Frontwing announces the next VN they're localizing, and it's... Sharin no Kuni?

[Scorp]

5 minutes ago, Decay said:

Pretty much everyone involved with that translation has said they don't think they did a good job, moogy and the n00b avenger included. The translator even told frontwing they shouldn't use the translation because it wasn't good enough. 

But now Moogy is saying on irc that it's a revised version of the fan translation. He isn't involved, this one is all FW.

Okay then, thx for clarification. Anyway, if it would be "revised" same way it was "revised" in SP release of G-Senjou, then it would be really no point to ever look at it.

[Dergonu]

Huh, well that's certainly interesting. I've never read this before so maybe I'll go ahead and chip in, if kickstarter is what they are going with. I don't really mind that companies pick up already translated titles; at least it gives us a way to support the VN companies outside of buying them with proxies / 3rd party sites.

[Fred the Barber]

Well, I pretty much knew what I was going to post in this thread before even seeing it. Most of it still stands, starting with:

At least do Front Wing the service of waiting until they announce their plans, rather than crucifying them now on the basis of what you hypothesize their plans to be. Most of you are jumping to conclusions that are, frankly, still unwarranted. There'll be a Kickstarter soon enough - you'll have plenty of time to belittle them without evidence as to translation quality at that time. At least then we'll know what their plans are WRT translation and editing.

Now, as far as the bizarre partnership, I have a pretty reasonable explanation for this. Here's the sequence of relevant events:

• Grisaia gets a Sekai Project release. The Steam release alone sells like gangbusters. 16k owners, at > $30 per copy? In the English VN market, we can comfortably call this yooj. That's not to count Denpasoft money and Kickstarter money (though let's be frank, despite the ability to contribute a lot more, Kickstarter money on average probably isn't any better than a full-price Steam sale; shipping, merch production, and logistics to orchestrate it all ain't cheap, nor is the cut Kickstarter itself takes). But the end result is clear: Frontwing is happy, SP is happy, and shockingly enough, even us salty fans are pretty happy.
• Next up, G-Senjou gets a Sekai Project release. I think it's fair to say that G-Senjou's reputation is, if anything, stronger than Grisaia's. Like Grisaia, the release uses an existing fan TL, which in both cases people have had ample opportunity to pirate. Pretty good comparable, really. It tanks. 3k owners? It even has the option of a substantially lower price point without voice acting, for anybody crazy enough to think that's a good idea *cough*Rooke*cough*, and the same price as Grisaia if you do want voice acting.

AkabeiSoft2 is justifiably left wondering what the hell happened. They got 20% the sales of Grisaia, for the same amount of work (or more? probably more; don't forget they HD-ified all their assets, to the community's consternation). Arguably what should have been their most profitable IP is burned, and they have nothing to show for it. Sekai Project probably straight-up took a loss on this project.

Clearly the magic wasn't Sekai Project. Sekai Project might not even be interested in Sharin at this point; I wouldn't be surprised if they would have turned down the option, with as many balls as they have in the air and with what a flop G-Senjou was.

So AkabeiSoft2 starts talking to Front Wing: why is Grisaia so successful? What's the secret sauce?

Front Wing thinks they know, and uses their answer to leverage this partnership. And I think I know, too. The conclusion almost seems obvious, at this point. You're gonna hate it.

Kickstarter is the premier advertising platform for large, high-profile VNs.

[littleshogun]

Looks like very good VN we got there, with apparently the premise was like some country thing and society. Oh, the uniform looks good and they got Norio Wakamoto and Taguchi Hiroko voicing the characters here. Apparently this game also got quite the good score on VNDB and EGS. Well, looking forward to this game and I think the opening was quite good. I'd think I'll make sure I'll open the discussion thread in this forum. See you later at my thread.

PS

Did you believe that I didn't know that this game was already translated, played, and discussed to the death like G-Senjou? Well, everyone who visit VNDB and Fuwanovel regularly should knew this game duh. Anyway, I think I'll tried to make it brief here, but for the first point in regard of Frontwing, I think they already aim America market for their new segment back in Grisaia no Rakuen, especially with the segment which was like Hollywood segment according to some reviewer out there.

As for Frontwing cash grab tendency, I think Grisaia franchise should be solid proof here with 2 sequels and 3 side stories VN release (Personally I think Kajitsu should be enough if we leave it as charage). Back to the topic, apparently they release Chiru Chiru VN in English with bad translation without asking koestl first, holding Himawari scripting, and now this. I think Frontwing actually want to reach America market back since when Hirameki still operated (The VN was Tea Society with Witches and they cut H-Scenes and release it in crappy DVD-PG format). It's quite interesting though if Frontwing really want to expand the market to America, especially with they announced their new VN with English language. Well, I think that's all I could write in regard of Frontwing.

For the translation discussion, well thanks to remind me why the translation was always divisive topic either in here or VNDB. As for Ixrec translation, well to me as long as people knew what they read and understand the story it should be fine (But if someone prefer quality over quantity that's fine too, especially for some people that didn't had much time to just read VN like Decay said), but for sure his contribution to growing list of translated VN was still need to be appreciate, although once again maybe some people didn't like his way of translation. As for Sharin old translation, it's somewhat quite questionable that why they didn't proud of their translation (Maybe it's too literal or too many meme like that). And personally, I think Sharin TL team (Moogy and n00bavenger here) was care too much about the prose in translation while I think people who read VN should be not care too much anyway as long as they understand (Just my opinion here. If some of you still want prose from VN that's okay too).

I think that's all I could write and sorry if some of you didn't like my post here, also with bad English here.

[OriginalRen]

22 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

Well, I pretty much knew what I was going to post in this thread before even seeing it. Most of it still stands, starting with:

At least do Front Wing the service of waiting until they announce their plans, rather than crucifying them now on the basis of what you hypothesize their plans to be. Most of you are jumping to conclusions that are, frankly, still unwarranted. There'll be a Kickstarter soon enough - you'll have plenty of time to belittle them without evidence as to translation quality at that time. At least then we'll know what their plans are WRT translation and editing.

Now, as far as the bizarre partnership, I have a pretty reasonable explanation for this. Here's the sequence of relevant events:

• Grisaia gets a Sekai Project release. The Steam release alone sells like gangbusters. 16k owners, at > $30 per copy? In the English VN market, we can comfortably call this yooj. That's not to count Denpasoft money and Kickstarter money (though let's be frank, despite the ability to contribute a lot more, Kickstarter money on average probably isn't any better than a full-price Steam sale; shipping, merch production, and logistics to orchestrate it all ain't cheap, nor is the cut Kickstarter itself takes). But the end result is clear: Frontwing is happy, SP is happy, and shockingly enough, even us salty fans are pretty happy.
• Next up, G-Senjou gets a Sekai Project release. I think it's fair to say that G-Senjou's reputation is, if anything, stronger than Grisaia's. Like Grisaia, the release uses an existing fan TL, which in both cases people have had ample opportunity to pirate. Pretty good comparable, really. It tanks. 3k owners? It even has the option of a substantially lower price point without voice acting, for anybody crazy enough to think that's a good idea *cough*Rooke*cough*, and the same price as Grisaia if you do want voice acting.

AkabeiSoft2 is justifiably left wondering what the hell happened. They got 20% the sales of Grisaia, for the same amount of work (or more? probably more; don't forget they HD-ified all their assets, to the community's consternation). Arguably what should have been their most profitable IP is burned, and they have nothing to show for it. Sekai Project probably straight-up took a loss on this project.

Clearly the magic wasn't Sekai Project. Sekai Project might not even be interested in Sharin at this point; I wouldn't be surprised if they would have turned down the option, with as many balls as they have in the air and with what a flop G-Senjou was.

So AkabeiSoft2 starts talking to Front Wing: why is Grisaia so successful? What's the secret sauce?

Front Wing thinks they know, and uses their answer to leverage this partnership. And I think I know, too. The conclusion almost seems obvious, at this point. You're gonna hate it.

Kickstarter is the premier advertising platform for large, high-profile VNs.

That's just it though, Frontwing is going to ask for an atrocious amount of money on the Kickstarter and still charge $40 a copy since it's already used to charging $80 a copy in Japan. People don't want to pay that amount of money. Translation aside, it's just a money issue for fans in my opinion. Personally, I don't care about the price, but since it is in essence a digital book, it should be charged like one, not a charged like a video game.

[Decay]

Sharin no Kuni was extremely popular several years ago, but recently you barely ever see anyone talk about it, I guess it's not too surprising if someone could participate in the modern VN community for awhile without ever really hearing about it.

[Fred the Barber]

3 minutes ago, OriginalRen said:

That's just it though, Frontwing is going to ask for an atrocious amount of money on the Kickstarter and still charge $40 a copy since it's already used to charging $80 a copy in Japan. People don't want to pay that amount of money. Translation aside, it's just a money issue for fans in my opinion. Personally, I don't care about the price, but since it is in essence a digital book, it should be charged like one, not a charged like a video game.

It's hard to gauge, but I agree that translation quality doesn't do shit for sales (to my great sadness). That Grisaia had a great translation and great sales is, IMO, a coincidence. Gahkthun makes a good counterexample. It's been > 3 months now since release, so if it were going to be a sleeper hit, it probably would've happened by now; though I can keep hoping. For Tokyo Babel, it's certainly too soon to tell, but with the way things are going I'd be surprised if it doesn't go the same way as Gahkthun and put another nail in the "good translations matter" coffin.

But I think poor sales of good translations of good VNs are best explained as marketing failures. Aside from eden* and IMHHW, I have yet to see any highly successful release of a good VN (intentionally not talking about nukige here) that wasn't powered by a Kickstarter campaign (though I'm surely missing some... I hope?). The number of good VNs released without any Kickstarter and which subsequently flop continues to rise at an alarming pace. JAST USA released Steins;Gate a few years ago, but this year they're putting all their money on... SoniComi? They're throwing in the towel on the dream of a new market and sticking to their niche. MangaGamer, bless them, keeps trying, but I don't know how long that'll keep on if their stuff keeps ending up like this. Setting aside eden* (I think the length alone makes it something of an oddity) and IMHHW (which I think is selling on word of mouth because it's a great moege, and that's a lot less common than you think), only Sekai Project has really made successful releases of big games happen, and only when they used a Kickstarter. I'm actually very curious to see how Leyline, especially, goes. My prediction: flop.

As far as price... I don't think we can predict the price of this Kickstarter until we see it, but if anything, I bet you're high of the mark. Grisaia's Kickstarter priced the game at $30 for the first entry, $80 for the trilogy, and I bet Frontwing is going to follow the Grisaia Kickstarter formula down to the last detail, trying to relive that magic. More importantly, I don't think people care nearly as much about the price as you seem to believe. My position is definitely biased here because price matters so little to me, but assuming they're remotely accurate, the Grisaia SteamSpy numbers really do speak volumes. Everybody's buying it in the $30-$40 range, and the sales numbers are crazy good for a VN, especially compared to G-Senjou. A whole lot of people had no problem paying that kind of price. I personally don't think $40 is an atrocious amount of money for 40 hours of solid entertainment - it beats the hell out of a movie. Otaku, in the US as well as Japan, often pay a lot for a quality commitment to their hobby - I know you of all people understand that.

[Darklord Rooke]

12 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

Grisaia's Kickstarter priced the game at $30 for the first entry, $80 for the trilogy, and I bet Frontwing is going to follow the Grisaia Kickstarter formula down to the last detail, trying to relive that magic. More importantly, I don't think people care nearly as much about the price as you seem to believe. My position is definitely biased here because price matters so little to me, but assuming they're remotely accurate, the Grisaia SteamSpy numbers really do speak volumes. Everybody's buying it in the $30-$40 range, and the sales numbers are crazy good for a VN, especially compared to G-Senjou. A whole lot of people had no problem paying that kind of price. I personally don't think $40 is an atrocious amount of money for 40 hours of solid entertainment - it beats the hell out of a movie. Otaku, in the US as well as Japan, often pay a lot for a quality commitment to their hobby - I know you of all people understand that.

Nah, the sale numbers are not crazy good. 16k is good for a niche, but the 30-40 dollar price tag is considered overpriced. The top selling VNs are priced around 10 dollars and sell about 150k units (I’m not including Sakura Spirit or Huniepop which sold twice as much again,) which stands to reason because that’s sorta the price an expensive digital novel goes for. Nekopara sold 200k though. 

The ’40 hour’ gauge is out, I think it’s done on autoplay? I dunno what it’s based off, but I find it tends to be a little off.

The VN industry isn't in a good place in Japan, and people within that industry blame the high price point. It's a young people's medium mostly, and how many young people can afford to read 80 dollar books? The idea of comparing the 30 dollar price point in the West with the 80 dollar price point in Japan and comment that we're 'getting it cheap' is disputable. Imo, we're getting it a little less expensive than what the poor sods in Japan are being forced to fork out. 

Also … I’m totes not crazy  

[littleshogun]

That's interesting new fact Decay, and since I just said who visit VNDB or Fuwanovel could be misinterpreted as someone who only visit the site once, so I'd add regularly in my post. I think I remember back in 2011 when I searched G-Senjou review and I find the site who also talk about Sharin, and I searched it and find out it was translated too. Then I grab it from somewhere and installed it (Somehow back when I installed it my laptop run slowly when installing). Okay enough with nostalgia and back to topic here. Since you said someone could participate here without knowing this, maybe it's good opportunity to introduce them to this VN i suppose.

Oh, I just remember that Frontwing want to did Kickstarter, and since Kickstarter ban any work with sex (It's quite complicated stuff here) I think the easier solution was obviously cut the H-Scene. And this time actually AKB2 had experience with that too, as if they already did that to their PSP release unlike G-Senjou in which AKB2 was never port it to PSP or any console. Although I said it's easier for AKB2 to cut the H-Scene, I understand that some people didn't like this change (Especially Scorp). And if we talk about H-Scene which had the most impact here from cutting, I think maybe Sachi Bad End was qualified (Natsumi was easily solved with some kissing if we talked about her development, since her punishment made her must be not touched by any man and she was afraid of opposite gender just by looking at man). Well, let's just see it later.

[VirginSmasher]

On the quality vs. quantity issue, I'd definitely prefer 1 quality translation over 5 mediocre ones. I'd rather see a translation that was done properly over a fee that are too literal and awkward to read.

1 hour ago, Fred the Barber said:

It's hard to gauge, but I agree that translation quality doesn't do shit for sales (to my great sadness). That Grisaia had a great translation and great sales is, IMO, a coincidence. Gahkthun makes a good counterexample. It's been > 3 months now since release, so if it were going to be a sleeper hit, it probably would've happened by now; though I can keep hoping. For Tokyo Babel, it's certainly too soon to tell, but with the way things are going I'd be surprised if it doesn't go the same way as Gahkthun and put another nail in the "good translations matter" coffin.

To be fair, Mangagamer's advertising hasn't been the best and they haven't done all that great of a job getting people convinced to buy Tokyo Babel. There's also the issue of piracy affecting sales as well.

[DarkZedge]

7 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

To be fair, Mangagamer's advertising hasn't been the best and they haven't done all that great of a job getting people convinced to buy Tokyo Babel. There's also the issue of piracy affecting sales as well.

I won't dispute that MG doesn't have the best advertising but at least on the Twitter front they did a bunch of posts about Tokyo Babel and the sales they were doing...wether they got them any sales or possitive feedback is something I can't know. But hey at least they tried

[solidbatman]

I just realized that this mess also adds more evidence that Sekai Project, while running these kickstarters, may have been doing it under instructions from the JP home bases. Key, oddly enough, got the Clannad KS completed, and has since not used kickstarter. 

[Ariurotl]

Eh, I'm still backing it. I'll save on pre-whining and whine after the fact.

[Yuuko]

Japanese people sure know kickstarter. 

Some months ago when I was watching Saga Planets stream related to their kickstarter (that they used to host their event to promote their latest game + give some goodies) they even talked about Clannad's kickstarter and how it was successful. 

[VirginSmasher]

41 minutes ago, DarkZedge said:

I won't dispute that MG doesn't have the best advertising but at least on the Twitter front they did a bunch of posts about Tokyo Babel and the sales they were doing...wether they got them any sales or possitive feedback is something I can't know. But hey at least they tried

If they wanted better sales, they should've gotten the VN out more. You'd really only know about this VN if you were following Mangagamer on Twitter which a lot of Steam VN players aren't.

[bigfatround0]

6 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

I think it's fair to say that G-Senjou's reputation is, if anything, stronger than Grisaia's.

Surprised no one has called you out on this. That may have been true before GnK was fantranslated but since then it's become one of the most well regarded VNs in the west. Definitely top 5 along MuvLuv, Clannad, F/SN, and Steins;Gate. And that's only grown after the anime pushed a bunch of people to play the VN.

[sanahtlig]

25 minutes ago, Zenophilious said:

I'm pretty sure that's due to amazon.co.jp's very recent reversal of policy for all-ages stuff.  Unless you use something like AmiAmi or them, from what I've heard, you're kinda out of luck or have to use a re-shipper.  That also was the rule until now, and I wasn't sure what had been updated and what hadn't.  Last time I had checked, RGD was still domestic Japanese shipping only.

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.

8 hours ago, Decay said:

Pretty much everyone involved with that translation has said they don't think they did a good job, moogy and the n00b avenger included. The translator even told frontwing they shouldn't use the translation because it wasn't good enough. 

But now Moogy is saying on irc that it's a revised version of the fan translation. He isn't involved, this one is all FW.

Wait, so Moogy is claiming that Frontwing is using the translation--against the protests of the authors--and isn't even compensating them?

 

7 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

But I think poor sales of good translations of good VNs are best explained as marketing failures.

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.

[kingdomcome]

9 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

At least do Front Wing the service of waiting until they announce their plans, rather than crucifying them now on the basis of what you hypothesize their plans to be. Most of you are jumping to conclusions that are, frankly, still unwarranted.

After reading 2 pages of comments I was going to say the same thing..

9 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

Kickstarter is the premier advertising platform for large, high-profile VNs.

Yep, you're right imo. I was bummed to see G-senjou No Maou fail in sales; no doubt with the exposure it would have had on Kickstarter it could have done MUCH better. I was super excited to get my hands on some physical goods, but unfortunately we didn't get a chance of doing that. I didn't even end up buying it.

I'll be pledging towards this Kickstarter to get at least a physical copy.. SnK is one of my favorites. One of the best protags I've come across.

[Fred the Barber]

9 hours ago, Rooke said:

Nah, the sale numbers are not crazy good. 16k is good for a niche, but the 30-40 dollar price tag is considered overpriced. The top selling VNs are priced around 10 dollars and sell about 150k units (I’m not including Sakura Spirit or Huniepop which sold twice as much again,) which stands to reason because that’s sorta the price an expensive digital novel goes for. Nekopara sold 200k though. 

The ’40 hour’ gauge is out, I think it’s done on autoplay? I dunno what it’s based off, but I find it tends to be a little off.

The VN industry isn't in a good place in Japan, and people within that industry blame the high price point. It's a young people's medium mostly, and how many young people can afford to read 80 dollar books? The idea of comparing the 30 dollar price point in the West with the 80 dollar price point in Japan and comment that we're 'getting it cheap' is disputable. Imo, we're getting it a little less expensive than what the poor sods in Japan are being forced to fork out. 

Ahh, sorry, I should clarify my stance on prices in general, and VN prices in particular, before people think I'm nuts (too late? much too late? oh well).

Here's the two criteria for how I judge the price of something that I like:

• Is it affordable for me personally? If not, I don't like it. (the obvious criterion)
• Is there an alternative pricing model that would noticeably increase profit for the developer? (the less obvious criterion)

VN prices are fine by me on the first criterion, but on the second one, I'm pretty sure they're stupid, in the US and Japan both. Like both you and @OriginalRen are implying, if the cost of quality digital VNs was much cheaper, the developers would almost certainly be reaping a lot more profit because of vastly increased sales (coupled with the vastly lower marginal COGS for a digital good, of course). Maybe worth noting this doesn't work at all for physical goods because of that parenthetical comment, and that this probably explains why Japanese companies are hesitant to even try this strategy - their solvency right now is too reliant on the costumers who are willing to pay super-high costs for physical goods. Even if they kept that limited edition around, if they started also selling the same stuff for 1/8 the cost digitally, I bet (and I bet they bet) they'd start hemorrhaging that elite customer base.

What I was getting at earlier when talking about price was merely that I don't think high cost is sufficient to explain the degree of poor sales seen by G-Senjou, Gahkthun, and Tokyo Babel (assuming things don't change), given Grisaia's equally high cost and vastly better sales.

And, yes, I understand Grisaia is no juggernaut - it only does well by comparison to other high-cost, long VNs. Quite a lot of qualifiers on that, by now. Notably also in the same ballpark, on both sales numbers and price, unsurprisingly: Clannad. But it's obviously exceptional: it's got quite a leg up because of the well-liked anime adaptation, which Grisaia certainly doesn't have.

[sanahtlig]

4 minutes ago, Zenophilious said:

I never said that, though.  If anything, I thought it was more about being cautious than anything else; I know there were no rules against selling all-ages copies of VNs to us filthy がいこくじん, but most retailers seemed to do it anyway, unless the seller wasn't a store and intentionally selected International Shipping.

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.

[ChaosRaven]

If Frontwing are making a Kickstarter for Sharin no Kuni, then it would be nice if they would add the fan disc Yuukyuu no Shounenshoujo as a stretch goal. That would make the campaign a lot more interesting since the fan disc was never fully translated, it just got a partial translation.

I already own the Japanese original so I'm a bit hesitant to back the whole thing. But if the translation of the fan disc would be an option, then things would look a bit different for me.

Well, I guess I just have to wait until the campaign starts to find out...

[bigfatround0]

48 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

If Frontwing are making a Kickstarter for Sharin no Kuni, then it would be nice if they would add the fan disc Yuukyuu no Shounenshoujo as a stretch goal. That would make the campaign a lot more interesting since the fan disc was never fully translated, it just got a partial translation.

I already own the Japanese original so I'm a bit hesitant to back the whole thing. But if the translation of the fan disc would be an option, then things would look a bit different for me.

Well, I guess I just have to wait until the campaign starts to find out...

It was fully translated but I think only Houziki's route was edited.

[Decay]

2 minutes ago, bigfatround0 said:

It was fully translated but I think only Houziki's route was edited.

TLWiki only translated the Houzuki route. Later on down the line, someone on 4chan released a barely-edited Atlas machine translation or something for everything else, it's extremely bad.

[Scorp]

Other routes are just a stupid mumbling along with sex scenes, really. Ririko route is a 3 hours or infinite mockery of protag and stupidity. Other girls are not much better, infinite cooking works vs infinite painting works. Anyway, translation did not look like a machine (having in mind tons of typos there), but very literal, that's for sure. But for that "story" which happen there - no translation would make it shine, as it is triumph of repetiveness and VN tropes, you will be bored to hell no matter what.

So, as they will release all-age version, I believe it would be version everyone saw on Xbox360/PS3, and it already have Houzuki route as integral part of the game. No point in FD at all.

[Chronopolis]

15 hours ago, Decay said:

Sharin no Kuni was extremely popular several years ago, but recently you barely ever see anyone talk about it, I guess it's not too surprising if someone could participate in the modern VN community for awhile without ever really hearing about it.

Yeah, to contrast that in even G-Senjou, Grisia was a game that used to dominate the /visaulnovels/ frontpage until the subreddit organized up. Perhaps the large potential for in-group jokes and quotes from the VN helped contribute to its community presence. G-senjou's just like the game everyone plays once and that's it.