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Regarding MoeNovel and what can be done.


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So I wrote a bunch here but deleted it because it was long and runny.  TLDR was that I had been spending a while saving for the game (being a student and all makes it that much harder) and now that I bought it I learned that there literally is no 18+ patch, and I also learned about how scummy MoeNovel is so I refunded it, might get the game elsewhere if that's possible and play it, although that much sadder that I won't be able to play with the wholesome love scenes. (basing that off of IMHHW standards, btw.  let's admit it, they're pretty wholesome)

Anyways, I was wondering what the hell we can do about it.  I'm obviously new here and I have no idea what has already been done, but I do know that a boycott has been attempted, and seeing as they've just released another game, something tells me that it didn't exactly work out (although a good thing I guess is that it literally only has 16 reviews on Steam which is telling me that nobody has really bought it, but on the other hand they are all positive reviews, so...)

It's a huge shame IMO because Konno Asta is an amazing writer and he manages to hit home very well.  I absolutely hate the fact that MoeNovel is locking the whole "Climax" (get it? but no really, there are like two stories in his works (similar to IMHHW) and MoeNovel is pretty much locking one of the "climaxes" behind a language and regional barrier) behind a regional/linguistic barrier, because IMO everyone deserves a chance to read the story(ies) without interruption.

Is it 100% certain that these VN's will never be TL'd fully (not just for 12 year old french girls) and that it will have to be left to Fans?  Or are they willing to change, if they receive enough backlash?

One thing I've learned over the years of being involved with game developers is that they will literally not give a single shit about their consumers so long as they're making money, or have already made all the money they needed.  I'm not certain if they're in this position but if they are... well, you get the idea.

Please educated a simpleton about MoeNovel and what we can do is the TLDR of this topic, I guess.  Also, is it worth learning Japanese so I can try and TL stuff, officially or as a fan?  TY

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There's not much you can do, but I wouldn't say that MoeNovel has been completely unresponsive to fan sentiment. Miagete Goran/A Sky Full of Stars may have the h-scenes removed but it is otherwise fairly unbutchered, with references to sex, sexual humor, etc still intact. This is contrary to If My Heart Had Wings, which utterly butchered the original game, changed large story elements, changed every reference of "boobs" to "eyes" ("I bet Aoi likes girls with big eyes"), etc.

In A Sky Full of Stars, they also created replacement scenes for the h-scenes with new dialogue recorded and everything to make sure that no aspect of the story was missed. So, essentially, the only thing missing from it is the porn itself.

I don't think this would've happened if there was zero backlash to IMHHW, so that backlash did work, to an extent. They seem pretty stubborn about 18+ patches, so that's likely never gonna happen. But I guess you never know.

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On 6/3/2018 at 9:01 PM, Decay said:

I don't think this would've happened if there was zero backlash to IMHHW, so that backlash did work, to an extent. They seem pretty stubborn about 18+ patches, so that's likely never gonna happen. But I guess you never know.

Based off of this then, would it be wise to actually keep ASFOS, maybe to show that "We like this direction, please keep at it"?  Or just refund and get elsewhere?

 

On 6/3/2018 at 9:05 PM, VirginSmasher said:

You can't do anything about companies like MoeNovel and SakuraGame. They'll keep making money off of clueless people who buy their shit products on Steam and it will continue like this unless the English VN Market crashes completely.

Wouldn't that mean that they would just give up, which (I think) is worse than releasing anything?

I guess my newbie-ness is showing lol.  I'm interested as to how a company can still stand proudly on its own two feet while doing this shit.  Really sad, honestly, and even worse that this problem is so widespread even with Triple A devs and some Indie devs (glaring at PUBG corp and bluehole here)

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1 minute ago, The White Cat said:

Wouldn't that mean that they would just give up, which (I think) is worse than releasing anything?

I guess my newbie-ness is showing lol.  I'm interested as to how a company can still stand proudly on its own two feet while doing this shit.  Really sad, honestly, and even worse that this problem is so widespread even with Triple A devs and some Indie devs (glaring at PUBG corp and bluehole here)

One reason. Money talks. If they keep making money, they'll keep up their shitty business practices.

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21 minutes ago, The White Cat said:

Based off of this then, would it be wise to actually keep ASFOS, maybe to show that "We like this direction, please keep at it"?  Or just refund and get elsewhere?

If you don't feel okay about having paid for the product you bought, just refund it. I really doubt they care either way.

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Learning a bit of Japanese and using the ITH and TA is also an option. It's a pretty good feeling knowing the original joke and comparing the localized version of the jokes and punchlines. 

Aside from that, like everyone else here, doubtful that they will change their ways at this point without a significant catalyst, i.e. massive drop in sales, change in management and etc.  

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1 hour ago, The White Cat said:

Wouldn't that mean that they would just give up, which (I think) is worse than releasing anything?

I think it would be better if Moenovel and SakuraGame just gave up. SakuraGame for instance have translations so horrible that no one can actually consider it a real translation, might aswell put the script through google translate to read it. As of late they have started taking titles that other actually good VN localizers have been interested in and that many people would like to have a proper release. For instance they seem to have killed the chance for a proper release of Fortissimo EXS//Akkord:Nachsten Phase. Regarding Moenovel they have previously only translated Pulltop VNs essentially making sure that we will not get a complete eroge from Pulltop, while this is bad I am not sure if Pulltop would give the license to other companies if they went out of buisness, even though they did license Princess Waltz to a subsidiary of Jast USA so there could potentially be a chance. However what I find somewhat more worrying is that they have lately branched out to VNs from other companies as well. This means that they can also localize many other good titles and thus make sure that they don't end up in the hands of any of the companies that actually does a good job at giving us proper releases like for instance Mangagamer. So the main problem with these bad companies is that they are making sure that we will never get a proper release of many good titles.

Edited by bakauchuujin
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22 minutes ago, bakauchuujin said:

they have previously only translated Pulltop VNs essentially making sure that we will not get a complete eroge from Pulltop, while this is bad I am not sure if Pulltop would give the license to other companies if they went out of buisness

AFAIK MoeNovel is Pulltop's localization branch - they aren't "licensing" their games, it's essentially Pulltop doing localizations themselves. So that just means they don't want +18 EN versions of their VNs.

 

As for the ASFOS/Miagete - I agree with Deceay, all-ages version was good. I actually - much to my surprise - liked it better than +18 version. I wrote more in the game's discussion thread.

 

Edited by adamstan
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8 minutes ago, adamstan said:

AFAIK MoeNovel is Pulltop's localization branch - they aren't "licensing" their games, it's essentially Pulltop doing localizations themselves. So that just means they don't want +18 EN versions of their VNs.

I know that, what I said was that Pulltop/Moenovel wouldn't neccesarily sell the license to other companies. Companies like Jast USA or MG would need to get the license I think. Still them localizing the titles through Moenovel means it is extreemly unlikely that they would try to get it published by anyone else. Guess my wording was a bit bad when I said give the license.

Edited by bakauchuujin
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1 minute ago, adamstan said:

As for the ASFOS/Miagete - I agree with Deceay, all-ages version was actually good.

I know I asked this already but just for a second opinion (and I also ask if anyone else can suggest whether I should or not) if it's actually a good idea or not to support this change.  Seeing as they've decided to improve upon what they did with IMHHW, that is.

14 minutes ago, bakauchuujin said:

-snip-

I completely agree with you that a company that doesn't care about a large part of their consumer-base should be cut entirely, but does our opinion even matter to them?  Don't they only care if Japanese people are buying their games, seeing as Japan is where their main demographic is?  If they cut out their translations, doesn't that just mean that actual translators would have much more trouble since they'd more than likely not be paid for translating whatsoever?

Of course then that brings the question of whether or not we should be supporting terrible translators, and if we were to stop doing it, would that mean that legit translators wouldn't be able to translate games, etc.

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2 minutes ago, The White Cat said:

I know I asked this already but just for a second opinion (and I also ask if anyone else can suggest whether I should or not) if it's actually a good idea or not to support this change.  Seeing as they've decided to improve upon what they did with IMHHW, that is.

Well - I liked this version, so I don't regret buying it at all. I don't go all political about it - if they do something good - I buy it to support them. If then they release some unreadable shit - I won't buy it. Simple.

(Although I have to admit that I bought IMHHW after retranslation patch was released - the money ultimately goes to Pulltop, and it was much easier to get than JP version.)

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1 minute ago, The White Cat said:

I know I asked this already but just for a second opinion (and I also ask if anyone else can suggest whether I should or not) if it's actually a good idea or not to support this change.  Seeing as they've decided to improve upon what they did with IMHHW, that is.

Personally I would say no, though I am the kind of person who really hates when any content is cut. Also I really just hate Moenovel. The main reason for this hate is how they dealt with the censorship of their Lovekami VNs. With the Lovekami VNs they first released them with content cut in english, at the time there was no info about there being any 18+ content in them so people didn't know anything was cut when they released. Then a bit after they had been released in english they confirmed a complete version that would only be released in japanese. This means that they tricked western fans into believing that it was actually an all ages VN and therefore not get backlash for the release being censored until they had sold many copies on steam. They also even had the balls to use the fact that only japanese people would get the 18+ scenes to promote it in Japan. 

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52 minutes ago, bakauchuujin said:

-snip-

Yeah, I read about this and it's probably one of the most driving factors for me against keeping the Steam MoeNovel version, rather than getting ASFOS elsewhere.  I'd even question if this is legal since they straight up lied to the customers about the content that should be in the game, but I'm assuming it's technically legal since they could argue about there being different versions based on region, or they could argue that they're two completely different games, or whatever type of argument white collars use.

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All english versions are the same - ASFOS is available from JAST too, but it's the same version as on Steam.(Forget it, JAST sells IMHHW, but not ASFOS)

I don't see how there was anybody lying about the content of ASFOS - it's an all-ages version, and never was advertised otherwise.

If you absolutely must have +18 version, then you have to buy JP version. But really - unless you desperately need fap material, give ASFOS a try. If every all-ages version of moege/romance VN was done at least on that level, I wouldn't mind at all. It is just as your signature says - "wholesome and cute" ;)

Edited by adamstan
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3 hours ago, VirginSmasher said:

You can't do anything about companies like MoeNovel and SakuraGame. They'll keep making money off of clueless people who buy their shit products on Steam and it will continue like this unless the English VN Market crashes completely.

Either that, or when people stop being clueless and become more demanding consumers instead. Sadly, this requires too much effort and actual care for the products they buy.

Consumerism, ho.

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41 minutes ago, Narcosis said:

Either that, or when people stop being clueless and become more demanding consumers instead. Sadly, this requires too much effort and actual care for the products they buy.

Consumerism, ho.

Honestly, that will never change until localization companies stop relying on people randomly buying VNs on Steam to get their sales. Steam buyers are usually clueless about the quality anyways and usually, don't care about said quality after purchasing it.

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3 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

Honestly, that will never change until localization companies stop relying on people randomly buying VNs on Steam to get their sales. Steam buyers are usually clueless about the quality anyways and usually, don't care about said quality after purchasing it.

That's how Steam works, tho. Hence everyone is trying to get games that are approachable to the widest audience possible, but those might not be enough for more demanding consumers, seeking for higher forms of entertainment within their games.

Edited by Narcosis
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11 hours ago, PiggiesGoMoo said:

By the way, Moenovel's If my Heart had Wings has sold quite a few copies according to this: https://steamspy.com/app/326480

I'd take those numbers with a grain of salt for two reasons:

  • Valve changed their privacy options not too long ago so that a user can choose to hide their game collection. This makes it impossible to get an accurate estimate of how many people own a game. (Note how large of a range 100,000-200,000 is.)
  • If My Heart Had Wings was part of a Humble Bundle a few months ago. Many of those owners (including myself) likely bought that bundle for Higurashi, not for IMHHW. There's no way of knowing how many people bought IMHHW directly vs. just getting it in that bundle.
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On 6/3/2018 at 9:07 PM, The White Cat said:

Wouldn't that mean that they would just give up, which (I think) is worse than releasing anything?

Pulltop released a game with Jast USA in the past - Princess Waltz.  I would recommend buying that game instead.

Giving MoeNovel money will only tell them that their current strategy of releasing badly-translated censored games is working.  If you don't like that strategy, and you don't really want the game if it's censored, then you shouldn't buy it.  In a way, them not releasing anything at all is better in the long term, if you don't want censored-only releases.  There is always the chance other companies see what MoeNovel is doing, and decide 'hey this sounds like a great idea'.

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