Censorship, removed content and Steam on localized Visual Novels

>>15739624
There are some prudes out there so I wonder why the fuck they are reading eroge in the first place. That's what pisses me off. You can also ctrl scene you don't like but you can't add scenes that are not there. They think it's only the H scenes and not just content but they are wrong (see Grisaia). My favorite new excuse that these prudes seem to have is that they should get the official all-ages version while other fans should wait for some angel to unofficially patch in the full version. No thanks, fucker. Buy from MangaGamer and JAST. If you buy VNs from Steam, you are a retard.

I think the market needs to just be honest with itself and realize that 90% of people who read VNs do so for the H scenes. Maybe not even get aroused by it or anything, but after reading something for 40+ hours and finally getting the bang the chick the story has revolved around is satisfying as hell in its own way.

Unfortunantly you will never get that kind of understanding in the west.At least not anytime soon.

A localization is worse than any form of censorship. It's incredibly hypocritical to bitch and moan about missing sexual content and to take a higher ground on the subject of censorship, when the very concept of a localization is the rape of an art form. Shut your fucking mouth and take what you can get. It's bad enough that we have to take a spectator's seat to brutal rape.

File: 201084.jpg (33KB, 275x425px) Image search: [Google]

33KB, 275x425px

>western releases in a nutshell

>>15739624
It's not that big of a deal because the only ones that sell well are kusoge that idiots eat up like the Sakura games.

>>15739624
>The Steam market was worth it when the first Visual Novels were released on it however, after being flooded with shit, interest has declined

While sales on Steam have decline, it still is the dominate force in the Western market. In the last few months there have been plenty of titles that sold what would be considered exceptional sales for pre-Steam Mangagamer. They are seen as poor because the market briefly became much larger, and now that sales are back to reality, the numbers look bad by comparison. Aside from individual title sales though, it is still also possible for a title to take off even if it is harder to do these days, and if that happens that title can outsell 10 titles that didn't take off.

>even so, some companies think it's worth it to censor Visual Novels with pretty much no care for a uncut version.

With the shrinking market, the smaller uncut market does become more important to an average title. The percentage of the total sales the second Grisaia uncut is likely to be a much higher percentage then the first, considering the large drop in sales on Steam It is worth noting the remaining Steam crowd as well is more often looking for uncut patches, thanks to popular titles with an offsite patch.


>Sekai Project in particular relies a lot on Steam and we've seen them releasing at least one Visual Novel (G-senjou no Maou) with no uncut edition available. They also announced all ages versions Hoshimeno, Maitetsu and Baldr Sky and even though they promised word about uncut releases first on AX and then on Otakon, they've said nothing. They actually work on uncut editions of the Grisaia series however, those versions are delayed by months.

With regards to Sekai (and others) bringing over only all ages titles, it is worth remembering that a lot of this is momentum from when Steam was doing ridiculously well. Most of these licenses would have been negotiated after the first Grisaia title did ridiculously well and both Sekai and MG were seeing good numbers with everything on Steam. If you can get 20k on Steam and 2k off steam, it makes business sense to ignore the tiny and at times difficult to deal with (separate platform logistics, payment processors, etc) market. If the Japanese developer will approve a deal with only a censored release, and your numbers looked as they did, I don't blame them business wise for accepting such a deal, even if the resulting situation is bad for the existing VN community. Making the same deal now though after seeing how the market has change in the last 6 months might no longer be worth it in some cases.

>I'm sure that MangaGamer also relies on Steam somewhat but even though they do a great job with their releases by always providing a uncensored version of a Visual Novel they release on Steam on their site, their sales apparently aren't great due to lack of interest.

Their titles with poor sales though have been titles with poor sales on and off Steam. A moege like Princess Evangile sold very well on Steam, but it also was their best selling title on their own platform last year. They have built up a large enough distribution platform that it always makes sense to do an uncut release when the Japanese developer is willing to go along with it. Though it is surely possible they lost some potentially good selling titles because they always go after the uncut version.

>Some japanese developers are now trying by themselves to release their games on Steam and in some cases, no uncut edition is / will be made available.

A lot comes down to momentum in the short term, they all jumped at the huge success of titles on Steam which has largely evaporated. A number of developers are also still hesitant about uncut releases, and wouldn't release them uncut regardless of who wanted to license it. Though even if they want to release an uncut release, distribution is a pain as well, especially to get meaningful numbers.


>I sometimes wonder, where will the future lead us?

We likely have another year or two of the rush to Steam before that tapers off in response to the shrinking market, but the resulting market is still going to be larger then what we had before with the potential for occasional hits so titles will still be brought over. To uncut releases specifically, while the market has changed in a way to make them more viable, the biggest question is what happens with distribution off Steam. I hate the crap Nutaku has pulled, but if they get their act together and offer a viable "Steam for Eroge" with meaningful sales, then it suddenly becomes much more viable for companies, especially Japanese ones, to include an uncut release. J-list is probably in a position where they could do the same thing if they wanted to. But for Japanese lead efforts, without an obvious distribution platform that gets sales to be worth it, "hit or miss" is the best we can hope for.

>>15739624
My opinion is you should learn Japanese if it bothers you.

>>15739974
I actually agree even as I am reading thus spoke zarathustra in English. Sadly it's something that by their very nature monolinguals cannot understand. You might as well try to teach a flatlander what "up" means.

>self declared visual novel fan
>not willing to learn japanese to be able to read all of them and the way they were originally written
>instead complains all day and tries to get other people to whine with him

in the end youre just a whiny brat who puts no effort into what would solve every problem associated on relying on the English VN scene

>>15740473
Inorite. If you're not going to learn Japanese, then at the very least set aside your irrational bias towards censorship. You can't have it both ways. You let the medium die or settle for what you're given. Boycotting major titles because you're a stubborn cretin only puts another nail in the coffin.

Also note this:>>15739974
You're always going to get inherently butchered releases, it's just a matter of whether you can jerk off to them or not.

>>15740490
I would rather send a message to companies that giving people censored releases without any choice isn't OK. Of course translations will never be perfect, but purposefully rewriting parts of the script and witholding scenes without providing a patch to restore them like so many other companies do isn't right.

That's just how capitalism works. If they don't give the market what it wants then they can't expect it to be succesful. I am sure that their competitors can offer other titles without making the same mistakes if it really does put the nail in the coffin.

Hopefully it will just prompt someone to steal the translation work from the steam versions, find a translator to fill in the removed scenes, hack it together and re-release a pirated, uncut version. They shouldn't expect to get paid to do a half-assed job at editing and re-releasing someone else's work.

>>15740508
The only message you're sending is that there is no market, i.e, no more toys for you. This situation has to be handled delicately, favoring the publishers and developers.

>>15740514
Then that is their own fault. I am in no way obligated to give these people my money. It isn't as if there is only one company that localizes games in the first place. If the market really does collapse through its own ineptitude, then all it can do is encourage people to actually learn Japanese instead of accepting inferior versions.

>>15739624
Couldn't care less. The "VNs could be so much better" guy was right.

File: 1460062151953.jpg (18KB, 310x310px) Image search: [Google]

18KB, 310x310px

Ero is holding back the eroge industry. Thankfully, the West does care for such things, which means VNs will only reach their true potential stateside. Soon the poor Japs will be the ones who have to import and translate the kamige.

Censorship is annoying, and in many cases it is unnecessary. I can certainly understand if a company refuses to release an 18+ release because of difficulty in distribution or because the marginal sales they'd gain for releasing it over a strictly all-ages release makes it not worth the effort, but that doesn't mean I'm going to buy it.
I believe that, ideally, an uncut version should be released alongside an all-ages version. It's undeniable that the Steam market is there, although it's silly to think that Steam users are averse to sex. Having or not having sex scenes isn't likely to change public opinion or sales; all it affects is where the product can be offered. Steam users are well aware that many VNs are eroge, and many popular games in general have sex (Mass Effect, Witcher, GTA, etc). Gamers are not against it. They will not refrain from buying a game because of it.

Naturally, if you only want uncut releases, the solution is to learn Japanese and read the VNs in their original language. That said, this isn't an option for everyone. People with little interest in the language but an interest in the medium, or those with limited free time, will just prefer to buy it English. To say that people should accept any garbage they without complaining is asinine. That is not how capitalism works.
If an audience is not captured, the product fails. If it deserves to fail, let it fail. Don't buy shit just because you don't want to see something crash. It is completely the company's responsibility to respond to consumer demands, not the other way around.

It's not that gamers refrain from buying content with sex, its because it's harder for a company to be able to sell content with sex. That's why SP had to split their company for a different payment processor. That's why MG had to get a ESRB rating on Gahkthun to get it on steam.
People are going all ages because it's easier to sell and more people can buy it and how little people actually buy 18+ versions/patches.

Until Dies/Baldr goes AA only and actually shows how doing so on a highly regarded game gets low sales, there's going to be no reason to expend the extra time effort and money in making separate 18 + releases. This is especially true for Dies considering an entire new version would have to be made containing everything. This would be just for the small English market as well.
And considering how inconsequential the porn is in these games, I highly doubt the small 18+ only group's boycotting will make an impact on the game's sales considering how great and already complete these games are without the porn.
There's absolutely no solution to this problem if youre in the 18+ group considering how small it is aside from learning Japanese, which is absolutely a viable solution that everybody seems to overestimate its difficulty.

If anything, the Crowdfunding campaign of DI (and mostly like Baldr) will be indicative of what companies need to do continue making money. Frontwing has already shown with Sharin's Kickstarter that treatment of ero content can absolutely kill sales, this is also true of Karakara and very likely any other similar title. Basically, anything without meme status needs to appeal to everyone possible to maximize sales.
If both of these projects fail to meet their goals, or if there is a significant enough demand for 18+ content during the campaigns, that'll likely influence future acquisitons by companies other than MG and likely the actions of the Japanese companies themselves.

Even if Steam gives access to a larger audience, the last several releases have proven that the audience isn't much larger than what existed before, at least when it comes to regular customers. If companies continue to release smaller titles, then they will certainly need to be cognizant of the demand for 18+ releases. The only time this wouldn't be viable is if they had difficulty in selling the material, or if it was something legally gray like an actual lolige.

>>15739624
>I want a uncut version unless there are some extraordinary circunstances like the current case of Himawari
What happened with Himawari?

>>15741329
Game originally a no name doujin game that includes porn where the ages are mentioned in the story and confirmed to be under legal age.
Frontwing recognizes quality and creates an all ages version with voice acting and improved art and new music and I believe a higher resolution. The game also includes extra side stories. AKA this is the definitive version of the game.
Congareor translate that new version only and submit it to mangagamer.
Mangagamer publishes that version.

Ignorant retard EOPs freak out upon hearing the phrase "all ages" and ask for the 18+ version too and some larger retards probably even asked for a patch even though it's a completely different game.
Mangagamer contracted with frontwing with their version which of course meant that none of the doujin stuff is touched at all or even related.

It feels bad how people look at these amazing games with amazing stories where the ero scenes are widely considered irrelevant and unimportant and some people just think about about is "noo I want my porn".

>>15741395
>t feels bad how people look at these amazing games with amazing stories where the ero scenes are widely considered irrelevant and unimportant and some people just think about about is "noo I want my porn".
But I can read a book and have it have sex scenes, I can watch a movie and have it have sex scenes, and I can play a game and have it have sex scenes. What's so wrong with a VN having sex scenes?

>>15741456

Nothing, but throwing something into the trash simply because it lacks such a thing is very stupid.

>>15741395
While I agree that Himawari is a unique case (and Dies Irae can be argued to be one as well), it's stupid to throw people under the bus just because they want ero. I like to think most people who are aware of Himawari's release status will still consider buying the new release, even if it is technically censored.
That said, there are plenty of VNs where the sex scenes are important for the plot, or where their exclusion can make other scenes awkward. In very rare cases, removing sex scenes can also cause certain character relationships to be harmed, but I don't know of too many cases of this happening.
A good general example is Fate. Fate will never see another ero relase, either in Japan or here, if it ever gets licensed. But Realta Nua's substitute sex scenes are awkward (even more than Nasu's sex scenes) and in many cases contrary to the general lore of the Nasuverse. In this case, even if people may prefer Fate for the battles/worldbuilding/whatever, the absence of the sex scenes is way more awkward than their inclusion. This is especially true for Sakura, who has a fair amount of "weight" in her story lightened because of the stupid vampirism substitute, but it also applies to Rin's sex scene and at least Saber's second sex scene.

>>15741599
You don't need to read an entire scene where characters say extremely cliche lines and end up climaxing together every time to build the image of their relationship. Just the implication that they did it is enough. Some games have ero as an important aspect/need ero to make sense but others don't. These include himawari baldr and dies. You can see all the people who have already read these titles giving out testimonies about the little importance of these scenes while all the people who haven't and are complaining while trying to make the scenes more important than they actually are.

These people are going to claim to highly value these 18+ scenes but when the games come out, they'll probably play it for sure considering how hyped and highly rated these games are.
However they'll pirate it under the pretense of "it had no 18+ so i pirated it" even though they're still absolutely willing to read it all ages.

>>15739974
I disagree. Not everyone can learn every language in the world. Some people are busy learning other languages due problems in their life.
While a translation will never be the original, there is nothing wrong with having a translation be an option to read. The translation does not make the original go away. It gives you the choice of reading the original, or the translation.

>>15739624
The people who buy on steam probably people who regularly buy vn's. Look at nekopara, it was actually a massive success on steam it even made it on the front page during the summer sale. However a lot of the people who bought it aren't the type to traditionally buy vn's they probably bought it expecting a cute anime game, and even if they saw the comments about the h scenes, never bothered to download the patch. Steam is a mass market and "anime" game have started to become more accepted and popular lately which is what's driving a lot of the sales of vn's there. If anything steam having uncensored versions would probably turn a lot of people off from buying them since full on hentai still isn't considered acceptable even by a lot of the people who are perfectly happy to buy anime games.

But in my opinion as long as there's a place to buy uncensored versions I think selling on steam is actually a good thing, it allows the devs to make some extra money and there's always a chance that it'll attract some new fans who might even go on to help with the translation scene. The only way I could really see it harming anything is if devs never release an uncensored version and then were to crack down on fan patches, or if they get popular to the point where the media actual media not gaming websites tries to start some moral outcry around them and make japanese devs wary of releasing outside of japan anymore.

In this case, I don't care because AA by all accounts has more content than the 18+ edition. I would prefer the definitive edition with hours more content over a few sex scenes.

Baldr Sky's localization is an issue though. There is no current all ages version of the game per VNDB, so it will be subject to SP just cutting the game up into pieces with no bonus/extra content added. No interest in financially supporting that kind of job.

>>15739624
>actually using Steam

The bigger issue is that most of the first wave of vns on steam were such garbage that anyone who played one won't touch another

>>15741665
There are also people who read the titles in Japanese wondering how certain scenes will be handled (mostly in the case of Baldr) or complaining about the changes. Of course, DI is a general exception (like any all-ages version produced for console) because it was made by the developer. It has new content to make up for the removals and these releases tend to have substitutes for the ero scenes as well. AA, like other all-ages releases, has censorship in addition to the sex scenes. You can say that the changes are negligible, but the fact is that they're still there. While I personally won't be buying it (I'm not an EOP) I can certainly understand why people are turned off, although I do think the attitude towards DI in general is fairly childish.
Baldr, however, has no all-ages version available in Japan, and the ero is absolutely vital to some scenes and at least one character's route. Fade to black will not be a satisfactory substitute to this. Some people may argue that they don't read the games for the sex scenes, or that the sex scenes are inconsequential, but like anything else, this is completely their opinion. You can make a case on either side, and personally I find it hard to defend content removal when no all-ages version is available in Japan, because even if the story gets fucked or we miss out on certain scenes, some substitute is usually available in an all-ages release.
Besides, one only needs look at the reception of Baldr's announcement to see the community's expectations for releases - and these same people;e bitching about no 18+ are the most likely to crowdfund these releases.

>>15740600
>The west can make a story as satisfying as the nips. So much that the nips will want it.

Too much of a culture gap, the nips are way better at this than the west will ever be. We are just filthy secondaries enjoying the art they create

>>15743028
Which ones were garbage in your mind? I want to try to avoid them.

>>15743243
Everything from Winged Cloud.

>>15740149
Very informative post. Thank you. I'd like to comment on something though:

>If you can get 20k on Steam and 2k off steam, it makes business sense to ignore the tiny and at times difficult to deal with (separate platform logistics, payment processors, etc) market.
If the sales off steam are enough to give even more profit to the company, why should they be ignored? I agree that there's a cost managing all the needed resources to sell off steam and sometimes it can be quite difficult, however, those sales will further contribute to how much the company makes of the game they released. That is, unless the sales off steam aren't enough to mitigate all the costs involved in managing a different platform. Even if that is the case, as you said, it's possible to use another online store for uncut games (such as MangaGamer) so I have trouble understanding some decisions about these releases. Is this a case of the guys with the license along with japanese developers thinking it's not worth it?

>>15739974
>Shut your fucking mouth and take what you can get.
No, thanks. Those who give way to censorship deserve no respect and support (not talking about the translation itself). Also, I agree with >>15742405.

>>15739624
tl;dr
>Anyway, I'd like to hear you guys thoughts about this.

Why would I care about these bastardized shite? Learn the language, retard.

>>15741395
>improved art
But the original art was better than that weird shit in the remake.

>>15743852
>i won't support a censored release, but i will support a group raped and butchered release that negatively affects the experience far more than an insignificant amount of content in a 70+ hour title
The irony is astounding. Baldr Sky and Dies irae will be the final nail in the coffin as far as kamige goes. Conjueror himself agrees as much.

Getting as far away from people like you as possible is one of the perks of having learned Japanese. I wouldn't be able to sleep if I knew that the fate of my favorite hobby was in the hands of irrational manchildren. Next time, please take this to /vn/, Fuwanovel or Reddit. You'll get the confirmation bias and hivemind mentality you seek.

>>15739624
Now you understand why monopolies are bad. Steam itself is not bad, but it being the first choice of publishers is the worst thing that ever happened to PC gaming.

>>15743852
>If the sales off steam are enough to give even more profit to the company, why should they be ignored? I agree that there's a cost managing all the needed resources to sell off steam and sometimes it can be quite difficult, however, those sales will further contribute to how much the company makes of the game they released. That is, unless the sales off steam aren't enough to mitigate all the costs involved in managing a different platform. Even if that is the case, as you said, it's possible to use another online store for uncut games (such as MangaGamer) so I have trouble understanding some decisions about these releases. Is this a case of the guys with the license along with japanese developers thinking it's not worth it?

Obviously a lot of it comes down to the Japanese developers. It is no secret they are still cautious of the Western market with uncut releases, and if a developer insists on an all ages only release, Sekai wasn't going to turn anyone down as Mangagamer would. Even those that do approve though some of the larger developers still have hesitation. Frontwing initially pushed a separation between versions of Grisaia (even though they have backed off here), while Minori force their titles to get rated and keeps some form of mosaic.

How much the extra issues associated with an uncut cost also depend on the developer demands, voice rights issues (this can be a big one), whether their payment processor will throw a fit (for non-Japanese based companies), and so on. It's easy enough to see situations where it simply isn't worth it to release a title uncut, especially when Steam sales were kicking ass.

As to using a different platform, MG itself might not have the numbers to be worth the extra effort when you were going after 5 figure sales on Steam, and Sekai likely wouldn't have viewed it as an option regardless. Sekai though has been giving Nutaku a good amount of attention since Nutaku open their downloadable store front, launching Sakura Dungeon there first and Karakara there last week.

Besides that, for a title like Baldr Sky, Sekai might not be eager to do an uncut version if they think it will scare away mainstream press that might cover it otherwise. Granted, a lot of this might be wishful thinking considering the lack of press for the license pickup and the complete lack of coverage for Root Double, a title that by the books appears to be custom made to be an appealing Western release.

>>15744070
>i won't support a censored release, but i will support a group raped and butchered release that negatively affects the experience far more than an insignificant amount of content in a 70+ hour title
>The irony is astounding.
You think a translation itself is a "rape of an art form" and since that translation has already done so much wrong, I may as well get whatever content that translation has, even if it's something like If My Heart Had Wings or ChuSinGura.

I don't agree with that line of thought. I believe that a translated work should reflect the same meaning as the author intended. If a translation manages to achieve this to a reasonable level, I don't see anything wrong with it. So yes, I will mind a lot if a officially translated Visual Novel has censorship.

However, I may apply exceptions due to the releases that Visual Novel had in Japan. Himawari will be such exception and from what I'm seeing from multiple sources, Dies Irae will be another. I'm not seeing any reasonable reason to justify Baldr Sky being censored on the western scene so I don't plan on supporting it.

>>15744576
Just stop replying to this idiot. If he isn't trying to rile people with his retardation then he's just being autistic.
To say that any translation is "rape" is ridiculous, but to consider visual novels an art form is even more ridiculous. VNs are dialogue-heavy porn games with heavy-handed themes and cute girls. They are not literature.

I wish moogy would just kill himself.

Western VN market gonna crash before it even gets off the ground
A new record

>>15745810
EOPs clearly want it to happen.
>best version of one of the most highly regarded titles in the medium is announced
>already a mass boycott within a week
Oh, yeah. Good job on letting Tokyo Babel bomb, by the way. What do you do when the biggest western publisher is gauging for interest in these kind of titles? Pirate them to death, of course. Genius. Again, hats off to you.

The companies that aren't retarded sell the censored version alongside the uncensored one, so nobody gets hurt and they can grab a few extra impulse sales, all good with me.

The ones that censor content without any option of restoring it are relatively rare, and sales tend to reflect most people's distaste with this strategy, so I wouldn't be too worried about it taking over.

>>15746003
Though I'm talking of actual censorship here, not "they decided to sell the all-ages version because it had way more content" which isn't really censorship at all.

>>15745988
I actually bought Tokyo Babel, mostly because I thought MG was pretty ballsy to go after it at all and didn't want them to lose money on it.

>>15746018
I bought it too because I really enjoyed the demo with the humor, the over-the-top fights and the mythos, etc etc. It was a fun read.

>>15745810
No, it actually got off the ground this time before crashing. This is not the first time the Western visual novel industry tried to get off the ground, though it is by far the most successful.

>>15745988
While obviously Tokyo Babel was pirated (along with every other visual novel out there), the poor sales of Tokyo Babel likely reflect a general lack of interest in Propeller games. Ayakashibito has been fantranslated for some time, and it didn't draw all that much attention either.

>>15746003
There hasn't been any definitive examples of sales suffering from having the 18+ scenes removed without any way to restore them.

You could try to make the argument for g-senjou but that was a game that everybody already read years ago that nobody would need to buy now regardless of whether it had 18+ or not.

Aside from that game, sekai has been providing 18+ patches and they all sell horribly in comparison to the game by itself. If anything, this shows that the 18+ demanding group of people are a lot smaller than how loud they are.

If a highly regarded game that no EOP has ever read yet like baldr/di comes out without restoration of 18+ and does poorly, then an argument could possibly be made defending including uncut versions. But until then, going AA only is safe because a lot of people dont care about eroscenes and will buy games without them and it is easier because you don't have to deal with extra difficulties and you can get better media coverage.

What do you EOPs even care about porn, if the voice-actors in Tokyo Babel (many of them were all-age celebrities) really gave their best?

>>15739624
>is censorship (...) doing any good
What kind of dumb question is this? Of course it isn't. And Steam may give them more recognition and allow them to make more money, but since it's a family-friendly service it forces them to get censorship up the ass.
Just come up with a lewd version of Steam then. Although even in that case you most likely wouldn't be able to sell games with loli content because AMERICA FUCK YEAH.

>>15739624
Altering the content pretty much defeats the point of bringing them over in the first place.

Steam is annoying to use for VN distribution because you have to distribute an uncensored patch alongside your Steam release anyway.

It's mind blowing to me just how much the NA market is recalcitrant to engage with content from other cultures, and it's not limited to VNs. It just _has_ to be changed to be more american, so as not to offend the sensibilities of the average american idiot.

I used to think it was because of the so called american "right" with their supposed christian values being opposed to anything even vaguely related to sexuality, but the american "left" are even worse about this somehow. American society is really kinda fucked up in some aspects.

It's not even about just the sex scenes either, if you do your translation with a particular market in mind like sekai project does you might end up altering some scenes that some dumbass deems objectionable. That's absolutely not the job of a translator, that's just marketing interfering with creative.

The current western VN "scene" if you want to call it that is somewhat of a joke. It's worse off than it was when fan translations were norm.

Only thing I care about is all these EOP market attempts not affecting Japanese releases.

Hopefully even the biggest EOP cockcsuckers - Frontwing - will learn now that Corona Blossom sold like shit.

>steam

n..no thank you!!

File: my nigga.jpg (224KB, 708x847px) Image search: [Google]

224KB, 708x847px

>>15739624
>I never bought and never will buy a censored Visual Novel.
>the reason I want a uncut version is not only to fap. The reason is not only a matter of principle but also because I, as a Visual Novel fan since years ago, see value on such scenes.
My nigga, this is what I've been saying all this time.

>>15746462
>sekai has been providing 18+ patches and they all sell horribly in comparison to the game by itself. If anything, this shows that the 18+ demanding group of people are a lot smaller than how loud they are.

You aware that most people think porn should be free and pirated the uncensor patch instead of buying it?

I understand where the publishers are coming from, but at the same time, I want my uncensored shit too.

What a terrible dilemma for the VN community.

>>15746439
>a general lack of interest in Propeller games
This is bizarre to me, considering Higashide Yuuichiro is significantly more popular than Masada. Seems to me like the west just doesn't like nor want chuunige.

>>15746745
They lowered the price of the base release so more people would be able to buy it and while thinking because of how "large" the 18+ community was would make up the remaining money with the 18+ patches.

They were pretty dumb to listen to the 18+ people in the first place. I can see why they're just sticking with AA now.

>>15746894
The west really doesn't care about chuunige. TM fans are exactly as they're named, TM fans. Even if fate was chuuni, that group won't be interested in any other chuuni. Just think back on conjueror's poll. The type-moon fanbase votes on mahoyo alone would be like 700+ and won against DI. kill all TM fans plz
Aside from them, what the west really wants is just moege. Without any JOP shilling, games like dies would never be in sights for translation based on pouplarity of genres. The west doesn't deserve good games.

>>15746693
>Only thing I care about is all these EOP market attempts not affecting Japanese releases.
Seconding this.

>>15746934
>DI
>derp battles
>Ren can't do shit
>somebody else always saves the day
>is it possible to overreact to Reinhard even more???
Yep, I'm TM派 in this.

>>15740395
Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? I recall one of my professors telling me that something that's lost in translation for Thus Spoke Zarathustra is that it's very tongue in cheek at a lot of points and that the people who meme about the whole "God is dead" quote are misunderstanding the context of it.

The VN scene is a fucking meme at this point.

>>15747438
And it wasnt when?

>>15746934
>what the west really wants is just moege
I'm not really into Moege nor am I into Chunige although I did like Ayakashibito somewhat, but what I really would like to see is more gameplay eroge and not only from Alicesoft.

Venus Blood/Dual Tail, Gears of Dragoon, Amatsukaze, some more of the Eushully stuff like Megami Series, Madou etc would be great to have.
But that's just me I guess.

>>15747438
What do you even mean by this?

>>15747492
Then you have nothing to worry about anon. Because Aroduc will be translating all those titles in the next 100 years.
Not to mention he will also upgrade the scripts, making them better than the original.

>>15746934
I wouldn't say the West wouldn't like chuunige, but rather a chuunige needs to explain "why you should care about this", while a moege sells by the girls on the cover and promising a romance story. The target audience is not actively seeking out info on visual novels, so you somehow need to reach out to them to tell them why they should care, and that is very difficult for most titles.

>>15739624
It will slowly lead to the same place people buying censored "regular" games leads: to the content innately becoming less racy and normalized to appeal to wider tastes.

>>15741161
>Basically, anything without meme status
What exactly is "meme status" for a VN? Or do you just mean infamy/highly recommended like FSN?

>>15741456
VNs are a less respected mediaform and thus more suspicious and "foreign" to the western psyche. The witch hunts that went after video games in the early 90s with somewhat racey content was similar. It was a new medium bursting onto the mainstream and people who did not understand it felt it was going to harm society. Only now with more mainstream "corporate" games are devs allowed to show dicks (The Order 1996) or sex (Witcher). Because when it's corporate, the west knows it can't be bad.

>>15746693
Unlikely. Most censorship including self-censorship for domestic JP releases is the result of CERO and Sony content restrictions.

>>15740600
>Ero is holding back the eroge industry.
It is. Forest was 10/10 until the forced h scenes ruined atmosphere and slowed the plot.

>>15744258
Whichever platform was first choice would be bad. It's that there is a "first choice" at all rather than like 4-5 closely competing platforms that is harming the industry.

>>15746462
What are you smoking?

If games people already played sold poorly, then Muv-luv would have tanked because it was popular and everyone had already read the fan patch.

SELLING patches is retarded since it is making original game players pay twice. Look at patch piracy instead which probably matches almost the sales numbers of Steam games.

Also media coverage improves with adult games because it lets all the SJWs go "Oh and there is this creepy patch you can use too, LOLS".

>>15746899
You are wrong. They lowered the AA price because else nobody would buy it. Steam has no market at all that is willing to pay full price.

Meanwhile they still don't want to let true fans get cheap games, because they should pay a price that supports the industry. That is why adult version is higher priced so that they don't lose sales to "guaranteed buyers".

>>15748985
I dropped Moon because of the ero. Then again it was only because it was repeated rape over and over and over. If you have a potential good story i suggest to not hide it behind a disgust wall.

That also applies to Euphoria.

>>15744070
You should've learned French or Italian rather than Japanese. You'd have a far wider selection of unsullied native language high literature.

>>15749109
Japanese literature is really solid, and quite wide, though. Nothing's stopping him from buying books.

>>15746934
Why is it that whenever something gets popular, there must then come a group to satirize those who like it?

>>15739624
The West was never kind to porn games.

You're not getting them in any kind of official capacity.

>>15739974
Why I stopped eating Nintendo's shit.

I'm tired.

Been remembering my Japanese learning. I'll just import if I want to support.

>>15749391
nutaku seems to be really successful with flower knight girl, it make 5 figures a day https://mobile.twitter.com/M_Solitaire/status/754029726184968192. Even though I don't agree with some of there practices I hope they get there shit together for that adult steam thing they are working on.

If you actually care, then you should be importing and buying from the actual creators. All these localizers are playing middle-man and taking an undeserved cut. SP is probably the worst offender of this as they continue to plunder fan-translated projects for KS-backed release.

Places like DLsite have some translated stuff. But more than this, you should just buy a physical copy and then either learn Japanese or apply an existing translation patch; worst case, pirate the localized game. I can guarantee that official releases are no better than the fan-translated shits, especially when they just "edit" these translations to begin with.

I honestly don't give a fuck about visual novels "getting big in the West." I like them precisely because they're Japanese and I support them as such. Support core industries. Don't get it twisted. Do not give your money to superfluous middle-men exploiting both fans and creators. The fact that they even cut content and censor things reveals their intentions and priorities. They play it safe. The popularization of visual novels outside of Japan does nothing for you in the long run. These games have been available for you to buy and play for a long, long time. And so far it's done more harm than good by stepping on the toes of fans and limiting VN localization to only the most boring, tepid, easy-access releases. Good luck getting something like lolige over here.

>>15748985
>>15749105
Ero can be a good opportunity to develop characters and show intimate sides of them you've not yet seen in a game. Bad or "unecessary" ero can only be blamed on bad writers. At any rate, it's no reason to move to cut ero from eroge. It's like cutting scenes from a movie to pander to some idiot group's tastes. We shouldn't need things like "director's cuts."

>>15751143
But me no speeka Japanese. Need translator-des

>>15751155
The problem is, if you want to tell a story that doesn't include much ero, you end up having to shoehorn more in just because the genre convention leads to expectations of ero and thus fans expect it. You're sort of hemmed in by the conventions and expectations and can't do what you want.

>>15751143
The ideal is that the creators themselves have an inhouse translation process paralllel to their normal team and release dual language stuff just like Dead or Alive Beachvolleyball did.

This is where things like Corona Blossom is a great idea. But it is lacking in things like actually doing a west versino without mosaic, and having the adult content part of the story.

>>15749413
>posting a mobile link
>A nutaku fucker who recommended Sakura
>SJW Patricia Hernandez replied
>there
>hoping for good things for nutaku, one of the biggest content cutters

Can you kindly get the fuck out of this thread?

File: 1442549413596.jpg (13KB, 315x316px) Image search: [Google]

13KB, 315x316px

>>15746462
>you can get better media coverage.
Just like Muv-Luv, right? That was received so very well by the western press.

>>15740473
Nobody learns a dying language like Japanese just for VNs...right?

>>15740600
>Ero is holding back the eroge industry
>Ero
>holding back
>EROge
are you serious?

>>15751143
I imported Maitetsu even though I can't read it, so there's that.

>>15752031
Technically it's the VN industry.

I wonder if Sekai is going to renegotiate for an uncut release of Chrono Clock now that MG has Hapymaher. Probably hard for them to justify having a censored only release when the Japanese company is publicly fine with it, even if the H-content in Chrono Clock is very thrown in.

>>15753193
Better if they just hand MG the license for adult version and see it crush the all-ages sales and let them ask Sekai why all their info was lies.

>>15753193
Chrono Clock was fucked from the start when it was made from the ground up with the Steambabies in mind. The question is who's going to get Amatsutsumi.

>tfw westerners don't realize how important it is for Dies irae to succeed
If it does turn out that it's a direct AA port, then swallow your pride and support it. If Dies irae - one of the most highly regarded titles in the medium as a whole - fails, it's going to have a huge negative impact on the future of the market.

No one will ever want to bother with something like Di again when 1. it doesn't sell, and 2. it takes infinitely more skill and effort to localize. If the western market isn't already overrun and dominated by mindless moege, it most certainly will be, considering a person capable of translating Di could crap out 10 - 15 mid-length moege in the time it would take to translate it.

You should really look at the big picture for this one.

Who cares, VNs are just illustrated ebooks for teenagers.

>>15753830
>Who cares
Those teenagers?

>>15753828
I'll buy if they put it on MangaGamer's store. Fuck them for using Steam.

>>15753828
Most people finished school and know math. So we can see that it is inexcusable to claim they can translate AA but not the 1% content difference to get the adult product as well.

If they need 200k to translate AA, then they would need less than 2k to translate the adult version at the same time.

It is simply unforgivable greed to shave off 2k production cost and then beg people to buy the product anyway because they want to make money. Invest that money and earn your sales.

>>15753975
Math is hard for most average people. They count on average people to be their buyers.

>>15753975
>If they need 200k to translate AA, then they would need less than 2k to translate the adult version at the same time.


It may not be that simple depending on voice rights and/or other licensing costs and costs involved with porting. I'd like to see both versions too, but it isn't necessarily just a question of how much it costs to translate those lines.

>>15753828
The existing VN market isn't going to be enough for them to succeed regardless. The debate within the community is fun, but the success of Dies Irae is going to depend on how attractive it is to the broader market that hasn't heard about it. That is easy enough if they wait until the anime, but before hand it would take a monumental marketing effort to make people aware of Dies Irae, and convince them it is a good game they want to play. Considering their efforts thus far, hard to believe that effort is coming

>>15754021
I would say they count on faith. Religious people who blindly praise every gift in life. Like a bee sting.

>>15754025
Sure, the VA maffia is probably the VN markets own worst enemy.

I don't even get what kind of silly contracts they write. Do they pay for each re-release, for each region, for each country, for each platform, or what? The only thing that is certain is that VA get money for stuff they did years ago.

>>15753830
People who thinks VNs are art are the worst kind of manbaby autists, go read the untranslated VN thread for some of the most embarrassing shit posted on 4chan as a whole

>>15752031

I would have thought it was obvious I was being facetious, but oh well.

>>15752220
Ofcourse eorge it's vn but in eroge priority is erotic content
It is a separate genre

>>15753828
>one of the most highly regarded titles in the medium as a whole

t. clueless fucking EOP
(or Conjueror himself)

>>15755460
>this much denial
>t. meme
END THYSELF

So even if you don't want to play it buy Rance VI while boycotting the censored releases?

>>15755696
What denial?

Dies Irae started as a catastrophe that needed to be redone two times for light to win back the fans they lost.

And even so it's more of a niche game, with half of the fanbase being fujos.

Look at the sames for Interview and look what's about it, that's what this industry is about, you delusional EOP.
http://blog.livedoor.jp/twode_perf/archives/59118916.html

I sometimes joke about EOPs being meme'd by Moogy and other Twitter faggots, but in your case it's actually true.

Visual Novels are being sold on Steam now? Seriously what the fuck happened these last couple years? I didn't pay any attention to PC gaming in years

I am conflicted because I want to support translations but i'll be damned if they remove content, why have they not realized by now not to do that, do they really not know their audience that badly?

>>15755800
Support the releases that don't remove content.

Pirate the ones that do

>>15755815
Clearly, since your posting style reveals you as a /r/visualnovelsregular.

Also funny how you have no argument back. Well, numbers and facts don't lie.

>>15755800
Yes, they've opened the floodgates. Nekopara and Sakura Spirit broke sales records, BTFOing the long history of the Japanese market and making millions upon millions of dollars, and now every developer wants to jump on the Steam train. The only reason those VNs sold at all was because popular streamers and e-celebs gave them meme status. VN devs didn't get the memo. and leave disappointed.

Most VNs that have 18+ content usually get patches to restore it. There's not really enough information to make a decision about Dies irae just yet. They could still potentially make a AeF/AA frankenstein as a stretch goal available in both languages.

Unless it's a niche sub-genre that will die out otherwise, I don't think it's necessary to feel obligated to support anything.

>>15755848
Is that complete and utter douchebag superior tone really necessary? Can you really not live with yourself if you're not an obnoxious faggot at all times? I don't visit /jp/ often, nor listen to the hate it gets from essentially every other community, but I can see where they're coming from.

>>15756076
>nor listen to the hate it gets from essentially every other community, but I can see where they're coming from.

Good. That is the whole point

Look how /a/ went to the dogs

>>15755807

This is probably how it's going to go realistically. Now then I will have to find out which ones are pure and which ones are content removed.

I can patch a game, that's no big deal, nothing like shin megami tensei SFC which needs something like three IPS in the right order.

Damn kids will never know what the fuck i'm talking about.

>>15756145
On Steam you have the Cut-Content Police curator.

For JAST censoship it is harder, but also rarer.

>>15756076
>Is that complete and utter douchebag superior tone really necessary?

Yes. Especially against people like you. You're clueless, but act like you know it all.

>>15756314
>You're clueless, but act like you know it all.
upwards of 50% of people in /jp/ are like this

>>15756314
I do know it all. I am literally a golden god, you insignificant little ant. If you want to get technical, even a top 100 VN is ONE of the most highly regarded. You're forgetting that there's literally an ocean of crap out there, and that's what's being localized. Also, different IP.

>>15755795
Sometimes I think, the whole twitter charade was made to persuade a gullible public to spend their money on shit they really don't want. I mean, fuck.
>>15747006
Why did you except from a cringy self-parody on Shonen Jump? The whole plot was absurd and by no means to be taken seriously.

>>15757262
How does it feel to be a joyless adult? Do you contemplate suicide on an hourly basis?

>>15756355
I always wondered about this. In some threads there are people talking like they've got a masters of art degree in Advanced Japanese Visual and Audio Mediums. I used to wonder how such people existed when there's so little time in one's life to really experience all this media, form specific opinions on it and become so certain about everything. Now I know it's all just idiots who are no smarter than me winging it.

>>15757262
>>15758410
You can stop responding to yourself now.

File: enjoyf.png (3KB, 316x89px) Image search: [Google]

3KB, 316x89px

>>15759281
I know you'll probably accuse this of being an edit but here have it anyway

>Tell me /jp/, is censorship and Steam doing any good to Visual Novels on the western Visual Novel scene?

I would argue its more about what kind of censorship it is and how much effect it has on the story. Its not so black and white, cut and dry. For example Saya No Uta is a good example of it. It does have sex and it does feature violence and messed up scenes but those are key to the entire storyline without it there is nothing that really could be understood and the meaning is lost. That is why JAST refuses to bring it onto Steam because of the amount of things that would need to be changed.

While there are some that can survive the loss of sex scenes and be perfectly alright for the western audience.

But a truly ideal situation would be to have an 18+ section on Steam and/or have an 18+ patch and have your account verified to be able to buy it so that way Steam and VN companies win. But sadly its not the case.


>Sekai Project in particular relies a lot on Steam and we've seen them releasing at least one Visual Novel (G-senjou no Maou) with no uncut edition available. They also announced all ages versions Hoshimeno, Maitetsu and Baldr Sky and even though they promised word about uncut releases first on AX and then on Otakon, they've said nothing. They actually work on uncut editions of the Grisaia series however, those versions are delayed by months.

Actually you just explained why Sekai Project is where it is at now. Granted i have Grisaia series on steam and i will buy the final one. I kind of removed my support afterwards after reading around in the comment sections and also finding out about the whole Twitter fiasco with the CEO then hearing about the employees viewpoints regarding 18+ patches and being anti-lollicon. It just was the last straw for me. I am buying a few final games and then ending my support. Sekai also released a poorly translated Sakura Shrine game i was hoping would be good but as i have read around it had a lot of uninspired effort and sadly it will make easy steam money. That will barely keep them floating.

>I sometimes wonder, where will the future lead us? I never bought and never will buy a censored Visual Novel. If a Visual Novel has a version with sexual content and a localization is in progress, I want a uncut version unless there are some extraordinary circunstances like the current case of Himawari.

I actually agree with your opinion. But to me i see it on a case by case basis. For a game like Grisaia i decided to buy the series as for me even though the H scenes were cut on Steam i still liked it for the storyline and it did not bother me. But i do think there should be the 18+ option regardless as a patch. Nothing is stopping them but their own morality.


As for the future of Visual Novels on steam i would like to disagree with a majority of everyone here that its fading away or that it is dying or even that its going to get worse. I also think right now it is just a matter of time really before we get there with eroge on Steam and things begin to change. It all starts on building an audience must have a good enough audience in the VN to buy these regular games in order for it to be legitimate then it will bleed into the Eroge.

For example games like Danganronpa,Clannad sold really well on Steam being 1st or even 3rd place on the day of sales. Which actually has prompted MAGES to makes Steins Gate for Steam and also NISA to release Psycho Pass Mandatory Happiness on the platform as well. Which leads me to believe if they sell well. There is a lot of money to be made eventually Japanese VN will cash in on it even Eroge will as well.

>>15760648
I find it hard to believe Gaben would allow hardcore porn games on his platform, and that is what eroge are.

>>15760648
The Sakura series is from USA, not japan. Sekai just sell them.

>>15760648
>Sekai also released a poorly translated Sakura Shrine game i was hoping would be good but as i have read around it had a lot of uninspired effort and sadly it will make easy steam money.

The best part is that the game is an english original. That horrifying writing was done by a native english writer.

It's funny because the word is that winged cloud ditched mangagamer because they didn't think their games needed editing and polishing they tried to give it, and didn't trust them making those changes. Sakura Santa was noticeably downgraded when they switched away from the edited version. Their latest game can't even get the character names consistently correct, and at least once a "character name" slipped into the release version instead of an actual character's name.

>>15763015
Now that companies realize they can get away with a half-assed effort and have it still sell, they are doing so.

>>15763015
I seriously don't understand why dumb fuckers are giving Winged Cloud $10k a month on Patreon.

>>15763443
It is for the porn (just a shame only half of it go to the porn games).

>>15760648

>I actually agree with your opinion. But to me i see it on a case by case basis. For a game like Grisaia i decided to buy the series as for me even though the H scenes were cut on Steam i still liked it for the storyline and it did not bother me. But i do think there should be the 18+ option regardless as a patch. Nothing is stopping them but their own morality.

Along with the risk adversity of some Japanese companies wanting to make sure there is no controversy, the potential legal issues of some titles (Maitetsu), the extra costs involved in creating and testing multiple versions, the logistics and costs of off-Steam distribution (for companies that don't have this set up), and often VA contracts. I'd like everything to have uncut releases as well, but it isn't quite as simple as a yes or no moral choice for the Western publisher.

>As for the future of Visual Novels on steam i would like to disagree with a majority of everyone here that its fading away or that it is dying or even that its going to get worse. I also think right now it is just a matter of time really before we get there with eroge on Steam and things begin to change. It all starts on building an audience must have a good enough audience in the VN to buy these regular games in order for it to be legitimate then it will bleed into the Eroge.

>For example games like Danganronpa,Clannad sold really well on Steam being 1st or even 3rd place on the day of sales. Which actually has prompted MAGES to makes Steins Gate for Steam and also NISA to release Psycho Pass Mandatory Happiness on the platform as well. Which leads me to believe if they sell well. There is a lot of money to be made eventually Japanese VN will cash in on it even Eroge will as well.

Key titles, titles with very popular anime like Steins;Gate, and the type of mainstream console titles like Danganronpa will always do well. Established meme titles (Nekopara) have also continued to do quite well. But there are only so many of those titles out there to bring over. The decline on Steam people talk about is the significant reduction for titles that aren't well known from elsewhere, which have dropped significantly, which applies to the vast majority of visual novels. They still are selling decently compared to pre-steam MG, but Sekai was probably expecting a range of 5k-20k depending on the title for their upcoming lineup of long, full length titles based on 2015 sales, when looking at 2016 sales under 5k looks likely for most of them (though Baldr could potentially take off).

>where will the future lead us?
the west is shit for this kindof thing and is only getting worse.
so you better learn japanese soon,
and hope japan doesnt end up doing the same thing.

>>15744293
>Obviously a lot of it comes down to the Japanese developers. It is no secret they are still cautious of the Western market with uncut releases, and if a developer insists on an all ages only release, Sekai wasn't going to turn anyone down as Mangagamer would.
On a side note, don't you think it's interesting how Purple Software only licensed a all ages version of Chrono Clock to SP and apparently saw no problem giving a uncut version of Hapymaher to MG?
I believe that in this case SP didn't even bother about trying to get the uncut version.

>>15764276
More like SP was given both but decided on the AA version because SP is full of antiero prudes.

>>15764301
Didn't Purple Software CEO said something about +18 content on the west last year or something?

>>15764276
The Purple Soft situation is quite interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if Sekai didn't push for an uncut release (where for Mangagamer it would have been a deal breaker). But Chrono Clock itself seems like it was designed up to be an easily made all ages title, probably with Steam in mind from the start, with H-content thrown in to keep the Japanese market happy. So it was no surprise that it looks all ages only when Sekai picked it up.

Yet somehow MG got 18+ Hapymaher, a title very much not designed for a Steam release like Chrono Clock. Perhaps Purple Software is just experimenting to see what works for best sales, or perhaps MG convinced them the 18+ market is enough to be worth it, highlighting successes such as Princess Evangile and Eden.

Regardless though, it will put pressure on Sekai for Chrono Clock, even though the H is just thrown in and Purple Soft likely designed it that way for Steam.

>>15763798
These days your problem isn't even legal. Germany and Australia will both not sell Valkyrie Drive because it contains teens in thorn clothes.

Yea, those countries would probably ban KanColle for sexualizing children. That is how extreme the extreme countries are.

Meanwhile most normal countries would even accept lolicon.

>>15764235
All industries in Japan are slowly collapsing. Eroge may be in slightly better position because it was already a huge niche and so its producers are used to working with little in the way of money and getting sales from only a small core of fans. But even many of those fans will fall off over time, and there's no new audience appearing in the Japanese market due to the population crisis. It will take awhile for it to get really bad, but everything is going downhill.

Im hyped for Hapymaher fully uncensored thanks to based mangagamer.

>>15765028
>Hapymaher
This title barely makes sense

>>15760741
While that might be true they are not outright censoring the patches which makes me think they care about the money more than anything else. I think if Steam sees a lot of profit from Visual Novels they will find a way to drive more sales. Its only a logical evolution. Like i said it will most likely be in a form of having an 18+ section and verification.

>>15763015
Exactly i think though it will bite them in the ass because there is an over inflation of Sakura games regardless. I just dont like how everyone thinks Sekai is the only place anyone can trust. Mangagamer and JAST can do a good job as well. Even Degica is starting to find its spot.


>>15763798
>Along with the risk adversity of some Japanese companies wanting to make sure there is no controversy, the potential legal issues of some titles (Maitetsu), the extra costs involved in creating and testing multiple versions, the logistics and costs of off-Steam distribution (for companies that don't have this set up), and often VA contracts. I'd like everything to have uncut releases as well, but it isn't quite as simple as a yes or no moral choice for the Western publisher.

I can see your point and that is true. There will always be controversy with games and that is a problem. But that is why i say to make an 18+ section and let adults buy the games. Its weird because in the west we allow violence and gore but were aversion to sexualized characters. There will always be controversy and i can get where your coming from but in other forms of media even in Novels and such things there has been controversial books yet there is a way to allow consumer to purchase and decide for themselves. But like i said if companies see profit on these things they really will not care about the controversy and just figure a way around it.

>Key titles, titles with very popular anime like Steins;Gate, and the type of mainstream console titles like Danganronpa will always do well. Established meme titles (Nekopara) have also continued to do quite well. But there are only so many of those titles out there to bring over. The decline on Steam people talk about is the significant reduction for titles that aren't well known from elsewhere, which have dropped significantly, which applies to the vast majority of visual novels. They still are selling decently compared to pre-steam MG, but Sekai was probably expecting a range of 5k-20k depending on the title for their upcoming lineup of long, full length titles based on 2015 sales, when looking at 2016 sales under 5k looks likely for most of them (though Baldr could potentially take off).

Alright i can get what your saying. I thought everyone was just saying the Visual Novel scene has not been growing and its dying off. I was confused on the statements. I do agree there is a lot of overlooked titles and that there are some underappreciated classics that no one has heard of that are out right now or those that should be brought over and become more appreciated.

As for Sekai i do believe they are doing well. They sold first place on Clannad and actually mentioned that Clannad sales actually helped them make enough to license a few more games than they would have. But i would argue that because of the sales of Clannad doing so well including others i mentioned. That Japanese companies are starting to see they can actually make money off of it due to how they observed the competition selling more than usual and cut out the middle man. Example is companies like Key is supposed to come out with Little Busters and a few others later this year instead of allowing 3rd parties to do what they want.

>>15764276
They wouldent because to them they care about mainstream lewd and popularity. Jast and even Mangagamer would only get it if it's 18+.

File: 1.png (281KB, 631x835px) Image search: [Google]

281KB, 631x835px

>>15764301
>>15764311
>>15764276

After seeing the complaints about Sekai handling Grisaia i now see why Purple Software and others are avoiding them right now.

>>15766365
>While that might be true they are not outright censoring the patches which makes me think they care about the money more than anything else. I think if Steam sees a lot of profit from Visual Novels they will find a way to drive more sales. Its only a logical evolution. Like i said it will most likely be in a form of having an 18+ section and verification.

Visual Novels are always going to be little more than a rounding error for Steam. They have been relaxing their standards, been generally lenient with patches, and MG gets the Liarsoft titles though uncut, but it would be a big step to go much farther as outright porn distribution brings lots of problems for a major publisher.

>Exactly i think though it will bite them in the ass because there is an over inflation of Sakura games regardless. I just dont like how everyone thinks Sekai is the only place anyone can trust. Mangagamer and JAST can do a good job as well. Even Degica is starting to find its spot.

Sekai comes up a lot in threads like this because they currently have 7 titles without an uncut version announced, most noticeably Baldr Sky. They also released G-Senjou exclusively all ages and have had significant delays for uncut Grisaia. They also have a number of titles (especially doujin titles) with uncut releases announced, but they are the largest publisher that has been getting after all ages releases. Hard to talk about MG in the context of censorship aside from saying MG is awesome for having most everything uncut.

>Alright i can get what your saying. I thought everyone was just saying the Visual Novel scene has not been growing and its dying off. I was confused on the statements. I do agree there is a lot of overlooked titles and that there are some underappreciated classics that no one has heard of that are out right now or those that should be brought over and become more appreciated.

Those "overlooked and underappreciated" titles make up the overwhelming majority of titles. Steins;Gate 0 and Angel Beats are going to do well regardless of what happens with the rest of the market. Dies Irae will explode once the anime airs. But take a quick look at unannounced titles, there are roughly 50 full length titles announced, many of them quite good, but most of them are going to be affected by declining sales for titles that aren't broadly known. The question is how to get these titles to appeal to the broad audience on Steam that has been turned away by all the crap OELVNs being released and market saturation.

>As for Sekai i do believe they are doing well. They sold first place on Clannad and actually mentioned that Clannad sales actually helped them make enough to license a few more games than they would have. But i would argue that because of the sales of Clannad doing so well including others i mentioned.

Sekai should be doing quite fine overall. Sakura does well, Nekopara reliably pushes 200k units, and both Clannad and the first Grisaia sold quite well. They also have a Sony deal upcoming to sell titles on console. But they are going to take a hit, or at least not do as well as they have initially expected, on a number of their other upcoming titles.

>That Japanese companies are starting to see they can actually make money off of it due to how they observed the competition selling more than usual and cut out the middle man. Example is companies like Key is supposed to come out with Little Busters and a few others later this year instead of allowing 3rd parties to do what they want.

That is a problem for all the VN localization companies, with Light, Key, Moonstone, and especially Frontwing, among others, are doing their own thing. A second issue is startup publishers overbidding to get a title, like what happened with ChuSingura46+1 and Taisho Alice. The biggest titles are also going to major console publishers, especially PQube. Though aside from those with famous titles, it is an open question how they will do as they are the most likely to be hurt by declining sales, and many of them had unrealistic expectations from the start.

>They wouldent because to them they care about mainstream lewd and popularity. Jast and even Mangagamer would only get it if it's 18+.

As explained in this thread, the Purplesoft situation is unique. Currently Chrono Clock is listed by Sekai as all ages only, while Hapymaher is 18+ by Mangagamer, and both of these titles are published by Purplesoft. So despite Sekai working with a number of 18+ titles including a comparable title like SukiSuki, and Purplesoft now being okay with uncut releases, the question is why is Chrono Clock listed without an uncut release through Sekai.

>>15766661
>outright porn distribution brings lots of problems for a major publisher.
Not him but why is the world so retarded? Does Witcher 3 count as porn?

>>15766661

>As explained in this thread, the Purplesoft situation is unique. Currently Chrono Clock is listed by Sekai as all ages only, while Hapymaher is 18+ by Mangagamer, and both of these titles are published by Purplesoft. So despite Sekai working with a number of 18+ titles including a comparable title like SukiSuki, and Purplesoft now being okay with uncut releases, the question is why is Chrono Clock listed without an uncut release through Sekai.

The example SukiSuki should instead be SakuSaku. Both have an uncut release coming, but SukiSuki is MG while SakuSaku is Sekai.

>>15766661

>Sekai comes up a lot in threads like this because they currently have 7 titles without an uncut version announced, most noticeably Baldr Sky. They also released G-Senjou exclusively all ages and have had significant delays for uncut Grisaia. They also have a number of titles (especially doujin titles) with uncut releases announced, but they are the largest publisher that has been getting after all ages releases. Hard to talk about MG in the context of censorship aside from saying MG is awesome for having most everything uncut.

I will give Sekai credit for G-Senjou it really did have voice acting included and it was complete to me. It is sad they have so many things yet they have not released much of anything yet. I think there problem also relies on the fact that they have taken way too much at once and its just hurting them a lot. The 18+ promises are also weighing heavily as they really will come across liars if they do not start getting the 18+ patches when they said they would do so.

>Those "overlooked and underappreciated" titles make up the overwhelming majority of titles. Steins;Gate 0 and Angel Beats are going to do well regardless of what happens with the rest of the market. Dies Irae will explode once the anime airs. But take a quick look at unannounced titles, there are roughly 50 full length titles announced, many of them quite good, but most of them are going to be affected by declining sales for titles that aren't broadly known. The question is how to get these titles to appeal to the broad audience on Steam that has been turned away by all the crap OELVNs being released and market saturation.

That is true and it does not help that there are some really bad VN by American Indie places and others trying to get in on the VN scene. Making it look bad but i think Steins Gate;0, Angel Beats, Little Busters and a few others will make new fans that like visual novels and search out more for that experience alone. That is true there is many announcements and there will be a lot that are overlooked. You are right about the awful OELVN's the ones that are by awful cash ins and especially the American ones that perform awful. But i would like to think that although there are bad VN's out there i still think most VN fans that start there first experience on a great VN on the ones we talked about will still keep looking for good Visual Novels and will find them eventually. The market will mature soon enough.

>Sekai should be doing quite fine overall. Sakura does well, Nekopara reliably pushes 200k units, and both Clannad and the first Grisaia sold quite well. They also have a Sony deal upcoming to sell titles on console. But they are going to take a hit, or at least not do as well as they have initially expected, on a number of their other upcoming titles.

I think it will be the latter. The problem is they have been kind of weird about announcing anything and not being clear about when titles will be released or if the 18+ patches of the certain titles will happen, and that sort of thing. While MG, JAST and a few others do which causes a lot of problems for them. I think once they crash back to reality they will start being more transparent and begin to fulfill their word regarding what fans want from them.

>That is a problem for all the VN localization companies, with Light, Key, Moonstone, and especially Frontwing, among others, are doing their own thing. A second issue is startup publishers overbidding to get a title, like what happened with ChuSingura46+1 and Taisho Alice. The biggest titles are also going to major console publishers, especially PQube. Though aside from those with famous titles, it is an open question how they will do as they are the most likely to be hurt by declining sales, and many of them had unrealistic expectations from the start.

That is true the boom has kind of caused them to go in and make these titles. But i think it depends on what is localized and what they decide to do once it is released.

>As explained in this thread, the Purplesoft situation is unique. Currently Chrono Clock is listed by Sekai as all ages only, while Hapymaher is 18+ by Mangagamer, and both of these titles are published by Purplesoft. So despite Sekai working with a number of 18+ titles including a comparable title like SukiSuki, and Purplesoft now being okay with uncut releases, the question is why is Chrono Clock listed without an uncut release through Sekai.

You are right this means that Sekai will need to step up to deliver it uncut as they have no excuses on it. If they drag their feet like with everything else they will start to lose their fans and gain a bad rep. Sekai employees openly admit they dislike 18+ content and they do not care about it really. I am hoping i am wrong but their actions lately have been proof of it.

File: snap355.jpg (149KB, 1280x720px) Image search: [Google]

149KB, 1280x720px

>>15766767
>SakuSaku
>uncut release
Somehow I doubt that when it has this heroine in it.

>>15751143
Normies being exposed to niche Japanese core industries the more likely SJW sentiment will travel along the same connection and try and edit Japanese works at the source.

There is already heavy pressure over fucking 2D loli and shota works, with the 2020 Olympics and Japans constant ass-sucking to American values I feel like the universe is crumbling around our ears.

>>15739624
>Contrary to some individuals opinion, the reason I want a uncut version is not only to fap. The reason is not only a matter of principle but also because I, as a Visual Novel fan since years ago, see value on such scenes.
It's actually funny that some people that work on officially translated VNs don't realize this simple concept. Fortunately, based MG knows this and this is one of the reasons why the company is usually well regarded.

>>15751143
Why dont you hand us some links please so some of us that know some japanese can buy from the stores or import.

>>15767793
Why don't you stop being such 情弱?

>>15766661
> the question is why is Chrono Clock listed without an uncut release through Sekai.

99% sure it is VA charging both for all-ages voice acting and adult voice acting so you got to buy two licenses. So if they want 18+ they have to pay more, and they don't want to pay more.

>>15768106
That could surely prevent renegotiation now that the situation has changed, but I would guess that Purple Software had no plans to initially license out uncut Chrono Clock regardless. After all they made the game in such a way that it is trivial to get rid of the H-scenes as they are not part of the main plot.

Turns out Sekai did manage to get 18+ Chrono Clock, thus avoiding all the questions and embarrassment of releasing it cut with MG having Hapymaher uncut.

>>15770208

From the Kickstarter
>There will also be a Denpasoft version which will be distributed by our good friends at Nutaku! The physical version is the Denpasoft edition of the game, but you will also get the Steam and Nutaku download should you go physical. We got you covered!

They have been in a fairly good relationship with Nutaku for a while now, with Sakura Dungeon and Sakura Space getting early releases there and much of Denpasoft's library is now on Nutaku. I'm not a particular fan of Nutaku because of their past bullshit, but if their downloadable store puts up the numbers to make it financially viable for Sekai to grab uncut releases, then it works out well for everyone. Two problematic companies in a partnership that leads to better results.

>>15770266
Does this mean it might arrive on Steam uncut? Or would i have to go to Denpasoft?

>>15770328
They describe it for backers as Steam + Nutaku, so I am guessing the uncut version will be distributed through the Nutaku store.

>>15770328
>And friends, there will also be a Denpasoft version of the game distributed exclusively by Nutaku!

Considering it is a Nutaku exclusive, I am guessing Sekai didn't plan to release it uncut, but Nutaku covered (at least part of) the cost for an uncut release.

So I suppose the question is, how much would Nutaku pay to distribute uncut Baldr Sky? They currently have plenty of money to promote their new platform after all.

>>15770523
I though baldr sky had some loli fucking. Isn't nutaku allergic to that?

>>15739974
By that logic, words themselves are a rape of ideas, destroying an idea and boiling it down to crude, one dimensional term.

>>15771279
Now you're getting it. Don't support rape.

>>15770266
>>15770880
>MG gets Hapymaher uncensored (without mosaics)
SP still doing fantastic work

I guess this makes Sekai far more likely to come through with 18+ versions of the Yuzusoft titles and Wagamama High Spec. Hoshizora no Memoria was already less of an issue as the fanTL might suck, but it would have been sufficient to create an 18+ patch without an official 18+ release. Though an official 18+ release is also now more likely for that as well.

Baldr Sky is still probably up to the whims of Giga, and Maitetsu is still probably never going to happen.

>>15773026
All-ages maitetsu will sell so badly as everyone is busy pirating and patching it.

https://twitter.com/sekaiproject/status/770789060394778625?s=09

Well it looks like Sekai is having another kickstarter for Chrono Clock but like usual it looks like they are being confusing about 18+ patch.

>>15773492
I'm not going to guess how Maitetsu will do as trying to guess what takes off or doesn't take off on Steam feels like a foolish endeavor, but it was always hard to see anyone bringing over a Lose title uncut. It seems like Sekai wasn't their first choice to localize it though, they just were the company that approved selling it as an exclusively all ages release as they'll approve almost any deal. Considering Lose seemed hellbent on bringing it over after they designed it to be easy to put on Steam, had Sekai rejected it the next choice would have probably been either self publish, or a startup like Next Ninja or E2. None of those were likely to turn out well, so it was probably a cursed project from the start.

>>15773734
It's not that confusing... the physical version is the 18+ version. For digital, they state that steam will carry the all ages version, and Nutaku will carry the 18+ version. It's true that they don't mention a patch, but it's not like mangagamer does patches either.

>>15773751
If there is a paid patch I'm guessing Nutaku would offer it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was none. Nutaku likely paid a premium for exclusivity after all.

>>15739624
Back when I did buy VNs on Steam I'd bought several that I didn't even realise were censored until later, and I think that's one of the biggest problems with it: Many people aren't going to have any idea that they're getting a cut down product, and that's especially bad in cases like Grisaia where they were censored beyond just sex scenes and extending into the script outside of them.
These days of course I make sure to check every single release before I buy it, and only get the Steam version if it's uncensored on there (as with Gahkthun or Fata Morgana), and if there isn't an official uncensored release then I won't get the game at all. But it's a big problem that people can be entirely unaware that they're playing a censored release in the first place. Hell, I only found out about Nutaku's shit this last week.

>>15773817
I made that mistake a lot its most SP that messes it up if you notice. Mangagamer and JAST really do not have a ton of games on Steam but they pick high quality over quantity.

>>15773741
>they just were the company that approved selling it as an exclusively all ages release as they'll approve almost any deal.

and the ironic part is if it does not sale up to expectations and they have to use a kickstarter promising more 18+ then not deliver and were stuck saying the same thing i highly doubt anyone in Japan will trust them anymore unless its a normal VN.

Kickstarters are so fun. Zero risk and zero accountability.

>People are going all ages because it's easier to sell and more people can buy it and how little people actually buy 18+ versions/patches.

Best post in the thread. The rest of the world is just like Japan. Look at how big fate has become. It's not because of continued pc eroge, but because of all ages console ports and anime adaptations. All ages falls under the 18+ rating, allowing the publisher more avenues to retail and marketing for all related media. Hiding 18+ content from the mainstream but making it available to those who want it is the best strategy for success.

>>15775065
>zero risk
Not true. There's the crushing humiliation if it fails.

>>15775603
>Re:Sharin
You stand up and keep trying!

File: 038b7e8258648a1a2251474ad49a997a0a55f647c5cb59e5e34bd71ac6fd34e8.jpg (202KB, 1080x1080px) Image search: [Google]

202KB, 1080x1080px

>>15775573
>Best post in the thread. The rest of the world is just like Japan. Look at how big fate has become. It's not because of continued pc eroge, but because of all ages console ports and anime adaptations. All ages falls under the 18+ rating, allowing the publisher more avenues to retail and marketing for all related media. Hiding 18+ content from the mainstream but making it available to those who want it is the best strategy for success.

That's not true. That's not entirely true there will always be an 18+ crowd the problem is that not many know there were cuts of 18+ content in the game or how it effects the plots of certain games.

I will tell you and other fellow anons something about how similar Japan and the US is when it comes to their hypocrisy on multimedia platforms. The US is perfectly fine with gore and violence on 18+ and can have some sexual things in it or implied. But the US does not allow sex because we think its taboo when its not. Everyone likes sex, its biological its in our DNA and its no different in Novel form than it is in Visual Novel form.

Japan on the other hand is the opposite. They fully admit they like sex and are perverted it is open and out there with anime, visual novels and the like. Because they see it as normal and funny or interesting. But Japan is like the US of sex when it comes to violence in their games. Japan has a low tolerance for it and CERO will try to tone it down when it comes to games. Just look at the new Berserk game and the cut they had to make in the beginning of their anime.

If you do not believe me look at some gory cut scenes in Japanese version vs the American version. An example of this is the Enemy Within. In the US we did not censor anything at all while Japan they censored out the blood and cut off some of the violent bits. But what made that case special was that The Enemy Within actually included Blood as DLC on PS4 and i believe on Steam. So Japanese could be happy about it. Even Berserk Masou may or may not have that because of the whole gore thing.

I keep thinking to myself everytime i see these instances where Japan allows the DLC option to have something that was censored to included in the game on Steam and on PSN. I keep thinking why cant Visual Novels be like this? Why are we all even having this discussion and why is Japanese companies in Visual Novels not seeing the same thing or even Steam. There is no debate whether or not it should be allowed. But not having a DLC option in there is silly. Because how can anyone claim there is problems with the full game when it does not have it. And the DLC does. If media complains then it should be the parents responsibility not the company. Sex is sex, violence is violence.

The US and Japan need to start realizing each others cultures and that its not a bad thing to have sex and or violence in a game. And if certain people complain they are not the ones that are buying the games they are just the minority with the loudest voices trying to decide everything for us.

>>15776299

I didn't say there wasn't a market for 18+. I said that market cannot be larger. There isn't a single 18+ only vn series that is more popular than a vn series with all ages versions.

There are more normal people than otaku, more news at 11.

>>15776318
Rance is far more popular than lets say Root Double

>>15776299
Not that there aren't differences in general attitudes, which very much do come into play with media coverage, advertising and stuff like payment processors on PC, but your examples focusing on console releases are poor. CERO is one of the more restrictive rating agencies in the world, and a boob or semi-explict sex scene in Berserk Masou would be censored in Japan on console just as fast as any violence would. Yes there are a number of cases where non-nude ecchi content would be allowed under CERO and banned under other restrictive rating systems, such as the ones used by Australia and Germany, but as a whole the ESRB covers nearly everything CERO allows, along with a good deal of content both sexual and otherwise that CERO does not, under its M rating.

The "uncut" DLC Japan gets for some console releases is simply the byproduct from differences between a CERO D rating (easy to sell at retail) and a CERO Z rating (hard to sell at retail, but a legitimate rating with more lenient standards, especially for violence but not nudity). There are titles, such as Evil Within, which has a "less censored" DLC patch, but are still censored because the uncut version had content that was still forbidden by a CERO Z rating. Some titles with a Japanese PC port do get an uncut release there, but only because a CERO rating is not required to sell on PC.

Even just talking visual novels this becomes apperent. Console releases of visual novels in Japan are typically cut down to a CERO D (or lower) rating, so the Western ports of Japanese all ages console releases often have both sexual and violence cuts which are unneeded in the West. Grisaia for example had a number of sex jokes toned down (and generic nudity removed) because they were too much for a CERO D rating, none of which would have been a problem with the ESRB or Steam. Gahkthun got an ESRB M rating here uncut, which would be unthinkable in Japan through the CERO rating system. In the context of 18+ releases, ESRB AO titles, while not banned by a rating agency, are effectively kept off of console because all the major consoles have restrictions that prevent selling ESRB AO titles. It would be just as unthinkable to try and sell uncensored eroge in Japan on a console, or try to use DLC to add the content to a console release.

>>15773817
To be fair, if you're buying machine translations from Sekai Project you might as well expect every scene to be butchered or removed entirely, not just h-scenes.

>>15776751
Most people have no clue how bad SP are, though. I don't know if there's any solution for the problem of the average person being largely uninformed, especially when there are people who will argue that "it's better than nothing".

>>15776783
SP are really no worse than 95% of fan translation projects. They're a scumbag company, but the same could be said for pretty much any localisation company.

The reality is, that if the game is in the shops or on steam, the vast majority of people just assume it's good enough. Let's say you could convince them all that SP or any other company is putrid dogshit.

It's not like they have a choice. It's not like an angel investor is going to come along, buy the rights off SP, and re-translate the game to a satisfactory level. Localisation work will never improve, because it has no impetus to improve. Companies that come along with delusional ideas of producing quality work, they're the ones that die off, because you can't secure rights and pay a team of highly skilled translators without going bankrupt.

>>15771031
Flower Knight Girl is fine.

They specifically avoid mentioning loli in the dialogue though.

Some fresh insight in to how incompetent Sekai Project is.
http://tenka.seiha.org/concerning-recent-game-translation-activities/
>While I have received a very small handful of e-mails from Sekai Project, and I have no doubt whatsoever that the license was obtained primarily due to the tools Doddler and Nagato created, as well as my own significant work on it, Sekai Project has made no official offer to work with us to translate/release the game(s).
>They did make one offer for us to give them everything we had and walk away, after being told at the very beginning that doing so was completely out of the question, in exchange for a grossly inadequate amount of money. Sure had to think long and hard about that one.
>The most recent communication from Sekai Project was that we should "step away from it for a little while and come back next month." This was in response to an e-mail from me saying not-so-politely that "I'm concerned about the lack of communication," which was itself a followup to a more polite e-mail from Doddler pointing out that we're frustrated because they're not communicating with us… which had gone ignored for the better part of a week. The solution to the issue of poor communication is, obviously, no communication. That's merely the tip of the iceberg.
They got the license without actually getting the translation secured and now looks like it they will have to do it themselves if it stays like this. We had already kind of guessed most of this before but we now have official confirmation.

>>15778495
>Sekai in-house text hookers working on Baldr Sky
A big fat mess.

>>15778495
That post explains incredibly well the procedure by which SP takes over fan translations.

>>15778623
I mostly imagine them to do it in a much more sinister way. Like talk to the translator and hear how much they love the game and offer to make the developers some money.

Then cut voices, ero, crop etc. and release a quarter of the original product to save money and "appeal to everyone who isn't a fan".

>>15776724
Not him, but is there a good source for reading up on CERO's guidelines and the things that they ban?

>>15776299
>They fully admit they like sex and are perverted it is open and out there with anime, visual novels and the like.
Do you realize that a literal super-niche does not speak for everyone? You would be surprised at how prudish the average Japanese person is.

>>15778804
I'm not sure if there is a list out there, but this interview is a worthy read as an insight into how CERO operates

https://karasucorps.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/translation-4gamer-interviews-cero-higher-up-about-censorship-in-japanese-games/

>>15778495
Sekai sure are uppity pieces of shit. Shouldn't they be the one begging Aroduc and Doddler for the work they've done so far?

>>15779590
I would hazard a guess they are broke and so can't offer much money up front to them. Even if they said they would get paid after the kickstarter was done or VN was released I am not sure Aroduc would want to go though that after how he complained about JAST and how long it took them to get round to sorting things with him.

>>15779444

The ending is pretty accurate. The only reason we have rating systems is to let people be irresponsible and just buy whatever is labeled all-ages. If people were forced to take responsibility for their own actions, then ratings would become meaningless.

It would be fun if one could run their own rating system though. Rating violence higher than porn as it should be, would really make the world better.

>>15779606
How can they possibly be broke? It's not like they have to pay Google to use their translations.

>>15779638
They definitely won't be after running a Baldr Sky kickstarter!

>>15779638
They were banking on KaraKara becoming another Nekopara and it flopped. G-senjou also flopped and other than the recent Chrono Clock kickstarter they have been really struggling to meet their goals even after adding more incentives They are behind schedule in nearly everything and haven't got out all the rewards they promised.
I don't know about you, but to me it sounds like they are having troubles either with money or manpower (which costs money). Don't forget Dovac use to piss away company money by flying first class or buying Champagne for events in the early days of the company so they aren't exactly good at money management.

>>15779691
>manpower

This is exactly what's so confusing to me. All they do is use google translate and then edit it so that it's somewhat readable in English. If anything they should be saving thousands on manpower. I can't believe they even thought G-Senjou would do well, too. How old is it now? Everyone that is even tangentially interested in this medium would have read it by now, or at least have been made aware of what a sub-par story it is.

>>15779726
I don't think having read it matters. Clannad is another game everyone should have read by now and it sold 20k more copies. And that is older and uglier.

G-Senjou clearly failed on splitting voices and porn. Who wants to buy the most censored product in history?

>>15779788
G-Senjou also likely failed by simple disinterest. Clannad can sell to any fan of the anime on Steam, not just people who would have read the fan translation or would have been interested in the visual novel from the start. And its not like G-Senjou did horribly numerically, it sold on par with similar visual novels, it just didn't pull Grisaia/Clannad numbers.

Besides, If My Heart Had Wings made a fortune on Steam, so I doubt its a simple censorship issue.

>>15777693
Yeah, they have toned down their censorship guidelines, but they still have things they either avoid or downplay. But they are no longer the hilarious 4kids level edits censors that they were last year. Regardless of the specific issues with Nutaku though, Nutaku throwing funding at Sekai is the best chance of seeing the Yuzusoft titles and Baldr Sky brought over with an 18+ release. It is a good thing to have a relevant party that will be pushing for 18+ releases for anything in the future that Sekai Project gets.

File: oh well.jpg (31KB, 632x105px) Image search: [Google]

31KB, 632x105px

>>15778495
I guess it's time to prepare for Baldr translated by fuwa!

>>15780953
If they really edit dialogue related to lolis, they can go fuck themselves. Everyone making fun of the protagonist and calling him a lolicon when you pick the token loli heroine is half the fun of loli routes.

>>15781039
It really is fun watching those old hags getting their panties all in a bunch when you go for the best girl.

>>15781039
The question is what sort of edits will they enforce on third parties, and will they continue to relax their standards. But either way, it is hard to see anything worse coming out of a Sekai/Nutaku partnership simply it forces them to care about the uncut market, even with a title like Chrono Clock that was designed from the start to be an all ages release in the West. Any edits that Nutaku might want would likely have already been forced on Denpa by their chronic payment processor issues (and less weight to throw around). SakuSaku might not be that far off and would likely make a quick test case provided they include a Nutaku release.

>>15778812
Yeah Japanese are prude but thats beyond the point. They dont act like the social justice warriors and cry "SEXUAL HARASSMENT!!1!" when they see it. That was my point. Japan has guidelines and ratings i know that. But my point is there is hypocrisy on both sides of the issue when it comes to sex and violence. Either way we both lose if we have one without the other.

>>15776724
Alright i admit your point is valid but all i was saying is that sometimes there is hypocrisy on both fronts from the ESRB to CERO and also it could be the localization companies and cultures. I made some bad generalizations and was kind of mad yesterday because of the whole censorship thing. I should not have been like that.

>>15776783
>>15776751
Well how about we make a thing in photoshop PNG image to prove that Sekai Project does machine translations and we can start spreading it around to other places so that way everyone can see how bad Sekai Project is.

>>15778652
Seems like that is what they do because G-Senjou "LOST MAH MONEY!" Even though it had Japanese VA and some good translation.

>>15779606
Well JAST is not really a huge company with lots of money on hand they are really small they have to take their time sorting everything out.

>>15779691
>Dovac use to piss away company money by flying first class or buying Champagne for events in the early days of the company so they aren't exactly good at money management.

You know its like they say a team is reflective of their owner or their CEO. And that proves it. Dovac probably has no finincial or money saving skills and believes he will be like these semi millionaires making money and it will never end. But there is so long Sekai can rely on kickstarters before everyone just says "this is boring just like their last release" and see Mangagamer and JAST with Degica start making quality games instead of many.

>>15779726
Google Translate and Edit please show more proof i would like to see this and get a laugh. Honestly i am learning Japanese myself and although i have been learning for almost 2 years with some laziness in me i bet i can translate much better than they do. Google Translate and others are terrible they can not translate sentences or much words.

>>15779788
Was G-Senjou Censored on Steam? If so i may have a holy crap moment and start kicking myself for purchasing it with Japanese Voice Acting.

>>15781294
>Was G-Senjou Censored on Steam? If so i may have a holy crap moment and start kicking myself for purchasing it with Japanese Voice Acting.

Of course it was censored, every H-title on Steam is a censored version (non explicit Liarsoft titles aren't really H-titles, even if they have boobs, and those are uncut on Steam). Most titles offer off site patches and/or offsite uncut releases, G-Senjou is one of the few that don't have either. It also would have been cut for a Japanese only Steam release, western console release, or a Japanese console release.

>>15781413
Third time's the charm.

>>15781413
Do you think if Steam was made by Europeans and operated in the EU rather than Burgerland that it would allow h-titles on its service?

File: Persona_3_Protagonist.png (400KB, 1362x686px) Image search: [Google]

400KB, 1362x686px

>>15781413
Well is there an 18+ patch?

>>15781982
No. G-Senjou was only released as a all ages version. No patch, no uncut version anywhere.

>>15781924
No, they would just ban games outright and not allow them to be sold. They can't even handle Bhikkhuni.

>>15751143
What if I don't want to learn Japanese and actually want to the localizers to get a cut? Also if I import physical editions I pay more for the fucking shipping than for the game itself.

>>15781924
I'd rather not have to renew my steam license every month along with my computer monitor license and chair license, i'm already short on money and had to skip out on paying my keyboard license so i'm clicking on a virtual keyboard right now.

>>15770328
>>15770403
The Chrono Clock FAQ was updated to note that the Nutaku exclusive meant that Nutaku was getting it a month before they put it on Denpasoft (happens to be the same deal Denpa gave Nutaku for Sakura Space).

It was also updated to note in response to a question on censorship that the release is "the same version as sold in Japan just in English." which is the easiest way to say they still have mosaics.

>>15782387
You're thinking of the UK rather than most European nations.

>>15781039
The edited dialogue is mostly to the extent of loli pussy --> tiny pussy or along those lines. Nothing major.

>>15784182
I guess it would be most accurate to say tight, since that is something you can say about any.

>>15783591
Nutaku is going all out with that random Sakura title now, guessing anything they decide to do an exclusive partnership for will do well by brute force advertising on their platform.

The steam market is too oversaturated with VNs. Most casual fans that might be more compelled to buy a censored edition because its on Steam will not because it's either terrible, too expensive, or too similar looking to other cheap terrible VNs. Pandering to them doesn't help in the long run as they are fickle.

The hardcore audience, while much smaller, is at least consistent and slowly growing. If you draw ire from them like what Sekai is doing, then you'll throw away the part of sales that would help you stay afloat even when everyone else rejects you.

Sekai grew magnificently and when the VN market crashes, they'll explode magnificently. Mangagamer, by comparison, decided to grow more slowly and will suffer minimally when sales decrease. Sekai betrayed the hardcore for steambucks while Mangagamer decided to focus entirely on the hardcore while only tossing a few titles on Steam in hopes of making new hardcore fans.

>>15785887
The MG audience is much more diverse then hardcore VN players following the scene, otherwise nukige wouldn't be the big money makers they are. There are plenty of off steam buyers who don't follow VN drama, though of course being involved with drama is still not a good idea as it will end up hurting sales.

Sekai's current plan seems reasonable enough, to be to complement the declining Steam market with Vita buyers, whales on Kickstarter, and the porn buying Nutaku audience.

>>15785887
How does one tell a cheap terrible VN from a high quality real VN?

>>15786010

Listen to Moogy-heika-domo-sama, of course.

>>15786010
I wouldn't be surprised if some people simply base it off VNDB ratings

>>15786071
do they get 10 and 0ed a lot like some other venues?

>>15786118
Not really but a lot of 10's do get thrown around on very popular titles
https://vndb.org/v487

>>15786010
There is but one truth: All Winged Cloud's VNs are fucking garbage.

>>15785887
Sekai grew magnificently and when the VN market crashes, they'll explode magnificently. >Mangagamer, by comparison, decided to grow more slowly and will suffer minimally when sales decrease. Sekai betrayed the hardcore for steambucks while Mangagamer decided to focus entirely on the hardcore while only tossing a few titles on Steam in hopes of making new hardcore fans.

Ironically i have been hearing so much positives about Mangagamer a long while back that i actually bought Umineko, and the Higurashi series whenever it went on sale.

>>15786211
>ADV grew magnificently and when the anime market crashes, they'll explode magnificently.

You don't know how true your original statement is if the parallel holds.

>>15778495
>they will have to do it themselves
Who's to say that wasn't always the primary plan? Stringing a fan translator along for months is wrong, but it can't be pure incompetence. Perhaps it's a scheme to set the Baldr Sky Kickstarter's initial goal significantly higher than one that has a finished translation.

>>15786627
Witch Boy Magical Piece failed, and Root Double gave them a scare, barely making it after drastic measures. Additionally, other Kickstarters for visual novels haven't exactly been all that successful recently. It seems doubtful Sekai would want to do anything that would likely increase the price of a Kickstarter, and there is a reason the Chrono Clock Kickstarter had a goal of only $20k and the Steam/Nutaku releases weren't dependent on that goal.

>>15786662
The difference is that Baldr Sky is a pretty notorious title and they might be banking on that to help drive their sales, much like the MuvLuv kickstarter.

>>15787147
Even if they were counting on that, reception since they announced it (not the random controversies like the 18+ issue, but rather by the complete lack of interest outside the main VN community) should have made it clear that isn't in the cards.

>>15786254
I'm not sure if Sekai will disappear entirely if only because they have Winged Cloud sales to fall back on even when they stop localizing Japanese media.

>>15787656
They have Nekopara and Rabi-Ribi as well, and plenty of console money about to role in with a bunch of their titles getting console releases.

They don't seem to be in any real danger of disappearing in the short term even if they overextended somewhat. The most relevant question though for here would be are full length titles going to continue to be economically viable for them to keep picking up compared to their meme titles and other short releases. They surely are trying with Chrono Clock, even if Steam sales are expected to be limited compared to their early successes, they have Kickstarter and Nutaku to compensate.

>>15776783
If it bothers you learn Japanese. That's the only solution that anybody will be content with. You will complain about every translation so shut up and learn Japanese and leave people alone who want to play a translated version.

Personally I just learned Japanese.

>>15787784
I don't think console money will help too much since the Vita isn't lacking in otaku games. Even if you ignore NISA for being censorhappy and Atlus USA for occassionally doing so, there's still IFI, XSEED, and PQube.

>>15789261


There is no reason you would "ignore" a company like NISA when looking at potential competition on consoles, unless of course NISA has gone out of business because of that censorship. NISA might suck, but they still somehow make a meaningful amount of money. Ignoring Atlus would be an even worse idea.

That said, Sekai will likely do well enough with their upcoming Vita releases, as they don't seem to be blindly rushing into it. They have choosen titles that were successful on Steam already (Narcissu, WEE, Fault, Rabi-Ribi). The Limited Run games partnership is a low risk to Sekai that should be able to go through its full print run (and even if it didn't, I would think Limited Run takes on some of the risk), and various kickstarters from Sekai and others have shown that there is interest in visual novels on Vita. That list of competition seems strong, but it is limited compared to what they are already facing on Steam from most of those publishers and the countless other publishers without their own console lineups that focus on Steam.

Exactly how well they will do on Vita is an open question, but it hardly seems like an unprofitable idea.

What are some good uncensored vita games anyway? I happened to recently buy one, and could go for games that deserve being paid for.

>>15792907
It's a console. Everything on it is censored.

File: BeforeAfter.png (301KB, 650x400px) Image search: [Google]

301KB, 650x400px

>>15792907
definitely not the english version of criminal girls.
http://www.nisamerica.com/blog/CG2/

does anyone have the link to the baidu folder and pw?

>>15792907
Let me just tell you right now one of two things. You will

1. Need to learn Japanese and import games like Criminal Girls

2. Buy from J-List, Mangagamer,JAST, on their own websites.

Uncensored games are a rarity in America. Even on Steam which currently none exist right now.

Denpasoft seems to have got a new PR person, not a bad thing to see expansion there for future titles going though them.

Though based on initial questions, they also still seem to have payment processor problems for hard copy Nekopara.

>>15795681
I don't understand how you can even find a payment processor that even pay attention to what you sell, and even less so complain about so called cartoon beastiality. Just go with JList payment processor. They just say "The loli onaholes is a joke and in reality they are adult onaholes".

>>15796942
J-list (and MG) are based in Japan and have access to Japanese payment processors. And even if it is stupid, it is fairly clear through multiple sources that non-Japanese payment processors very much do care about when they are selling porn wise.

>>15797080
Sure, but do they actually request a porn site to show them all thousands pictures so they can verify not a single one of them are offensive?

And what happens if they add an offensive picture the following day? Do they repeatedly visit porn sites and look through the images to see nothing offensive appeared?

>>15797100

You don't understand, all it would take is one misstep and you get completely fucked. One report, one casual check and that's it, they cut you off and your fucked for weeks. It's entirely possible to skirt things under the radar for a while but you can't build a whole business on hoping you don't get caught especially when you have competitors and angry fans who would happily report your ass to take you out.

Remember when Denpa lost their processor and only took bitcoin for two months? They got found out for selling adult content with a processor that didn't allow it.

>>15797141
At the same time, that misstep is entirely opinion based.I can claim the Japanese voice actors sound like children and ban them for CP.

It also seems suspcious when a payment processor don't want to make money because they are too prude. I mean, what do they think they are running? A church?

>>15771279
They are.

Denpa also isn't big enough to be anything more then a rounding error for any payment processors, so they don't have much sway over getting them to change policies even if they are bullshit.

>>15793845
>Uncensored games are a rarity in America. Even on Steam which currently none exist right now.

You have up through the Liarsoft games uncensored on Steam, and uncensored patches are becoming more common. On console NISA sucks and others occasionally run into issues, but uncensored releases are becoming more common, even if they get banned in Australia.

>>15787147
If the Dies Irae kickstarter is before the anime, we'll get a glimpse of just how much being a big deal title is worth on Kickstarter when most people don't know about it. .

>>15805982
I learned about Dies Irae from looking through ancient release lists of PSP games. This is how obscure it is.

>>15805982
They wouldn't be stupid enough to hold it before the anime, right?

>>15806955
One would hope the translation team can convinced Light why Clannad/Grisaia/Muv Luv did so well, and why it doesn't currently apply to Dies Irae in the West despite Dies Irae being on par with those titles.

>>15805982
You could take Tokyo Babel as recent similar example. DI can be more popular (supposing the anime isn't dogshit).

File: underaged.png (93KB, 736x998px) Image search: [Google]

93KB, 736x998px

>>15778804
http://www.cero.gr.jp/e/rating.html

This PDF shows what sort of things they won't rate for console: http://www.cero.gr.jp/e/regulation.pdf

>>15808871
GTA5 came out in Japan. That gave me an extremely cruel impression.

It's very fucking bad but the jap eroge scene is getting bounced back recently with titles like 18+ Tokyo NECRO so I think there's hopes.

Of course, as long as MangaGamer still reigns, there will be hopes for translated eroge, but that hope is pretty slim.

>>15809638
That did have numerous edits though for the Japanese release, something which isn't unusual for M rated Western titles.

>>15739624
Censored content is of course a really bad thing and really unfortunate, but to be honest there's not that much to lose. Going from a situation where very little was ever translated to one where more is translated, but censored is not that bad. Most things have an H patch anyways, sometimes unofficial but in many cases there's an official H patch/separate release.

In the end, there's only so much publishers can do anyways - Steam's rules only allow for so much, and creating some kind of scandal because a VN contains loli incest rape or something would be detrimental to the whole industry.

In the end I think it's probably doing more good than bad. VNs are an industry that's never been very successful, and it's not that uncommon for VN companies to keel over after one bad release. If VNs were to obtain a bigger presence outside of Japan, that would help mitigate that issue. If VNs do get popular here somehow, either one of two things can happen: H-scenes slowly disappear completely as a large portion of the market is now prudish westerners, or H-scenes become more common in the west, because as the market gets bigger so does the market for H-content, and it might also become more accepted/expected/"normal" here.

>>15749141
It's just basic human instinct. People love to shit on things that're popular.
Every moderately popular "fanbase" (group of people where the only thing that binds them is "likes thing") will have a corresponding "hatebase" (group of people where the only thing htat binds them is "doesn't like thing").

File: QVP2rqM.gif (259KB, 500x375px) Image search: [Google]

259KB, 500x375px

>>15739624
VN usually gets butchered on Steam due to the "rules" but thankfully, devs delivers with an uncensored patch whenever a VN has eroge. I make sure Every VN I bought from there has one. I don't tolerate playing any VN with butchered content because Censorship ain't cool. If there's no uncut edition and sales decline, they can only blame themselves.

There are very little VN on Steam that has been released uncut fully without needing a patch at all such as Kindred Spirits. I never played it, but I say it's worth giving it a shot if you're a yurifag such as myself. They've been slowly releasing uncensored VN content which is a step in the right direction.

>>15808253
The company that is animating DI actually is one of the most well known for animations and adaptations

https://myanimelist.net/anime/producer/79/Genco

take a look for yourself.


>>15817811
For now its the best we can hope for and at least we can support the company while getting the patch.

>>15818180
>producer

This means nothing.

Regarding G-Senjou censorship: The fan translation had an "all-ages" version made by the translation group specifically, way back when the patch released. Sekai just used that.

File: Untitled-1.png (1MB, 1280x960px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1280x960px

>>15822102
didnt they cut some stuff anyway? i recall

https://imouto.club/blog-04/

Well fuck. How do I get those now?

>>15822380
Most of their titles already had official patches. I would say it would be worth it to keep the patches up without an official patch (but guessing that willfully ignoring specific patches would run into rights issues, especially with Grisaia). Regardless though, this was the correct way to handle the situation, especially compared to the mess with Dovac last time.

>>15822490
The problem is that they are pushing the patch users that buy steam games to go look for patches at erogedownload and they will end up downloading pre-patched full versions for free instead.

Now of course if they also strike all piracy sites, they could maybe increase sales. Maybe.

>>15822885
Obviously piracy is here to say, and I agree that at the very least titles without an official patch benefit from having an unofficial patch. But if you are going to send out a take down, doing so quietly through email is a much better solution then a public feud.