sanahtlig

Kadokawa is Big Anime. Seems like they have their tentacles on half the shows coming out.

Winged Cloud is a special case because they rely on viral reviews that trash the game for attention. FuwaReviews deals with small-time publishers who probably want all the attention they can get. Dealing with companies like NISA is different. They have real leverage to suppress reviews they don't like--and they use it.

Solution: All reviewers pirate the game--for science. Developers and publishers would lose that particular influence over the review process (although they could still withhold advertising deals).

Do you think such users will start reading reviews thoroughly just because you take away scores? No, they just won't visit the reviews they didn't intend to read--or stop visiting the site entirely. In general, seeking to exclude users because they won't use your site as you intended is not a good strategy. You should seek to broaden your audience, not constrict it. Trying to get users to change their browsing behavior is futile. You can provide features that make intended behavior easier and therefore more common. Or you can directly address the demand for meaningful scoring, as I've proposed.

I use ITHVNR + Translation Aggregator. I made a poll on this so you can look at all the major options and see how popular they are.

Secondary reviewers would be expected to buy the game (assuming multiple free keys were not available). For reviews intended to be published on the day of the release, you raise a valid concern. Publishing before the review could be discussed in committee would sacrifice some of the benefits of the system I propose. However, one could still retain the scoring benefits by publishing the review without a score, then adding the score later after the committee scoring process had completed. Scores are intended for retrospective comparisons, so the time delay wouldn't have much impact on their utility. As for budget and manpower, such a system wouldn't have any monetary cost and would only present a small additional burden to the primary reviewer.

If it wasn't clear in my original post, I recommended recruiting volunteers from the community who would play the game and participate in the scoring process. You wouldn't recruit just anyone--only people who you think could give an informed opinion. The FuwaReviews staff member would write the review, so this wouldn't at all compromise the writing quality of the review itself. FuwaReviews lacks skilled review writers, but certainly not informed readers. And if you can't find secondary reviewers from the community? Then simply fall back on the existing system.

It wouldn't require extra manpower. You'd just need to select 2 other people (from the vast Fuwanovel community) who would play the game and could offer informed viewpoints. The only added time-sink would be the debate itself, which would take maybe 15-30min of the primary reviewer's time. This system wouldn't necessarily need to be implemented for every review, but for selected titles (e.g., major releases--which would likely also attract the most interest from secondary reviewers) the system could enhance the consistency and objective validity of FuwaReviews scores. The debate itself could be held in any medium, but voice chat would probably be most appropriate.

The problem with separate, dissenting reviews is that some information gets duplicated (or alternatively, new information is presented in each that should've been combined into one whole). In a full review, you're expected to objectively describe the story premise and gameplay (if any). This doesn't need to be duplicated multiple times. A dissent appended to the review would simply describe the difference in subjective viewpoints, and thus wouldn't duplicate information.

Allow me to propose a solution to the consistency problem, based on NIH grant reviews and judicial review in the US Supreme Court. Each game would be reviewed by 3 people. The primary reviewer (one of the staff of FuwaReviews, likely) would be responsible for writing the review to be published on FuwaReviews. The secondary and tertiary reviewers (not necessarily FuwaReviews staff, but chosen by FuwaReviews staff) would play the game, prepare an informal list of pros and cons, and a score. The 3 reviewers would then debate the content of the primary review and the score, either internally or as part of a public hearing (the latter could be quite entertaining). The primary reviewer would revise the review at his discretion. The ultimate score would be an average of the scores of the 3 reviewers (who would presumably revise their scores towards a consensus, if only a little). If any of the reviewers substantially disagrees with the primary reviewer, they could write a dissent which would be appended to the primary reviewer's review. FuwaReviews could decide at its discretion whether to publish just the consensus average, or also the score of each reviewer.

This topic came up when I was discussing LewdGamer's scoring system with them. I think the best way to handle this is to score reviews by category, either explicitly or implicitly. One could literally have a different scoring system for nukige vs. story-centric games, and these reviews would be cordoned off in different sections. Alternatively, reviewers would simply be asked to score games based on their ranking among similar games (and that would be spelled out in the scoring guide). For example, Yumina the Ethereal would be compared against other gameplay hybrids. Imouto Paradise would be compared against other nukige. For each game, the reviewer could identify the category of games the score is supposed to represent. It's important to clearly identify games that are best-in-class, and I think the scoring system I propose achieves that goal.

Scores provide a method for sorting and filtering reviews and the games associated with them. Perhaps I want to identify the games best-reviewed or recommended by Fuwanovel. Perhaps I'm looking for negative reviews to see what elements of the game they praise (praise from negative reviews is the most sincere form of flattery). Consistency of scoring among different reviewers (and even between reviews from the same reviewer) will always be a problem. But for that matter, the subjective bias from which inconsistent scores stem is the more fundamental problem--scores simply bring it into focus.

I listened to some short clips in a YouTube review and, I don't know--the ditzy English voice seems to fit the ditzy character of Sonico. Seems fine. And as the reviewer points out, Jessica Nigri IS more or less the English personification of Sonico. I wouldn't use the English dub, but I can definitely see how this is a great publicity move by JAST that could appeal to fans of the anime. Don't underestimate the size of the dub-only audience, nor the influence of an idol with her own rabid fanbase. I'm sure some people will pick this game up purely because Jessica Nigri is voicing Sonico. And that's not necessarily a bad thing--especially if that exposes them to other titles from JAST like School Days. I can definitely see myself reviewing and promoting this game simply because it's a great opportunity to attract new fans into the fold. I watched a short clip of the gameplay. As others have said, the other characters don't appear to be voiced in the JP version. I watched her converse with an older guy and only her lines were voiced.

No, Spanish is indeed a pretty easy language to learn. I took a few classes and that was good enough to understand public announcements unaided. I didn't put much effort into it and years later I still remember much of what I learned. You know how much Japanese I could read after an equivalent education? Zero.

My argument is ideologically motivated (at least in part). If I admit that we learn from fiction, then I have to admit that fiction can and should influence us. That means I have to admit that people are right to try and snuff out ideas in fiction that would be illegal or unethical in real life (because they could influence us to do harm). I would surrender the most effective counter to the argument that lolicon is wrong. I prefer to say: Fiction is fiction. Reality is reality. Those who try to link them together are the ones who can't tell the difference.

If I want my preconceptions challenged or to see other perspectives, I'll go argue with actual people on Internet forums. Like so. Fiction might give me ideas, and indeed I prefer works that have a self-consistent setting because I find that interesting. But does that translate into knowledge? Probably not.

I've indeed learned something from VNs. I learned Japanese. And that's all I expected to learn. I can't really say I've learned anything significant about life from reading fiction. If I want to learn something, I'll go read a Wikipedia entry (and I do plenty of that too).

With text hooking, yeah. Without, no. And the learning curve to read VNs with just parsing is still pretty steep. There's still a significant investment required before you get any return at all. For a beginner, that can still seem like a very high barrier for an uncertain return. A taste of what it's like to play any VN you want can provide the necessary impetus to make that investment.

I regard machine translation as a stepping stone to learning Japanese. Once you get a taste of the full spectrum of games available if you don't limit yourself to English games, you'll become more motivated to take the next step. Most people get stuck at the starting phase of learning Japanese because you can't actually read anything until you've acquired near-fluency. Machine translation allows you to see through the language barrier, even if the resulting picture is fairly distorted. It can also help you pick up some basic vocabulary early on through matching voices with the output, especially since MT will always give the same translation for the same word (human translators often won't).

Huh. Well if Sonico is the only voiced character, and this cosplayer really is that famous, then this sounds like a great publicity move. I just hope JAST prices the game in accordance with the actual content. I get the sinking feeling that they're going to charge a pretty sizeable sum for not much content.

Downvoted. But people talking different languages to each other is just bizarre. How could that possibly be considered a selling point? If the target audience is Steam players, will they actually appreciate this? My guess is... no. If JAST wanted this girl to cosplay market for them, they should've just hired her to do that. Of course, if they dubbed all the JP voices that would change my opinion. It's just an extra option. If it's not the default setting, it won't have any impact at all on your typical player.

Is this JAST's decision though? Really? It could very well be that this is something Nitroplus wanted. What I find odd is that they only mention one character getting an English dub. What about all the others? Are we going to see characters talking to each other in different languages: one in English and the other in Japanese?

Whatever you believe, the difference is important. My guess is that J-List's prices are so high for eroge imports because they buy the games at retail price rather than wholesale (because the distributors won't sell the products at wholesale price to a company that won't follow the rules against exporting eroge). Of course maybe the reason is much simpler: J-List can't buy the games in volume because the demand for Japanese-language eroge overseas just isn't there.

Sure, but if Amazon is allowing it, then there isn't some nefarious organization decreeing that visual novels are "For sale in Japan only". As far as I know, that's a rule that applies specifically to eroge, and those rules are set by the EOCS (otherwise known as Sofurin). Those rules have been strictly enforced since the Rapelay incident, and the reasoning is pretty clear. Wait, so Moogy is claiming that Frontwing is using the translation--against the protests of the authors--and isn't even compensating them? Bingo. This is what I've been saying all along (I would go ever further and say that the quality of the translation is only somewhat related to eventual popularity, and good marketing is a far more dominant factor). I don't necessarily mind using crowdfunding as a marketing tool to promote visual novel sales. The problem I have is that the campaigns themselves are somewhat exploitative and don't provide value to backers (my opinion). The greater problem I have is that Kickstarter campaigns are being used to fund eroge localization, which is dangerous because Kickstarter bans adult content. It's pushing the industry towards censorship, removal of adult content, and/or a focus on non-adult titles. I find the first two unacceptable, and the latter chilling for the future of eroge localization.

Check the context. It was clearly brought up in that thread to make a pinata out of me and anyone who isn't in their social clique of machine translation bashers. If that's the sort of mean-spirited, derisive tangent you'd want to inject into an unrelated topic, then I wonder what you're doing as a Fuwa moderator.