NowItsAngeTime Posted September 16, 2019 Share Posted September 16, 2019 Since the VN industry is a lot smaller than say... the general video game industry, I was always kinda interested how the process of localizing VNs goes, especially since many people are familiar with how fan translation process is. A lot of what I learned was talking with some people who work in the industry and observing the actions and reactions of some people in the industry. Others were assumptions and inferences based on how I think a company would work based on what I heard. I may be wrong or misinformed on some of these things, so I'm open to be corrected. -------- Figuring out what to license You would think all these licensing companies would just listen to whatever the online community wants (MangaGamer's survey results seem to indicate what the most requested titles are). However it looks like there are major factors that really decide what can or can be considered to license What are the most popular fan requests What has good looking art What are personal favorites of people on the team What can you actually afford to bid on a license that's up for grabs Would it be the first license with a company? If so there's risk management of even being able to get license. Would it be a license with a company that's already had a previous English release? If so, it could be a bit easier to get this license, especially if the previous release did well. A bunch of other factors I can't think of -------- Negotiations, Obtaining a License and Funding So now that you have some ideas of what to license, how do you get it? You need to have connections or be able to go to Japan to be able to advertise yourselves and talk to Japanese VN companies for these potential licenses. This seems to be the localization company CEO's job or at least someone of high authority. There's some Japanese companies who refuse to allow official English releases. Not sure if it's related to risk of their funds or PR in the west or they just don't want to deal with extra international business relations. For more popular Japanese companies/licenses there's some kind of bidding process to properly get a contract for a license. Naturally, the highest bidder would win a title. If you can get talks with a company there's likely negotiations of what the company will allow in a release (mosaics, sometimes actual 18+ to begin with) and stuff like costs, resources, and potential release dates. Depending on what the company will allow in an international release, negotiations could take longer which delays the actual startup of a project. Some Japanese companies may only commit to letting a license be taken if something like Kickstarter is used. I know some people hate the idea of Kickstarter, but if I'm not mistaken Japanese media culture relies a LOT on first day/week sales. So a Kickstarter would be needed for at least some titles to even have a chance of making it over. If a Kickstarter fails (almost never happens) then I'd think the deal would be off. -------- Starting up Project, Translating, Editing, QA So now that a license has been successfully negotiated, when do you start the project? One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the people who take part in the translating, editing, QA, Image Editing, etc are freelancers and many of them work on at least 2 of the major licensing companies. So as far as choosing the team you'd have to keep in mind How many projects are the current list of freelancers taking on the moment each? Do they seem reliable enough to meet deadlines (if there any really hard ones to be met)? How busy are they in real life? As this is freelancing, it might not be a typical 40 hour week (might even be way less, or more. Maybe depending on project, I don't know) As far as prioritizing the project you just got, do you wait for the whole team hired to be finished with their other projects first? Or is it ok to put later ones on lower priority have the team multi-task at first then just increase the title's priority later on? My guess is the order would be based on the order the company got each license, but that may not always be the case. It's possible the Japanese company wants to work on a different VN first, or some want tighter deadlines which can move other projects around. ---------- When to Announce a Project This is an interesting one. I've seen projects announced as late as when they're pending Steam review/only a month from release and ones that apparently just got licensed not even a week before the announcement. This can make this part of the release difficult because the longer something is announced and not released, the angrier and more impatient the fans get. But on the other hand, announcing a project earlier can get fans excited, especially if there's nothing that's interesting them at the moment or not. Most companies do it differently but it seems like these days most like to wait when there's at least a 50% TL/Edit Progress done on the project before announcing. There's still a couple that seem to announce things when they're far from being released or even started on. ----------- Delays for releasing Project or Giving Status Updates, or Taking Too Long in General No one likes delays. It makes the fans unhappy for having to wait, it likely makes the JP company confused/upset for not meeting deadlines, and the localization company would rather not risk PR and they'd much rather have a project released to make their fans happy, have something off their plate, and earn money. However, at the end of the day there's many things that can prevent a company for delaying project and/or not giving consistent updates. A lot of it depends on the company but some major factors can include: The translators/editors/QC didn't meet their expected deadlines A bug found through QA causes a potential release date/window to be pushed back Team Resources got moved around to other projects or got replaced. This could be a problem with Translators in general especially with different TL styles. Image/UI Editing might be more difficult/time-consuming than expected Waiting for feedback from Japanese company. Whether it's just general approval for the VN to release, getting CGs with no mosaics, them asking for things changed, or extreme worse case... the project is cancelled or given off to a different company. Negotiations of including the VN on specific storefronts, ESPECIALLY if the dreaded Steam wait is included which could be up to half a year depending on the evaluation As far as Kickstarter updates go, it seems to be based on how far along the project is. If a Kickstarter was done around when the project was basically almost finished TLd/Edited/QCd then it's probably easier to give more updates of what's being done, especially if it's closer to release. If the Kickstarter was specifically to get the license and start the project, it's safe to say its priority will be based on how many translation projects are ahead of that one. If there are plenty of projects to work on and no resources, expect updates to be much slower. Backerkit... is based on the availability and how busy the Kickstarter runner is, especially if it's someone with a lot of work like the CEO. ---------- Anyway, these are my personal insights on the official localization process of a Visual Novel. Hopefully it gives some insight on the process if you don't know or creates some discussion, but feel free to disagree with me on any of my points if you want. Ramaladni, Silvz, GXOALMD and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanahtlig Posted September 17, 2019 Share Posted September 17, 2019 (edited) What to license It's a basic supply and demand problem. What's available, how much it costs to sell, how much you can expect to sell at what price. The best deal isn't necessarily the most-wanted title. Licensing Mosaics can be a major sticking point. Some companies don't want to release an ero version overseas at all. Timeline The process goes at the rate of the slowest step. In many cases, this is the interface between the JP dev and the English localization team. God help you if you encounter problems that only the devs can fix, and they see your project as their lowest priority (typical). Edited September 17, 2019 by sanahtlig Ramaladni 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.