saku and Hoshimemo and that makes them untrustworthy to me. Sure, none of these companies have currently released a full fledged VN yet, but it's hard to trust them knowing the reputation behind both companies.
  2. If your companies really want to show ambition in your aim to localize VNs, maybe focus on more than just moege. It's hard to see any sort of ambition if all they're trying to localize is something the VN market is already oversaturated with. Even 1 or 2  more VNs with more of a plot emphasis would definitely show me that you're targeting more than just one audience. To me, it's hard to care about a company that only has VNs of one genre planned for release at the moment. I'm hoping they improve on this in the future, but at the moment, this is a major problem with these companies.

Well, that took me way too long to write, but my negativity knows no bounds. Post your criticism of VN companies as well because I may have missed some points in my tangents. 

(I realize that this was a massive waste of time, but oh well)

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Just now, 1P1A said:

My theory is that Makoto up and vanished, and JAST has been spending all their resources trying to track him down. That's why they haven't released anything in ages.

/s

My theory is that they have him in some unknown nuclear bunker in Poland translating all of their garbage Nitroplus licenses so he can finally finish his dream project of Muramasa.

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4 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

My theory is that they have him in some unknown nuclear bunker in Poland translating all of their garbage Nitroplus licenses so he can finally finish his dream project of Muramasa.

A fate worse than death. I pray you're wrong.

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Just now, Kabu said:

JAST needs an actual release schedule and Sekai need to stop giving their potential customers the middle finger at every possible turn.

Also this thread so far just sounds like a convenient excuse for you to bash on moege some more.

It's not really bashing. I just want more of a variety of potential releases from new companies and I know quite a few others think the same way.

Also, this thread is a convenient reason to bash all VN companies, not just moege.

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Well there's already a thread before that, and I'm sure that I'd already post my view in regard of the company. But it's not like it'll be hurt if I'm post about the company again, so here goes.

As for Pulltop (Or MoeNovel if you prefer to call that), my critic was very simple just like anyone else here. Make sure that in the future you'll accommodate 18+ version as well ie add the H scenes as well, although it might be futile because they already too stubborn to do that. Also there's no reason like 'But they still new and they didn't know of how to license 18+ version' because they already released Princess Waltz in the past with JAST, and I'm sure that it have H scenes too. If the reason was to take advantage of Steam, then they could take a page from Mangagamer in which they recently did released 18+ patch for Steam version as well.

I have very high faith in JAST that they'll gonna screw up in each of their (Only) announcements at AX lol. Other than sparse releases and announcements, their current lineup was very lame because either it's just nukige (Ryouko) or very redundant (Majikoi). Okay Mangagamer also did the same thing with bunch of short nukige and Sengoku Rance, but at least they also have some new VNs announcements which is a lot more than what JAST did and therefore balanced that. Their policy (JAST) definitely didn't help at all - release it along with physical edition, and in turn make the price is more expensive. Not to mention that apparently they still have a lot of Nitroplus title hidden, and there's aforementioned Makoto.

Sekai, well they have quite hard time to fulfill promise because they need to make some grand tier in order to lure the backer. Not that I could comment on it anyway, because I'm pretty much only care about download edition only lol. If anything, at least they should be make sure that they didn't leave any untranslated text inside their VNs like last two previous releases.

Edited by littleshogun
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10 minutes ago, littleshogun said:

Well there's already a thread before that, and I'm sure that I'd already post my view in regard of the company. But it's not like it'll be hurt if I'm post about the company again, so here goes.

As for Pulltop (Or MoeNovel if you prefer to call that), my critic was very simple just like anyone else here. Make sure that in the future you'll accommodate 18+ version as well ie add the H scenes as well, although it might be futile because they already too stubborn to do that. Also there's no reason like 'But they still new and they didn't know of how to license 18+ version' because they already released Princess Waltz in the past with JAST, and I'm sure that it have H scenes too. If the reason was to take advantage of Steam, then they could take a page from Mangagamer in which they recently did released 18+ patch for Steam version as well.

I have very high faith in JAST that they'll gonna screw up in each of their (Only) announcements at AX lol. Other than sparse releases and announcements, their current lineup was very lame because either it's just nukige (Ryouko) or very redundant (Majikoi). Okay Mangagamer also did the same thing with bunch of short nukige and Sengoku Rance, but at least they also have some new VNs announcements which is a lot more than what JAST did and therefore balanced that. Their policy (JAST) definitely didn't help at all - release it along with physical edition, and in turn make the price is more expensive. Not to mention that apparently they still have a lot of Nitroplus title hidden, and there's aforementioned Makoto.

Sekai, well they have quite hard time to fulfill promise because they need to make some grand tier in order to lure the backer. Not that I could comment on it anyway, because I'm pretty much only care about download edition only lol. If anything, at least they should be make sure that they didn't leave any untranslated text inside their VNs like last two previous releases.

I'll continue later on, because that's all what I could think for now.

Forgot to mention Moenovel. Oh well. There'd be too much to go over anyways.

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2 hours ago, VirginSmasher said:
  • Stop using Kickstarters as a safety net. It shows that they clearly don't believe that the VNs you localize will sell well and that doesn't give VN companies a very good image of them.
  • Check their translations. The fact that two botched translations came out in the same month is telling of how much they care about quality, and that needs to change.

Actually, I believe, these two points are connected. You don't really have to give a quality release if you already got the money for it through Kickstarter.

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46 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

Actually, I believe, these two points are connected. You don't really have to give a quality release if you already got the money for it through Kickstarter.

Fair enough. It definitely makes people stay away from supporting their Kickstarters though so I don't see the point in this.

46 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:
  1. License bad games.
  2. License bad games that aren't even the bad games I want them to license (*cough* https://vndb.org/p1374 *cough*).

Indeed. I just want Atelier Kaguya games to be localized already.

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This is a topic that could be endless, mainly because this discussion is complex and there are many things that have to be considered when talking about companies. You are right in everything you say but blaming their game choices is a weak argument imo.

Apart from that, the least favourite thing these companies do is existing in the first place.

 

Edited by Barry Benson
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1 minute ago, Barry Benson said:

This is a topic that could be endless, mainly because this discussion is complex and there are many things that have to be considered when talking about companies. You are right in everything you say but blaming their game choices is a weak argument imo.

Apart from that, the least favourite thing these companies do is existing in the first place.

 

Blaming their game choices is all personal preference anyways. Those weren't meant to be taken as objective at all.

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1 hour ago, Dreamysyu said:

Actually, I believe, these two points are connected. You don't really have to give a quality release if you already got the money for it through Kickstarter.

Sekai never struck me as a company that doesn't care about the games they release.  They're terrible at public relations (witness their latest bon mot about Root Double on Vita), and they've had a couple of recent slip-ups in regards to TL quality, and they seem to struggle with too many projects and not enough people to run them.

But we know the modus operandi of companies that don't give a shit: they just do a crappy job and release the game anyway.  They don't bother delaying projects for a long time, like Sekai has done.  They just release a steaming pile, and maybe kinda sorta fix it later.  They also don't launch Kickstarters for games.  Those are a pain in the ass, they involve a lot of extra work, and generate a lot of really picky and demanding customers.  And if a game needs a Kickstarter, that's a sign that it hasn't got enough market potential to be worth it to them anyway.

Or, put another way - Maybe you don't have to do a quality release if you already got the Kickstarter money.  But remember: A good reputation takes years to build, but only moments to destroy.  If you ever want to get more Kickstarter money, you can't expect to half-ass it the first time.

Despite all of Sekai's problems, I have exactly once gotten a vibe from them that they said 'eh, fuck it' and released something they clearly shouldn't have (that would be Leyline, naturally).

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2 hours ago, Nandemonai said:

Sekai never struck me as a company that doesn't care about the games they release.  They're terrible at public relations (witness their latest bon mot about Root Double on Vita), and they've had a couple of recent slip-ups in regards to TL quality, and they seem to struggle with too many projects and not enough people to run them.

But we know the modus operandi of companies that don't give a shit: they just do a crappy job and release the game anyway.  They don't bother delaying projects for a long time, like Sekai has done.  They just release a steaming pile, and maybe kinda sorta fix it later.  They also don't launch Kickstarters for games.  Those are a pain in the ass, they involve a lot of extra work, and generate a lot of really picky and demanding customers.  And if a game needs a Kickstarter, that's a sign that it hasn't got enough market potential to be worth it to them anyway.

Or, put another way - Maybe you don't have to do a quality release if you already got the Kickstarter money.  But remember: A good reputation takes years to build, but only moments to destroy.  If you ever want to get more Kickstarter money, you can't expect to half-ass it the first time.

Despite all of Sekai's problems, I have exactly once gotten a vibe from them that they said 'eh, fuck it' and released something they clearly shouldn't have (that would be Leyline, naturally).

You know, yeah, maybe I was being slightly unfair to them. From what I understand, in most cases, it's secondary things where they mess up, not the games themselves (though they really need to organize their working process better and listen to what their fans want). On the other hand, what I really don't like about their reliance on Kickstarters is that due to them, the quality of the result of their work doesn't correlate with the amount of money they get for it. And, considering how many slip ups they make with that, right now I'm personally pretty dubious about backing any of their future works. Especially since they actually started slipping up with things I actually care about.

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I'd just like to point out that all the kickstarters I've actually seen from them actually have been for projects that they should have very well known had a market if they actually paid attention. The most notable to come immediately to mind being Hoshimemo and Leyline, which also happen to be two of their most notable fuck ups.

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7 minutes ago, Kabu said:

I'd just like to point out that all the kickstarters I've actually seen from them actually have been for projects that they should have very well known had a market if they actually paid attention. The most notable to come immediately to mind being Hoshimemo and Leyline, which also happen to be two of their most notable fuck ups.

They definitely did have a market for a lot of people who were excited for them. Too bad Sekai Project almost always drops the ball with this sort of thing as of late.

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Just in a general:

1) Censor games. While steam and "18+ patches" are a necessary evil at this point, companies that never releases the original, or makes edits to the original needs to stop it.

Many great games have been butchered completely as a result of this type of censorship, like my favorite VN of all time, ChuSinGura 46+1, which will probably never see a good release in English.

2) Delaying the 18+ version of a game with months and months, leaving the game in a censored state for an extended period of time. If a company is going to make an "all-ages" version of what is originally an eroge, they at least need to make the un-altered version available at the same time.

This would of course also apply to delaying an all-ages version if the 18+ version was released first, though I can't think of a single instance of this ever happening in the western market, with how all companies uses steam and patches nowadays.

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8 hours ago, VirginSmasher said:

Blaming their game choices is all personal preference anyways. Those weren't meant to be taken as objective at all.

Yeah, definitely wasn't being serious there. VN localization isn't a zero-sum game. I feel like I may have accidentally come off as one of those morons who gets angry when the stars align and once per millennium one of these companies releases an otome game. Truth is, I like to see the VN localizing companies bringing over a variety of stuff, even when it's not all specifically to my taste, since I think it makes them more likely to thrive and thus to continue to bring over the things that actually are to my taste.

Though I really do want them to get more softhouse-seal GRANDEE porn, that's some good shit.

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Not localizing the games that I really want to play. Also, dragging their feet on releasing works that we've been promised would be localized, especially without status updates. Not using proper grammar or taking too much liberty on translations is also annoying.

Speaking of Softhouse Seal, I'd like to see this one picked up. It's short, but looks fun.

But we especially need more lolige

Edited by Hiashi
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