RikiSanic

It was already confirmed by Aginyan in that reddit post that dovac is still working at Sekai Project. Unless something has changed since then, I speculate that he's just removed himself as a public figure at the company so he's no longer the center of attention.

Eh, you're right. It's been ten days since anyone's posted in this thread so I forgot to see what kyrt might've been responding to. My point still stands that Sekai Project themselves have never called the Denpasoft version "uncensored" and that the Kickstarter page has been pretty clear as to what they're bringing over. It's best to refer to Sekai Project's marketing material for the most accurate information. Nutaku did call Baldr Sky "Baldr's Sky" in their blog post, after all.

To be fair, they never once used the word "uncensored." The exact quote on the issue is: "The Nutaku/Denpasoft digital and physical versions are the same version as sold in Japan just in English." I think they're pretty clear on what they mean. I will admit I'm somewhat interested about what they have to say regarding mosaics, though. Not because it's a big deal for me, but because the only thing we have to go on is a comment on the Kickstarter saying Sekai Project responded to their question and said that the original assets were lost. Maybe they talked about it somewhere else and I didn't notice, but I don't think we have an official statement to go off of right now. I do know that for the Ne no Kami campaign they got the artist to redraw the H-scenes, so it's not like it's impossible for Sekai Project to localize something without mosaics. It's probably unique for every partner. Who knows, though, maybe when they finally announce stretch goals one of them will be redrawn H-scenes (big maybe).

I feel like there are a good number of people who wouldn't want to be beholden to Nutaku's platform, just like there are those who still want nothing to do with Steam. For instance, MangaGamer has a few of their titles on Nutaku, but how many people from this community would want to buy from Nutaku instead of MangaGamer? But if it gets to the point where Nutaku eclipses Denpasoft in every way, I guess it wouldn't be impossible that Denpasoft would fade into obscurity. They'd have to get rid of the Denpasoft ambassador they just hired though. Also, if they ever want to sell something Nutaku wouldn't allow, Denpasoft would be a good backup to have.

Even if Sekai Project doesn't license any more nukige than they do now, this is still a very valuable partnership for them. All of the major titles they announced this year have adult content; this is par for the course in the visual novel industry, obviously. Sekai Project knows this, and they know people want the adult content. Being able to sell the adult version on a potentially lucrative platform is a necessary negotiating tool if they want to secure the adult version for future releases. In all likelihood, if they didn't make a partnership like this, then we'd be stuck waiting for Denpasoft to become a viable platform before adult versions for every release would become a reality. I also don't think this is the death of Denpasoft, though. Like Chrono Clock, many future titles could be timed exclusives, and Denpasoft would be the go-to place for people who don't want to buy from Nutaku. Regardless of how things turn out, this is still a better direction for the 18+ side of Sekai Project. If it becomes a success, I don't see any reason why SP wouldn't focus more on adult VNs. Money is money, and they are a business, after all.

Well, if Chrono Clock is any indication it's possible that future titles might end up on Denpasoft a month or so after their Nutaku release. They also recently announced the addition of a new Denpasoft "ambassador," so they're definitely not giving up on it, but it'll be interesting to see what kind of role it'll be playing with this Nutaku partnership in the mix.

http://www.nutaku.net/blog/nutaku-sekai-project/ Key quotes: "Nutaku will take a significant role in distributing the adult versions of upcoming Sekai Project titles." "We’ll also be lending our voice to requests for adult versions of games, ensuring that Japanese developers can be confident in a judgement-free zone of enthusiasts waiting to enjoy the product of their labors." "...these games are translated by Sekai Project and delivered to you with no changes on the part of Nutaku." "Nutaku will serve as the main distributor of the adult version of [ChronoClock], though it will also appear later in the year on DenpaSoft, Sekai’s adult wing." "We hope you share in our excitement for...hosting the adult versions of many future Sekai Project titles!"

I think one problem Frontwing is going to run into is that the western market doesn't need to see every VN localized. The western fanbase generally reacts well to VNs that sold well/are well-regarded/have a good reputation in Japan. In that AMA Frontwing said that they have hopes to localize every VN of theirs. Honestly, that's a waste of time. They should be focusing on localizing their works that are actually good (or thought of as good by Japanese buyers). Western fans don't react to brands like Japanese fans do, and they won't buy every VN out of loyalty—especially if it has a negative reputation. Bringing over any and every VN will just saturate the market further, probably to the point where a company would even be competing with itself by releasing so many VNs. The western market isn't nearly big enough to support the number of releases that Japan does. Corona Blossom doesn't look like a VN that needed to come over to the west before Japan. I think they should be content with their Indiegogo campaign doing as well as it did (they plan on doing more for the rest of the series), and hope that their sales will even out once all the volumes are released. Also, having to buy a patch on a third party site like dlsite is a big deterrent. I'm glad I got a code from being a backer because I don't think I'd be willing to give out my payment information to a site I never use.

All I can say is that I didn't have the same experience. It's legible and makes sense for the most part, but if you have a critical eye you can spot many errors—and I can be pretty forgiving, so I'm sure there are those who will take greater issue with the translation. It just didn't seem like the translator had a good command of English. I remember a number of times when it'd drop the article in "a little," as in "that's little strange" instead of "that's a little strange." Tons of little mistakes like that. It's not a total disaster or anything, and you can read for a while without coming across any errors, but it pulled me out of the story more than once. I could definitely tell a difference in translation quality when I started reading the fan disc. I wouldn't call it a good translation by any means. It wasn't awful, but it needs some work before I'd call it good.

It's readable, but that's about the best I can say about it. It's full of awkward English and overly literal language. Some parts are better than others, but expect to be editing while you read along if you want something that reads well.

I read Kira Kira earlier this year and I can confirm that the translation is indeed a leftover of MangaGamer's early bad translations. And yes, I bought and downloaded it through them, so it was the newest possible version.

Just checked and it didn't mention any localization staff. :\

True. The hope is that if a translator does a good job Sekai will hire them again, and eventually, after working with a number of good and reliable translators, they'll finally have a "team" of quality translators, similar to the way MangaGamer operates now. All it requires is someone at Sekai Project who can spot the good from the bad. I don't know whose responsibility that is but I hope they're keeping a lookout. For starters, though, they should definitely hire KARAKARA's translator again, if they're open.

Hm, I had no idea that the Tenshin Ranman translator needed to be replaced; no wonder it didn't get much progress for a long time now. I will say that the KARAKARA translation was pretty damn solid from what I can tell. Definitely one of Sekai Project's best releases, translation-wise. Hopefully that trend continues.

That just means MangaGamer is better at announcing titles they've already begun translation work on. My main point was that publishers will add titles even if they have a backlog. As long as the new wave of titles is in a different stage of development, then that shouldn't affect too much what's being worked on currently (theoretically). Two of the big titles Sekai Project announced this year are using finished fan translations, so I still feel like their backlog is manageable and not out of control—not yet, at least. One other title that was released timely from Sekai Project is KARAKARA. They estimated the release date back in February when the Indiegogo campaign launched and they managed to hit their date exactly. Pretty impressive for Sekai Project.

I think they're kind of finally getting a hold on their Kickstarter campaigns, though. Grisaia should be fully translated by the end of the year (whether or not it releases by then is a different story), World End Economica's third episode is finally coming out soon, Narcissu has had steady releases, Memory's Dogma's first part is coming out soon, and Vita ports have been officially announced. They also haven't launched a Kickstarter since Root Double back in January. They did launch two Indiegogo campaigns since then but their turnaround has been much faster. Still, other than the Nekopara anime, they haven't announced plans for more Kickstarters of their VNs, which is what I'd be concerned about. People are complaining that their non-crowdfunded titles are taking too long to come out. How do we know that they aren't focusing on their crowdfunding promises while those are being translated? Like I said, though, they've had three panels in the past month and have only announced a few doujin titles. With only one planned convention left, it seems a little weird to tell them to stop announcing stuff. They probably will stop soon. edit: Look at it this way: if Sekai Project had planned Kickstarter projects for even two or three of the VNs they announced this year, I'd be concerned too. But it honestly looks like their non-crowdfunded titles are taking longer than their crowdfunded projects. It's not like the promises to their backers are going to the wayside and other titles are being released sooner. It seems like they're just slow in general.

This complaint is a little silly, though. People were disappointed that Sekai Project didn't announce a whole lot and yet MangaGamer announces 5 major titles and everyone's happy to accept. At this point, though, MangaGamer has announced more big titles than Sekai Project this year, and they have even more unreleased titles that were announced previous years. For example, MangaGamer still hasn't released Bokuten, Himawari, Da Capo 3, Kuroinu, and the Shadows of Pygmalion. Sekai Project's unreleased major titles from last year are Chrono Clock, Tenshin Ranman, and Wagamama High Spec. As you can see from their translation progress page, titles are being worked on, and many of their smaller VNs (some announced just a few months ago) are already 100% translated. Their big titles seem to progress rather slowly, which can be annoying, but the translations are all contracted, so it's not like they can force them to hurry up. They're also not going to wait for all of their titles to finish before they license more, because every publisher needs a constant stream of work so they can stay in business. Look at MangaGamer's backlog: https://vndb.org/p428. If you remove the EVNs and currently-in-development titles from both companies, the number of titles each have is about the same, even though Sekai Project has more doujin VNs. Wait for convention season to be over and check back in a year from now. If they still aren't close to releasing their earlier announced titles, then you can worry.

I'm interested in what MangaGamer has with those 3 titles from established partners. They definitely haven't come close to mining all the good titles from the companies they've worked with, so it'd be nice to see their partnerships continue. Maybe we'll finally get some more titles from their older partners, like Navel or Caramel Box. Or is that out of the question at this point? As for Sekai Project, they recently had a panel last Friday at another con and nothing came out of it, and they still have at least 3 more cons planned including Otakon (one of them being another panel at Anime Fest the day after their Otakon one). Either they're spreading their announcements out or they don't have much more to announce, it's kind of hard to tell with them since they've already announced so much this year alone. We do know that they didn't get through everything at Anime Expo, so hopefully they'll at least get their 18+ news out. That would help to quell the... "fervor" within the VN community right now. Oh, and maybe Sekai will announce a more specific release window for A Clockwork Ley-Line. It has to have been in the pipeline for a while now and their website still says "releasing in 2016."

Many people will say that not getting the original 18+ version will make or break their decision to purchase. Therefore, 18+ content must inherently hold a lot of value to people. It's not unreasonable to assume that this would result in an increase in price—the more people want something, the more they are willing to pay (to a certain extent). Regardless of whether it makes sense to or not, the stark disparity between both versions will have many questioning the adult content's worth. And if it's in the form of a patch people will attribute that to "paying for DLC that should've always been there", even though that's not really the case. Why, though? This has been going on for a while. And your claim that every big name VN on Steam has released free 18+ patches is straight up false. I don't believe MangaGamer has ever done so, and neither has Sekai Project. Grisaia? No free patch. What big name VNs have given free patches other than perhaps Muv Luv? (And they haven't gotten their patch out yet.)

If companies were to price adult versions proportionally then adult versions would cost like 2 or 3 dollars more. I doubt even their partners would approve that. In reality, people seem to be fine paying $10 more as long as the adult version costs more than $20, and are even more willing if it's $30 or more. The closer you get to the $10 extra being half the price of the full VN, the more people will complain it seems. I guess that's the reality Sekai Project will face as long as they price their cheaper titles this way—unless they decide to change the way they do things.

You're right, it's not rational and that's why I have trouble agreeing with some of the overcharging for adult content accusations. As someone who's played both, Kira Kira's adult content is probably 10% of the VN at most and KARAKARA's is around 25%. Put another way, 1/3 of Kira Kira's price represents 10% of content, whereas 1/2 of KARAKARA's price represents 25%. Just in terms of the ratio of content, KARAKARA is a better deal (of course, Kira Kira is a much longer game, but that doesn't change the fact that those who buy the all ages version pay less for just a small reduction in content). I realize that it looks worse from a glance in KARAKARA's case, but all ages buyers are always getting a heck of a good deal as long as you're paying $10 more for adult content. It's always been disproportional. I don't actually see a problem with pricing VNs highly—at launch. Let's say you have 1,000 buyers who will pay any price for a VN. It makes sense to get the most out of this group as possible. But let's also say 3,000 people would be willing to pay half the price. This is why value should depreciate after a certain amount of time. Clannad's pricing was actually smart in this sense. The bottom line: put your VNs on sale! I know Japanese partners can make this difficult but it's the only way to get residual sales.

The only issue I have with this is that the precedent for all ages costing less than the adult version has already been set—and not by Sekai Project. Kira Kira costs $30 on MangaGamer's store but has an all ages version for $20. The price difference is the same for Princess Evangile's two versions: $10. Is the adult content for both VNs worth the ten extra dollars? The crux of the matter is: Is KARAKARA's short length the only reason people are miffed about paying $10 more? Would people not care as much if it were $5 more instead? Or are people upset that they have to pay for a patch at all? Because if patches were to become free then that would further invalidate the need for Denpasoft, which I don't see to be good for the prospect of future adult releases from Sekai Project. I'm under the impression that Sekai Project has been working on Koikuma for a while, and presumably their work has only been on the adult version because even they didn't know that the Japanese developer wanted a Steam version (even their press release said "coming soon exclusively to Denpasoft.com"). In this case, I think Sekai Project should really consider releasing the adult version first on Denpasoft. They need to cultivate an audience for their adult platform, and I don't see a better way to do so. Another simultaneous release would steer Denpasoft even further from relevancy. I've also heard that Koikuma would need a lot of sanitizing to make it suitable for Steam, so maybe a patch wouldn't even be practical. This could be a positive for directing people to Denpasoft if they want the best version.

The problem with these pricing discussions is that just because it might be the most fair to you doesn't actually mean it makes business sense. Setting the Steam price for $15 and the patch price for $5 presents us with one dilemma: now Steam users have to pay 5 extra dollars for a VN that's already pretty short and has less content than the original. Honestly, I think it'd make more sense to explore 12 to 8 pricing ratios instead, rather than half and half. Regardless, though, if you want the 18+ version you're paying the same thing no matter what the patch is priced at. I wonder if people would be more comfortable paying $10 more for 18+ content if the Steam version was in the $30 range? Right now Princess Evangile is on Steam for $34.99, whereas it is $44.95 on MangaGamer's store. That's a $10 difference, and there isn't even an option of upgrading via patch. The real solution to this "if only the price were lower" discussion is using sales to capture more buyers. Personally, I've been somewhat interested in buying Princess Evangile for a while now but MangaGamer's store has infrequent and insignificant sales and even Steam has only ever had a 20% discount even though it's been out for over a year now. These pricing discussions would matter less if some VNs depreciated in value more fairly. And as long as both the adult and Steam versions have a discount at the same time, the best option for people not comfortable with the price would be to wait. Seems fair to me. For example, both Clannad and Grisaia got 50% discounts less than a year after release and practically doubled their sales numbers in both cases, becoming some of the best selling VNs ever sold at that price range (obviously, the anime effect also plays a big role). By the way, if you want the best price everyone should seriously consider backing the Indiegogo campaigns for these VNs. The 18+ version of KARAKARA was $10, and Corona Blossom's was $15. You get them much cheaper just for pre-ordering.

While dovac might've been behaving unprofessionally, he was in no way obligated to give a "formal request" through email. The only formal request he's likely to give is a C&D order, which is certainly in his legal right to do so. I don't know, in the end dovac is still the immature and young CEO of a visual novel localization start-up that he's always been, whereas imoutoworks is stealing from creators because baddie Sekai Project wants to charge money for extra content.

Content gets removed, price goes down. Content gets added, price goes up. That much should be obvious. The only real discussion to be had from there is what the pricing of the extra content should be, and whether or not it makes more sense to have everyone pay the same price (making it more expensive for Steam users) and give out a patch for free. Personally, I don't mind paying for patches and I prefer it since Steam tends to have more sales and I gain a little extra change by selling cards. As for why certain VNs' patches cost double the Steam version, it's probably because the Japanese version costs around $20. This is especially relevant for Nekopara and KARAKARA, which are both multilingual releases. For example, if you don't like the price of Nekopara Vol. 2 on Denpasoft then you can buy it on DLsite—but it'll still be $20 no matter what (I think it's even a bit cheaper on Denpasoft). Giving out a patch for free would be undercutting their own sales since the original price is higher than Steam's.