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I sure as hell wouldn't. I don't have enough time to read every new release as it is. Why would I need even more, faster? And if I could read them all in time, there's always a life outside of eroge/VNs. I don't want a life full of mediocre experiences. Give me quality over quantity literally every single time, please.

I would. I have no idea what can be defended about machine translation. It's pure garbage and while I don't really care about telling other people how they should read x or y, I don't think there's any point in pretending we've read the same thing if one has read a machine TL and I've read the actual VN. I don't think that's "elitism".

What really aggravates me is that I convinced someone--a person much more adept with text hooking than me who's been a mentor to me in the past --to seriously consider implementing one or more of the ideas in the initial question of the poll. You know what was holding him back and his initial response to the idea? "But I'll be labeled [incorrectly] and ridiculed as someone who machine translates [by all the community elitists]." I thought the notion was ridiculous. Then what happens next? I make a poll to explore user interest in the sorts of text hooking services he could provide and his unfounded fears were confirmed! He could very well backpedal after seeing this reaction and decide that such a toxic community isn't worth the effort.

Oh, that's easy. Just don't do this.

Ahh, sorry, I should clarify my stance on prices in general, and VN prices in particular, before people think I'm nuts (too late? much too late? oh well). Here's the two criteria for how I judge the price of something that I like: Is it affordable for me personally? If not, I don't like it. (the obvious criterion) Is there an alternative pricing model that would noticeably increase profit for the developer? (the less obvious criterion) VN prices are fine by me on the first criterion, but on the second one, I'm pretty sure they're stupid, in the US and Japan both. Like both you and @OriginalRen are implying, if the cost of quality digital VNs was much cheaper, the developers would almost certainly be reaping a lot more profit because of vastly increased sales (coupled with the vastly lower marginal COGS for a digital good, of course). Maybe worth noting this doesn't work at all for physical goods because of that parenthetical comment, and that this probably explains why Japanese companies are hesitant to even try this strategy - their solvency right now is too reliant on the costumers who are willing to pay super-high costs for physical goods. Even if they kept that limited edition around, if they started also selling the same stuff for 1/8 the cost digitally, I bet (and I bet they bet) they'd start hemorrhaging that elite customer base. What I was getting at earlier when talking about price was merely that I don't think high cost is sufficient to explain the degree of poor sales seen by G-Senjou, Gahkthun, and Tokyo Babel (assuming things don't change), given Grisaia's equally high cost and vastly better sales. And, yes, I understand Grisaia is no juggernaut - it only does well by comparison to other high-cost, long VNs. Quite a lot of qualifiers on that, by now. Notably also in the same ballpark, on both sales numbers and price, unsurprisingly: Clannad. But it's obviously exceptional: it's got quite a leg up because of the well-liked anime adaptation, which Grisaia certainly doesn't have.

Well, I pretty much knew what I was going to post in this thread before even seeing it. Most of it still stands, starting with: At least do Front Wing the service of waiting until they announce their plans, rather than crucifying them now on the basis of what you hypothesize their plans to be. Most of you are jumping to conclusions that are, frankly, still unwarranted. There'll be a Kickstarter soon enough - you'll have plenty of time to belittle them without evidence as to translation quality at that time. At least then we'll know what their plans are WRT translation and editing. Now, as far as the bizarre partnership, I have a pretty reasonable explanation for this. Here's the sequence of relevant events: Grisaia gets a Sekai Project release. The Steam release alone sells like gangbusters. 16k owners, at > $30 per copy? In the English VN market, we can comfortably call this yooj. That's not to count Denpasoft money and Kickstarter money (though let's be frank, despite the ability to contribute a lot more, Kickstarter money on average probably isn't any better than a full-price Steam sale; shipping, merch production, and logistics to orchestrate it all ain't cheap, nor is the cut Kickstarter itself takes). But the end result is clear: Frontwing is happy, SP is happy, and shockingly enough, even us salty fans are pretty happy. Next up, G-Senjou gets a Sekai Project release. I think it's fair to say that G-Senjou's reputation is, if anything, stronger than Grisaia's. Like Grisaia, the release uses an existing fan TL, which in both cases people have had ample opportunity to pirate. Pretty good comparable, really. It tanks. 3k owners? It even has the option of a substantially lower price point without voice acting, for anybody crazy enough to think that's a good idea *cough*Rooke*cough*, and the same price as Grisaia if you do want voice acting. AkabeiSoft2 is justifiably left wondering what the hell happened. They got 20% the sales of Grisaia, for the same amount of work (or more? probably more; don't forget they HD-ified all their assets, to the community's consternation). Arguably what should have been their most profitable IP is burned, and they have nothing to show for it. Sekai Project probably straight-up took a loss on this project. Clearly the magic wasn't Sekai Project. Sekai Project might not even be interested in Sharin at this point; I wouldn't be surprised if they would have turned down the option, with as many balls as they have in the air and with what a flop G-Senjou was. So AkabeiSoft2 starts talking to Front Wing: why is Grisaia so successful? What's the secret sauce? Front Wing thinks they know, and uses their answer to leverage this partnership. And I think I know, too. The conclusion almost seems obvious, at this point. You're gonna hate it. Kickstarter is the premier advertising platform for large, high-profile VNs.

This came across my twitter feed today, and I cringed hard. As pretty much the only person around here who will admit to enjoying watching anime with English dubs (recent dubs, that is, not the crap they churned out 15 years ago), I've sometimes wondered whether we'd ever see a VN with an English dub. On these boards, Huniepop gets a fair bit of both hate and love for its voice acting - I personally think both are deserved (the hate, for Nikki; the love, for the rest of the cast; seriously, Kyu, marry me). But Huniepop is of course originally an English-language game and is a far cry from a VN, even though we talk about it a lot around here. But the day has finally come. Our historical first (as far as I know) English-dubbed honest-to-God Japanese VN is on its way, and I'm sure @Rooke will be delighted more than anyone by this double-whammy of good news: I get it, I really do. Growth has stagnated. They want to branch out, grow their market in new directions. If this is it, more power to them. But this isn't it. This isn't going to work. Somebody, save us before it's too late.

I've never played it nor do I care to look into this, but the VNDB lists Sonico as the only character in the game. From what I've heard it's also just a game where you act as Sonico's manager or some shit, so maybe she's the only voiced character in it? Also, I'm not sure how much you know about the voice actor, but she's really, really famous among cosplay and convention-going people. Her twitter has 517k followers, so just imagine someone with that big of a following being on your game. They're not aiming for a steam audience, they're aiming for the casual anime fans who might not know anything about visual novels, but see Jessica Nigri on it and pick up interest in it.

Yes, the graphics are subpar and could've, should've been better, we get it. But if you were playing Zero Escape for the graphics, then lol @ you

Sorry Down, but you're arguing a strawman here. What you've described isn't elitism, the behaviour on display at Reddit and described by Sanah is, though. Pretty toxic place, Reddit. EDIT: More specifically, the coming together of users to ridicule, downvote, and taunt other users for holding ‘inferior’ viewpoints. Worthless circle-jerking. It’s a rubbish practice, and certain people over at Reddit really should grow up.

It's a valid fear. r/vns is full of so-called "elitists", who look down on machine translations and even parsing to an extent. And I can assure you that if this poll wasn't linked to there, the result would've been largely different. However, that place is one of two major VN communities, so that isn't exactly an option. I've used machine translation and text-parsing a lot, and now that I'm learning Japanese, I'm still using text-parsing and MTL. They are a major help to those still learning this language, and this amount of shunning and ridicule doesn't feel mature. I'd understand if it was something along the lines of "I understand the merits of machine translation and parsing, but I prefer to read VNs in their original form, and thus don't feel comfortable using them any longer". Instead, in certain communities, we get this sort of backlash, and it's never nice to look at. I agree that learning Japanese is the best way to read VNs, but not everyone has that kind of time to put into learning this rather hard language, so parsing and MTL are great alternatives to read these games and learn Japanese at the same time. Even if it doesn't help you or you think it's a waste of time personally, it doesn't automatically mean it's a "worse" choice and should be shunned and given this kind of treatment. This elitism is really aggravating, and it would be for the better if such an attitude would be left and buried entirely.

What upsets me the most is that all this is doing is asking for money that is not needed whatsoever. Frontwing already earns money in Japan and is a very rich company when it comes to the games they make each year. With anime royalties, a VN market, and other products, why the fuck do they need to run a Kickstarter? If they really want to localize the game all they need to do is buy the rights in Japan, therefore allowing a Western release. There is absolutely no reason a Kickstarter needs to throw another 400,000 dollars their way. It's shameful as a company and a disgusting practice for an already AAA company that doesn't need the money at all. Why feed them money early, then have to pay 40-50 dollars for the game in the future a second time? We all know the price of the game is going to be expensive, considering a new VN in Japan already sells for 8,800 yen or more. It's a cash grab and the same kind of bullshit Sunshine pulls with Love Live. This is almost as bad people who preorder games that have no added bonus material whatsoever. It isn't even about the fans at this point... Doesn't matter I guess as people will still blindly toss money at it no matter what they ask for. Popular games will always, and have always been funded. To give you an example, I bet that if TM launched a Fate Kickstarter asking for 5 million dollars, it would be funded in less than a day. I promise you that.

Which, in retrospect, this probably played a part in FW dropping SP, because SP openly supported koestl's team in their desire to release an alternative translation.

Maybe they're using the fan TL, I wouldn't be surprised, but herkz tends to run his mouth off and makes these kinds of proclamations with only tiny snippets of information. It seems Frontwing is already set on combating rumors. Of course, they offer no information in return. It's a crapshoot.

Perhaps the avoidance of sekai project is because of their uncaring attitude towards adult games which is what people quite obviously want. I can hope that's the case anyway. I have no intent to support this game unless it gets a proper release 18+ content included (be that patch or otherwise) as I simply am fed up with games releasing with censorship. I'm still extremely skeptical of frontwing because of the way they handled the chirchiru game (which I still haven't gotten).

Because it's about on par with an Ixrec translation.

Which is ridiculous, because this game is actually quite great. The VN community is so utterly enamored with the elite set of action chuuni titles that get hyped to hell and back that any title in the same genre that isn't part of that group just gets ignored completely, especially if it's all-ages. The age rating is completely irrelevant to this title, though. It doesn't feel like it lacks maturity in any way, nor does it feel like it ever glosses over any important events. Everything just works, nothing is lacking. Oh well, this is how the VN fanbase has always been. I've been expecting this the whole time, while really hoping I was wrong.

Okay so...I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IMHHW. Ugh. And I thought Koisuru Natsu was great! Seems I haven't had enough of Pulltop lately. Pulltop is like...idk...for me the definition of the perfect Visual Novel gaming company. The UI is clean, the art is very nice, the music(omg) is sublime, and just overall topnotch! So as the poll suggests, who's your fave route? Please, don't spoil some major things. I loved how the ending of Kotori's was, it was just so satisfying at the end! So much so with Amane as well, the part where she became kinda of like the narrator and the text was different and just, ugh, it was all perfect....HOT DAMN! Amazing stuff. But I enjoyed Kotori's route more because there we could see the progression of basically everything. Though in Amane's route, it shed more light on Isuka, Tatsuya, and Tobioka. Who knows what else is waiting for me in Ageha's, Asa's, and Yoru's route! What's more...the "epilogue", the Sweet Love of each route! I can't wait for it!(still looking for a patch cause it's all symbols) Anyway, I've rambled long enough. By now you must realize how much this VN has touched my life, or for that matter...how much VNs touch my life. So, why did you choose that route? Why did you like the girl you choose more than the others? P.S. Please don't spoil any major things in Ageha's, Asa's, and Yoru's route since I'm currently in the process of doing it. ALSO in the Sweet Love routes.

Hello there! I'm a simple guy that like simple things and simple VNs! Unfortunately, due to lack of time I still haven't played many VNs, so I'm still kind of a novice on the hobby. Well, as I said, I'm a guy of simple tastes, I'm particularly not a big fan of Chuuni stuff, I prefer good ol' romance Charage and/or Moege. If you guys wanna leave any recommendations for me, I'd very much appreciate those. Thanks all and I hope I can get along with you all! PS: I also just finished playing Kindred Spirits on the Roof, and I just wanna say that

I think it's a nice addition for those that like that sort of thing, and considering it's optional there's no reason to be upset either way. As for whether or not I'll be using the feature though...

Eeeeeeew, English.

1v1 me noobs

can't forget this one

Tiago too OP plz nerf

We would like to announce our partnership with MangaGamer! In addition to the help of MikandiJapan, the three of us are going to work together and bring more Japanese visual novels to the West! Banzai! Lastly, here's an interview that we recently conducted with them about our game. Enjoy some more news about the future of Bloody Chronicles!" You mention the main character Kazuki can form relationships with NPCs. Can you elaborate on this? Does this mean the player can form love relationships? Can relationships be made regardless of gender? – Correct, Kazuki can have relationships with other Igrasil members like Suzumi, Aki, Kaoru and even Akito. Many users asking us for adult content (H content). Like we said before, we are always listening to our users and we will start our work on Adult Version of Bloody Chronicles. You mention the game will be made in 3 installments; are all these going to be funded this time or will there be three different funding opportunities – The current campaign will fund the first release, "New Cycle of Death." We are hopeful that through this initial funding drive we can create the first act and receive future funding through sales of the game. You mention the first part will be released in March 2017, but how much of the game is left to make? Will the other parts take as long to be released? -Our estimated release for Act 1 is next March. You can view our progress here:http://bloodychronicles.com/project-statusIf all goes according to plan, we're hoping to release Act 2 (Revenge) December 2017 and act 3 (Last Order) by October 2018. It's going to be a wild ride! With a Japanese style visual novel game it seems odd to have English voice actors. Can you explain how you came to use English voice actors? -To be honest, what we're doing is a bit unorthodox; while most of our team is located in Japan, we're focusing our efforts in the western market. Likewise, we wanted to reach out to English voice actors to fit our localization; they were very kind and offered their services wholeheartedly. We also wanted to try something else with the voice acting, to gauge how western audiences would see a visual novel that was catered towards them rather than Japanese audiences. How many different paths are possible in the game and how much do they actually affect the player’s progress or change the story? –There will be five unique "paths", one for each of the cast excluding the main character, plus one "dark" ending. We made the paths unique, so that you won't know the true story just playing through once, much like visual novels with branches. We've spent a year researching serial killers, how they work, and why it takes a while for police to catch them, if at all (such as the case of the zodiac killer.) The story in the demo is a little confusing. For instance, as detectives do they work for, with, or independently from the police? – Well, the demo was meant to establish the game engine as well as the UI, so we apologize if there was any confusion. There were a lot of things cut, such dialogue trees, since we're still working on those. In this universe, the organization is independent from the police, and they have funding through the Moriyama family. This means they don't have to be cooperative if the situation calls for it. However, there are a couple of characters who have ties to the police, so it's in their best interests to work together. 80 hours seems like a lot of time to fill with just the Phantom case, what else will happen in Bloody Chronicles? 80 hours is an estimate, so just take it with a grain of salt. The overarching narrative involves the Phantom as well as his effect on the other characters; almost everyone has a different motivation for capturing the killer. We're hoping that the series will captivate players by going through the multiple endings (which will be vastly different from each other.) These different branches will explain why Kazuki was spared in that accident that killed his parents, as well as the different murders that are happening while the case is underway.

Well, this one of course!

This is most likely a problem all of us have at some point. I am the same. But I have realized what my problem is. It is that I have too much on my hands. I got too many games, animes and VNs available and I am a human being which functions better if I don't got that many things to choose between. For example I was much better at doing anything when I was limited in what I could watch or play. When I was young and lived at home I was always anticipating Christmas and birthday. Because I would get something new I could immerse myself in for several months without getting anything new. In some rare cases I would get a game on release but I had to beg on my knees for it. But since Steam/Internet and credit cards was implemented in my life I got unlimited access whenever I want. I also learned how to get things the "shady" way which gave me endless possibilities. Just reading summaries of a game/VN or anime could be enough to add it on a backlog. That's a big problem. You have unlimited access to anything. You got hardrive(s) of games, anime, VNs, movies, TV-series and whatever you may save. That way you don't know what you want because you are content and pleased with what you have and know. You end up playing something familiar because: You are lazy, you can't force yourself to learn something new (can't learn an old dog to sit or what's the saying is) and you don't exactly know what the new thing is because you got hundreds of new things which means you have to research it again before you decide to play it. It is the same with anime and VNs. When I had a few series or a few VNs I would immerse myself into it and watch it nonstop and play every route etc. I could nonstop watch the few anime series I begun watching for hours. But my backlog and to do list grew bigger and bigger. Now it is just a list I don't even care about any more. I think it is a mix of me growing up a bit and the stagnation of "good" (subjective!) animes. I am a fan of long going anime series. I am not content or pleased with 1/2 cour animes. My list of VNs were very small in the beginning. It only consisted of a few selected and handpicked VNs from Fuwa. I played them thoroughly. I have never done that since my list of VNs grew bigger and longer. I don't know what to play because I got several VNs I want to play at the same time. I can't pick one. I end up doing nothing or pick something I haven't finished yet (which gets stalled again) I think the problem is the volume and hassle to pick something among the huge volume someone owns. I am not a lazy person but I am unstructured. If I have a few selected favorites and got a new game I would dive into it without hesitation. But today it is more of a commitment because it is easier to play and enjoy something I know than learning something new. And If I don't really know if I should begin game A or B. I end up doing nothing and browsing Reddit, YT or whatever place to pass the time. My way of solving this is: Remove stuff you aren't interested in. That includes everything. If you don't know if you want to play/watch it yet, remove it. This is something you have to feel. Do I want to play Game X now? No? Remove it. The fewer options the better. And you can always reinstall or acquire stuff later on. If you forgot about some games or so. That's good. You weren't interested from the beginning. I don't know if you own Steam. But that's a curse scrolling through your games even though you sorted them. You see X amount of titles you acquired from HumbleBundle (not interested at all), from Steam sales and I don't know what. Sort them into an undesirable folder. That way you don't see them when you are looking for something to play among the interested titles. Limit what your brain sees. Of course you can visit that undesirable folder later on to find something which is interesting now. Take one thing at a time. About games I decided to do a list I follow until I feel "completed". You force yourself to play stuff in an order. Just so you can't stall the selection and whenever you feel an urge to play something you already got that game picked. Your brain doesn't have to think. See 4 about when you could move on. When you move on you delete it so you can't say "I am just going to play this for a while" or so and then you indefinitely stall it. If it is about anime I pick one anime, watch it and then remove it. I have already removed every anime I don't know if I am gonna watch yet. I have a few selected animes I won't delete but I have saved those on a different location so I can't see them with my eyes whenever I want to watch something new. If you start something you continue until you are finished or feel completed. You don't have to complete it but you shouldn't feel that it was a waste and you have at least TRIED playing the game. If you don't enjoy the game move on. You can't like everything. I know it is so hard finishing something you have begun. But it is a mental thing in my case. You just have to force yourself to finish what you started if you enjoy it. Be it a VN route, the last 4 episodes of an anime or whatever. Just force yourself to watch it. Whenever I force myself to the end I feel a good satisfaction and I am pleased. Of course you could tweak it in your way. But this is how I try to pass my time during weekends and doing something "productive" on my spare time. How I write this is a bit radical and I am not following this point by point. But it is to give you and everyone else an idea how you perhaps could get motivation back. I am following this to an extent and I did follow this for a month until I felt I had begun playing games/watching anime again. Of course you are allowed to just browse shitposting sites too. But we all know that feeling "I want to do something" but you can't decide what to do. This is how to help with that. Hopefully. Edit: I never pre order things anymore and I try to limit my buys to a couple each year. For example I am so anticipating Warhammer: Total War. But I am not ordering until summer because I already got a lot of stuff already planned until summer. But because we got Seinarukana coming out soontm I am waiting for that game. And that's a game I know is at least 40 hours of dedicated gameplay. Why should I buy something else when I can't spare any time to play it? It is better to wait. The game is perhaps somewhat cheaper and patched later on anyway.

As a little followup to this, the game's translator posted on VNDB just recently that he was initially contacted a while back about this, told them that his fan translation wasn't good enough and shouldn't be used, then seemingly never heard from them again. So it seems unlikely that they're going to be using it. FW wanting to cover the localization costs ahead of time might be the reason for the kickstarter.

I think you're confused on this matter. "For sale in Japan only" only applies to eroge. They're not launching a Kickstarter campaign to release an eroge overseas. I'm not exactly a fan of Sekai Project, but FrontWing makes Sekai Project look quality-oriented and responsive to fans by comparison. I don't even need to think hard about this or "wait and see". There's no way I'm giving Frontwing my money to continue the march towards all-ageification and to treat the Western fanbase like targets for exploitation. If Sekai Project were releasing it I'd at least give them a fair hearing.

Honestly, the more I think about it, I believe the only reason they are doing this is to avoid the rules set in place by the ECOJ for selling media in Japan. The "Japan Sales Only" label means that they cannot sell their games outside of the country themselves, so by circumnavigating the issue with a Kickstarter, all they are doing is creating a loophole in order to not only earn extra money they don't need but also avoid being banned from selling their games in the Japanese market. In other words, by going through a 3rd party group, they are hiding their earnings and essentially "dodging" the ECOJ. As long as they aren't the ones selling the game, it's fine. Shady stuff.

This whole arrangement is dodgy, and Frontwing has been pretty shitty so far in the West. Really would be cautious with this.

r/vns can be really butthurt about Machine Translations, but yoy get used to it as time goes by. Good poll, and I kind of expected there to be a thread on reddit full of clashing opinions about the poll The results were interesting

I find this hilarious. Japan gets an English localization group to allow a popular VN to be sold outside of the country, then turns it around and makes their own localization group for an outside market knowing that most Japanese groups will stick to them since they know the industry on a local level. Classic Japanese otaku market money grab if you ask me. Sunrise did the same thing with Love Live (and those Panama Papers), so none of this surprises me one bit. On the other hand, the concept of "Japan Sales Only" is slowly becoming more and more lenient, so I do respect the country for that at least. Now if only Japan can see that Blu-ray sales at 6,000 yen a volume for 3 episodes need to stop and paid services for anime need to become a thing...

I dont' know how anyone can be happy or sad about this without knowing anything regarding front wing as a company to localize visual novels

I think you're missing a word there! And it doesn't hurt to try! we must protect Fuwa's honor!

It's a game that is now on Steam! It can be obtained over here - http://store.steampowered.com/app/436300/ It has full voice acting. Like over 2.5 hours of it. It's English of course Thanks guys

What Vn is that ?? I must know!

I don't really know of many movies of that sort...For animes you got quite a few but movies mmmmm. If you seek animes aswell i'd say you'll be fine with higurashi or Another to start with, I'll do some research into the movies though to see if i can find a good one

Alrighty done with it aswell, I myself use Chitrans and now I'm starting to try and make a different one work but so far Chitrands + Atlas works well even if sometimes makes a few mistakes or doesn't know some words also(i know it's silly) but I hope we surpass Reddit on votes brought to the poll! I screened and cropped it It was an interesting poll, thanks for linking it to us

Alright, I submitted my answers. Chiitrans is my favorite btw (thanks Deep Blue for introducing it to me).

Not sure if it's possible with Edelweiss like it is for other vn's out there that either are tweakeable by their files or simply include the option in the game itself, that being said I'll do some research and get back to you. Though this might get answered before I find anything

I second Deep Blue's and TemplarSeeker's suggestions. I would ignore School Days completely (based on what it seems like you are looking for), you will not feel good reading it - nor the money spent on it. It has its own merits, but it is a dark and miserable title, and a far cry from your expectations. Honestly, what a nasty troll.

I have taken everything you guys said into consideration, and here is a small teaser for this week's chapter, with some ... obvious new additions

Maybe a Clephas fanfic (based on my roleplay, which I'm sure at least some of you are familiar with), the results judged based upon prose quality, originality, and humor, maybe. This would be the entry level... with multiple judges just saying whether it is acceptable or not (My preferences are for Kaguya, Rooke, and one other random member besides me). Those that get branded as 'acceptable' will then be picked out by a random number generator in three stages for the three prizes. First prize is Tokyo Babel, second being a choice of the remaining two (or more if other people want to add to this silly contest), etc.

My absolute favorite: