Hello again, you degenerates. Today, instead of trashing one specific part of VNs, why not tackle everything wrong with VN localization companies in general? Mainly doing this because I feel like shitting on the reason I even get good VNs in the first place.
Well, here we go. No turning back from here
Mangagamer is easily my favourite localization company, yet this doesn't mean they don't have problems. First of all, the low pay that their editors apparently get. Editors do a lot more work than they're given credit for and unfortunately, they don't get enough respect and it shows in their paychecks. Also, maybe respect the opinions of beta testers more than you actually do. Damn, Mangagamer isn't that appreciative of jobs that catch mistakes before release, huh. This last one is a personal complaint for 2018. Stop flooding the market with so much moege. I get that you need to make money and all, but seriously. The amount of companies popping up that have been dedicated to this stale genre is quite appalling. I do respect this company the most though. My many complaints will be saved for later.
JAST is my second target and there's a lot to talk about with these guys. So much so that I'll split them up into numbered sections.
Make a damn release schedule. This company is the epitome of dropping a VN on people without so much as a release date at times. They're an incredibly unreliable company when it comes to knowing when things will come out. Hence all the memes about them.
Check their translations before putting out terrible demos. The Flowers debacle definitely didn't put the company's image in a good light and made us question whether or not Makoto was their only competent translator that they have hired at the moment. Luckily, they added Meru to fix up the next edition in that series.
#FreeMakoto
Release another worthwile Nitroplus game in this century. They've got such an amazing license in them and it's completely wasted on such a botched company.
#FreeMakoto
Hire more worthwile translators for their projects. Then maybe we'll get more than 1 or 2 VNs a year from them.
Sekai Project. Well well well. There's a lot to complain about here. I'm sure @Barry Benson would agree. Well, let's get on with it.
Stop using Kickstarters as a safety net. It shows that they clearly don't believe that the VNs you localize will sell well and that doesn't give VN companies a very good image of them.
Make an actual release schedule. Same criticism as with JAST
Check their translations. The fact that two botched translations came out in the same month is telling of how much they care about quality, and that needs to change.
Manage their localization projects better. It's because of these recent blunders that shine light on how terrible their project management is at the moment.
If they're not gonna be able to handle projects well, why get so many licenses? There's no point in handling as many projects as they have when they can't even properly release a quality translation.
SoL Press and NekoNyan Soft
Make sure to earn our trust. I'm usually extremely pessimistic about new VN localization companies popping up with some sort of ambition and both SoL Press and NekoNyan (God I hate that name) have questionable English in their demos and/or synopsis' and a certain reputation of certain people involved in said new companies. Mikandi is associated with SoL Press and we all know how botched their first release was. NekoNyan has people involved that worked on the botched releases of Saku Saku and Hoshimemo and that makes them untrustworthy to me. Sure, none of these companies have currently released a full fledged VN yet, but it's hard to trust them knowing the reputation behind both companies.
If your companies really want to show ambition in your aim to localize VNs, maybe focus on more than just moege. It's hard to see any sort of ambition if all they're trying to localize is something the VN market is already oversaturated with. Even 1 or 2 more VNs with more of a plot emphasis would definitely show me that you're targeting more than just one audience. To me, it's hard to care about a company that only has VNs of one genre planned for release at the moment. I'm hoping they improve on this in the future, but at the moment, this is a major problem with these companies.
Well, that took me way too long to write, but my negativity knows no bounds. Post your criticism of VN companies as well because I may have missed some points in my tangents.
(I realize that this was a massive waste of time, but oh well)
I'd have to be dumb to not know moege make more cash overall than story-focused games. All I want to see with companies is some sort of variety in releases, like what Mangagamer has been doing for the past couple of years now. Also, just because moege are a necessary evil, doesn't mean I won't stop ranting on how they plague the market with mediocrity. Sol Press may listen to fans and fix stuff up, but releasing a demo with a lot of errors right off the bat isn't an amazing sign of their quality. True, NekoNyan is still new, but they're gonna have those Sekai Project localizations over their heads until they end up releasing their first VN.
