New VN Publisher ANIPLEX.EXE blocks Europe

[Yuuko]

1 hour ago, adamstan said:

It gets even weirder since it isn't just translation, but the only, worldwide (well, minus Europe...) release of Adabana. So I cannot even go to DLsite or wherever, to buy another version - because there's none*.

*On VNDB pages for both ATRI and Adabana there are links to DMM, but they're dead, giving the 404 error message.

You can buy on DMM with VPN set to Japan.

 

(Adabana has voiced protagonist male so clearly they wanted to save money because male voice licensing is expensive af)

 

[Narcosis]

1 hour ago, Yuuko said:

(Adabana has voiced protagonist male so clearly they wanted to save money because male voice licensing is expensive af)

That's quite possible, definitely more so than the GDPR conspiracies and whatnot. Add the fact Aniplex so far was working mainly on anime licensing and such practices aren't uncommon in this business.

I presume the reason they don't comment on it is... because there's no one to reply. Aniplex of America looks like a shell company and I wouldn't be surprised if they have barely anyone working there, least being responsible for any sort of PR.

10 hours ago, Zalor said:

As for the business side of things with this strange policy towards Europe, well this sounds like just the kind of bullshit I would expect from Japanese companies. Its not just xenophobia, the boomers who are in charge of most Japanese companies are hardly ever business savvy, and this is in large part because in most Japanese companies you don't get promoted on merit but rather seniority. I don't know the specifics of the companies involved here, but the phenomenon I mentioned is just broadly speaking a major issue I've noticed in how Japanese business culture functions.    

Also true.

[adamstan]

6 minutes ago, Narcosis said:

That's quite possible, definitely more so than the GDPR conspiracies and whatnot.

Yeah, this explains why the game isn't released for EU. But then, ATRI got European release, and yet it's homepage is geo-blocked the same way as other aniplex' pages.

[Seraphim]

If licensing fees for the voice actor of the protagonist is the only thing stopping them from releasing it in Europe, shouldn't it be really easy to solve by just removing those voiced lines from the game? I imagine that would be preferable to not releasing the game at all, both for them and for the European consumers.

[adamstan]

But then they would have to prepare separate european-only release. And that also costs money. Perhaps they think that for an English version America alone will provide enough sales

[Dreamysyu]

If it was really a problem with voices localization, wouldn't they rather make it a US only release rather than specifically blocking the EU?

[Formlose Gestalt]

So while the situation on Steam never changed (Adabana Odd Tales is still blocked in most of Europe) Aniplex has now decided to put their games on the JAST USA store that of course has no block for European customers.

https://twitter.com/jastusa/status/1329848103952818177

In other words anyone from Europe can now officially buy Adabana Odd Tales if they want!

 

I am not going to lie I have no idea what their problem on Steam is, since my theory that they don't have the license for Europe is now invalid, but that's good news. If they continue to put their games on the JAST store I wouldn't even mind if they translate more games, where before I would have hated if they published more games.

ATRI -My Dear Moments- is of course also avaible on JAST.

https://twitter.com/jastusa/status/1329847238856642562

Edited November 21, 2020 by Formlose Gestalt