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Request: Removal of Grisaia and Planetarian Torrents


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With Sekai licensing both VNs, I believe it is time for Fuwanovel to remove both torrents as they are now easily in violation of the original policy of not hosting any licensed VNs. TL Wiki has already made their Grisaia patch unavailable, and I honestly think it would be a shame if Fuwanovel did not also do the same. 

 

If Fuwanovel really cares about making VNs popular in the West and helping the industry, it would be right to remove the torrent. Both VNs are now in the hands of Sekai to work with and Fuwanovel's responsibility with those novels should end here. 

 

 

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I support the idea.

 

Fuwanovel originally wanted to aid in the production and distribution of visual novels in the West. I can understand the theory of spreading around free VNs to build up the initial fanbase, but I get the feeling we've gotten past this stage. We have a fairly sizeable community, and VNs are getting more exposure than ever now they're appearing on Steam. If Fuwa ever wants to seriously aid in the production of VNs, and not just low-budget free ones, it will need to eventually support the official products.

 

Furthermore, the visual novel industry is struggling in Japan, and needs much support in the West. The industry needs funds to grow and we should be encouraging the purchase of such products when able.

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By offering a pirate version, we let more people who otherwise wouldn't be able to play them actually play those games, which increases the number of fans of that particular series which increases the number of people who will buy the game for support and the game's merchandise. If we hadn't hosted grisaia, a lot of people here wouldn't buy grisaia in the first place, for example. Those who pirate it won't start buying the games because we stopped hosting them, but hosting them can have some positive effects.

 

I'm only quoting Steve here, but:

 

 

"We are not a promotional website trying to help licensing companies make their money, if that was the case we could have ads on the website and earn tons of money ourselves, just like Nyaa and many other VN/Anime sharing websites do - and when I tell you that the money wouldn't be bad at all even if split between all staff, I mean it. But we don't do that because we are not greedy bastards and understand that the goal is larger than making money (I prefer my struggling to even make a living and pay rent than doing something like that - maybe it makes me a stupid person but at least I feel good about myself xD).

 

And the higher goal is making more people PLAY the games, NOT BUY them.

By taking the already available releases away from people we would be doing exactly the opposite.

There is no reason to bring up the arguments for why many people cant possibly ever afford to buy the official release.

 

In my opinion fuwanovel should bring the more positive light to the world that not everything is about money. Encourage fan translators to translate for free, make them feel like sharing the game they read and loved with others for free. Let everyone try and play those games however they want, everyone have equal changes to get into discussion about them. Not be like what elementary school used to be, when those rich kids were discussing their Playstation consoles and all that most families couldn't afford. Or like that high school where people were discussing their gifted motorbikes that most of us couldn't afford.

 

And so fuwa is different, everyone no matter where they are from or what school they attended can enjoy the same games and discuss the same stories. You can be a Chinese guy with some old PC connecting through a hole in a school firewall (although in that case they would probably choose from the chinese sites and translations, but we've had few chinese talking here on forums) or you can be a doctor in the US or you an be an average studying east European, maybe starting some new jobs. You can be whoever and still receive the same treatment here and same free games as everyone.

And same way you can be any of those and try to help to spread the games to more people, fan translating the titles from Japanese for more and more people to enjoy."

 

So yeah, I'm against removing those torrents. You may still be able to convince the people who deal with the main page, though.

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By offering a pirate version, we let more people who otherwise wouldn't be able to play them actually play those games, which increases the number of fans of that particular series which increases the number of people who will buy the game for support and the game's merchandise. If we hadn't hosted grisaia, a lot of people here wouldn't buy grisaia in the first place, for example. Those who pirate it won't start buying the games because we stopped hosting them, but hosting them can have some positive effects.

 

Indeed, in fact the same line has been spouted for the past decade... so how's that working out for you? The whole 'more players equals more buyers' thing?

 

Before Steam took off, despite exponentially increasing the fanbase over the years, the highest selling game from MG was a smidge over 2,000 copies and JAST wouldn't be able to survive without the aid of J-List.

 

Do you actually have any evidence that increasing the fanbase through piracy is actually increasing the number of sold copies? Because all the implied evidence says it isn't.

 

MEANWHILE, one of MG's games gets on STEAM, a DRM service ensuring people PAY FOR THE PRODUCTS, and automatically one of the VNs sells 10,000 copies. It's done in an instant what increasing the fanbase through piracy couldn't do in a decade.

 

"We are not a promotional website trying to help licensing companies make their money, if that was the case we could have ads on the website and earn tons of money ourselves,

 

Fuwa's original aim was to aid the production of visual novels in the West. How you would go about this aim in a serious manner while fully supporting the piracy of official products will be fairly amusing to watch.

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Indeed, in fact the same line has been spouted for the past decade... so how's that working out for you? The whole 'more players equals more buyers' thing?

 

Before Steam took off, despite exponentially increasing the fanbase over the years, the highest selling game from MG was a smidge over 2,000 copies and JAST wouldn't be able to survive without the aid of J-List.

 

Do you actually have any evidence that increasing the fanbase through piracy is actually increasing the number of sold copies? Because all the implied evidence says it isn't.

 

MEANWHILE, one of MG's games gets on STEAM, a DRM service ensuring people PAY FOR THE PRODUCTS, and automatically one of the VNs sells 10,000 copies. It's done in an instant what increasing the fanbase through piracy couldn't do in a decade.

 

 

Fuwa's original aim was to aid the production of visual novels in the West. How you would go about this aim in a serious manner while fully supporting the piracy of official products will be fairly amusing to watch.

 

Well, I don't think either of us can talk about fuwa's original aim. Only Aaery knows that, and I'm pretty sure she didn't expect us to become this big in the first place. Regardless of that, our motto is not "help more VNs to be produced in the west", though- it's to make them more popular, which only refers to the players, not the companies.

 

Another problem is, you can't seriously expect piracy of these to dimish just by we removing our torrent, right? That's not support, it's idiocy. Anyone can google those VNs up and get 'em in like, 5 seconds.

 

Referring to Steve again here, but I don't want VNs to become like elementary school or such- we're offering them to everyone. We're encouraging fan translation, people doing it because they want to share their own passion with others, not companies- so far it worked wonderfully well, we're getting more fan tls than before~

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Well, I don't think either of us can talk about fuwa's original aim. Only Aaery knows that, and I'm pretty sure she didn't expect us to become this big in the first place. Regardless of that, our motto is not "help more VNs to be produced in the west", though- it's to make them more popular, which only refers to the players, not the companies.

 

Another problem is, you can't seriously expect piracy of these to dimish just by we removing our torrent, right? That's not support, it's idiocy. Anyone can google those VNs up and get 'em in like, 5 seconds.

 

Referring to Steve again here, but I don't want VNs to become like elementary school or such- we're offering them to everyone. We're encouraging fan translation, people doing it because they want to share their own passion with others, not companies- so far it worked wonderfully well, we're getting more fan tls than before~

And this is why I despise the Fuwanovel staff. It is now supporting a fucking terrible culture of piracy. These publishers are bringing over great things now, and Sekai has even gotten their foot in the door with Key and Frontwing!

 

Just because people can find these games for free elsewhere doesnt make it right that they can get it here. Let other places be the blight on the western vn community. 

 

What I see is a culture of we want free shit and we dont care about helping. Because Fuwanovel IS NOT HELPING by making these things available for free when they are officially localized. 

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Ah, don't take whatever I say as "the opinion of the staff", please. I'm just running my mouth on my own, as a fellow member here.

 

We want to make VNs popular by sharing them, not pointing at someplace and saying- hey, if you want them, buy them there.

 

And this is why I despise the Fuwanovel staff. It is now supporting a fucking terrible culture of piracy.

Now? You can't really be serious about that, right? Hell, I remember a time where we had a pro-piracy PDF in every single one of our downloads- pretty sure you should remember that as well.

 

There are arguments to the morality of both sides here- we believe in sharing them with everyone for free, money is not involved into it. I belive we had this discussion several times already, honestly. This whole thing feels like deja-vu to me.

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But but but why don't Fuwa remove it when the games are released? So until then, people can play/enjoy/like/wanttobuy it, and at the same time, it'll be advertised among us users.

 

Only one thing to add - I live in a country where piracy is very, VE-RY "important", and I never saw a person who payed 2 dollars [nowadays it's even cheaper] for a game to decide to just go and pay 100 dollars for it. But hey, it may be just here...

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Aaeru and Tay have talked about it before, Fuwa's main goal was to ultimately foster the production and distribution of visual novels in the west. Aaeru went so far as to approach the lemma website in 2012, with regards to creating a sister site solely for the development of english VNs. It's hardly a secret. 

 

It's with that goal in mind that I support the taking down of those torrents. Taking down the torrents from Fuwa WON'T decrease the piracy, but it's about if Fuwa wants to become what it originally set out to become. 

 

Referring to Steve's post, you can only fan-translate what is made. To say you encourage fan-translation without supporting companies is illogical to the extreme. Fan-translation can't EXIST without companies first making the product. And we're not sharing JUST the fan-translator's passion, you're sharing the creator's passion as well. 

 

You won't decrease the number of fan-tl's by taking down licensed works. 

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"Opinion of the staff" is relative here. I've already voiced myself with the staff but to keep it short i am also for taking the torrent down.

Let me make it very clear i love all the torrents and i can't financially support the developers at the moment so i won't have an official copy anytime soon. That sucks and i hate it and in reality i would like to have a free copy available anytime i want.

But that would imply denying what fuwanovel is and that's something i personally don't like. Even if not having the torrent pains me i still know i'd be doing something right by not distributing something Sekai Project brought to the west with their own effort and harming their sales as well as possibly harming the future of more vns being localized.

This is of course if fuwanovel is pro localization, if not then what i just said is pointless. But i believe localization is a big part of making vns popular in the west.

That's my personl opinion at least.

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But but but why don't Fuwa remove it when the games are released? So until then, people can play/enjoy/like/wanttobuy it, and at the same time, it'll be advertised among us users.

This, as long as they aren't actually released removing them from Fuwa won't change a thing - if someone wants to read Grisaia they'll find a torrent somewhere else. Once it's released though, making it slightly more difficult to find a torrent can potentially help their sales. This is from purely a pragmatic standpoint though.

On the other hand removing it now will certainly be a gesture of goodwill towards Sekai.

 

 

Indeed, in fact the same line has been spouted for the past decade... so how's that working out for you? The whole 'more players equals more buyers' thing?

 

Before Steam took off, despite exponentially increasing the fanbase over the years, the highest selling game from MG was a smidge over 2,000 copies and JAST wouldn't be able to survive without the aid of J-List.

 

Do you actually have any evidence that increasing the fanbase through piracy is actually increasing the number of sold copies? Because all the implied evidence says it isn't.

 

MEANWHILE, one of MG's games gets on STEAM, a DRM service ensuring people PAY FOR THE PRODUCTS, and automatically one of the VNs sells 10,000 copies. It's done in an instant what increasing the fanbase through piracy couldn't do in a decade.

 

 

Fuwa's original aim was to aid the production of visual novels in the West. How you would go about this aim in a serious manner while fully supporting the piracy of official products will be fairly amusing to watch.

The reason why it did so well is because Steam is at the point where putting your game on Steam will get more people to play it than making it free. That doesn't mean piracy doesn't have a positive effect on sales (or negative, for that matter), it just means that Steam is good at selling anything.

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Indeed, in fact the same line has been spouted for the past decade... so how's that working out for you? The whole 'more players equals more buyers' thing?

 

Before Steam took off, despite exponentially increasing the fanbase over the years, the highest selling game from MG was a smidge over 2,000 copies and JAST wouldn't be able to survive without the aid of J-List.

 

Do you actually have any evidence that increasing the fanbase through piracy is actually increasing the number of sold copies? Because all the implied evidence says it isn't.

 

MEANWHILE, one of MG's games gets on STEAM, a DRM service ensuring people PAY FOR THE PRODUCTS, and automatically one of the VNs sells 10,000 copies. It's done in an instant what increasing the fanbase through piracy couldn't do in a decade.

 

 

Fuwa's original aim was to aid the production of visual novels in the West. How you would go about this aim in a serious manner while fully supporting the piracy of official products will be fairly amusing to watch.

 

As for the steam thing, it's a service issue - I can say for a fact that 90% of the games I have on steam I wouldn't have gotten otherwise - either because I heard about them through steam, or steam is the most convenient way to obtain it, or the stigma of going through unfamiliar territory to buy it from the actual site.

 

The piracy increases fanbase argument is for a world where the products aren't easily obtainable otherwise, such as is the case for most VNs.  Steam's just opening the door for a fanbase that probably came to be in the first place because people were able to play them and get attached to the genre.

 

As for removing the Fuwan torrent, personal opinion states waiting until the games are actually on steam.  There's also the issue of whether or not the transfer to all-ages will remove any meaningful content, as is the case with If My Heart Had Wings.

 

I'm all for increasing the localization of the games, but I don't think rushing to a solution posthaste is the best idea.  It's going to take some thought on a lot of issues - Steam's effect vs Piracy's effect, whether or not the removal of H content lost anything memorable, and whether or not the translators would prefer a small H recovery patch on the internet somewhere.  Lots of issues to be sorted out here...

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So the site which used to post the pro-piracy pdfs can't do any piracy. Seems legit. :huh:

 

If we're pro-localization, I'm all up for putting those adds on the site. Not like there'd be any legal repercussion and money is what talks, right? Think of it, we're helping them to get their money, we should get our money as well. It's not passion what matters, it's all business. I better get some cash for the time I put here or riot.

 

Except no. This whole thing sounds disgusting. They're free to take VNs already fan translated, tl more 1000 lines, remove H scenes and start selling it if they want to. That's nice and all. The games are still different, though. We don't have the Sekai Project version that is going to be sold, we have a different one with the H scenes and a few scenes less. They're selling it as a different release, we might as well take their word for it.

 

I do believe we should be pro fan translation. It fits much more we the actual beliefs of our creator and what we've been doing up to now, really.

 

Sorry for the sarcasm.

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On 7/5/2014 at 8:32 AM, OriginalRen said:

I think this is one of the reasons I enjoy doing the "Let's Play" video streams with Mephisto and Guest. In the end, it's all fun and games, but I'm surprised by the amount of PMs I get on my YouTube account or via email regarding those videos. I may not have a boatload of subscriptions, but a lot of people appreciate what is posted it seems; some have even gone as far as to say they want to purchase Cocoro@Function! themselves to enjoy the other routes. I have also gotten a ton of emails regarding the Dracu-riot! stream and how excited a lot of people are about the live TL of Miu's route.

 

I guess I never said this to anyone (I guess I really didn't see a point), but I did receive an official email from Pulltop as well, the company that produces C@F. It was a pieced together email, and in reality I don't know if it was from someone high up in the company, but in essence they had thanked me for posting the "Let's Play" series on YouTube. I think it's a good thing to be able to do both of what is being mentioned here: localizing and fan translating. I think that's what the goal of my videos were in the long run.

 

The point about the videos is something I can't agree with in this case.  Fuwanovel doesn't have the traffic for a point of 'simply being on this site will grant more sales', regardless of whether it's a video of the real thing.

 

Fuwa doesn't have the notoriety, nor the reach for that to happen.  Most people who come here probably already know about the games anyway.

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I personally don't like to torrent unless I have to. Like when I don't have the funds for the item in question or if what I want isn't available through convenient means. When I do get the funds though and I liked the game I torrented I buy it to support the people who made it. When a song I want isn't available through amazon or itunes or the like I torrent it until it is, then I buy it. Now that Grisaia is being localized and is licensed I believe it should be taken down. Also it has a fan base thanks to fuwa and other sites in the west now right? So people who want to support the industry in the west should buy it if the can and are truly passionate about it.

 

I am new to VN's so I don't have much room to talk but I really love them! Anime has been a huge help in my life and now that I am getting into VN's they are becoming a part of me as well. I want to see the companies who produce these experiences to get something back and make more of what I enjoy doing. The only time I think fuwa should have a torrent is if it does not have a ENG release out or in the near future. Like Steins;Gate for example, it is listed on the fuwa website but then redirects you to where you can buy it. I think fuwa should do that with Grisaia, remove the torrent and put a link for where you can buy it. I know fans worked hard on the translation and want to share what they love but when the companies that make those games go out of business you won't have anything to translate anymore. Once that happens no one wins.

 

Especial if the company or translation group asks to take it down it would be the right thing to do, since it's there work. 

 

Now if the game gets put on steam and a lot of the content gets censored or removed I see that as a different story. Some people may not want a game if it gets altered from what it was originally meant to be. I would still buy it on steam but playing might be a different story if I can play the original elsewhere. Personally not sure where to stand on this issue as both bring pro's and con's. For the industries sake I say take it down. For the fans of the game that don't want to see it significantly changed I say it's OK. I'm in the middle I think, if the full game gets localized take down the game, if it doesn't wait until the company or group asks directly.

 

Now that I re-read my post I feel like I am contradicting my self a bit thinking about this sucks, bleh.

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The point about the videos is something I can't agree with in this case.  Fuwanovel doesn't have the traffic for a point of 'simply being on this site will grant more sales', regardless of whether it's a video of the real thing.

 

Fuwa doesn't have the notoriety, nor the reach for that to happen.  Most people who come here probably already know about the games anyway.

 

I know you said "most" but I don't really know much about VN's. I just got into it a few months ago thanks to fuwa and Katawa Shoujo. So thanks to fuwa I have actually bought the VN's I enjoyed and want to see localized to support the companies. 

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This is interesting to me actually. Now that I think about it, I think one of the greatest mediums for visual novel promotion are artists from the artist communities! Thinking back, there is no way I would have ever heard about Katawa Shoujo had it not had an explosion on DeviantART, Pixiv, Danbooru, and other artist hosted websites. While they aren't visual novels, Touhou, Kancolle, and even My Little Pony all have huge artist communities, and those things are huge worldwide! I don't know, that's just interesting to me.

 

Instead of fan translations, let's promote fan artistry! :P

 

PS - Sorry, I am not trying to get off topic. That's all from me.

 

Woah. Not trying to, but we're definitely getting off-topic, Ren-kun. How about we stop talking about our emotions and discuss the removal?

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If we're pro-localization, I'm all up for putting those adds on the site. Not like there'd be any legal repercussion and money is what talks, right? Think of it, we're helping them to get their money, we should get our money as well. It's not passion what matters, it's all business. I better get some cash for the time I put here or riot.

 

I'm not a fan with associating fan-translation with passion, and localisation with anti-consumer heartless corporatism. Supporting the localisation means more money goes to the creators, which means you're supporting THEIR passion. I do think supporting them is the more important ideal, especially considering the state of the industry.

 

EDIT: Of course supporting localisation doesn't mean you can't support fan-tls. Just when they clash, you support the localised copy.

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I do support the removal, but acting like an ass will not help the discussion, we might as well derail the discussion in that case. Many times fuwa's been called a piracy site, and many times Aaeru said there was nothing wrong with sharing. 

 

The work got localized, legal issues come to play, and removal is needed; sure, but you're discussing whether or not fuwa is sided with piracy. Do I have to go and count how many times Aaeru ranted on people calling her a bitch for doing what she did? 

 

Also, if I remember correctly fuwa was created because people got too fired up because of piracy.

 

By the way, there are people in "Downloads and Requests" asking for pirate links, Grisaia will simply end up there.

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I'm not a fan with associating fan-translation with passion, and localisation with anti-consumer heartless corporatism. Supporting the localisation means more money goes to the creators, which means you're supporting THEIR passion. I do think supporting them is the more important ideal, especially considering the state of the industry.

 

EDIT: Of course supporting localisation doesn't mean you can't support fan-tls. Just when they clash, you support the localised copy.

What happens when the localized copy gets rid of some of the things you liked in the original though? Do you still support the company or do you decide to let them know they need to change the way they localize by not buying a copy? Is basically where I am stuck at regarding this topic.

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What happens when the localized copy gets rid of some of the things you liked in the original though? Do you still support the company or do you decide to let them know they need to change the way they localize by not buying a copy? Is basically where I am stuck at regarding this topic.

 

Buy the Japanese and send them a letter :P. But it's expensive.

 

 

Do I have to go and count how many times Aaeru ranted on people calling her a bitch for doing what she did? 

 

The method's Aaeru employed have been, and will continue to be unsuccessful to accomplish the goals this site was constructed for. Let us not confuse the purpose behind this site and Aaeru's personal preferences in bringing about that goal. We congregated here because of Aaeru's vision, but not all of us agreed with her methods.

 

Also, if I remember correctly fuwa was created because people got too fired up because of piracy.

 

Not correct. Aaeru wasn't about piracy, she was about the abolition of copyright. 

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There is no need to start to get hostile with each other, that's not going to do anything but rile everyone up.

 

While I do give my support to the Industry and creators, I do not support the alteration of content in a VN. Once a translation project has made the decision to alter the original content, even if it is something as simple as removing some content to drop the rating from 18+ to all-ages, that translation becomes a separate entity than the original content. I understand that when there is a fan translation, there will also be the loss of a meaning that the original creator intended. That just come naturally when you translate to another language. 

 

Now then, as for my response to the removal of the torrent, I believe that we should continue to host both VN's in order to keep the spirit that I have felt from Fuwanovel, spreading VN's to the west and allowing free access of all our VN's. I have never once viewed Fuwanovel as a site that gives its full support to the localization of VN's, especially when that localization comes with the alteration of content, as shown with KonoSora. While the main site only has the restoration patch available to download, It certainly doesn't take much time of searching or posting on the forums to get a hold of a copy, be it the Moenovel version, or the original Japanese version.

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