Muv Luv: A Pretty Sweet Visual Novel Series Kickstarter [MILLION DOLLAR BABY]

[Codesterz]

6 hours ago, Soulless Watcher said:

I use to think the way you do, but it makes zero sense from a business prospective. The only vns that are guaranteed to have a following in the west are obviously the ones that are already translated. Do you honestly think that a relatively unknown vn would make the same money as MuvLuv or Grisaia on kickstarter? Granted many would probably succeed, but why take that risk when you have a guaranteed payday with a larger title. 

There are obviously some other factors that you should consider the successes of these kickstarters can influence what future projects are localized. VN companies may use them to gauge the level of interest the west has for visual novels in general. For example, due to the massive success of the MuvLuv kickstarter it has been strongly hinted that other titles such as Schwarzesmarken will be localized in the future.

The point of kickstarter isn't to make money, it's to get their projects funded. This is something I feel many people have forgotten. They are supposed to make profit from the game sales not the kickstarter. They don't need the amount of money they made from this kickstarter. Honestly the amount of money they made should be enough to fund 4-6 VNs. If they localize Schwarzesmarken I seriously hope they don't try to kickstarter it since it's already been paid for. A good $400,000 from this kickstarter will go straight to their pockets and won't be spent on the localization of this VN or the kickstarter rewards. Hell I'm willing to wager they won't even give this VN series a decent marketing campaign despite having plenty of money for it.

[Soulless Watcher]

1 hour ago, Codesterz said:

The point of kickstarter isn't to make money, it's to get their projects funded. This is something I feel many people have forgotten. They are supposed to make profit from the game sales not the kickstarter. They don't need the amount of money they made from this kickstarter. Honestly the amount of money they made should be enough to fund 4-6 VNs. If they localize Schwarzesmarken I seriously hope they don't try to kickstarter it since it's already been paid for. A good $400,000 from this kickstarter will go straight to their pockets and won't be spent on the localization of this VN or the kickstarter rewards. Hell I'm willing to wager they won't even give this VN series a decent marketing campaign despite having plenty of money for it.

When has the point of something ever stopped people from exploiting "the something" for their own personal gain? 

I don't necessarily know that they have enough money to fund 4-6 visual novels (at least very meaty ones), I'm no expert with how much these projects cost, but I do know that licensing fees and paying for the rights of voice actors/actresses are fucking insane. Jast has stated that purchasing those rights is one of the biggest hurdles on the road to localizing a title. 

I'm curious about the marketing this title will have, I think the biggest VN marketing campaign was for Steins;Gate.

[Decay]

6 hours ago, Codesterz said:

The point of kickstarter isn't to make money, it's to get their projects funded. This is something I feel many people have forgotten. They are supposed to make profit from the game sales not the kickstarter. They don't need the amount of money they made from this kickstarter. Honestly the amount of money they made should be enough to fund 4-6 VNs. If they localize Schwarzesmarken I seriously hope they don't try to kickstarter it since it's already been paid for. A good $400,000 from this kickstarter will go straight to their pockets and won't be spent on the localization of this VN or the kickstarter rewards. Hell I'm willing to wager they won't even give this VN series a decent marketing campaign despite having plenty of money for it.

Well, no, they won't spend a ton of money on a "decent marketing campaign" if they can't expect to earn that money back. That would just be stupid. If they could expect to make that money back, then I'm sure they would happily do it, who doesn't like more money? But are you suggesting that they should just throw money in the garbage because they can? I'm sure the backers would like it more if they spent that money on something more tangible, or at least not on a potential boondoggle like a marketing campaign. They'll probably pay for a few banners ads here and there and produce a promotional trailer or two. I'm not sure how much more you're expecting.

Although I get the feeling that you are underestimating the costs of literally everything involved here. Reward fulfillment is surprisingly expensive. This is the one thing that shocks most indie devs who use kickstarter. They plan out and budget for reward fulfillment and then suddenly it's literally twice as much as they expect and is the biggest cost in their entire KS. I have seen this happen enough times to be convinced that most of that extra $400k will actually be spent on reward fulfillment and they won't have much left over at all. They also upped the scale of retranslation considerably from when they originally budgeted the kickstarter, increasing their localization costs by a large amount. Before, you get the sense that it was just going to be a dude or two breezing through the scripts before giving them the okay, and now it's a very extensive process involving many people. 

[MFrost]

You know...I haven't paid for my pledge yet...I'm still on the fence about it to be honest. I just want the Photon Flowers & Melodies game...and the Rumbling Hearts...and Altered Fable translated...everything else I Only give a 2% damn.

[kingdomcome]

16 hours ago, MFrost said:

You know...I haven't paid for my pledge yet

How is this possible? Aren't you charged at the end of the kickstarter?

[WinterfuryZX]

You can block your credit card or use a debit\prepaid with no money on it.

[MFrost]

I had money on it when it was supposed to be charged, but for some reason it never went through, and since that's the only card I have I just gave up after a few tries to rectify it.

[Vorathiel]

On 5/17/2016 at 9:05 AM, Scorp said:

Consoles are cropped  Another useless waste of time...

Good news!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/muvluv/muv-luv-a-pretty-sweet-visual-novel-series/posts/1558462

Seems like only gameplay (how to call it? xD) is cropped, CGs are in fact enlarged! Or at least, some of them are...
Firsts are from original release, seconds are from Steam gallery.

Spoiler

Also those three sems to be new (?)

Spoiler

But backlog looks like utter shit.

Original (NSFW, sorry couldn't find other screen):
https://s.vndb.org/sf/95/3295.jpg

[WinterfuryZX]

1 hour ago, Vorathiel said:

Original (NSFW, sorry couldn't find other screen):
https://s.vndb.org/sf/95/3295.jpg

This shouldn't happen in extra, is it from altered fable?

[Vorathiel]

Just now, WinterfuryZX said:

This shouldn't happen in extra, is it from altered fable?

Yup. but it gives the idea what backlog looks like.

[WinterfuryZX]

They apperently recycled some 16:9 backgrounds from KimiNozo LE, not everything is cropped.

[Vorathiel]

From their Steam page:
" keep an eye out for Muv-Luv Alternative when it launches this winter. "

Sigh.

[sanahtlig]

I see characters from KimiNozo in the backer update screenshots for MuvLuv.  Are you supposed to play KimiNozo first...?

[Vorathiel]

Few other screens from some livestream about tablet version of MuvLuv. Surprisingly they were using english version.
 

Spoiler

 

[Vorathiel]

1 minute ago, sanahtlig said:

I see characters from KimiNozo in the backer update screenshots for MuvLuv.  Are you supposed to play KimiNozo first...?

'Supposed' is a hard word.
I will say it's nice if you read KimiNozo (and Kimi ga Ita Kisetsu!), because MuvLuv is using characters from them and in few places there are nice 'winks' to readers.
But it's not necessarily. You won't catch those winks, but nothing of value will be lost. Some might say it's even better to read MuvLuv without Kimi Ga, because you'll encounter those characters for a first time, at the same time as Takeru, MuvLuv protagonist. And same as him - you will know nothing about them and have to learn who they are, etc.
So both ways have their up and downsides. I read MuvLuv without KimiGa and had a great time. I will say that I loved charcters from Kimis in MuvLuvAlternative even more than MuvLuv original cast. ANd I had no idea they're from some other game.

[WinterfuryZX]

21 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

I see characters from KimiNozo in the backer update screenshots for MuvLuv.  Are you supposed to play KimiNozo first...?

Yes you are, according to age kiminozo is mandatory, that's the reason why negotiation failed between age and mangagemer, mangagamer didn't want to bring it to the west.

IMHO everything that happens in the extraverse is essential to properly understand MLA.

[Vorathiel]

...it's not like Degica is releasing Kimi either.

[WinterfuryZX]

3 minutes ago, Vorathiel said:

...it's not like Degica is releasing Kimi either.

They managed to convince age somehow.

[Vorathiel]

New menus, yay! I don't like it. First - Kasumi doesn't look as she looks in game, which is a shame, cause she's best grill of Unlimited, and second -

Spoiler

this is a bit spoilerish.

Originals below. They had a better 'impact' I must say. But whatevs, it's nitpicking.  

Spoiler

 

[XReaper]

26 minutes ago, WinterfuryZX said:

They managed to convince age somehow.

they are basically the same company. + anyone who believes evan & gang are doing kiminozo as a sideproject only, without them ever considering the possibility of it might being turned into an official one at some point, is nothing but deluding himself.

[sanahtlig]

24 minutes ago, WinterfuryZX said:

that's the reason why negotiation failed between age and mangagemer, mangagamer didn't want to bring [KimiNozo] to the west.

I think you're confused.  Negotiations were scuttled because Amaterasu fan TL'd MuvLuv but Age wanted to license KimiNozo to MangaGamer at the time, so Amaterasu just went ahead and released the fan TL publicly.  MangaGamer was not pleased.

[WinterfuryZX]

They didn't want to license MLA without Kiminozo, the negotiation stalled and then amaterasu released the patch.

For what we know, kiminozo fantranslation could simply be part of a precise business tactic of age and degica, since a free patch turned into an official localization has already been a major success.

[sanahtlig]

22 minutes ago, WinterfuryZX said:

They didn't want to license MLA without Kiminozo, the negotiation stalled and then amaterasu released the patch.

No, that's not what happened.  Age couldn't license MuvLuv at the time due to licensing issues involving other companies.  Where are you even getting these ideas from?

[Scorp]

3 hours ago, Vorathiel said:

Good news!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/muvluv/muv-luv-a-pretty-sweet-visual-novel-series/posts/1558462

Seems like only gameplay (how to call it? xD) is cropped, CGs are in fact enlarged! Or at least, some of them are...
Firsts are from original release, seconds are from Steam gallery.

I do not know what that "Steam gallery" represent now, but second screenshots are 800x600 and are definitely 100% identical to the original MuvLuv CG. So it seems they just put old CG in that gallery and that's all. It would not be this way in the game.

[WinterfuryZX]

What other companies were involved? I could very well be wrong.