Something happened at Sekai Project?

[Dergonu]

We have had to hide nearly a full page of posts derailing this thread. Please keep things on topic, and stop with the personal insults and such. If people can't behave, we'll have to close the thread. 

[Veshurik]

Ohh. Seriously? I missed something? As always

[bakauchuujin]

Other than them laying of employers it seems like there are some changes going on with SP. While they lost a lot of their marketing team it seems to me as if they have been using twitter a lot more lately. They have also started selling 18+ physical things through Denpasoft (from what I can see most likely remaining things from kickstarters and conventions) and they seem to have started having a weekly sale on SP and Denpa (I know they discount a lot, but weekly seems quite often). So I wonder if anyone thinks this just happened to take place during the same time or if they are desperately trying new things to get more money, or that it is something else?

[Veshurik]

I remember their streams, which they did every week, we can get normal answer from them... We got, well...

They closed so fast, latest streams weren't uploaded, and I never find out the answer on my question now. So sad.

[ratboi]

Jesus, only 35% of Rewrite done? They've had that for ages.

[Stormwolf]

Sekai Project is pretty much done for isn't it?

[bakauchuujin]

24 minutes ago, Stormwolf said:

Sekai Project is pretty much done for isn't it?

Not sure, but not really looking too good for them. Lately new companies like Nekonyan and Sol Press has added more competition. They continue screwing up their kickstarter backers by endlessly delaying physical releases, they have had problems with things like the Maitetsu censorship as well as the quality of some of their translations so their rep is just going down even further. Then there is of course the icebox that they have put some major titles in and how they lost Senren ＊ Banka to Nekonyan. While I don't know their financial situation all things considered it is probably a disaster.

Edited January 8, 2019 by bakauchuujin

[Antera]

At this rate we might see them going out of business. Same time I can envision FAKKU buying them out 

[EntireInternet]

15 minutes ago, Antera said:

At this rate we might see them going out of business. Same time I can envision FAKKU buying them out 

I'll never buy anything from them again if it happens. I'll never forgive Fakku for going to a completely pay to use model.

[Okarin]

17 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

Sekai Project is pretty much done for isn't it?

You would like it, wouldn't you?

[Plk_Lesiak]

17 hours ago, Okarin said:

You would like it, wouldn't you?

I, for one, wouldn't be that happy about it because of their role as EVN and doujin publisher, with probably no company that would be able/willing to fill the void. Plus, them going down wouldn't necessarily mean the licences they already have would get any kind of smooth transition to another publisher. I just wish they'd at least get their translation quality fixed, delays are annoying, but I see them as little more than minor inconveniences if the final product properly delivers. 

Although if they already mismanaged themselves into bankrupcy and are only delaying the inevitable with the restructuring etc, it wouldn't be that surprising. After all, if the mess on the outside is in any way indicative of how the company functions internally... "A mess" would probably be a pretty generous description here. 

Edited January 10, 2019 by Plk_Lesiak

[Stormwolf]

57 minutes ago, Okarin said:

You would like it, wouldn't you?

What i would like is to know where that comment came from.

[Okarin]

There's a lot of animosity and even boycott against Sekai. Like Lesiak said, I don't see the benefit in them going under.

I guess there are some people who will say, "they did shit work, they had it coming" but that's a rather extreme view.

Anyway I've seen all kinds of things said against Sekai.

I mean, if people boycott Sekai before Winged Cloud, they're pretty twisted.

This reminds me a bit of the console war, and that's quite sad.

Boycotting them because "they're a mess" will put the final nail on their coffin. Why not help them in their time of need if something they release appeals to you. No, we must send them to oblivion because they... Er... What they did again? I thought they were just another company, with their own misgivings.

Edited January 9, 2019 by Okarin

[Freestyle80]

15 hours ago, Okarin said:

There's a lot of animosity and even boycott against Sekai. Like Lesiak said, I don't see the benefit in them going under.

I guess there are some people who will say, "they did shit work, they had it coming" but that's a rather extreme view.

Anyway I've seen all kinds of things said against Sekai.

I mean, if people boycott Sekai before Winged Cloud, they're pretty twisted.

This reminds me a bit of the console war, and that's quite sad.

Boycotting them because "they're a mess" will put the final nail on their coffin. Why not help them in their time of need if something they release appeals to you. No, we must send them to oblivion because they... Er... What they did again? I thought they were just another company, with their own misgivings.

I would agree with you 3 or 4 years ago but now there's other companies ready to take their place 

rather support someone like Nekonyan than Sekai at this point and what do you mean by support anyway, buying all the crap they release instead of good titles?

 

They also haven't communicated about a lot of stuff either, why is Leyline 2 delayed again? If you look at a post thats from more than a year ago now they were apparently 87% done...? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sekaiproject/a-clockwork-ley-line-a-visual-novel-trilogy/posts/2023733 

Literally 0 updates after that other than saying 'Engine porting is difficult'. Imagine how the kickstarter backers feel.

Also depends on what interests me, nothing Sekai released in whole of 2018 is interesting (note VNs are a very low priority hobby of mine, below a lot of other things)

 

They are becoming the new JAST

Edited January 10, 2019 by Freestyle80

[SaintOfVoid]

11 minutes ago, Freestyle80 said:

I would agree with you 3 or 4 years ago but now there's other companies ready to take their place 

rather support someone like Nekonyan than Sekai at this point and what do you mean by support anyway, buying all the crap they release instead of good titles?

 

They also haven't communicated about a lot of stuff either, why is Leyline 2 delayed again? If you look at a post thats from more than a year ago now they were apparently 87% done...? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sekaiproject/a-clockwork-ley-line-a-visual-novel-trilogy/posts/2023733 

Literally 0 updates after that other than saying 'Engine porting is difficult'. Imagine how the kickstarter backers feel.

Also depends on what interests me, nothing Sekai released in whole of 2018 is interesting (note VNs are a very low priority hobby of mine, below a lot of other things)

 

They are becoming the new JAST

regrettably this. it´s no like them still being the "new kids on the block", quite some time has passed since founding and lots of things happened. times they´ve repeatedly told to work on whatnot for the better, are more often then idk. benefit of doubt is fine in itself, granted new companies shouldn´t be critizised into oblivion, same as having unnatural high expections for them, but yo, can´t pretend being professionals, yet behave like amateurs at times. in capitalism it´s eat or be eaten, and artificially keeping whomever doing inconsistent releases alive, through guilt-buying or misguided sentimentality, is nothing but a disservice to the industry as a whole.

btw and yes, sekai totally deserves any and all taking the piss, and be it only for them to have made fun of jasts abysmal-ish slow releases, despite ending up no really much better (no going into numbers here, or wanting to compare both - just the overall attitude)

[Plk_Lesiak]

1 hour ago, Freestyle80 said:

They are becoming the new JAST

That's actually unfair to JAST. Their delays are insane for sure, but the quality is pretty reliable and they work on a reasonable number of projects, getting painfully slow, but observable progress on most of them. With Sekai, there's no rhyme or reason to what they actually get done and to what effect, when it goes to major projects at least. The only thing they do right is releasing small doujins thay take way less resources and long-term effort to translate properly. 

Edited January 10, 2019 by Plk_Lesiak

[Okarin]

Oh, I forgot Nekonyan is Jesus and we must worship them. No way, Sekai has done a lot more even if they're in a (big?) slump.

I wish that Sekai makes a comeback.

[ChaosRaven]

2 hours ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

That's actually unfair to JAST. Their delays are insane for sure, but the quality is pretty reliable

Uh, unfortunately their quality is reliable bad. I'm currently playing Flowers -Le Volume sur Été- and the sheer number of bugs in that title is shocking. It probably tops their initial release of School Days in number, although School Days was still worse since it crashed much more often.

Regarding Sekai, it would be nice if they'd finally send the Chrono Clock hard copies out which should have been done almost two years ago. Nothing against short delays, but rivaling Star Citizen in that regard isn't particular encouraging. 

[Stormwolf]

50 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

Uh, unfortunately their quality is reliable bad. I'm currently playing Flowers -Le Volume sur Été- and the sheer number of bugs in that title is shocking. It probably tops their initial release of School Days in number, although School Days was still worse since it crashed much more often.

Regarding Sekai, it would be nice if they'd finally send the Chrono Clock hard copies out which should have been done almost two years ago. Nothing against short delays, but rivaling Star Citizen in that regard isn't particular encouraging. 

How could Sekai do that when they're practically bankrupt? You heard it here first.

[HataVNI]

Not everything is won/lost. Sekai still has to publish their step into the virtual reality. Tokyo Chronos may be delayed again, but the reason is to polish up the game to the best possible state. This at least shows us that they give enough fucks to quality control for this title. I think when Chronos flops, they are pretty much done for, but let's give them a last chance.

[Stormwolf]

I'd rather they finish leyline. No chance of me reading the first at this point just to be severely blue balled

[Veshurik]

Communication of Sekai got even worse after layoffs. Seriously... I just don't see any news from them. Only from Denpasoft about Majo Koi Nikki and Nanairo Reincarnation. That is all...

 

It is just terrible

[yelsha57]

Sekai Project (@sekaiproject) Tweeted:
Look at all those projects! We want to get them out sooner but we need programmers/hackers! If you can reverse engineer or ASM hack proprietary engines, email [email protected] if interested. https://t.co/E7LCGShq15

I thought I would share this. Hopefully more projects that they're working on will get better. I still like them and, I just hope they do better this year which I think they will. 

Edited February 21, 2019 by yelsha57

[adamstan]

One could think, that doing licensed translations would get you proper tools to work on game "bundled" with the license, instead of having to rely on reverse engineering/hacking like fan-TL projects have to do... That's quite surprising.

Edited February 21, 2019 by adamstan

[Plk_Lesiak]

12 minutes ago, adamstan said:

One could think, that doing licensed translations would get you proper tools to work on game "bundled" with the license, instead of having to rely on reverse engineering/hacking like fan-TL projects have to do... That's quite surprising.

Considering some JAST projects gets stuck on engine work for literal years I wouldn't find it unbelievable that many, if not most Japanese developers don't give a f*** enough to provide the localization companies with that kind of assistance. Especially if most of them don't take translating into account when producing their games.