Sharin no Kuni Prefundia page is up

[Rose]

$10-15 for the 18+ patch and those who backed the game will have a discount. Is that good or do I raise my pitchfork?

[kingdomcome]

17 minutes ago, Rose said:

$10-15 for the 18+ patch and those who backed the game will have a discount. Is that good or do I raise my pitchfork?

Don't let other people decide for you.

I know what Fuwa will do..

[XReaper]

9 hours ago, Rose said:

$10-15 for the 18+ patch and those who backed the game will have a discount. Is that good or do I raise my pitchfork?

from what i got (hope i´m right there) the all ages version has additional content to make up for its loss of ero, so that´s already a full game worthy of the initial pricing and by buying the patch content gets boosted above 100%, though anyone has to decide for him-/herself if its worth the hassle.

[Dergonu]

Well, since the 18+ content is coming, guess I'll back this

(Yup, I'm a very hard man to please )

[Fred the Barber]

Wow. They even figured out what weebs their customers are and just put "Sharin no Kuni" almost everywhere. IIRC, "Wheel Country, Sunflower Girl" had more prominent placement earlier in the campaign (though it looks like the Prefundia has just "Sharin no Kuni" in the title now... but I don't think it was always that way.)

One thing for people to pitchfork about: they are very clearly saying that the physical copy of the game isn't going to come with a digital download key, and implicitly saying that the digital copy will arrive before the physical copy. I'd be surprised if it isn't a substantial time gap. So if you're one of the people who griped about not getting to play Clannad for a few months because you only backed and got a physical copy reward, please take better notice this time and don't gripe next time.

Anyway, I backed it

[Kawasumi]

5 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

Wow. They even figured out what weebs their customers are and just put "Sharin no Kuni" almost everywhere. IIRC, "Wheel Country, Sunflower Girl" had more prominent placement earlier in the campaign (though it looks like the Prefundia has just "Sharin no Kuni" in the title now... but I don't think it was always that way.)

One thing for people to pitchfork about: they are very clearly saying that the physical copy of the game isn't going to come with a digital download key, and implicitly saying that the digital copy will arrive before the physical copy. I'd be surprised if it isn't a substantial time gap. So if you're one of the people who griped about not getting to play Clannad for a few months because you only backed and got a physical copy reward, please take better notice this time and don't gripe next time.

Anyway, I backed it

I have played it already and its one of my favorite VNs so far, I might play it again, but I really just want the damn collectors edition box.

[kingdomcome]

1 minute ago, Kawasumi said:

I have played it already al though its one of my favorite VNs so far, I might play it again, I just want the damn collectors edition box.

Yes sir! Me too.

[WinterfuryZX]

I already own a jp phys copy, I'm going with the early bird digital.

[shadowolf64]

FYI the kickstarter does not appear to be going that well. Current projections form Kicktraq and Sidekick (for whatever that is worth) have it not making its goal. Its my understanding this is a well licked VN so I backed it for the digital copy. May have to try and get the word out some more if it is going to make it. 

They are giving backers the 18+ patch for free now so if that was holding you up now's the time. 

[WinterfuryZX]

Only a console port could save this from failure, like ROOT DOUBLE.

[Deep Blue]

this campaign is going to fail :/ what a shame.

[XReaper]

7 hours ago, Deep Blue said:

this campaign is going to fail :/ what a shame.

even more so since the devs stance is pretty much clear regarding possible future projects if that one wont make it into the goal. cant see them going the dlc way like nextninja at all. guess it´s rip akagoei & stuff for eternity.

[Fred the Barber]

I guess it's not that surprising. The US VN market just isn't that big; you should really need to pull in the anime market to get that level of funding. I don't know how Sekai Project managed to get > $150,000 for Root Double.

[WinterfuryZX]

45 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

I guess it's not that surprising. The US VN market just isn't that big; you should really need to pull in the anime market to get that level of funding. I don't know how Sekai Project managed to get > $150,000 for Root Double.

Libra did better, tho, and not only the game but also the company behind it was completely unknown in the west.

[Mkilbride]

I really enjoyed this VN alot more than I thought I would.

 

I just can't believe how popular VNs are becoming in the west. I always assumed these would be things I'd never see in the West, let alone on Steam.

 

Honestly, at this point, in the next 3 years, I would not be surprised to see a F/SN NA release...ok, yeah I would, because Nasu would never allow it, but by god, cant' someone override his decision?!

 

 

__________

 

By the way, all hope is not lost. The most funding for ANY project comes on the first 1 day, and the last day. So it's totally possible to still hit the goal.

[Fred the Barber]

12 hours ago, WinterfuryZX said:

Libra did better, tho, and not only the game but also the company behind it was completely unknown in the west.

This is fair. One big difference, which I forgot until just now, between Sharin and both Root Double and Libra is that this game already has a translation (albeit a much-benighted one). Have we yet seen a Kickstarter (successful or unsuccessful) for an already-translated game that wasn't also able to pull in the anime audience? I can't recall any. Clannad and Muv-Luv are the only VN Kickstarters I can think of for already-translated games.

It's also possible that Decay was onto something a little while back when he suggested that we may already be at market saturation for VNs in the west. I'm still on the fence about that one, especially in some areas: for instance, I'm pretty sure if a F/SN localization KS materialized, it'd rake in the dough just like Clannad and Muv Luv did.

[RikiSanic]

I think the failure of this campaign is a combination of a lack of marketing (launching the campaign a few days before Anime Expo was a bad idea that resulted in any traction slowing to a halt) and an overestimation of the demand for this VN. It's been fan-translated for a while now, doesn't have an anime, and even though it's well-regarded it doesn't have anything close to a fandom like Grisaia or Muv-Luv. $140,000 as the base goal is asking for a lot, and the stretch goals are practically impossible.

It's a shame, because I would've liked to reread this officially and with a better translation, but it doesn't look like it's gonna happen at this rate. At a lower goal and with better planning this could've been successful. It's got a good average pledge per backer, but not enough reach to reel in the necessary number of backers.

The whole thing just seems like one big miscalculation.

[Mkilbride]

17 minutes ago, RikiSanic said:

I think the failure of this campaign is a combination of a lack of marketing (launching the campaign a few days before Anime Expo was a bad idea that resulted in any traction slowing to a halt) and an overestimation of the demand for this VN. It's been fan-translated for a while now, doesn't have an anime, and even though it's well-regarded it doesn't have anything close to a fandom like Grisaia or Muv-Luv. $140,000 as the base goal is asking for a lot, and the stretch goals are practically impossible.

It's a shame, because I would've liked to reread this officially and with a better translation, but it doesn't look like it's gonna happen at this rate. At a lower goal and with better planning this could've been successful. It's got a good average pledge per backer, but not enough reach to reel in the necessary number of backers.

The whole thing just seems like one big miscalculation.

We'll see. I've seen a ton of Kickstarters hit 72 hours, and being over 50% away from their goal and then in those 72 hours, exceeding it.

[RikiSanic]

1 minute ago, Mkilbride said:

We'll see. I've seen a ton of Kickstarters hit 72 hours, and being over 50% away from their goal and then in those 72 hours, exceeding it.

I'd normally be with you (I believed Root Double would make its goal even though many were predicting its failure) but the conditions just don't seem to be right for this Kickstarter. It hasn't had a significant bump in funding since the beginning and various updates have yet to change that. Unless they manage to get some big shout-outs or other coverage of some kind, I just don't know how they're going to attract enough backers.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but this campaign doesn't seem to be following the trends of other successful campaigns I've seen—not even the close-call ones.

[Comfy]

I will be purchasing this now that they will include the 18+ patch. I also want the box.

 

 

And the neesan ending.

[Fred the Barber]

Just read the update about the $5000 tier reward. It's actually a little bit crazy. If you've got $5,000 to burn (plus airfare to Japan...) and always wanted to shoot the shit with the Presidents of AkabeiSoft2 and Frontwing, now's your chance.

[Mkilbride]

It's not that crazy.

 

In another KS I was part of, they had a 10,000$ Tier, that came with a host of rewards, but one of them was being flown out to the developers and being able to throw a pie in their faces.  I think they sold 3 of those. Some rich people with money to burn can be...strange.

[shadowolf64]

Looks like they have temporarily canceled the Kickstarter as they saw it probably wasn't going to happen. Hopefully they will do better on their relaunch. I know some people had a problem with how they handled the kickstarter, and while I didn't (except for one of the updates kinda early which sounded negative) I hope they can address these issues people had. 

[Fred the Barber]

An email went out to people (maybe backers of the old project?) today saying a few interesting things:

• The recreated Kickstarter will have a lower target.
• They've finalized some new rewards they'll be adding to the new Kickstarter, including a Vita release and dakimakura covers
• They're aiming for a mid-September (!) release.

The last one is, of course, both the most interesting and the most surprising. Full post is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tokyootakumode/sharin-no-kuni-a-visual-novel-localization-project/posts/1669829. At any rate, looks like an official Sharin release might be just around the corner.

Edit: As others pointed out below, and as I realized while reading the comments on Twitter, I misread the announcement pretty hard: they're planning on launching the Kickstarter in mid-September, not the game. T_T

[Basileus777]

22 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

An email went out to people (maybe backers of the old project?) today saying a few interesting things:

• The recreated Kickstarter will have a lower target.
• They've finalized some new rewards they'll be adding to the new Kickstarter, including a Vita release and dakimakura covers
• They're aiming for a mid-September (!) release.

The last one is, of course, both the most interesting and the most surprising. Full post is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tokyootakumode/sharin-no-kuni-a-visual-novel-localization-project/posts/1669829. At any rate, looks like an official Sharin release might be just around the corner.

They are relaunching the Kickstarter mid-September, not releasing the game then.