New interview of DrastikMeasure with MangaGamer

[ChaosRaven]

There's a new interview with MangaGamer staff members Kouryuu and Good Haro on the review and blog site www.thedrastikmeasure.com. Like usual, there's not much new stuff they've talked about. Mainly a general introduction into what MangaGamer does and a little bit about their inner workings.

Still some interesting points:

- They don't have tentacles as door handles (yet)

- Their stance on VN's with extreme content: They don't intend to go further than Maggot Baits 'for now' (Hard to believe how they are even able to find new titles with such a harsh restriction... )

- The decision what titles to bring over is either done by the localization staff, the acquisition team (probably Evospace and ???) or they are approached directly by a Japanese VN company

- Good Haro apparently the only one among the senior staff with an interest in the otome and BL scene

- Why the Mangagamer site is... pink

- The ongoing challenge to get VN's with sexual content more accepted by the mainstream crowd via uncut Steam releases like Kindred Spirits or the specialized landing pages to avoid interferences with other titles

- No solution to the Steam key problem yet

- Minori apparently can call former team members back for work on Supipara if necessary. (That's interesting because I was always wondering how they'd get their artist back since he isn't working for them anymore. It seems like the original Supipara team really liked their project.)

[Vorathiel]

34 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

- Why the Mangagamer site is... pink

 

Quote

It’s a very warm and welcoming color though, and we want new fans and customers to feel welcomed and comfortable shopping, especially knowing that there’s such a stigma against adult content in the West.

What a bunch of a-holes.  Design of their site is the main reason I'm always hidding their page from anybody around me and when I'm recommending some VN to somebody I'm never linking to their page. It's horrible and humiliating to look at.

(I'm glad theire at least doing separate pages for their products like FataMorgana or KaraNoShoujo2, but when you click 'buy iy now'... Oh well.)

[Infernoplex]

I have to agree with Vorathiel, I don't like their website design, the individual VN pages are okay and some are even very good but the general website is just ... not up to my taste. I think they can do much better, both in terms of web design and its presentation.

1 hour ago, ChaosRaven said:

- Their stance on VN's with extreme content: They don't intend to go further than Maggot Baits 'for now' (Hard to believe how they are even able to find new titles with such a harsh restriction... )

Ahahaha, the only thing that comes to my mind is probably the In'youchuu series by Tinkerbell, though I don't know how hardcore it is compared to Maggot Baits.

[Dergonu]

Quote

That said, I think we had three people volunteer to work on Maggot Baits (I may have been one of them), so it hasn’t really been a huge issue.

Then why has there not been a single update past "picked up"?! Give us something...

 

Erhem, anyways, always nice to see companies do these types of interviews.  

[ChaosRaven]

1 hour ago, Dergonu said:

Then why has there not been a single update past "picked up"?! Give us something...

You might have a look on Kouryuu's Twitter account, since he's the translator and already dropped some comments about it. It's not much, but better than nothing. Not sure if he's already started to translate it though. If I remember right, then he usually first reads a VN before starting to translate it to get an impression of its overall style and atmosphere in order to decide how to translate it best.

[sanahtlig]

3 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

- Their stance on VN's with extreme content: They don't intend to go further than Maggot Baits 'for now' (Hard to believe how they are even able to find new titles with such a harsh restriction... )

That doesn't say all that much.  Violence is relatively well-tolerated in the West.  Lolis are not.  Kouryuu suggested in the past that titles like Monobeno were off the table.  It's quite possible MangaGamer would've or even did turn down Lose over Maitetsu.  No further than Maggot Baits indeed.

[Fred the Barber]

Agreed with everybody saying the website still screams back-alley sex shop (yes, I'm still borrowing that analogy Rooke made months ago). The landing pages are a huge improvement (and much prettier to boot!), but the rest of the site being sketchy as shit is still unpleasant.

[Nandemonai]

7 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

- Minori apparently can call former team members back for work on Supipara if necessary. (That's interesting because I was always wondering how they'd get their artist back since he isn't working for them anymore. It seems like the original Supipara team really liked their project.)

That's amazing.  I'm under the impression that games involving ex-team-members are almost impossible.  (Littlewitch Romanesque is by a technically closed company, but apparently all the staffers moved to this new company that has rights, sort of like how ADV morphed into Sentai, I guess.)  Like, the reason Jast USA doesn't put out Crowd games anymore, is that all the people they used to work with at Crowd left the company, so it's essentially a stranger to them now.

It sounds like Supipara really was a dream project, labor of love for the creators.  All the more a shame that Supipara vol. 1's release barely moved the needle on the fundraiser.

[sanahtlig]

2 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

Agreed with everybody saying the website still screams back-alley sex shop (yes, I'm still borrowing that analogy Rooke made months ago). The landing pages are a huge improvement (and much prettier to boot!), but the rest of the site being sketchy as shit is still unpleasant.

How would they even change that without sequestering the nukige in their own section or not promoting them at all in their shop?

[Fred the Barber]

1 hour ago, sanahtlig said:

How would they even change that without sequestering the nukige in their own section or not promoting them at all in their shop?

Making it so you can buy the product from the landing page would actually pretty much resolve it.

[sanahtlig]

17 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

Making it so you can buy the product from the landing page would actually pretty much resolve it.

They surely want to cross-promote their titles though.  That's the whole purpose of a shop environment: to encourage you to browse other titles.

[Fred the Barber]

3 hours ago, sanahtlig said:

They surely want to cross-promote their titles though.  That's the whole purpose of a shop environment: to encourage you to browse other titles.

Bad marketing is worse than no marketing. The time I decided to link Gahkthun to a normie audience, I spent about 20 minutes writing a disclaimer to the effect of "despite all the porn on this website, this game is not porn, and don't judge me or it based on that". Now I don't even bother.

[akaritan]

1 minute ago, Fred the Barber said:

Bad marketing is worse than no marketing. The time I decided to link Gahkthun to a normie audience, I spent about 20 minutes writing a disclaimer to the effect of "despite all the porn on this website, this game is not porn, and don't judge me or it based on that". Now I don't even bother.

I've given up and only link steam pages... I've written far too many disclaimers. One time, I recommended someone Bokurano, and they got triggered and spent 20 minutes telling me about how disgusting it was, since then I feel like I've had to tack on a four-paragraph content advisory to everything I recommend and it's such a pain. 

[ChaosRaven]

And another interview, this time about the upcoming Rance 5D and 6 double release with www.DualShockers.com. Participants are Kouryuu, Arunaru (the translator) and Amy (no idea).

[Chuee]

6 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

And another interview, this time about the upcoming Rance 5D and 6 double release with www.DualShockers.com. Participants are Kouryuu, Arunaru (the translator) and Amy (no idea).

Amy is bad end, or tulipgoddess.

[littleshogun]

My comment for the interview for now would be it's nice that we could always knew what's the staff opinion in regard of VN Translation here. I'll elaborate more here later.