Leaderboard

I don't really know myself either, to be honest. I totally agree with what you're saying, it makes perfect sense. I just honestly get way too worked up about these kinds of things sometimes, and end up forgetting what point I'm even trying to make, lol. I should save that energy for the Moenovels and SakuraGames of the world, heh. There are some issues with the store, but it just launched so I am sure these are issues they will address in the future. (Like being unable to sell one of their own games. I am interested in seeing how they go about handling this one.) I do think they should still offer a link to their patches on the store, or if this gets them in trouble with their payment processor, at least mention that the games have been altered and that there is a patch available to restore the content. New customers finding this store, perhaps through the manga and light novels, won't know what "this is the all-ages version" means. The idea of patches being needed to play the full game is probably alien to them. They will probably get more "mainstream" customers specifically because Sol Press is a more "mainstream" company. I suppose this is the only real gripe I have with the site. The other companies you mentioned do this. KaguraGames offer the patches on their own website, which is linked on their Steam profile, and while CherryKiss does not have a store, we sell our games totally uncut on Steam. The theme here being that the patch / uncut versions of games are easily available and not hidden away on a secondary site that you need to know about to find. That I guess is the only real thing I would like to see them fix.

I don't really get what you're trying to argue here. If it's "every eroge localizer needs to have their own store", it would seem to be a silly thing to argue, given there are numerous other examples you can go after (at least one of which you yourself work for!). Sol Press making a store is independent of Panty Press making a store, for reasons which I think I laid out pretty clearly. Each of those actions comes with a separate cost-benefit analysis; the costs are separate (and quite substantial in both cases), and the benefits are separate (and much larger on one of those than on the other). What fact or consideration are you taking issue with here? There are lots of eroge loc companies performing this same cost-benefit analysis and ending up on one side of it (Denpasoft, Mangagamer, JAST USA), and lots of eroge loc companies performing the same analysis and ending up on the other side (Kagura Games, Cherry Kiss Games, Panty Press). I don't understand why it's something to get worked up about.

So, look at the Fuwanovel frontpage people! For the first time in history, it's officially out of beta! But damn, seeing it not frozen in time and grossly out-of-date... Eerie. Those years-old "newest releases" were hanging there since I've discovered this site. Maybe we still don't have fresh content, but such small things also make a giant difference. ^^

I think you severely overestimate how much cross-over there is between eroge and the rest of the anime stuff such as manga and light novels. If you're not coming from H-Manga, 18+ VNs is a huge jump to make (even for those used to normal porn). There's a whole bloody lot of stereotyping, and they're not even wrong most of the time (tentacle vore, anyone?). That said, I do agree with you on there being better indicators that the games can be patched, if at all possible. (But I agree with @adamstan too, so :P)

Not if you're good enough. It may not be optimal, and I still get editors for my projects, but if you can write your translation naturally you don't actually need an editor to avoid serious problems. Of course, few fan translators are at this level, and probably quite a few professionals either are not either or are not paid enough for trying to be worth it.

If you decide to go with it, please announce it here as well. Maybe I'll finally visit Pyrkon

Funny fact: a guy that lent me his laptop during the MLP con a few days ago, where I was talking about fan VNs, had like a full Type-Moon library there. But other then that, the only Poles I've seen being into VNs are on this Forum (whole two of them, other than me). When I spoke about VNs at university, to other people interested in fan studies, they only had a vague idea of what VNs are. I'd want to hold a panel on VNs on Pyrkon one day, that would be a good way to find out whether there are any hardcore VN fans among Polish otaku. :> Yup, this is the reason I don't see much potential for translating VNs into languages other than English and Spanish, Western market-wise. Obviously, it's always cool to make your project more accessible, especially if it's small hobbyist VNs, but I can't say I'd find doing such translating work appealing if there's barely any target audience for it.

The key difference you're missing is that Sol Press is an all=ages company which sells more than just all ages visual novels. They also sell other products (especially LNs and manga) from license holders which will not accept being associated with adult content (unlike most VN license holders, since even those releasing all ages content are typically comfortable with 18+ associations, by the nature of the VN industry). There could conceivably be both an all ages site for Sol Press and an 18+ site for the separate company which deals with 18+ releases of the associated adult content of some of the VNs for which Sol Press releases all-ages versions. However, said site does not currently exist. Maybe it will in the future; I do not know any more than you. The all-ages shop is a sound business decision, because they will benefit from selling their LNs and manga, and yes their all-ages VNs, themselves. Whether it makes sense for that separate company to make an 18+ site to sell their wares, and to then go through all the associated likely payment processor woes mentioned here, is a separate concern. I'll also add that, from my understanding, payment processors handling adult content typically charge a great deal more overhead due to the higher-risk nature of the product, especially when dealing with small companies. Long story short, it's a lot more complicated than you're claiming.

https://github.com/Sinflower/Translation-Aggregator/releases

So, I found this obscure idol group with a slight retro-pop/R&B feel and it became a constant source of amusement for me for some unexpected reasons... Otaku idol, lvl hard: Idol industry reality check, lvl soul-crushing: