Baldr sky indefinite hiatus

Please consider learning japanese mister thumbnail saver, it's definitely worth it if you really like visual novels, it will take time and effort but you won't have to deal with all this and you'll have access to a lot more of them a lot sooner.

How fucked are Sekai?

>>15778838
Plus, if you learned Japanese you could play more games in the Baldr series, like Baldr Force and the very-recently released (as of this post) Baldr Heart! There's no downside whatsoever!

>>15778852
That depends on what official tools they get from Giga and whether or not Doddler sides with Aroduc or sides with Dovac.

What a madman.

Whats the point of wating your time translating a 50h+ game you dont like and never release it.

Is aroduc autistic?

>>15778953

Yes

>>15778838
I really wish there was a way to convey to people how fantastic it is to learn and know Japanese. You can say "oh, look at all this new stuff you could play and read" but that doesn't really come close to the benefits. If people would just devote a mere hour a day for a couple of months, they might start to understand.

>>15778953
He's a fan translator, they only come in the autistic model. He'll throw a huff, and wind up giving all his shit to SP for 5 dollars because he's never going to do anything with it now anyway.

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Everything is FINE you conspiracy theorists gamergaters. The employees weren't fired, they moved on. The localization will go on under different staff.

>>15778852
Their probable 2017 release is now a probable 2019 release, their negotiations for fan translations in the future will be more suspect, and this will likely put a strain on their relationship with Giga. But considering the diverse set of titles they have upcoming and this doesn't include their big money makers or hinder their relationship with Sony, it is unlikely to have a huge effect on their bottom line.

>>15779050
If anything, it'll help legitimize it when they run a Kickstarter. That asshole translator pulled out his support from them, they'll say. We need your money even more.

At least you EOPs will still get DI. Probably.

>>15779066
>uses machine translation
>calls others "EOPs"

Have some shame.

>>15779066
I don't want retarded chuunishit over great sc-fi story.

EOPs just can't catch a break.

I am guessing Aroduc didn't have completely unreasonable expectations either, after all he has regularly been working with Jast (and plenty of his team has worked on numerous other official projects for all three companies) so he should know what the market norms are considered.

>>15779084
He probably had realistic demands considering the size of the script, but either SP thought they could negotiate with him better or they are severely underestimating the amount of text.
It's completely retarded that they would do anything to make him mad, considering they obviously knew he was working on it before they got the license and that probably played a role in them acquiring it. To upset such a stubborn and jaded individual can't possibly go well for them.

>>15779091
I am guessing Doddler said it best when he said he was trying to patch things up between 2 self-destructive people.

>>15779075
>implying I wanted this all-ages trash

>>15779091
I'm guessing their negotiation practices for fan translations are based around "well they were going to release the script for free anyways. so we don't need to give them much." Honestly, that of reasoning likely does apply to the vast majority of fan translators, but it is fair to say that Aroduc is not your typical fan translator working on individual projects because of how much he personally likes the title, thus his offer is instead based on the going market rate.

>>15779135
He's also an ornery bastard who doesn't take shit well. He took a bunch of shots at Jast while working for them, but to Jast's credit, they addressed the problems. It sounds like he's been mad and frustrated with Sekai Project ever since they announced the license without telling him, and them telling him and Doddler to back off was the last straw.

Who is gonna translate Bald then? Some fuwatards like always?

>>15779149
Some things are better off untranslated.

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It's never too late.

>>15778852
Let me put it this way, the guy at SP, who was actively in talks with Aroduc before, left the company a while ago due to high stress and personal issues. The two chucklefucks in charge of managing projects now can't even coordinate properly. It's at the point where neither knows what is actually ongoing or delayed. Someone will be assigned a project (contracts made and signed), and literally weeks will go by without actually being given the script files because the managers forgot the project even exists.

>>15779135
Isn't Sekai Project supposed to provide decent wages for fan translated work? At a least according to them, it's the reason G-Senjou didn't profit.

>>15779222
No, I'm not sure where you got that from. They also claim to be a publisher who will help give your game exposure, when they don't do any marketing whatsoever for their OELVNs beyond a single tweet, not to mention that their absurdly low quality standards mean that games don't even get a single editing pass done by them.

>>15779222

Of all the tall tales dovac's told, the idea that he pays more than 1cpc always seemed the most ludicrous to me. Sure, maybe he did it for a handful of short titles, but we all know it ain't true for all the real ones.

>>15779222
I wouldn't be surprised if failing to make a profit on G-Senjou, along with generally depressed sales, is why he is driving a harder bargain here. Especially post announcement, when it looks like Baldr isn't going to be a huge money maker he might of thought it would have been.

How much would it cost to hire an actual professional translator to do the whole game?

>>15779244
Early on, when he was getting great sales on plenty of titles, it is understandable he might have been paying out a higher average rate then his competitors, especially to attract translation talent which early Sekai was sorely lacking compared to the network Mangagamer built up over the years. The economics likely no longer support that however.

>>15779241
From dovac's twitter. It was a rant about them having to shelve the Playstation ports of that. He complained that people were too mean to them and G-senjou flopped and that he paid humane wages or something along that. Of course, it's all nuked now.

>>15779271
He discussed it in chat at the time as well. It seems clear that G-Senjou lost money, and considering it has respectable sales compared to a lot of profitable MG titles, they spent extra money somewhere, be it on increased licensing/royalties fees, translation fees, or other expenses. Considering how expensive Baldr Sky likely was, and the expenses that the technical and translation work will consist of, it is no surprise that they tried to minimize translation costs, but they made a poor assumption thinking Aroduc would go along with it.

>>15779260
To ballpark it, the script size on TLWiki for the two titles is 4.61mb, which would be a 2 bytes a character, or roughly 2.3 million characters.

Their minimum would probably be 1 cent a character, so $23,000 for translation work, not counting editing, QC, and technical work, all of which can add up. Though obviously that cost would rise significantly if they go above 1 cent per character.

>>15779323
$.01 per character isn't professional translator rate. That's mid to low even for visual novel translators. Professional rates are closer to $.10 per character.

Furthermore, that's only the scripts. Baldr Sky also has tutorials, multiple in-game encyclopedias, all the mascot chara dialogue, all the skill descriptions and plugin descriptions, etc.

It's easily a 2-3 year job for a professional translator alone, so you're talking at least in the ballpark of $100,000

>>15779341
>Professional rates are closer to $.10 per character.

lol not in this business

>>15779345
That's why there aren't any actual professionals in the visual novel business. Those who are, like Makoto, spend more time doing administrative shit than translating.

>>15779341
>Professional rates are closer to .10 a character
Haha

>>15779341
Well yes, a cent per character is well below market rated for a professional, but in practice it is likely the rate that they'll be paying a non-aroduc translation. And yeah, Sky has other stuff which pushes the characters count up well beyond the amount that comes out of just the script.

>>15779345
Actual Japanese translation, not powerpoint porn games

>>15779354

Between translation, editing, image editing, technical work, and so on, it is hard to see Sekai getting the localization costs under $50k doing it themselves. So what Aroduc was asking for the team is likely enough to be worth a 2 year delay and associated PR headache, but at the same time it is also likely to be a reasonable estimate for the skilled team. I'm guessing Sekai was counting on Aroduc agreeing to a total lower than what it would cost them on their own, just because fan translations often are going to agree to a much lower value as after all, they were working on it for free.

>>15779388
They said Grisaia was $64k. Baldr Sky is significantly more text in a much more complicated engine. So anything under $70k is lowballing it compared to what they've claimed in the past.

>>15778953
He can't release it now because it's licensed and he'd be likely to get in legal trouble.

Also he doesn't wholly dislike the game, mind you. Aroduc is critical of everything, even stuff he likes. He also prefers Baldr Force and I imagine this was supposed to be a start in translating all the Baldr games.

>>15779149
In-house, maybe? The only translator that Sekai has ever hired which was worth a shit was koestl. Their in-house and most of their other freelancers range from mediocre to terrible.

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>>15779271
>>15779297
G-Senjou was a complete disaster.

>>15779433
I miss him so much

>>15779433
Lel good thing someone saved it.

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>>15779457
he'll come back. he has 'quit' twitter before

> We made an offer to them (which was flatly rejected for reasons that remain unclear to us even after expliclty asking), and they did make an 'offer' to give us a grossly inadequate sum of money to hand over everything we've done and walk away, after being told at the very beginning that doing so was completely out of the question.

>to hand over everything we've done and walk away

> after being told at the very beginning that doing so was completely out of the question

Requotes for emphasis. Rates aren't something you (usually) lock down at the start of negotiation. Refusing to hand over unfinished work and let someone else finish it could very well be.

Sekai Project wanted Aroduc and friends to take the money and walk away. Aroduc told them to fuck off: it was THEIR work and THEIR project. At least, that's my working hypothesis at the moment.

>>15778838
I'm already trying.

Japanese pronunciation: So simple, so elegant.
Japanese writing: What the fuck were they thinking?

>>15779457
Sekai's decision to get Dovac to stop talking publicly is paying dividends here for them. I would love to see his rant, and a public debate between Aroduc and Dovac would be entertaining as hell, but it is hard to imagine Dovac saying anything that wouldn't make the situation worse for Sekai.

>>15779618
How big a temper tantrum do you think Dovac's having right now?

>>15779592
It's pretty frustrating on the part of Aroduc's side (and his team as well), I'm sure.

>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
Makes it seem as if he's strongly implying that Dovac approached Giga utilizing the tools/translation efforts (which Aroduc's team provided) as a bargaining chip, though bypassing Aroduc's team in regards to this completely.

It also seems like Aroduc and his team have had considerable communication issues with them, which probably exasperated the situation even further. Aroduc isn't really the polite type, nor the type to back down easily, so Sekai really handled this in the worst possible way; directly insulting him and his team's collective efforts through such a poor handling of the situation.

I've had my squabbles with Aroduc, but I really do feel bad for the guy. He got fucked by JAST and now he's getting fucked by Sekai.

Doddler is too nice. Sekai probably thought Aroduc would agree to any shit price. When he didn't, they stopped talking to him thinking it would change his mind. Too bad this is Aroduc we're talking about. Knowing the incompetent fuckers at Sekai, they should be on their knees begging for his translation.

>>15779667
>I've had my squabbles with Aroduc,
Go on.

>>15779678
Probably hated Anon's favorite anime.

>>15779684
Everyone knows the only anime Aroduc likes are Jubei-chan 2 and Spectacular Spiderman.

>>15779678
Some minor translation arguments back in the Kamidori days. Nothing really major.

He's kind of a prick, but I don't really have a problem with it anymore. It's just the way he is.

>>15779684
I actually enjoy his anime reviews. They're very entertaining to me (even when he thrashes stuff I like)

>>15779667

I can't imagine a worse recipe for negotiating then Dovac and Aroduc, and considering Doddler's comments at the time, it seems like that was the combination involved with negotiations.

>>15779700
It doesn't sound like it's even gotten far enough to be called negotiating.

>>15779687
I can't believe he knows about Jubei-chan. What a great guy.

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>tfw everyone lost their shit when SP announced BS but you don't give a fuck and hyped for SukiSuki
>SukiSuki 75% translated
>Bald Sky indefinite hiatus
Feels great.

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Another non-answer.

>>15779727
What are you talking about? The VNTS thread was very hyped for SukiSuki. Not to mention with the Yu(u)ki autism.

>Hi guys,

>I see that various people are asking various questions and speculating. While I would all love to answer questions you may have, I am unable to answer the majority of them.

>All negotiations surrounding the formation of the team that will handle the Baldr Sky project are subject to non-disclosure agreements put in place to protect all parties involved, including the contractor candidate, SP, and Giga. It would be a breach of those agreements for us to make statements about those negotiations, especially when they are ongoing.

>All I can say is that there IS a project team being put together but the details behind it are not simple. We promised the world Baldr Sky, and so Baldr Sky will definitely be released to the world in the future.

>I'm sorry I can't offer you guys any further information.

lol SP

It's a breach to say you're not part of SP's official project now and you don't know who's translating it. You're all in violation. This is for your own protection.

They'll just do a kikestarter and the r/vn chumps will pay for it. No biggie.

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>>15779746
>>15779740
>announce game
>two months later, still trying to put a translation team together

>>15779740
I'm talking about reddit and vndb, lads from VNTS threads are good, would never laugh at them.

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SP's calling that a breach of an NDA because he's discussing contract terms in public.

What contract terms are they talking about?

>>15779778
Saying mean things about SP.

>>15779778
SP are such a fucking mess. Why can't they see it themselves?

>>15779798
Because Dovac's still in charge, and everyone needs to be lockstep behind him. All they can do is pretty up his tantrums.

>>15779798
I think the problem is that they know they're a mess and they don't care

>have money for a brand new office
>no money for Baldr

lol

>>15779778
Aroduc is not under contract so this shit excuse don't work. They announced Baldr BEFORE talking with Aroduc.

>>15779778
This confuses me too. Talking shit about your boss or complaining that work sucks aren't violations of an NDA, and by everything said, Aroduc's not even working for them. The whole post is about how he's not working for them and they're not talking to him about working for him. Where's the violation?

>>15779778
Probably in reference to the fact that Dovac cut a deal with Giga utilizing Doddler's tools and Aroduc's translation as a bargaining chip.

>>15779833
Everyone from Moogy to Conjueror already said that when it was licensed. It was hardly proprietary knowledge.

>>15779827

If SP has any brains at all they'll have made him sign an NDA prior to ANY talks being done at all. This is how things normally go. Normally.

>>15779180
Dovac never left you retard. He's just not showing his face in public.

>>15779853
Since there were no actual details in his post, I'd assume they did. An NDA can't possibly cover negatory things though. They can't bar him from saying that he doesn't work for them or that they don't have the rights to his work. That's legally absurd.

>>15779853
What I find puzzling is Aroduc is willing to work with them so he's not the one being unreasonable here. It's just that he expects more pay since the work is going to take a lot of effort on everybody's part. But they stopped talking to the group when the issue was brought up. What the fuck were they thinking? Sekai does not have anybody nearly competent enough to tackle Baldr by themselves. Well, whatever. I'm sure the Kickstarter idiots will pay for everything and they will get a shit product in return like usual.

>I'm frustrated that they're not communicating with me.
>I'm willing to work with them, but they need to start communicating better.

SP's response
>FUCK THAT GUY. NDA VIOLATION! NDA VIOLATION!

Better than expected.

I think you're all missing that they're not denying that everything he's said is true.

>>15779892
Maybe the almighty NDA makes it impossible to deny anything at all.

>>15779912
The first rule of the NDA is to not talk about the NDA.

>>15779892
Better than the dindu noffin that they usually do.

>It's all the Japanese devs' fault!

Now it's

>It's all the translator's fault!

>>15779853
Just think about the contrapositive to this. Is it a violation of an NDA to say that you're talking to SP about having a translation licensed? Obviously not. That's retarded.

>>15779876
They probably think that by not communicating with him or by stretching out negotiations that he'll simmer down or become desperate to sell his own scripts. It's pretty likely that he won't, and after this blog post, I can't imagine the community being behind anything SP does.
They're basically fucked no matter what now, but if they delay the release enough maybe most people will forget. Certainly it isn't in their best interest to launch a Kikestarter for a while yet, even if this fantasy team of theirs gets assembled.

>>15779932
>I can't imagine the community being behind anything SP does.

The reddit and kickstarter community will eat anything SP shits out.

>>15779932
If they kiss and make up with him, they'd come out looking pretty well and show that they're improving. If they're choosing to call him a filthy contract-breaker though, that's likely not happening.

>>15779944
Reddit thrashes Sekai just as much as we do, really.

>SP loses
>Aroduc Loses
>EOPs lose
>JOPs win

the kamige never curse is real. abandon your current useless language and learn the language of cartoon powerpoint porn.

>>15779968
no

>>15779983
don't resist it

>>15779988
i dont wanna im lazy

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On a scale of 1 to 10, how kawaii is Doddler-poo?

Aside from the obvious contract disputes for money, if Sekai wanted all the material they had and then run their own thing, that would be a change compared to other fan translation pickups, where the fan translation team very much remained involved. Perhaps they didn't want to work with Aroduc (and associated TLWiki people), but if not then the best guess would bey Giga might have their own set of standards for a Baldr translation, and wants Sekai to run a team to make sure everything is standardized to their liking. Or it could be a demand to keep stuff in house in order to prevent leaks, like the train wreck from when Herkz talked about Frontwing.

>>15779994
He's honestly one of the nicest people I've met. Almost impossible to dislike.

MG got very lucky with him.

>>15780028
Sekai """standards"""

They literally could launch 30-50k kickstarter campaign to pay for Aroduc's translation and release game this year without any controversy and troubles. What a bunch of incompetent faggots.

>>15780044
Not Sekai standards, but Giga having their own set of requirements (and stuff like naming conventions, etc) for the Baldr universe in the West.

>>15780052
They are going to do a Kickstarter anyway so it makes me wonder if the "translation" fee for the other Kickstarters were inflated (read: put in their own pockets).

>>15780052
kickstarters now only exist for physical goods. the vn scene is already sick of them and unless theres good rewards they wont take the bait.

pleding for high tiers on kickstarter is supposed to mean "I really am looking forward to this and want to support this!" but with how they are handled for VNs, it just turns into a store for other physical goods which cost a shitload + shipping which actually hurts the amounts they get in the end more than other normal projects projects.

>>15780052
Giga, Sekai, and Aroduc all seem particularly stubborn. Even if the money issue was taken care of, I doubt it would be a short time for all three parties to come to agreement on how the release should be done.

>>15780313
Nutaku might also be a party to these negotiations as well before all is said and done, they have a pile of money and I can hardly think of a more appealing title for their new platform then the huge, critically acclaimed with gameplay title their biggest partner just picked up.

>>15779341
I would most likely argue it is about .01$ for low to mid but mid to high its probably 0.5$ or 0.4$ which would be about 50k or 40k. That is more reasonable than anything But the realistic rate in visual novels is more than likely 0.3 or 0.2 for mid to high tier. Which is likely around 20k to 30k for high tier. And 10k for low tier.

>>15779348
Administrative? Please tell me more im a n00b.

>>15780333
A moege would sell well better on Nutaku, while it'd be nice if they had an interest just so SP would be forced to do 18+, I really doubt they'll have any control over that.
Chrono Clock is definitely more likely to do well on Nutaki than Baldr.

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>>15779433
I bought it because it had the Japanese VA and it actually had high quality translation. It will take them awhile to recoup what they had lost but i think they should realize that is what it costs to actually make a great translated visual novel experience not a cheap one.

>>15779592
Sekai Project looks scummy with this deal you do not give a low ball estimate and expect to get what you want. Thats not how business works for professionals with experience its like telling Aroduc "your experience and work is worth nothing to us and we will underpay you"

>>15779667
>I've had my squabbles with Aroduc, but I really do feel bad for the guy. He got fucked by JAST and now he's getting fucked by Sekai.

how did he get fucked by JAST? Last i checked they may have messed up on negotiations a few times which they admitted but they did not low ball and fuck up the way Sekai has been. With a PR disaster, drama, bad translations(Sakura Shrine anyone?) you can not do as bad as they are right now.

>>15779751
I find it funny they have had kickstarters for their own studio to be made, every title under their roof, and then to pull stupid shit like this. The only time any company should have a kickstarter is when it comes to original titles and collaborations or rare titles that come across once in a moon. Sekai abuses Kickstarter much more than any company i know.

>>15779819
lol irony at it's finest. They might need to file for Bankruptcy at this rate.

>>15779932
The problem is Sekai thinks they can wait it out and try to low ball professional experienced translators into doing what they want. Its oldschool business tactics but the problem is they do not realize its the 21st century information travels faster than their NDA does.

>>15778817
Nah, I heard some guy named Cudora was planning on releasing a TL of Baldr soon.

>>15780426
I don't disagree, but one advantage that something like Baldr has is they go out of their way to highlight genre, and a title with gameplay stands out in a sea of pure visual novels. Additionally, in their recent blog post describing the types of titles they selected to fund, they emphasized with the dozen they choose how they are funding a variety of types of games, so it wouldn't be a surprise that they would want to fund something like an 18+ Baldr Sky if they got the chance as they clearly don't want to limit themselves to just pure VNs.

>>15780445
>bad translations(Sakura Shrine anyone?)
Sakura Shrine, much as the Japanese-y name might fool you, is a evn. Yes, Sekai was lazy enough to publish a game written by a native English speaker with a script that awful. They do nothing good for anyone - whether you like JVNs, EVNs, or both, Sekai is no good.

>>15780492
I just like to remind everyone that Winged Cloud is from the UK.

Sekai should just stick to publishing Nekopara, Winged Cloud, and sub 70 EGS moege. They would actually end a year in the black for once.

Giga surely licensed Baldr Sky with an eye on bringing over more Baldr titles in the event that this is a success. There have been multiple cases, especially with bigger companies, where translation teams have mentioned the Japanese company had an interested (or flat out demands) in how the translation was being handled. Considering Sekai took years to get this translation, and Giga has been noticeably hard to approach by other companies in the past, and seems to have an interest in how they are viewed in the West, I doubt Giga is the exception. Even if Sekai had been willing to pay Aroduc what he wanted, I would wish the best of luck to the fool from Sekai who wants to tell Aroduc how he needs to translate at the urging of Giga. Though they might have realized that problem already, and decided it would be easier to do their own editing pass and finish the rest then deal with Aroduc and his editors.

>>15780454
>Nah, I heard some guy named Cudora was planning on releasing a TL of Baldr soon.

Inb4 "Sekai offered me a deal and i rejected it"

>>15780492
Thats just sad. I only have G-Senjou, Grisia1, and Clannad. I am officially swearing them off.

>>15780524
I agree. Sekai is more of a Moege audience than it is a general VN company. They try to prove it but the way they translate, or run their business is just unebelievable regarding patches and kickstarters and a lack of transparency.

>>15780539
Sorry, but I don't believe Aroduc is that unreasonable that he would deny an official request at how terms are translated. And even if he did, the editors could Ctrl + F all that shit and replace it themselves. The issue seems to be a simple matter of money. Sekai threw out some low balled amount like $10k for 2 years of work and Aroduc said no. They probably expected him to agree since he was doing it for free anyways.

>>15780578
When did you first find out that Sekai was a bunch of liars?

>>15780581
The oddest part though in this whole saga is why Sekai would make an offer to turn over everything, when historically they have brought the team on board. Aside from thinking it would be a pain in the ass to deal with the team, the only thing that really comes to mind is control over the script or some other demand from Giga. The TL team has a lot of leverage here considering how much progress they made on Baldr Sky, so while money wise it makes sense "they didn't offer enough", Sekai not wanting him to finish it is harder to explain.

>>15780578
I can't believe you paid money for 3 already translated VNs and at least one censored one (I imagine you got censored Grisaia as well).

Well, hopefully you learned your lesson.

>>15780628
Dovac is egotistical and since he actually has the license, he has the upper hand. Like I said, he just didn't want to believe that Aroduc would refuse since every other fantanslator sellout grabbed whatever Dovac threw at them. Now they have shit on their faces. Aroduc is a rock. He won't bulge if you fuck with him. Probably gonna have to use their in-house translators at this point and delay the VN all the while crying on Kickstarter that they need $150k on Kickstarter. They could've saved a year's worth of work and had something that was polished.

>>15780697
If Giga doesn't hand over the full code, which they might not even have, they'll have to get Doddler and Nagato on board too.

>>15780708
Doddler seems more willing but he's an overall nice guy and will work hard for little money since he really likes VNs.

>>15780697
Yeah, but the Grisaia team was brought on board, and the other fan translators who had their projects picked up seem to still be on board too. If one takes Aroduc at his word, this is different in that the offer (a poor offer or otherwise) did not include bringing Aroduc on board.

>>15780697
Speaking of kickstarter, it seems sekai updated their profile on it and it's not linked to Dovac's facebook anymore. More trouble?

>>15780721
Where did it say they didn't want Aroduc on board? If they didn't want him on board, they wouldn't have offered him money. He just won't be the translator anymore since he didn't agree to their terms.

>>15780724
I doubt Dovac is gone, but they likely forced him to stop talking publicly about the company and severed the ties where his personal stuff was linked too by the company. Can you imagine the sort of rant he would put out today if he was still representing the company on his twitter?

>>15780729
From Aroduc's blog post

>We made an offer to them (which was flatly rejected for reasons that remain unclear to us even after expliclty asking), and they did make an 'offer' to give us a grossly inadequate sum of money to hand over everything we've done and walk away, after being told at the very beginning that doing so was completely out of the question.

>>15780729
>If they didn't want him on board, they wouldn't have offered him money
They wanted to give him money (an apparently low amount) for him to fork over everything and simply walk away.

That sounds more like a "Alright, so, uh, now that WE'RE the ones in charge, can you guys fuck off now? Here's some money as a consolation prize for getting our foot in Giga's door. See ya"

>>15780749
Hmmm, reading it further up, it seems that Sekai didn't bother with anybody on that team, Doddler included. So, it's not just Aroduc that was left out, it was everybody.

>>15778852
What's the problem? They just have to change from their plan of stealing from actual translators to using their backup translator: google.

>>15780770
I could've told you that. Remember how Doddler was surprised at the announcement and thought all his hacking work was going to be for nothing?

Turns out it was, but for different reasons.

>>15779968
Will you teach me Japanese?

>>15780697
>Probably gonna have to use their in-house translators at this point

ATLAS, Bing, or Google?

>>15780770
>>15780780
They'll probably want Doddler on board eventually (if they haven't contacted him already). Which is most likely why he is keeping his mouth shut on Twitter.

>>15780804
All of the above?

>>15780804
All three.

>>15780807
Would he really though? It's kinda of rude of Sekai to say, "Here's some pennines, now fuck off". He should spend that time on DC III.

>>15780804
Also, you forgot Yahoo. Everybody forgets Yahoo.

>>15780816
I said eventually. Of course with Aroduc gone they're going to have to start from scratch in regards to the translation.

And he has already worked with Sekai on Grisaia and stuff.

>>15780824
Does Yahoo have translator?

>>15780816
They'll probably have to throw a lot of money at him to get him on board. Doddles is busy with other stuff too. He's not desperate for work. It wouldn't take much time though since the tools are apparently mostly done, assuming they can use them and they don't conflict with the Japanese source. And assuming they have the Japanese source. All Giga games definitely use non-Unicode encoding. It might be pretty messy.

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>>15780832
I wouldn't lie to you, man.

>>15780835
It's not gonna happen. If they do that they won't have enough money to afford a new office.

>>15780842
W-Willie!?

>>15780903
https://youtu.be/R7f189Z0v0Y

It's on everybody's mind.

>>15780845
Working on the budget for Baldr Sky is probably a nightmare. No matter how they approach it, it is an expensive localization with a likely expensive license with terms tilted in favor of Giga. In addition, neither the first impression nor the lackluster sales from other recent big titles argues huge sales. With that in mind figuring out how to make a profit off of it is going to be difficult at best.

>>15780918
And since it's Dive 1/2 packed together I can't imagine it's going to be anything less than 50 bucks on Steam. Possibly even more given the notoriety of Baldr.

Even with the gameplay I can imagine that being a hard sell for Steamtards. Especially given the limited resolution and the other dated aspects in regards to the title.

This, along with their Maitetsu license, just doesn't make very much sense to me. It just feels like they have a lot more to lose than to gain.

>>15780929
Packed together? It'll be $50 each.

>>15780929
I can't wait to pirate it and laugh at the 'translation'

>>15780937
I thought they were going to release them both at once as one package? At least that's what I heard. Maybe I heard wrong.

>>15780941
First I've ever heard of it.

>>15780941
They announced both dives but I don't think they've said anything about how they'll release it. I'd be real surprised if they don't release them separately, they might even try to run separate kickstarters for the both of them to squeeze people for more cash, or at least set a stretch goal for dive1 to be dive2's translation.

>>15780929
They probably got a good deal on Maitetsu though. Lose was doing everything they could to bring it over, and Sekai Project wasn't the first choice, which gave Sekai Project a lot of leverage in negotiations. Baldr Sky on the other hand was a huge license acquired after years of negotiations with a large, stubborn, and protective company.

>>15780976
i cant really see maitetsu selling well over here

>>15780990
On steam, where censorship isn't as much of a deal breaker, it will probably sell similar to other moege based on art alone. So provided that the licensing and localization is cheap enough, it is unlikely to be a failure. Now it might not do well enough to make Lose happy the effort they put into tapping into the Western market, including making the game easy enough to make all ages from the start, but it was a hard sell no matter what they did or who they went with and they likely have unrealistic expectations.

>>15781012
People are going to be in for a rude awakening if they're expecting a hefty amount of moege elements. Maitetsu is boring as shit and tries too hard to be plotge.

>>15781012
perhaps if the price is low enough, but considering it's a 30 hour title and it's a fairly new title at that, I can't see Lose wanting it going cheap.

Imouto works said he wouldn't touch SP crap again so real Maitetsu never ever.

>>15781012
>On steam, where censorship isn't as much of a deal breaker
You'd be real surprised about this, although the people who boycott still don't make up much of the buys. But lots of censored games on Steam get pretty bad sales or have people complain about it non-stop.

The bigger problem with Maitetsu is that they'll probably strip most of the fanservice, which includes both CGs and sprites, and have to find some sort of market that'll want a lolige. It could do well if streamers catch on like for Nekopara, but I think there'll be more than a little pensiveness about its subject matter with the Steam audience.
But who knows, if they sell ti as a moege with cute lolis it might do well enough. I am personally expecting to underperform other similiar titles, though. Neither the story nor characters are particularly good, but it does have a nice, clean art style with good designs for the girls. It might be able to attract some suckers in the short-term.

>>15781071
I don't expect it to do remarkably, but Sekai seems to have been cutting the cost on localizations and the circumstances of the license mean they probably have favorable terms on it. If it gets G-Senjou or Root Double numbers, it probably would be profitable, even if they are poor compared to their biggest sellers sellers.

Based Arodick
I hope he doesn't give in

>>15780976
>Lose was doing everything they could to bring it over,
Is there any place I can read up on this strange saga? Why on earth would they do that?

>>15781155
everyone wants a taste of the Nekopara bucks

>>15781176
Damn it, as soon as I made that post I connected the dots. But do they really think they'll get Nekopara bucks? How silly can these companies even be?

>>15781183
the geniuses at Lose probably think they can slap Live2D on a title and it'll have the same success

>>15781183
It costs them nothing to get their VN localized. On the contrary, the English version has to be paid for by the localization company. They basically get money for doing nothing.

>>15781183
It would have seem reasonable at the time. If some mediocre short visual novel can hit 6 figures in the West thanks to Steam, why can't their better visual novel get at least enough to make it worth releasing? It's not like they knew anything about the market, except that this shiny platform called Steam got a random title better sales then anything they have seen in Japan in years.

>>15781211
>why can't their better visual novel
But Monobeno will never be here because of the CP.

>>15780678
Well i did buy Grisaia, G-Senjou and Clannad all on the Steam sale so they did not get much from me. But i learned my lesson.

>>15779968
Give me a link to buy it in japanese.

>>15781012
>On steam, where censorship isn't as much of a deal breaker, it will probably sell similar to other moege based on art alone.

Censorship is starting to become more known by the mainstream now a days there was a reason why i waited on Grisaia to be on sale for 20$ before buying it.

>>15781215
How can it be cp when there are no children in the game, only drawings?

>>15781215
MG could localize it since they're based in Japan.

just gotta put the good ol' "these characters are 18" notice at the beginning

>>15781236
You and me know that, but idiots think that non-living things needs to be trated like humans.

>>15781238
Yeah, I'm still waiting that after all the NTR in the scene (IG's Flowers with Jast and Purple Soft with MG)

>>15781236
Those drawings represent children, and the 'child' concept is sacred.

>>15780333
Nutaku is interested in 18+ releases, lewd scenes is their main method of baiting retards to pay. Dovac is not interested in 18+ release and didn't even license it, so I doubt Nutaku is involved in Baldr Sky disaster.

>>15781267
I think they're closer to representing ayyliens based on their face and body proportions.

>>15781298
Nutaku would likely be very much interested in it if they could get a deal like Chrono Clock. Sekai wouldn't turn down the money, especially seeing how reception has been since the announcement, but Giga might not be interested.

Let me get this straight.

Dovac got the license based on the existence of a project.

Dovac never told the project that he got the license.

Dovac never asked the project if he could use their translation.

Dovac refused to work with them and demanded they hand over their work for a song or else.

Let this be a warning for other fan tl groups.

>>15781330
Let's face it, there's really nobody left to warn about this kind of thing.

>>15781344
There's Aroduc.

Oh wait...

>>15781344
I miss when the shittiest people in the community were ones like Message.

>>15781344
Cafe is busy translating and not getting paid.

>>15781359
> All-ages Sayooshi for Steam
I can already see dovac trying to make it happen.

Do you think anyone in Japan is remotely aware of Sekai's shitty business practices and how most of the core-VN base (not the Nekopara memers, mind you) hates them?

>>15781375
No, but I bet they're going to have a fun conversation with Giga.

>>15781375
Somebody posted a link once about what the Japanese people felt about Sekai. And surprisingly they actually know about Sekai's less than stellar reputation. Whether the actual companies care enough to stop doing business with them is another matter. Afterall, Nekopara bucks is very enticing.

>>15781382
I still can't believe that people willingly shelled out money for an all-ages nukige.

>>15781375
It doesn't really matter if people hate them, they still put out the largest numbers. You are kidding yourself if you think MG is going to get better sales with Hapymaher then Sekai gets with Kickstarter+Steam+Nutaku with Chrono Clock, despite Hapymaher being the better game and MG being the better company.

I wish reputation was directly proportional to sales, and MG was regularly pulling in huge numbers complementing their superior staff, but the market isn't that kind.

>>15781405
Thanks for the reminder to buy HaperMaher when it comes out. Good old, MangaGamer. <3

>>15781405
I sincerely hope Sekai doesn't get their grubby hands on Amatsutsumi.

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>>15779994
Honestly, Doddler is a fucking saint. He's probably the legitimately nicest person I've known in my entire life.

I don't think he even has the capacity for anger or jealousy. I really hope that his life goes well, he really deserves it.

>>15780028
Considering how anal and jewi-, I mean, businesslike Giga operates by, and how their business model of releasing trash moege and out of nowhere an actually decent game works properly, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they set an enormous amount of unreasonable requests and forced Sekai to not disclose any of it. Sekai Project's members are very passive and give up to pressure easily. It's one of the reasons why they're not making as much money as people think.

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>>15781482
> they're not making as much money as people think.

They don't make money. They haven't had a single profitable year since the companies' inception, by dovac's own admission.

>>15781388
https://warosu.org/jp/thread/S15540952
Here it is.

>>15781501
That isn't unusual for an expanding company, though aside from the Sony deal their expansion seems to be slowing.

>>15781644
To be honest, I could probably write a thesis on the mismanagement of Sekai Project.

It's absurd how much they've done wrong, and how little they've done right. It takes a certain kind of genius to turn that market position they had at the beginning into this.

>>15781644
The very fact that we haven't heard a single thing about SakuSaku or Leyline a year after the localization announcement, despite both being 100% complete in terms of TL/editing/TLC is absurd.

The only scenario that makes sense is that they don't have enough liquid capital to keep afloat because they redistributed funds from their Kickstarter projects elsewhere under the misguided impression that those projects would pull a profit, leaving them in a dangerous game of 'keep up', where they have to deliver promised goods as slowly as possible to not make the liabilities crush the company.

I mean, it's the only thing that really makes sense when I'm fairly sure that not a single Kickstarter they've done have had all their rewards fufilled. No one has yet to receive their Root Double OSTs, for instance.

Heck, WEE, with it's shitty translation isn't even done, let alone delivered and that was due two years ago.

>>15781698
Don't forget the Kickstarter where after saying a patch was literally imminent and in testing, they delivered absolutely nothing, blamed the dev, welched on most of the physical goods that they had claimed were in the warehouse, and said they were done with it.

>>15781698
>SakuSaku or Leyline a year after the localization announcement,
Leyline was 5 months ago, SakuSaku less than 2 months. Your timeline is way off.

>>15781698
SakuSaku was announced at AX, Leyline in March. Both titles are going to need censored versions for Steam which is going to be dependent on the schedules of the Japanese companies, which as we have seen by NitroPlus and Frontwing, waiting on Japan can be a huge pain in the ass. Engine standards are also different between fan translations (where Japanese locale is fine) and Steam (where it is not), though I don't know if either apply here. I wouldn't be surprised if being random fanTLs, Sekai also would want to do a QC pass at the very least. They surely have trouble sticking to a schedule, but those two titles being slow surely aren't limited in explanation for now being ready for released after a few months.

That said, the Kickstarter situation is bullshit, especially for specific titles. I'm not going to speculate on their cash flow problems or lack thereof associated with it, other than I would think regardless of how their kickstarters do, Sakura and Nekopara likely bring in more than their outstanding liabilities with Kickstarter.

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Is dovac the Phil Fish of VNs?

>>15781802
Phil Fish made money.

>>15781793
>Sekai also would want to do a QC pass
They obviously never have yet, even for their own stuff.

>>15781756
Unlike MG, Sekai also seems to announce a title their first chance they can. It is how they had a ton of big announcements at random conventions in the Spring, announced Baldr Sky a few days after they got it before sorting anything out about the deal, and had next to nothing at Otakon, the second largest convention of the year.

>>15781698
>>15781756
to be somewhat fair, Chuee has said that negotiations with Dovac in regards to SakuSaku had been occurring as early as August 2015.

he also said that it should be out by December 2016, btw

Sekai is pretty fucking slow though. is anyone honestly buying into their January 2017 release date for Chronoclock when they only covered 30% of the TL in the past literal year?

>Game gets licensed
>Translator announces he's no longer working on an unlicensed patch for it
>Dovac flips his shit

Makes perfect sense.

>>15781810
They generally don't seem to for their short meme titles, but their longer titles seem to have more of a look. Additionally, most of the crap is stuff they did Internally, their own people screwing up. It is generally a bad idea to let the script of an inexperienced fan translator, who was doing the script for themselves, represent your company without giving it at least a brief look over.

>>15781793
> Sekai also would want to do a QC pass at the very least.

Sekai doesn't edit or QC. Heck, just look at their status in the translation status threads - all translation status, no editing or QC.

That's also why you get terrible terrible stuff seeping through the cracks.

>>15781838
Didn't WEE go through like 4 translators and even then it read poorly?

>>15781843
4 translators, none of which knew Japanese or English, apparently.

>>15781816
I am guessing any holdup on SakuSaku is going to be on the Japanese side of things. Chrono Clock on the other hand is likely an overly optimistic estimate on the release date, probably not much wait in the Japanese side of things but good luck finishing the translation by then.

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I want all these companies bring eroge over to die.

>>15781956
They kill off fan translators, they generally release the games faster for plebs, and the JP company makes a little slice of money off Steam weebs.

Honestly, unless you're severely cutting the corners by hiring interns who have taken Japanese as a major for minimum wage monkey jobs, there isn't much money in localisation. The big profit games are either very well known properties, or games without much text, VNs are pretty much the worst aspect to target. The only thing holding SP together at this point is their monthly kickstarter drive, and public opinion has really got to shift eventually.

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>>15781698
Even i have been noticing on my Visual Novel curator thing there has been starting to be negativity spreading.

>>15781997
Do they really do monthly kickstarters? That's hilarious. And sad people pay them.

>>15782031
I stopped paying attention after the first couple, but that's where they go to top up funds by announcing a new title and then saying they need X amount to finish it off.

The entire western market is rotten to the core. Kickstarter empty promises and Patreon beggars, it's just a way for scumbags to part idiots from their money.

I've seen a million "give me money so I can do this full-time!" beggars, and not a single one of them puts out more content when they reach their goal. Half the time, they stop trying, because why put out a video for 5 dollars of revenue if you're pulling in a thousand a month for doing nothing?

>>15781839
Actually now that i think about it there has been a ton of unreleased games and games that they promised. Even on their youtube channel they kept stalling and saying "give us time give us time" unfortunately the guy was fired when they moved to their new office.

>>15781997
Actually its kind of funny how clever it is when i think about it. Sekai probably has no real translators and relies on machines, hooks, and everything, even on Fan Translations to get money. There is an old saying that if you cut corners eventually it will hurt in the long run.

Like i kept saying we need to create a photoshop image basically in the line of showing that they use machines, and that they use fan translations and their business practices. And pass it around to everyone. Otherwise it will be a slow death and not a swift one.

>>15782031
Not exactly monthly. Every 2-3 months. Also, they use Indiegogo sometimes.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/karakara-a-new-visual-novel-by-industry-veterans-steam

>>15782026
>Sekai Project: Not even once
>Last sentence said they would buy a Sekai VN

Wut.

>>15782070
>There is an old saying that if you cut corners eventually it will hurt in the long run.
Tell that to every other localisation company out there. Game translation is a very shitty business, and VN translation is an order of magnitude worse. The majority don't care, supporting SP means they might get the next dirty diaper SP throws at them for sustenance.

>>15782076
steamtards in a nutshell, pretty much.

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Reminder that Lemnisca supposedly got $36,450 (27% of $135,000) for translating RD.

>>15781997
Their Steam releases are more important to them than their kickstarters. Sekai has had 3 kickstarters in 2016, Narcissu, Root Double, and the current Chrono Clock. Narcissu and Root Double made a combined total of roughly $250k, and Chrono Clock is probably going to end up somewhere around $100k. They also made about $85k through IndieGoGo.

Those croudfunding efforts though see much of that cash ate by liabilities, as all of them featured expensive physical goods. Their bigger Steam titles still do well, and their share of that revenue comes without liabilities because they are distributing a digital good (though obviously both Kickstarter and steam revenue is balanced against the localization/licensing/etc costs).

A quick look at 2016 releases on Steam for them, Rabi-Ribi averaged around 50k copies, Nekopara vol 2 at around 120k, Sakura dungeon at around 30k, and many titles in the 3-10k range.

Although as their Sony stuff comes online, that is also likely to play a major role in their bottom line going forward, and it is also a space where competition will be somewhat lower because of the higher barrier of entry.

>>15782103
You're forgetting the part where they're so dysfunctional and mismanaged that the depend on those kickstarters. No sane company would constantly go back there, they're doing it because they don't have enough to keep all the plates spinning at the same time.

All it takes is a few plates to drop to put them in the red, and the longer they keep trying to flood Steam with trash, the more likely it is that the audience will just get fatigued. I feel like they expected to be much better off financially right now than they actually are, which is why they're doing insanely dumb shit like low-balling Aroduc.

>>15782081
Yeah it is shitty but we have to have some standards somewhere. At least something.

>>15782113
In all fairness, the can't HELP but waste money since the people who fund their kickstarters love wasting money too.

>>15782120
If you had standards, you wouldn't be reading VNs in English.

>>15782113
Crowdfunding just bring in extra revenue (although with significant liabilities) to complement their Steam releases. Karakara got $46k from Indiegogo from about a thousand backers, but has a steamspy estimate of around 3500 (plus Denpa and Nutaku). It also gets press attention, although this aspect has been declining.

Low Balling Aroduc probably does make finical sense, as I doubt anyone in Sekai Project expects it to really take off anymore after the press ignored its initial announcement and excitement is impossible to find. The localization costs for 4,6MB of text in the scripts, along with significant other text and image editing is not going to be cheap, and I doubt the license itself was cheap. , For any chance at returning a profit, they need to keep the localization as cheap as possible. Yes it does suck for consumers that it will be a cheap project by nobodies instead of Aroduc, but if they don't expect to make back what Aroduc wants, then it probably isn't worth it to hire him.

>>15782127
Then link me a Japanese site that sells these Visual Novels in Japanese. I would not mind paying for them either way.

>>15782113
>All it takes is a few plates to drop to put them in the red, and the longer they keep trying to flood Steam with trash, the more likely it is that the audience will just get fatigued. I feel like they expected to be much better off financially right now than they actually are, which is why they're doing insanely dumb shit like low-balling Aroduc.

I think what is ironic they are trying to do too much when they have too little manpower already. And its already exhausting everyone mentally. They just announce release dates and give a general release date and then when it hits either they do not have it or its not even half way done. They try to find the next Nekopara and then have mainline games that everyone likes but its mired in controversy because they do not take things one at a time the same way the others do. That is why they most likely had to fire a few people to cut costs and maybe to hope they make money from Sony deal.

>>15782143
How is low balling Aroduc making sense when you can bet your ass they will create a kickstarter for it? The translation will be included in budget like in: >>15782096. His team already did most of the work. They are actually saving time and getting the VN out sooner and with better quality than their other VNs.

>>15782158
You don't even need a Japanese site. J-list sells them too (at an inflated price).

>>15782174
Thanks for recommending me J-List i will now purchase it in Japanese.

>>15782163
Because as discussed earlier in the thread, the amount aroduc wanted is likely significantly more then Root Double (how much more is anyone's guess, though $80k+ probably isn't an unreasonable estimate), and it is doubtful an economically viable kickstarter with that high of a translation fee, along with Giga's share and the cost for physical goods, would succeed for Baldr Sky. As good as the title might be, it seems unlikely to take off. As it is Root Double barely succeeded, and that was with drastic measures half way through. There is a reason Chrono Clock kickstarter is only for physical goods.

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>>15782200
>$80k+ probably isn't an unreasonable estimate

Apparently aroduc is translating white album 2

>>15778817

Whats with all the foxgirls?

>>15782209
God, I hope so.

Dive1+2 combined lines is 95946 it's has less text than little buster,rewrite,clannad and 1k more lines than fate.

Add about 5k for interface text, so it's not actually that long.

>>15782200
I highly doubt Aroduc would ask for 80+ but it would be reasonable to say that is how much something like Baldr Sky would cost Sekai to get the license and the translation would be in 15k territory.

>>15782208
Roughly doubling what they list for Root Double wouldn't have been an unreasonable ask for Baldr Sky 1+2.

>>15782220
Line count is a horrible measure, the script size is 4.6MB, longer than any of those. That also works out to 2.3 million characters.

$.01, a low but fairly standard rate for a VN translators works out to $23k alone for script translation. There is far more text then that, and you need to pay the editor, image editors, etc as well.

But the Aroduc price was apparently high enough that Sekai didn't want to attempt to negotiate it downwards, and they feel it is better to start from scratch. For that to be viable, Aroduc's offer would have had to been significantly more than how much they can do it for on their own. It is hard to guess how much that is, but it would likely be a fair number for such a translation effort but much higher then an amount that would be worth it for Baldr Sky.

>>15782262

4.6mb with interface and menu texts which is probably less than 10k lines.

It's also easier to translated than other novels because of large amount of western terms.

>>15782270
>It's also easier to translated than other novels because of large amount of western terms.
That's not how it works.

Couldn't sekai just buy dive1 and then let the fuwatards translated dive 2?

>>15782291
Aroduc refused to sell scripts and fuck off, read the damn post.

>>15782270
Translation negotiations are usually done on a per character rate, not a "this part of the script is easier so you get less" basis or even a "how many hours did this take" basis.

>>15782270
>easier to translated than other novels because of large amount of western terms.
Excessive use of English words just makes things even more difficult to translate, if anything, since they're used the way they would be in English maybe only half the time.

>>15781793
>Sekai also would want to do a QC pass at the very least.
Sekai never, ever does QC passes. Not for those generally low-quality evns, nor for their generally higher-quality jvn translations. It's a company that, essentially, just slaps their name on things.

>>15781215
There's an all-ages version of Monobeno already. Of course it still has lewd fanservice but there's no sex CGs.

>>15781814
I don't get why you'd bother announcing a title if it won't be coming out for multiple years and by then the hype is dead.

What MG did with Rance, announcing it within 6 months of release is basically what should be the standard. It keeps hype alive.

I mean, even if Muramasa or Sumaga came out tomorrow, there would be absolutely no fanfare because everyone already gave up on it.

>>15783376
> since there are important scenes in BS that revolved around it.
No there aren't
The only h-scene you can argue around is the last one in Sora's route but everything else can be removed without any loss

>>15781997
Of course, you have their cultists, but my opinion is that, by majority, the people backing SPs kickstarters are aware that SP is a turd, but want physical goods enough that they're willing to tolerate them lying through their teeth and potentially not delivering.

These people are called 'suckers', and deserve to have all their hard-earned money siphoned away by scams.

>>15783409
Sekai Project doesn't have any thought towards the future. They're run by an egotistical neo-Trump who only cares about waving his dick right now. They make promises based on what will get them the most praise rather than what can actually be done or what they have any idea how to do. They take in Kickstarter money and then spend it on all the dumpster fires of projects getting them to bare minimum, believing that there will be more suckers to fleece later.

>>15782096
RD has a fuckhuge script. That's probably VN market rate.

>>15783415
That would remove the catharsis scene in Chinatsu's route and all the stuff around Rain's suicide necklace from hers.

Those are pretty fucking important.

>>15783431
No it doesn't. It's certainly not small, but it's nowhere near things like Clannad, FSN, or Rewrite.

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>>15782200
> 80k.

Mate, RD is roughly on-par with Dive 1 + Dive 2 in length. RD is fucking long.

Aroduc doesn't have absurd expectations, and worked with JAST on multiple occasions, so it's not like he doesn't know what to expect to be paid from VN translations.

It's likely they waved 10k in his face for a massive script and the tools that Doddler already made, and he said fuck that. It's woefully under market rate in a market that is already far below market rate for translations as a whole.

>>15783415
You didn't even play the game, it seems.
All bad ends are strictly sex-oriented, will make zero sense if you just cut out h-scenes.
Chinatsu route is all about sex and related issues.
"Pirated Kuu" story chapter is also all about sex, with explicit scenes and text, you will have to gut entire chapter for retarded steam version.
And then Nanoha/Rein/etc timed portions, with varying scenes depending on your total time.

>>15783453
Don't forget the brothels.

>>15783444
Though if they don't get him, they have to do it themselves at market rate.

Though their offer to Aroduc could have been very low with the idea that he would come around to any agreement, and then it came back to bite them when it became clear Aroduc wouldn't accept a low rate.

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>>15783453
>Rein

FINALLY! IT IS MY TURN TO SHINE!

>>15783453
I played the game 2 years ago.
>All bad ends are strictly sex-oriented, will make zero sense if you just cut out h-scenes.
I didn't do the bad ends other than Nanoha's and Chinatsu's. I'm absolutely sure the resolution in Chinatsu's bad end has nothing to do with sex, even though there is a sex scene before the bad end plays. That bad end can easily be cut. Nanoha's bad end, if I recall correctly, is the one where she becomes that weird abomination together with Kou, and I'm pretty sure there's nothing sexual about it.
>Chinatsu's route is all about sex and related issues.
I don't recall any major plot event related to sex. She got rekt thanks to the gray christmas and that's it.
>"Pirated Kuu" story chapter is also all about sex, with explicit scenes and text, you will have to gut entire chapter for retarded steam version.
I'm sorry, which one is that? I don't really remember. The whole thing with Kuu on Sora's route?
>And then Nanoha/Rein/etc timed portions, with varying scenes depending on your total time.
You could remove the h-scenes on those and just make it implied.

>>15783453
>>15783458
My concern is still how Giga will handle the related issues. If you take the MG Bokuten approach then the Steam version, while the release would still be inferior, it would come across mostly intact. However, if Giga just goes cutting anything that is "objectionable", then the game has problems real quick.

I'm still hopeful that Nutaku cash can force the issue here, but if it doesn't then what Giga decides to release could be a train wreck.

>>15783465
Or that they thought he wasn't willing to walk away with nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game

>>15783476
>I'm pretty sure there's nothing sexual about it.
Did you read it at all? The whole thing is about how they separated just to fuck so they could feel alive and not like an abomination.

>>15783409
They want to be seen as a big deal and one-up the competition by announcing hyped-up/famous games. Except they blew their load early and look completely lame when it came to the big events, an understanding that MG got early on.

>>15783484
It's been too long and the endings are small.

>>15783476
>I don't recall any major plot event related to sex
Then you didn't play the game or "played" it with machine translation.
Its impossible to properly read it and not remember promise to take her virginity she forced on Kou when realized that she lost to Sora
> I'm sorry, which one is that? I don't really remember.
The one when they raid guys who were making pirated copies in anonymous city. No wonder you think h-scenes are not important when you don't "remember" 90% of plot.

>>15783476
Nanoha bad end is where she's raped by Gilbert's cronies, you dumb fuck.

>>15783513
He's an idiot, most of his reasoning for omitting ero scenes is "I forgot."

>>15783588
Maybe it's Dovac

>>15783485
Dovac has a rivalry with MangaGamer and literally made fun of their licenses. Too bad now MangaGamer ended up smelling like roses: Games translated/edited on time and with quality. They did it all without Kickstarter too.

>>15783415
Chinatsu's good end absolutely requires ero to be present, though.

>>15781375
>Japanese publisher notices a "fan translation" pirate project overseas
>Gets payed by SP to mug them out
It's win-win.

>>15783613

It makes (or at least has thus far made) perfect business sense to go mainly after the broader market. You don't need to worry about what the hardcore VN market wants when you can sell Sakura Shit and Nekopara, your main distribution platform is all ages, and uncut releases don't push close to the same numbers. The problem is Dovac also very much cares about what others think of him, and that broader market has no idea who he is while the primary VN market, the only group that knows about him, has a negative opinion of him. There is no one out there to say "congrats on all the money you made, you are doing a great job" as the public doesn't have a financial stake in how Sekai Project does and reputation does not directly correlate to revenue.

That said, PR wise him being quiet was the best choice possible. He would have responded quite poorly to the Aroduc situation, and he would have been livid about the MG tweet noting they had mosaic free Hapymaher.

>>15783729
Seems the tide is turning on Sekai though since the Steam forums has a lot of people complaining there there's no patch for their all ages version. Of course it's not enough yet to stop them from buying it in the first place but the awareness that you're not getting a complete game is increasing. Although, it's kinda annoying that Steam allowed Dovac to remove those posts.

>>15783729
I honestly wish Sekai would just stick to the meme shit. Don't go into games targeted at the hardcore audience if you're going to be upset when they have certain expectations of you.

As you say, generally speaking the Nekopara/Sakura audience doesn't know who the fuck Dovac or even Sekai is. I suppose they probably didn't fully understand this until recently. Dovac seemed legitimately surprised and angry that Karakara wasn't another take-away success.

>>15783749
>I honestly wish Sekai would just stick to the meme shit. Don't go into games targeted at the hardcore audience if you're going to be upset when they have certain expectations of you.

I'm still want to wait and see. I hardly care how bad their PR is if in the end they get uncut releases out, and thanks to this new Nutaku partnership they have a reason to do so. The only title they have released thus far as exclusively all ages was G-Senjou, which was fantranslated for years. I doubt Maitetsu will happen for obvious reasons (but I also doubt MG or Jast would release it uncut either, so it is hard to see it as much of a loss), and Baldr Sky probably depends on Giga (hard to think Nutaku wouldn't want it). But the other 4 titles without an uncut release announced seem prime for a similar Nutaku/Sekai deal as Chrono Clock.

>>15783795
MG doesn't have problems releasing loli content and have already put out at least one exclusive lolige, not to mention other titles which have lolis in them.

>>15783813
JAST would have had an "unofficial" patch if they couldn't use the "they're all 18" excuse if they had done it, too.
But it seems like other companies passed on Maitetsu before SP got it, although from what Lose has said they may have possibly tried to sell a cut release to everyone and JAST and MG both knew that wouldn't sell. I'd still imagine that offers were rejected because of fear of the law or low sales expectations, though.

Maitetsu and Lose in generally really had little hopes of being localized. It's a shame that SP got it but it probably wouldn't have been picked up officially without them.

Nothing will ever go well for EOPs. Just start studying, even an hour a day is enough for most people to be able to read Baldr or Maitetsu before SP releases them.

>>15783795
They need good translators. Grisaia is still the only title that has had an above average translation, and things like Nekopara are a trainwreck. I worry for the state of Baldr if its handled by an in-house team.

>>15783813
If its true though that Sekai wasn't Lose's first choice, then there is a fairly good chance MG did reject them (though it could be for the reverse reason, Lose only wanted to do a cut release, which wouldn't be a surprise as Maitetsu was designed to be easily made into an all ages release).

>>15783829
Grisaia is good, Clannad is fine (and a vast improvement over the fan translation), Root Double is good (though some would disagree on choices made). SakuSaku and Leyline would have been the same under anyone as they are fan translators. Nekopara and their other short titles might be crap translations, but thus far it hasn't really extended into their full length titles.

>>15783822
I already know Japanese, but I still like to keep up with localization efforts because it interests me.

Also it's a cheaper and more convenient way for me to support titles when something I like does eventually get released.

>>15783822

>Maitetsu and Lose in generally really had little hopes of being localized. It's a shame that SP got it but it probably wouldn't have been picked up officially without them.

Lose surely wanted it brought over and I doubt they would have walked away. Had Sekai Project rejected it, next would have been something like Next Ninja, and if they couldn't find that, they probably would have hired the cheapest translators they could find themselves.

>>15783837
>Root Double
>good

Also it has yet to be seen, but the SakuSaku translator was a trainwreck last I checked. He might have improved in the past year, but the preview translations he put out were embarrassingly bad. I suppose most won't care though because it's moege.

>>15783829
>Grisaia is still the only title that has had an above average translation

That's what happens when they hire one of Mangagamer's regulars.

>>15783839
>>Also it's a cheaper and more convenient way for me to support titles
You're scum, dude.

>>15783934
I can't import the stuff I like due to where I live and my current lifestyle. Not to mention that it would be too expensive for me to do so. I'll take the cheap digital copy when I can, thanks.

>>15783837
Root Double was done by Lemnisca and Grisaia by Koestl.

Only Clannad was done by the in-house team, and it was just a hack edit job of the existing translation.

>>15779425

>Aroduc is critical of everything, even stuff he likes.

Aroduc is stupidly nitpicky, and often outright wrong. Also, whenever he says that something is good, there's a very good chance that it's complete trash. It's ironic that he complains about horrible writing so often when his favorite shows are the worst of the batch.

The only reason I visit his site is to remind myself of what airs on what day, and to see screencaps, since I have a data cap until midnight.

>>15783822
how do I begin learning Japanese, is there a /jp/ guide I'm unaware of

>>15784557

/a/'s DJT

>>15779607
You'll get it. Just don't give up.

>>15784557
eroge every day

Aroduc mentioned in comments he was 100% through Dive 1, and 35% through Dive 2.

>>15784748
That was obvious yesterday.

http://games.seiha.org/
>Baldr Sky - Dive 1 + 2
>Rain - Aki complete. On indefinite hiatus

>>15783613
>Dovac has a rivalry with MangaGamer and literally made fun of their licenses. Too bad now MangaGamer ended up smelling like roses: Games translated/edited on time and with quality. They did it all without Kickstarter too.

I wonder if Sekai has any more announcements upcoming or if they have announced everything. MG updated their announcements page to show 1 new partner and two other announcements for AWA at the end of the month.

>>15784807
I wouldn't expect much from them, 1 of them is NTR nukige according to GH.

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>>15784748
>We would already have Dive 1 if not for cancerous SP
Clannad re translation was not worth all the damage SP did to vns. They literally has done more damage than good.

>>15784807
They'll be nukige or moege that's closer to nukige (e.g. ImoPara), pretty much guaranteed.

AX and Otakon are the big ones yearly, I'm fairly sure.

>>15779994
I don't think anyone dislikes him. He's like the ultimate pseudo-PR person.

>>15783613
While I'd argue that Mangagamer was too cautious about jumping onto the crowdfunding bandwagon, them doing no campaigns whatsoever is far better than Sekai's strategy of abusing it. At most MG could have gotten away with 3 or 4 before their reputation would have suffered anyways.

>>15784972
The only thing I'd want a campaign from them would be for hardcopies that aren't so late (or for more titles), but not if it's a SP scam where $125 + shipping is the entry point for a hardcopy.

>>15783749
Its weird that he says that because Nekopara was just a rare game to find on Steam full of crap and now that there is some actual quality on that store now its not so easy to make money.

>>15784748
What?! I thought he was just half way through with the first one. So, he is actually 2/3rds of the way of completion. Sekai is really stupid to tell him to fuck off. They could've had Dive out by the end of the year when the hype is still fresh and Dive 2 out 6 months later.

>>15784984
I've never bought one, but MG's hardcopies seem to be like an actual collectors edition while Sekai's is like DVD box.

>>15785029
Yeah, SP is what I was complaining about. Look at the Chrono Clock KS which is supposedly all about physical goods and see how nuts the pricing is.

>>15784984
The only thing I want MangaGamer to crowdfund is Shin Koihime Muso. That one is legitimately too expensive to license by themselves. As for Sekai, they won't stop with the overpriced physicals because why would they? Morons keep on funding them.

While I don't think the Chrono Clock set is worth it, I don't have much against using high price premium sets if that is what can bring in the cash in this rather small market, even if the prices are more then I would be willing to pay.

>>15785041
Not only that, they told people the devs "lost" the artwork so it's not even uncensored.

>>15784917
Pretty much.

Seriously, Doddles is adorable and an absolute saint.

I've had a pretty heavy crush on him for months now. I want to marry him and bear his children, damnit!

>>15785095
And then he won't be allowed to be near his children because Canada thinks he's a pervert.

>>15785072
Though seems irrational if the reason for keeping the mosaics is anything else though. Neither Denpa nor Nutaku seem to have a specific problem with releases without mosaics, and obviously the Japanese company approves considering Hapymaher. Dovac also isn't one to willingly let MG get the upper hand on something.

>>15785101
To be honest, men can't even interact with any sort of child on even vaguely friendly terms in the modern era, even if they're their own fucking kids, without being labelled a pedophile, while women can do the same while looking like Mother Teresa.

I'm glad I wasn't born a guy. I know most people like to spout rhetoric about 'white male privilege' but it seems to me it's like, it's become the antithesis to that at this point.

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We'll never get back Dovac's tweet machine until SP collapses, will we?

He was an infinite entertainment generator. I miss it.

>>15785117
Is Sekai a rational company though? Does Dovac hate ero more than he hates MG?

>>15785058
The biggest problem is that Sekai Project is selling it. You're putting in a premium preorder and will be fully charged now for a product that god knows when they will deliver.

>>15785127
This isn't the first time Dovac ragequit twitter. He does it a few times a year.

>>15785133
>Is Sekai a rational company though?
Obviously not.

>>15785133
The Nenokami IGG project had the artist doing redraws to remove mosaics. Seems odd they would intentionally keep the mosaics on Chrono Clock if they were able to remove them when they are using it as a selling point on their other recent project and it makes them look bad compared to MG.

>>15785151

Sekai hasn't acted irrational, they just have gone where the money is. When Steam was everything, that was their full focus, hard to justify focusing on a couple thousand Denpa customers when Grisaia was moving 5 figures on Steam. Same thing happened to MangaGamer, look at their big announcements last year, it was almost entirely titles for Steam aside from Haruka, though being MG they wouldn't agree to release a game only for Steam. Even the normally slow Jast went after it, picking up Flowers and Sonicomi and rushing them out to cash in.

On the topic of SP, MG made a status update on translations. About Hapymaher:
https://twitter.com/MangaGamer/status/771823685749440513
>#Hapymaher is 46.5% translated and 24% edited! http://mangagamer.org/hapymaher
TOP KEK

>>15784849
>>15784871
With how stacked their Otakon lineup was though, it wouldn't be a shocked if they decided to hold onto some half-decent announcement. But otherwise yeah, I would expect nukige from MG.

>>15785271
Expect a card game. :3

>>15785265
It'll definitely be done before ChronoClock. What a travesty.
On the bright side for SP, it seems like lots of idiots think that CC just got announced rather than having been announced months ago. So when they go from 33% to 35% by the end of December, the backers will think they actually went from 0-35% so when it gets delayed it'll be understandable.

>>15785265
That lends credit to the idea that MG got the license a while ago, though still after Sekai got Chrono Clock.

>>15785274
>Expect a card game
If it's with their loli mascot I'll gladly get it.
Many faps will be had too

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>>15785265
Lewd Alice. I liek it.

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>>15785265
> It's now officially more 'done' than Chrono Clock.
> Chrono Clock won't even be edited.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Is MG planning a steam release for Hapymaher? I have to think that would be a much more time consuming process if they do (as Chrono Clock is trivial to cut), but without a Steam release it is hard seeing it doing near what Chrono Clock does on Steam. It would be a shame to see Chrono Clock do significantly better then Hapymaher just because Hapymaher was limited to MG's platform.

>>15785322
No Steam release was announced unlike with Sorcery Jokers and Dal Segno.

>>15785134
Yeah, if Mangagamer was doing it with their normal hardcopy prices, no one would complain.

It's not the type of crowdfunding that's the problem; it's how they are executing it and how they're fucking Sekai.

>>15785275
They probably got it a few months ago at most.

They usually don't take too long to release something unless technical issues come up (like Himawari.) It's usually somewhere between a year and a year and a half for one of Mangagamer's longer titles.

>>15785322

There's no Steam release planned for Hapymaher. I believe making an all ages cut just wasn't deemed feasible given the way the game is arranged, but I haven't played it so I can't really comment beyond that.

>>15785353

We've been doing pretty well at getting things out roughly within a year of the announcement lately (obviously not a perfect record with that yet). Programming's been one of our bigger bottlenecks recently, unfortunately. If only we could clone Doddler!

>>15785322
MG is not insane to try putting borderline nukige on Steam.

>>15785369
> Programming's been one of our bigger bottlenecks recently, unfortunately. If only we could clone Doddler!
Or you could hire some more hackers, Doddler isn't the only one in the scene.

>>15785372
They could figure that it worked for Nekopara.

>>15785382

It's not like he's our only programmer. There's just a lot of work in that department.

>>15785388
Who is the bigger slut: Doddler or BDH?

>>15785369
I told you to start whipping him

>>15785281

They probably had it at the beginning of the year and that was what that purple hint was really about. That crazy /jp/ conspiracy about it being sona-nyl was just a crazy conspiracy that happened to be right by chance.

>>15785386
Nekopara has three sex scenes per game. There's way more than that in Happymaher

>>15785388
Are you on Team Dovac or Team Aroduc?

>>15785558
Who the heck would be on Team Dovac?

>>15785562
Dovac.

>>15785558
>Dovac
He's dead, Jim.

>>15785566
I don't know. Something tells me not even Dovac likes Dovac.

>>15785576
Something is odd with that guy. Does he literally have autism?

>>15785562
I am willing to believe Sekai wouldn't throw out out 2/3rds of Baldr Sky by a respected translator without a sound reason. Even if their initial offer was a bluff thinking Aroduc would go along with anything and they had all the leverage, it should be clear by now that is not the case.

Not that I'm on team Dovac. It sucks for the entire community that Baldr is going to be delayed 2 years and have an inferior translation because of finances or some other internal issue.

>>15785590
Should I believe a cranky bastard who has no need for public praise or should I believe a company known for lying about all sorts of things?

>>15785590
>without a sound reason
Didn't you witness how dovac handled those karakara patches?
Instead doing what sane man should, he starts shouting and cussing at whoever dares to defy him.
Several people who worked with him reported that he's very rude and arrogant when doing business, so my bet would be dovac sent something in his typical style that pissed off Aroduc and made him reply in very negative way, and then Doddler tried to intervene and reconcile them, but dovac is unable to admit being at fault like ever, so he just offered some small cash for existing work and told he's not hiring Aroduc anymore. Aroduc told him to fuck off.

>>15785614
Also pretty funny since he started out in fantranslation.

>>15785127
Don't worry, he'll be breaking company policy soon enough.

>>15785618
He's related to Commiesubs, right?

They aren't the worst sub group, but they are generally jackasses.

>>15785590
If I had to guess, it was a matter of money. Aroduc probably proposed some reasonable price, but Sekai couldn't afford it. I wouldn't be too surprised if JAST could pay Aroduc more than what Sekai usually pays fan translators since they have J-List backing them, but I doubt they'd pay something crazy just for Aroduc.

There's also the possibility that they simply wanted to buy what Aroduc already did and have their already planned translation team finish the job. Though, Sekai should have mentioned that they had such a team while negotiating, and Aroduc implied that they did no such thing.

>>15785922
>Aroduc probably proposed some reasonable price, but Sekai couldn't afford it.

Or an amount they could afford, but they calculated it was too much to pay and still make enough of a profit to justify the project based on their internal estimates for sales.

>>15785922
>Though, Sekai should have mentioned that they had such a team while negotiating, and Aroduc implied that they did no such thing.

they never did anon you could tell once it fell through and Sekai was receiving a storm the PR guy had to damage control and say "we officially have a team together now!!!". I think after this the ball is in Sekai's court either they will pay him and take the hit or they will just keep doing what they are doing.

I just think they did something without foresight and paid a huge amount of money for a huge license and expected the translation to not be that expensive. Ironically i think they misused their funds from moving into a bigger studio, firing some guys, and then having too many games to work on. Its going to pile up on them if not bury them. Dovac is not that bright of a CEO to begin with just because Nekopara sold well does not mean he can recapture success again. There is a difference between being one hit wonders and slowly gaining the sales and building the company.

>>15785389
No answer, eh? I'll say BDH then.

>>15786015
I am guessing all the VN publishers expect fan translation pickups to be cheap, since they were planning to release it for free anyways. It is still a bad idea though to get a huge ass expensive license without verifying that you will actually get it translated for cheap if you are counting on that.

>>15786023
Aroduc is convinced that Sekai got the title BECAUSE they knew he, Doddler and friend was working on it.

So I think they did their lying magic on Giga ("Sure, mang we got the tools and the translators for it!"), got an expensive as hell license, and expected Aroduc et al to hand over everything for cheap.

>>15786023
You got it! I think its one of those assumptions were they thought "well this VN and that VN was inexpensive to pay for fantranslation this will be as well" and gave a little bit higher but not as much as the quality and the notoriety it is worth. Plus i think Sekai forgets that when your paying money for experience and talent it also raises the price a little bit as well because they have what it takes to make sure its successful and it works correctly.

Without Aroduc and co its going to become not what everyone wanted and it will be disappointment. Also i agree with your statement they should have had the foresight but i think its because the upper management does not have experience in the industry of understand how things work.

>>15786030
Actually i would believe it would be something like

はい、私たちが是帯

And they just took their word. If Sekai bombs this(which i believe it will perform below expectations) you can bet that other VN makers are going to start bringing their licenses to those that actually can do the work and just get it done.

>>15786058
The sad thing is that as they've been around for a few years, upper management should know how things work. Aroduc is neither a new translator nor the first fan translator they've negotitated with.

I personally think it's a bit optimistic to think those betrayed by Sekai will bring it to someone who can do it, which is mainly Mangagamer or JAST when they feel like it. Frontwing and Mikandi Japan may become viable alternatives, but that's still a ways off. Some will outright give up on the West, because as Sekai is the one that brings in the biggest number of sales (even if that's less true nowadays), they may reason that stuff licensed with MG or JAST will simply do worse than Sekai whether or not it is censored or has good PR.