Sekai Project depends on crowdfunding entirely too much

[sanahtlig]

Well, they have two 18+ only yuri titles lined up right now. It's not that they won't release any eroge, it's just that they know where most of the money is at right now.

What titles are those?

[Decay]

What titles are those?

Sacrament Sheep and Atom Grrrl!!

 

Also somebody give Nayleen even more work to do, we need some kind of VNDB integration so I don't have to constantly search for stuff on VNDB when linking VNs.

[Chuee]

 

Business 101. How much do you think it takes to manufacture an iPhone 6? The maximum retail value is not attributed to the cost of production - it scales with consumer demand.

 

 

Yeah, if it's a reasonable difference. The higher tier kickstarter pledges are mostly always things that people will be willing to pay a ton for but cost and take very little effort to actually make. I've seen things like having a fucking lunch with the people behind the project. Costs them hardly anything in return for a high value pledge. Same thing with stuff like Grisaia where you get a hand-drawn picture by one of the artists. For them to just draw a character doesn't cost them nearly anything monetarily and time-wise. Things like that aren't really necessary to fund the project and end up being methods to lure out the money of die-hard fans, which Grisaia and Clannad have quite a few of. 

[Decay]

Everyone who buys into those tier levels know exactly what kind of deal they're getting, and are basically knowingly donating to cause.

[astro]

Yeah, if it's a reasonable difference. The higher tier kickstarter pledges are mostly always things that people will be willing to pay a ton for but cost and take very little effort to actually make. I've seen things like having a fucking lunch with the people behind the project. Costs them hardly anything in return for a high value pledge. Same thing with stuff like Grisaia where you get a hand-drawn picture by one of the artists. For them to just draw a character doesn't cost them nearly anything monetarily and time-wise. Things like that aren't really necessary to fund the project and end up being methods to lure out the money of die-hard fans, which Grisaia and Clannad have quite a few of. 

You realize that shikishi alone can auction for thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars, right?

[Suzu Fanatic]

Whatever gets the job done, as far as I figure. I'm not going to get upset about any moral implications about "how" crowdfunding should/should not be used - if it can bring things people want, more's the power to it.

 

Besides, if I were to touch on the moral stance - Sekai has been helping push forward many small indie devs (too many imo, alot of amateur stuff mixed in), so can hardly say they are playing a crowdfunding monopolizer.

 

A tool is a tool, doesn't matter if it's a prince or a puaper using it - as long as it's used.

[Chuee]

You realize that shikishi alone can auction for thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars, right?

 

Doesn't really change the fact that the process in and of itself is rather dirty because of just how much of a profit return you make from selling things like that. That's why you don't have businesses produce a set number of things like that and throw them out to sell for outrageously high prices. That's not even considering that SP Kickstarters have things like autographs in the 1,000+ tiers, which most famous people will usually give out for free. 

[Decay]

I don't understand WHY it's dirty. You're saying it's a dirty business tactic because they make a lot of money off of it? Is every highly profitable business tactic inherently dirty? That doesn't make much sense. I don't understand what is ethically wrong about selling a high demand item for a high price. And yes, businesses do this kind of thing all the time, charging premiums for limited edition game/movie/music packages, special rare figurines and other collectables, etc.

[Eclipsed]

It's dirty because we said so. Look at all other major VN localizing company and their lack of reliance on Kickstarter. That's the right way to go. Any other method and we'll call it dirty no matter what 100% it's dirty end of story.

[sanahtlig]

 

I don't understand WHY it's dirty. You're saying it's a dirty business tactic because they make a lot of money off of it? Is every highly profitable business tactic inherently dirty? That doesn't make much sense. I don't understand what is ethically wrong about selling a high demand item for a high price. And yes, businesses do this kind of thing all the time, charging premiums for limited edition game/movie/music packages, special rare figurines and other collectables, etc.

I'm not fond of free-to-play models for the very reason that they tend to victimize a certain subset of susceptible users while encouraging poor game design.  But here... well, if there's people out there that want to be parted with their money, I suppose there's no reason to stop them.  It's not really any worse than buying up every single title a company releases just to support them, regardless of whether the games appeal to you or they're any good.  In a sense, I'd rather they just throw down $1000 on a worthless backer tier than skew the sales data with their nonsensical dollar votes.

 

Also, those yuri games look like run-of-the-mill doujin titles.  No wonder I ignored them.

[Chuee]

I don't understand WHY it's dirty. You're saying it's a dirty business tactic because they make a lot of money off of it? Is every highly profitable business tactic inherently dirty? That doesn't make much sense. I don't understand what is ethically wrong about selling a high demand item for a high price. And yes, businesses do this kind of thing all the time, charging premiums for limited edition game/movie/music packages, special rare figurines and other collectables, etc.

 

And people call them dirty for it because it is. You see people accuse video game companies of dirty practices from DLC content all the time. I'm saying it's dirty to use it as a method to increase profit. Companies would and should never treat something like shishiki or 'rare collectibles' as a means to gain profit because items like those are intrinsically what will yield you the highest profit gain out of literally anything. It's not too bad if they just draw something at an event and decide to give it away, but if a company produces something like 20 of them and starts selling them it looks really greedy, especially so if they have no need for that money to begin with. 

[astro]

Companies would and should never treat something like shishiki or 'rare collectibles' as a means to gain profit

Honestly, you're talking as if you were born yesterday...

[sanahtlig]

And people call them dirty for it because it is. You see people accuse video game companies of dirty practices from DLC content all the time. I'm saying it's dirty to use it as a method to increase profit. Companies would and should never treat something like shishiki or 'rare collectibles' as a means to gain profit because items like those are intrinsically what will yield you the highest profit gain out of literally anything. It's not too bad if they just draw something at an event and decide to give it away, but if a company produces something like 20 of them and starts selling them it looks really greedy, especially so if they have no need for that money to begin with. 

I really don't have much sympathy for collectors getting preyed upon by overpriced collectibles, or even mainstream buyers (often kids) getting preyed upon by DLC which offers cosmetic items.  But as soon as I feel the strategy has shifted to "pay-to-win" or "milk the consumer for content that should've shipped with the game", I'll take my business elsewhere.  EA often perilously toes that line with their Bioware titles.  In the end, others subsidizing your purchases with their expenditures often benefits you, so I don't see a reason to get too aggravated.  That doesn't mean I might not look down on the company for such practices, or be a little less willing to promote their titles.  Customer respect is difficult to earn and easily lost.  In a world where a freebie is always a few clicks away, in a market where the majority of users never spend a dime on their hobby, some companies would do well to remember that.

[Fred the Barber]

The most confusing part of this thread is where everybody assumes that Sekai Project is making money hand-over-fist. There is no basis for that, and I can only assume that the people making that assumption have no concept of at least one of these things, and probably all of them:

- what a large variety of tasks requiring a variety of different skilled laborers (translators, software developers, etc.,) go into localizing a VN

- how expensive it is to employ said skilled labor

- how many hours of said skilled labor go into creating the final product

 

This is, by the way, also the reason that fan translation projects are slow, unreliable, and rare.

 

The point is, I doubt any of MangaGamer, JAST, or Sekai Project is making substantial amounts of money in terms of net profit. Frankly, I imagine they feel good about themselves if they're able to pay their employees reliably, especially in the case of Sekai Project, being the new kid on the block.

 

On the topic of "morality" of Kickstarter: the only way I can see there being some moral issue here is if you believe Sekai Project is taking advantage of people by misleading them about what exactly a Kickstarter pledge will entail. Kickstarter itself makes its guarantees abundantly clear. Anybody who claims to not understand what they're getting when they make a Kickstarter pledge is either lying or stupid.

 

As someone who threw a few hundred dollars at the Sekai Project Clannad Kickstarter, I can assure you I was not misled, nor am I an idiot. I simply have disposable income and a desire to support the artists who make things I'm passionate about. Consider this counter-intuitive, but true, statement: Kickstarter is a great platform for people like me because it allows me to pay more money for products I'm passionate about, versus simply buying that product at retail.

 

If you go back a hundred years, the prices different people paid for a similar product from the same seller were radically different; haggling doesn't really exist anymore, and mass-production has made it possible to have some guarantee on "sameness" that didn't really exist before, which also contributes. This has served to squeeze out a lot of the long tail of potential creations - things that a small number of people would pay a lot for. High art has always gotten by, but very recently there's been backlash against this more broadly, and now "artisanal" products are becoming common. Kickstarter, specifically the part of it that enables you to pay different amounts of money based on how much you value a product, is a part of this same trend. There's nothing wrong with it - it's just a bit weird to us, because we're so used to everybody paying the same price for identical goods. But no economist will tell you that's how things should or must be - different people value the same good differently.

[Getsuya]

Pretty much all the Kickstarter`d games are given an all-ages release (or are exclusively all-ages releases). Therefore Kickstarter is just and right. Self-funded companies like MG and whatever that other one is put out porn, thus they are evil and bad.

 

Serious talk though Japanese companies don`t like taking risks. Not even a little. Before Kickstarter there was absolutely no big success or huge outpouring of support in the American VN community that localization companies could show to Japanese companies to gain their support. It was a huge uphill battle for localization companies to finally squeeze a contract out of Japan, and the trickling sales over a long, drawn-out period of time for VNs before probably weren`t lighting any fires in Japan. Then we have Kickstarter. Localizer says `I can make your game big in America` Japanese company says `Oh really?` Localizer says `Yeah this Kickstarter for it just raised tons of money with tons of backers pre-ordering` Japanese company says `Oh, cool, well then let`s do this` because there`s no longer any risk or fear of failure at that point.

[Decay]

 

- how expensive it is to employ said skilled labor

 

lol if you think any of the people hired by any of these companies are being paid well. It is a requirement for the people they employ to be motivated by passion for the games they work on rather

than by money, because they get paid a laughable amount. Like, a tiny fraction of what actual translators get paid. All people hired by MG, JAST, and SP are essentially volunteers with minor benefits.

 

Except for Clannad, where Sekai Project used all the money they acquired to hire multiple translators at, AFAIK, the actual standard wage for translators, which is why progress is so fast. But even still, they can pay to make it fast, but apparently not pay to make it good, because according to Herkz the quality of their work is leaving something to be desired.

 

edit: I do agree that people heavily underestimate the operating costs of these companies and overestimate their profit margins. I'll toss a guess out there and say that Sekai Project still is not exactly laden with cash, they seem to be spending it as quickly as they're getting it in order to keep the gears turning. But my point is that the "skilled labor" issue is worked around by not actually paying them much, which is achieved by not actually employing "skilled" labor but amateurs who do this as a second job in their spare time. This is why official VN translations are also slow and unreliable. If anything, I hope that SP's approach can help break this mold. Because if you actually want this industry to grow and become more popular, they are absolutely going to have to earn much more money than they currently are and actually hire full-time employees at industry standard wages. Unfortunately, I don't see many signs of this happening any time soon.

[Darklord Rooke]

 

Except for Clannad, where Sekai Project used all the money they acquired to hire multiple translators at, AFAIK, the actual standard wage for translators, which is why progress is so fast. But even still, they can pay to make it fast, but apparently not pay to make it good, because according to Herkz the quality of their work is leaving something to be desired.

 

You either get something fast, or you get something good. It's very rare you get both. 

[12kami]

so,who's in the lead ? o.O

[ShinjiGR]

To me the biggest problem with kickstarter is the inherent "blackmail". Let me explain.

 

If you want a hard-copy of the game the lower tier is always in the $100-$150 range and since I've talked with many developers doing kickstarters (adventures and RPGs) their reasoning is that you pay the money to support us and then we give you the physical release as a gift, so there is no relation between the money paid and the item received and that's why they'll never ever have a $30 physical release tier.

 

And here's the blackmail, because unless you pay them this ridiculous amount a couple of years in advance and on the specific month they decided to run their campaign, they actually "promise" you that you'll never be able to find a hard-copy again, unless you go to ebay and pay an even more ridiculous price.

 

For example: I tried to buy the physical release of Shadowgate Reimagined a couple of months ago. The game was released a year ago there was no retail release so I decided to contact the company. They told me that they could sell me the "collector's edition" [box, map, the game on a CD-R and NOTHING ELSE] for $100 because that's the money their backers paid. I told him that I don't want to "back" him! Their project was already kickstarted years ago, it was finished, the game was produced and sold and I just wanted to buy their product. Anyway he didn't back off, it was either pay $100 for a CD-R or nothing. His explanation was that he promised the backers that no more will be made, so even if it was a CD-R it has collectible value! And of course there was no plans for a reprint or a proper retail release.

 

Second example. I tried to buy Tesla Effect the same way by contacting the company directly. They just told me that their "collector edition" [standard DVD case with nothing besides the discs] was a "gift" to the people who believed in them 3 years ago and they won't be printing any more out of respect for their collectability of their products!

 

Let me clarify that I'm not a collector, I just want my games in a physical format, nothing more.

So kickstarter not only has made me a beggar (I have to actually try and convince them to sell me their product each time I want to buy a game) but in the end I'm not getting the games either because I can't afford to pay more than $100 for a game. I can understand some games from the 80s to have collectibe value, but I can't accept a game being a collector's item since day one and therefore impossible to buy it at a reasonable price.

 

On the other hand I can still go to MG and JAST who use a standard business method and buy any of their previous hard-copy releases, but with kickstarted projects it's always the same, collectors this and limited that and you'll never get it unless you pay me this specific month this huge sum. And to me this isn't a business model, this is simple blackmail.

[Darklord Rooke]

That isn't blackmail.

[Nosebleed]

Limited/Collectors edition products are always more pricey, even in "regular businesses".

 

Their plans clearly aren't for a physical release so if you want the limited goods you have to pay more, this is not exclusive to Kickstarter, and it's not blackmail either since you're paying more to get more. I hope this makes sense.

 

When you pay 100 bucks you're getting extra stuff other people aren't getting, where's the blackmail in that?

 

If the original product was always meant to be a digital release, then this only makes sense. If anything you should complain they're not doing a batch of physical releases after, that I can understand. But that's still not blackmailing.

[OriginalRen]

Hmm...

 

I'm more confused as to why Sekai Project keeps announcing new projects over and over again, yet rarely announces when things are actually completed. Every thread on this website and other websites have been about SP announcing new projects, but not about SP releasing new products. Not sure, I may just be looking in the wrong spots.

[Yotek]

While there are a ton of issues with this thread, the main thing here is that people are making claims about Kickstarter issues with other developers. If you are going to say that sekai is terrible because they use Kickstarter, then please cite examples of said mistakes with Kickstarter sekai made. Otherwise it's just an argument full of fallacies or straight up trolling.

[douggle]

I've stated my reasons over and over again, a company shouldn't rely on crowdfunding as a business model. Its not trolling or a fallacy. 

[solidbatman]

I've stated my reasons over and over again, a company shouldn't rely on crowdfunding as a business model. Its not trolling or a fallacy. 

So its a fact now and you're just the brainiac here.

 

 

Obviously, this issue is subjective. Sekai Project is not breaking any KS rules, and their projects continue to get funded and released. If you don't like the way they do things, whatever. Thats on you. I've yet to see you or anyone else put forward an actual decent argument as to why they shouldn't. Sanah keeps repeating that its blackmail and dishonest (an ignorant statement at best and an idiotic one at worst) and you keep saying its unethical (also pretty ignorant as I see no way in hell to it being unethical. Annoying, maybe.)

 

It continually baffles me as to why people complain that its so hard to buy VNs, and then a company comes along bringing multiple VNs over in a way that has, so far, worked perfectly, and those same people then complain that they are bringing over VNs.

 

Want to just go back to pirating them and getting almost no releases and having to rely on fan translations?