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


VirginSmasher

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2 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

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.

Usually that variety is only present with Mangagamer at the moment. I don't remember the last time Sekai localized something with more of a plot emphasis, even if I'd really rather them not after seeing what happened back in December.

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I think all arguments are valid, except for the one about moe games. It is not like not releasing them would make companies translate story-focused games; most like to be the opposite: without the money from moeges, companies wouldn't have the capital to invest in better games. And let's be honest, moeges sell a lot in comparison to better games, to the point that Fata Morgana was a huge disappointment in sales while NekoPara got an one-hour OVA that gathered thousands of dollars. And the reason for that is not that difficult to grasp. People want cheap and easy games to feel confortable playing instead of having to think hard. People also want to see their anime character waifus moaning whenever they slip in a banana or get scolded by nii-san.

I may be exhagerating, but the point is that moeges sell more because there is a bigger market for them. And I think we should - not thank them - but to stop ranting about them all the time and admit that they are a necessary evil.

About  the two new companies: SoL Press is making a good impression on how they are actually listening to fans. You mentioned their demo for Sakura Sakura, but as soon as errors were spotted on it, SoL Press worked fast to fix them and to improve the quality of the product. I really have high hopes for them. NekoNyan is still too young for us to know what they are really capable of. Translators improve, just like any professionals. I won't judge the future works of this company because of the failures of Sekai Project. And even though the people behind the translation are the same, Sekai is the one to blame for releasing Hoshimemo and Leyline how they did. I mean: how can nobody notice that a good part of the text is in japanese? Simple: there is nobody checking.

And let's not forget that Mangagamer started as bad as any company could be, and improved a lot to the point of becoming a reference of eroge localization. This, however, does not justify how terrible some companies such as Sakura Gamer and Mikandi are (although the latter was a victim just like us).

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55 minutes ago, Silvz said:

I think all arguments are valid, except for the one about moe games. It is not like not releasing them would make companies translate story-focused games; most like to be the opposite: without the money from moeges, companies wouldn't have the capital to invest in better games. And let's be honest, moeges sell a lot in comparison to better games, to the point that Fata Morgana was a huge disappointment in sales while NekoPara got an one-hour OVA that gathered thousands of dollars. And the reason for that is not that difficult to grasp. People want cheap and easy games to feel confortable playing instead of having to think hard. People also want to see their anime character waifus moaning whenever they slip in a banana or get scolded by nii-san.

I may be exhagerating, but the point is that moeges sell more because there is a bigger market for them. And I think we should - not thank them - but to stop ranting about them all the time and admit that they are a necessary evil.

About  the two new companies: SoL Press is making a good impression on how they are actually listening to fans. You mentioned their demo for Sakura Sakura, but as soon as errors were spotted on it, SoL Press worked fast to fix them and to improve the quality of the product. I really have high hopes for them. NekoNyan is still too young for us to know what they are really capable of. Translators improve, just like any professionals. I won't judge the future works of this company because of the failures of Sekai Project. And even though the people behind the translation are the same, Sekai is the one to blame for releasing Hoshimemo and Leyline how they did. I mean: how can nobody notice that a good part of the text is in japanese? Simple: there is nobody checking.

And let's not forget that Mangagamer started as bad as any company could be, and improved a lot to the point of becoming a reference of eroge localization. This, however, does not justify how terrible some companies such as Sakura Gamer and Mikandi are (although the latter was a victim just like us).

I'd have to be dumb to not know moege make more cash overall than story-focused games. All I want to see with companies is some sort of variety in releases, like what Mangagamer has been doing for the past couple of years now.

Also, just because moege are a necessary evil, doesn't mean I won't stop ranting on how they plague the market with mediocrity. 

Sol Press may listen to fans and fix stuff up, but releasing a demo with a lot of errors right off the bat isn't an amazing sign of their quality. True, NekoNyan is still new, but they're gonna have those Sekai Project localizations over their heads until they end up releasing their first VN. 

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5 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

I'd have to be dumb to not know moege make more cash overall than story-focused games. All I want to see with companies is some sort of variety in releases, like what Mangagamer has been doing for the past couple of years now.

Mangagamer only got to this point after a lot of hit and misses. Not everyone may remember that, but they even released Kara no Shojo without voices, along with bad translations for Higurashi and a LOT of cheap nukige. If I were to start a company now, I'd also go into the easy road of moeges before I could start doing better stuff. So for those two new companies, we need to be patient and supportive as long as they show us a good product.

It's not just you, Virgin; lately, a lot of people are voicing their complaints about moeges here in Fuwa, but most of the arguments are just based in their own opinions. Most of those who complain don't even read nor buy the games, so what is the point of bashing them? And trust me, I know how it is to be against trends, and how frustrating it is to see a whole library full of crap instead of quality works. In my case, I refer to the boom that youtubers got in Brazil, to the point that they nowadays are as influential as politicians (my opinion), although they are pretty much shit. But the time I could spend complaining about it every time I pass in front a library, I spend looking into things that actually are worth my time. And in our case here, for each moege MG releases, they have at least one great game released alongside it.

In a perfect world, we'd have only what we like being released. However, we have to cope with what is available right now, and I emphasize "now" because if you take a look into what we had localised in 2013 and what we have now, less than 5 years after, you'll see that, for sure, in the near future, there will be way more and better titles released.

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Delay a game for years that could have been done inside six months (JastUSA, Hanachirasu).

Pick the worst games from a company to localize (Mangagamer with Navel, Caramel Box, and Propeller)

Get so obsessed with risk control that quality control becomes nonexistent (SP)

Don't even investigate a translation team before using them (Mikandi, Libra)

Views Co Ltd and Light's collective failure to do anything on time except the actual release of the non-ero Steam version of the game.

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5 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

Regarding the original question...

They don't translate the titles I want! :kosame:

Relatable.

1 minute ago, Clephas said:

Delay a game for years that could have been done inside six months (JastUSA, Hanachirasu).

Pick the worst games from a company to localize (Mangagamer with Navel, Caramel Box, and Propeller)

Get so obsessed with risk control that quality control becomes nonexistent (SP)

Don't even investigate a translation team before using them (Mikandi, Libra)

Views Co Ltd and Light's collective failure to do anything on time except the actual release of the non-ero Steam version of the game.

Don't the original VN companies decide what licenses they'd be willing to give out to companies like MG and Sekai? Because if that's the case, I'd blame the original companies for that.

And with Light, don't even mention the fact that the so called "patch" is just another game with any extra content that just adds a few h scenes. That was so annoying to hear about.

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28 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

And with Light, don't even mention the fact that the so called "patch" is just another game with any extra content that just adds a few h scenes. That was so annoying to hear about.

I'm more pissed off that my physical version hasn't been shipped yet...  and the issue with Mangagamer is dependent on negotiations... to be blunt, it was obvious the original Otoboku wasn't going to sell, so they should have had the brains to talk Caramel Box out of it and do the second one, Alicematic, or Toppara instead.  With Propeller... I can understand Tokyo Babel, but Pygmalion is widely viewed over there as the downturn of the company's fortunes, so it made no sense to localize it. 

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25 minutes ago, Clephas said:

I'm more pissed off that my physical version hasn't been shipped yet...  and the issue with Mangagamer is dependent on negotiations... to be blunt, it was obvious the original Otoboku wasn't going to sell, so they should have had the brains to talk Caramel Box out of it and do the second one, Alicematic, or Toppara instead.  With Propeller... I can understand Tokyo Babel, but Pygmalion is widely viewed over there as the downturn of the company's fortunes, so it made no sense to localize it. 

Yuri is probably the only reason tbh, even if it was an all ages game in the first place.

Now that you mention it, there really was no reason for that. Evolimit or Sukimazakura made way more sense.

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10 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

Yuri is probably the only reason tbh, even if it was an all ages game in the first place.

Now that you mention it, there really was no reason for that. Evolimit or Sukimazakura made way more sense.

Yeah... Truth be told, I think that Bullet Butlers and Chrono Belt, released one after the other, would have been the best two choices.  The reason is simple... someone had already fantled Ayakashibito (which led to the interest in the first place), Chrono Belt is the crossover fandisc (also a great story on its own) for that and Bullet Butlers.  Not to mention that the zombie fad would have had people going crazy for Bullet Butlers, in any case.  Poor choices by a company that couldn't even hold onto its best writer.

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1 minute ago, Clephas said:

Yeah... Truth be told, I think that Bullet Butlers and Chrono Belt, released one after the other, would have been the best two choices.  The reason is simple... someone had already fantled Ayakashibito (which led to the interest in the first place), Chrono Belt is the crossover fandisc (also a great story on its own) for that and Bullet Butlers.  Not to mention that the zombie fad would have had people going crazy for Bullet Butlers, in any case.  Poor choices by a company that couldn't even hold onto its best writer.

Those would've also been viable options. Well, we can only hope that they're still a partner with MG so that those and Evolimit can come over to the West. Although with those Tokyo Babel sales, I'm pretty doubtful at this point.

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2 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

Those would've also been viable options. Well, we can only hope that they're still a partner with MG so that those and Evolimit can come over to the West. Although with those Tokyo Babel sales, I'm pretty doubtful at this point.

*shrugs* Tokyo Babel sales were inevitably bad... no real hype for the game (despite my efforts) and what advertising there was was desultory, at best.  It is an excellent game, but the lack of h-content actually put off some veterans (lol), some people were uncomfortable with the religious stuff (yes, that was true), and the fact that chuunige pick their readers in the first place...

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6 minutes ago, Clephas said:

*shrugs* Tokyo Babel sales were inevitably bad... no real hype for the game (despite my efforts) and what advertising there was was desultory, at best.  It is an excellent game, but the lack of h-content actually put off some veterans (lol), some people were uncomfortable with the religious stuff (yes, that was true), and the fact that chuunige pick their readers in the first place...

Those are all unfortunate, but those bad sales won't look that way to Propeller. They'll look like people lack interest in their VNs and may not give another license to MG or they may go to another company to handle the localization of their next VN, if they ever want to get involved with the West again. Personally, I don't know the risk behind companies licensing their VNs and how much they have to lose on it, if they even do lose anything on such a deal, but it may be a deterrent to Propeller.

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9 hours ago, Clephas said:

to be blunt, it was obvious the original Otoboku wasn't going to sell, so they should have had the brains to talk Caramel Box out of it and do the second one, Alicematic, or Toppara instead.

You're wrong about that. I remember a radio interview where Kouryuu said that it did well, and it also got a hard copy which is only the case for titles that sold well (with ef being the exception). What ever it was that killed their relations with Caramel Box, it wasn't related to Otoboku sales.

They also brought over Eden, even if ef was one of their worst selling titles ever. And KnS2 and Caucasus was certainly not a given after KnS1 bad start.

MangaGamers license deals were never only just about sales of previous titles.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ough... So difficult topic, I can't even say anything about that... Hm... Oh, about Sekai Project (yeah, again, I think, we all can say many things about that company).

Can anyone say me more about Dovac? I just watching his Twitter and... curious - he write every day something totally useless, and not getting any replies or likes. If I tried to write something in response, he ignores that. It... it seems like... very strange behaviour, when you alone write ton of text in Twitter, but not answer to anyone, and no one write to you then...

And... he is a director and leader of all projects in Sekai? E-e-e... Khe-e... And how is it still... a... am... I'm just shocked, seriously. 

And totally no feedback, communication etc from them. I hate ignoring! That's even worse than black list for me. 

I remember when they opened Trello board when make requesting VN list, and then deleted it like it was nothing... (they said, that just take a break and will post it again later, but I don't believe that). And then they opened a suggestion for Koikuma name title... 

So, we should think for them, how to name that title in English? About useless demons, nukige from Smile company. 

I'd name that novel as "Love with demons-oxymorons", but that's weird name. 

To be honest, they are not useless, they just don't want to accept their nature... Pervert angel, mummy who hates ropes, demon of cold (who gets cold very fast), etc...

Oh, it could be interesting discussion about that, but... They didn't accept any of suggestion? And closed it? Because announce about release didn't include any English version of game (poke me, if it's wrong or show me, if that's not right).

Yeah, that's what I wanted to say...

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18 minutes ago, Veshurik said:

Can anyone say me more about Dovac? I just watching his Twitter and... curious - he write every day something totally useless, and not getting any replies or likes. If I tried to write something in response, he ignores that. It... it seems like... very strange behaviour, when you alone write ton of text in Twitter, but not answer to anyone, and no one write to you then.

He used to write a lot more VN related stuff in the past, but, from what I remember, he deleted all of it at some point.

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Not communicating [going completely silent and ignoring your consumers], no transparency regarding issues such as translation quality and delays [why has it taken years and so on]. I get that companies have to remain quiet before announcing partnership and future releases, but regarding other issues...

Edited by DharmaFreedom
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