sanahtlig

Many great minds have wondered why J-List charges so much for imports. I wonder if the reason is that they're buying the games at retail price instead of wholesale price? Usually in retail, merchants buy the games from the publisher at huge discounts. This allows them to heavily discount the games as time passes and enthusiasm wanes. But what if retailers had to pay list price? Obviously they have costs, so they'd have to markup the price substantially above the list price. Why would J-List have to pay list price? Maybe their sales volume is ridiculously low (the market for Japanese language games in English speaking territories probably isn't very large). Or maybe, the publishers don't appreciate J-List selling their "Not for sale outside Japan" titles outside Japan, and therefore refuse to sell to them at wholesale rate. Just some theories.

I also added a short conversation to the end of the Monday after they watch Elfen Lied. Those who have already read that part will want to reread it for the addition.

Investing in ads. You all heard it from the source. Next we'll find out Fuwanovel is trading on the NASDAQ and Tay is jumping ship with a golden parachute.

There's banner ads on major pirate hubs for Japanese content. Illegal anime sites and such. Yes, they're technically affiliate links. Well, let me define my usage for you. Banner ad: Broad-based advertising that targets all users of a given site. These ads can't be disabled (without addons or other tinkering) and you'll inevitably stumble on them in the course of normal browsing. I consider these "traditional ads". Affiliate link (my usage): A link, text or graphical, which is located in a particular area of the site. They might be grouped together under an "Affiliates" section. The link might be embedded in a review for the game. These links are highly targeted and are either optional to view (Affiliates section) or they could be considered genuine added content (they give the user an easy way to locate or purchase a title that they were likely interested in anyway because they're reading a review for the game). I consider the "affiliate links" on major pirate hubs, such as these anime piracy sites, to be traditional banner ads. My point is that the specifics of how the tool works don't matter (to users). It's how the tool is used. You could blame the pirate sites for the "bad" usage, or you could blame J-List. Either way, it doesn't make any difference to the user: obtrusive advertising is obtrusive. Users will blame whoever they want, not necessarily with any rhyme or reason.

That's not entirely true. J-List has banner ads on some major pirate hubs, for example. Mangagamer...well they're not exactly known for their effective marketing practices.

Alright then. Well, my concern is addressed now that I'm aware of the feature's existence. I can't necessarily say the same for others however. Thanks for the replies.

Oh, so there is a page. Maybe the graphic for the award in the user profile could link to the awards forum?

So I was inspecting my profile and I saw an award in it (It's Not Spam, I Swear!). I didn't realize I'd been given an award, but more than that, I was curious who else had been given the same award. I put the award title into Google but the results I got were simply individual user profile pages rather than an award database. So my suggestion is to notify users when they receive an award similar to the notification you get when a user "Likes" one of your posts, and also a feature that lets you view all the users who have been given a particular award. I think these small changes would contribute to the existing goal of recognizing community contributors.

MG's bestselling titles are their nukige. Sorry, but your articles will be praising the divinity of the urinating lolis in Imouto Paradise.

When in doubt, right holders are going to overvalue rather than undervalue their properties. They can always adjust their asking price lower in the future, but if they sell low to start with, there's no recovering the missed royalties they could've gotten if they'd held their ground.

The problem with banner ads is that savvy users will avoid / block them, while the unsavvy users (especially new users) may find them obtrusive and go somewhere else. Affiliate links are definitely a good idea. I don't see any downside there. I think a good compromise would be paid features: promotional articles that encourage people to buy games that you think the community or a segment of the community would like. You might be able to get JAST / Mangagamer to pony up for these, plus they'd drive affiliate link traffic.

My guess is many negotiations probably feature a combination of these two models: money upfront to justify their investment in assisting with the localization process, and a percentage of sales. JAST and MG don't talk about their business negotiations, so this is pure speculation. In any case, localization is mainly about fixed costs, so if Japanese publishers start demanding a higher cut on titles that don't have higher expected sales (because they can't be sold on Steam), then that could cut into JAST's revenue enough to make a particular project unprofitable or a loss.

Well, here's the counter: if Japanese companies start factoring expected success on Steam into their license fee equation, that shrinks the selection of available titles to license to ones that can easily be censored and sold on Steam. Imagine the next Shiny Days animated eroge comes out that JAST is interested in, and maybe the Japanese company demands 5x more in license fees than they would've otherwise. JAST tells them that censoring with this particular advanced game engine will be problematic, therefore the game can't be sold on Steam and sales will be below expectations. Japanese company shrugs and tells JAST to take a hike. Depending on your perspective, success of non-ero releases could be a bane or a boon. It might bring more companies to the bargaining table, but on the other hand it could also end up restricting choices too, just as the market demand for mosaic removal has led to projects being dropped in the past (negotiations with GIGA stalled for this reason).

I find that most well known VNs don't have satisfying romances. Romance is a subplot in VNs more often than not, just like mainstream novels and movies that always have a token romance to widen their appeal.

Peter Payne (owner of JAST and J-List) has been active in the JAST forums lately, and he had an interesting viewpoint to share that happens to coincide with mine. https://connect.jastusa.com/support/discussions/topics/5000037016/page/last#post-5000067148 This is coming from a guy who's managed to run a solvent eroge localization company for nearly 20 years now, during a time when all his peers were dropping like flies. And obviously he has insider behind-the-scenes knowledge of business negotations that we aren't privy to. So maybe it's a little early to go popping Champagne bottles at the burgeoning success of VNs on mainstream platforms like Steam and Kickstarter. Reading between the lines, my guess is that he's been in negotiations lately with Japanese eroge publishers who are demanding higher licensing fees because they're anticipating big success on Steam, perhaps to such an extent that it's killing negotiations that would've otherwise been successful.

Inspired by LinovaA's fantasy story, I dug up the opening to a fantasy roleplay I wrote about 12 years ago. Some context: This is the sequel to a long-running message board roleplay I participated in with several others. It's based on the PC RPG Baldur's Gate II, and the main character Aerie is a character from that game. We would take turns posting updates to the ongoing story. The writing style is a bit immature, but you can see some of the influences shared with Memory's Burden, the first chapter of Memory's Wounds. I wrote further additions to this story, but sadly they've long since been erased from the forum it was originally posted on. This is all I have left of it. Comments are welcome, but don't worry about in-depth line-by-line critique; it's an orphaned work that I don't intend to develop further, and I realize it has some issues that I would have to address if I were going to continue it now. Soulforge: Destiny's Prelude

An excerpt from the story I am currently writing. It hasn't even left the first draft stage, so it is pretty rough (emphasis on pretty). Also, you can kinda see where my name comes from if you pay attention. huehue. Regardless, I open the floor with this. Looking back through the topic, I finally spotted this. Didn't see it at the end of the post before. This excerpt is about a soldier scouting an unfamiliar forest for enemies. The except ends with the soldier under attack by 1 or more assailants with a bow. I found this excerpt rather disorienting. Is it the opening to a larger work? It seemed like thoughts were all over the place, even in the same paragraph. I lost track of what the soldier was even there for, and had to reread to write my summary. Sometimes the word choice seemed off (lumbered through the woodwork?). While you might have been trying to make a pun, doing so in the opening description where the readers have no idea what's going on yet is probably not the place. You might want to think about how you can shorten sentences, trimming unnecessary information and words to convey your ideas more clearly. You have a very descriptive writing style. If you can focus that you could end up with very vivid scenes that draw the reader into your world.

As for the comment about studying and utilizing literary techniques in light novels...I'm actually ignoring the #1 piece of advice: read light novels. I was actually looking at it not so much for tips, but to figure out what to call this story. I thought I might call it a light novel because it's somewhat anime-inspired, but then I realized that wouldn't be accurate because there's no illustrations. And I can't draw so there won't be unless a talented person decided to help me. On that note, there are moments where I kind of wish I had illustrations. I do what I can to describe moments intended to be poignant in such a way that it *feels* like there's an illustration. I haven't read a single light novel in my life. And actually, I haven't done any significant fiction reading (outside RPGs and VNs) in probably 10 years. I'm probably completely out of touch with the Western audience at this point, lol.

@Zalor: Your criticism of Sena is probably valid. The character concept itself is idyllic, in part because it has to be. If she wasn't the way she was, Brian wouldn't be so enamored with her; this wouldn't be a turning point in his life worth recounting. He's a 2D-con, and much of the story is about how his attitudes begin to shift. He's likely met other girls like Sena, certainly when he was a middle schooler himself, whom he never gave a passing glance. So my response would be: Sena is special. In particular, she's special to Brian. There is more to Sena than what you can see through Brian's eyes, especially at this point. He admits he hardly knows anything about her. On the other hand, at least so far as Brian is concerned right now, that's not important. As one who's been trying to distance himself from his past and escape from reality all his life, he's not inclined to pry. That's just how he is. As for the reason Sena is why she is: I hope that'll eventually come together as the story progresses. As hinted at in the opening session when Brian first met the class, his presence isn't particularly wanted. Volunteers are treated like this more often than you might think. Mrs. Weinstein doesn't really care what he does with his time, or even if he shows up at all. As far as she's concerned, letting him private tutor Sena was a perfect excuse to get him out of her hair and let her get back to her usual routine (of getting her own work done). She evicts him from the classroom precisely because his singular focus on Sena was disruptive. She can do this because Brian isn't paid and therefore she has no obligation to make sure he's fulfilling his job role. If he was getting paid, that would've changed the situation. As for the grades changing...8 years is a long time. I'll quote you the relevant segment:

Glad you like the scene. I've paused to do some planning and flesh out the 4 month period (until now I mostly had focused on scenes for the first 4 weeks). Writing something extended like this is challenging, especially since I'm basically releasing it in serial updates like a manga. Once I've written something into the story, I can't really take it back without causing continuity issues, so I have to make sure I have a clear idea of where the story is going. The style of the "sequel" (Ch. 2 onwards) is quite different from Memory's Burden. It ended up being very dialogue heavy, and I've had to think about how to make the dialogue flow without inserting unnecessary filler words like "Brian said" all the time. I've tried to focus on minimalism: not having too many filler words and really making sure every scene showed something important about the characters or pushed the story forward. One consequence of this has really surprised me; this post is written at an 11th grade reading level, but Memory's Wounds (Ch. 2 onwards) is written at a 3rd grade reading level! I did however worry that people might not be able to follow the dialogue since the speakers are often not explicitly stated (I read a guide about writing light novels that specifically mentioned that the heavy dialogue typical of light novels can disorient Western readers, who aren't used to it). It helps a bit that the speakers have somewhat different speaking styles.

Any comments? I'm kind of surprised at the sheer amount of progress I managed to make in just 3 days. I averaged about 3000 words a day, or about 8 pages single-spaced. I'm pretty sure that's the fastest writing pace I've ever sustained. I was driven to an extent that surprised even myself. I basically did nothing except work on this story.