General News IV: A New Hope?

[Asceai]

I think there is a market, it's just a very small, very slow market, so the only way to be able to turn a profit on these things is to get a very good deal with the Japanese company - something royalty-based, for them to have hired seiyuu and the like on a work-for-hire basis so they have all rights to all content in the game, to have a large number of titles available forever with both print + download available (like JAST USA do) rather than short print runs like most eroge companies have and to be clever about the pricing. You won't earn back your money in a month or even a year but if you have enough titles still earning money that shouldn't be a huge problem.

[Stranger]

for you to have to wait for a long time before you can start making profit means that you are loaded with money and won't mind suffering while waiting for your product to finally sale. Don't forget, games (including VNs) need to sale in the first month in order pay back their production cost, I believe that this same rule does apply to MG as well as JAST.

the only other approach to the license problem, is not the have it in the first place! As I pointed out in the past, the best approach is for the Japanese company to include English text with their original release. This way, they will only pay for the translation and nothing else. The release will still be a Japanese release (with a clear "To be sold in Japan Only"), so whatever they are paying right now to make the VN won't change.

but still, I really am surprised by how small the western eroge market is.

[Asceai]

Originally Posted by Stranger

for you to have to wait for a long time before you can start making profit means that you are loaded with money and won't mind suffering while waiting for your product to finally sale. Don't forget, games (including VNs) need to sale in the first month in order pay back their production cost, I believe that this same rule does apply to MG as well as JAST.

But they CAN'T, that's the thing. It's not a matter of needing to pay back their production cost in the first month; they _cannot_ pay back their production costs in the first month. That's just how it is. Let's ask JAST if they've ever had a game pay itself off in the first month. Ask MangaGamer too. I highly doubt it. Eroges can do this, sure; but the eroge localisation market can not.

The traditional market model of front-loaded sales does not apply here. If you can't maintain a library of titles over a long period of time, you can't do business in this area.

[Cosign]

Originally Posted by Moogy

Really, it's just a depressing situation all-around. I'm beginning to believe that there simply is no market for translated eroge period, but I suppose that's a discussion for another day.

In 2010, maybe there isn't. But come 2012. Or even 2015? The number of people who play visual novels will have increased by then.

Katawa Shoujo and Leigh Alexander's article on kotaku did wonders for the medium. On #bakabt, they have a channel dedicated to just talking about English translated VNs. Then there was Fate Stay Night and Clannad, both huge hits for VNs in general, albeit in 2008. I am sure there were other 'major incidents' that I do not know about that brought in more fans.

Not long ago, Mangagamer's president was posting here about piracy and how much it is hurting the industry. While I think his points were quite valid, I also think that the medium has not quite reached the level that he argues. There aren't enough people who play these things. And I think that fan translators will continue to do the very important job of building up the industry (Although right now it is a bit quiet...).

The question is, what will be the next big hit that will brings in the fans? Steins;Gate?

When will we ever see a total of 17 translators and 13 editors + countless other contributors work on ONE project ever again? http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/in...ad#Translators

Originally Posted by Cosign

In 2010, maybe there isn't. But come 2012. Or even 2015? The number of people who play visual novels will have increased by then.

The publishing companies aren't going to bleed themselves dry until it happens (if it ever does).

[Moogy]

Originally Posted by Cosign

When will we ever see a total of 17 translators and 13 editors + countless other contributors work on ONE project ever again? http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/in...ad#Translators

This isn't exactly a good thing.

Also I'm pretty sure S;G will be translated at some point, it's just a question of when and by who.

[jyuichi]

Originally Posted by Moogy

This isn't exactly a good thing.

Especially considering, the group never got a finished patch out. Just a bunch of test builds at varying states of editing. :-/ Its kind of a disaster...

[Asceai]

Yes, I'm sort of amazed nobody managed to finish translating Clannad after it's been in a 'translated-and-almost-finished' state for.. how long now? Is the intention to try and get VisualArt's to C&D it before the project can be released so that people can go and whine how it was killed when they were "SO CLOSE" ? And the only reason it's dragged on so long is because, by some nearly impossible million-to-one chance, it's the only project VisualArt's HASN'T seen?

Clannad was an example of how not to do a translation. The writing was already on the wall early on, but the person in charge insisted that this was an ingenious plan.

[Cosign]

All of you are presuming that multiple translators automatically create an inferior output. I don't agree with that.

In a professional localization team for Japanese video games, there are a team of translators, a team of editors and finally there is one guy who checks through everything and normalizes it. See http://radio.morningproject.com/

If you enjoy working solitary, that's totally fine. But this approach of needing to create 'pure' experiences are in itself the stem of the problem and everything that we have been talking about for the past few months. It's Elitism, isn't it?

I would like to see more projects move away from the one-man team approach:

• The production cycles right now are too long.

• Steins;Gate will not be the hot thing that it is if fans have to wait 2 years for the VN.

• Translator lose interest, they burn out. We are left with an unfinished translation.

• The idea of a team of translators is Not a new thing in the world of video game fan translations. It can be done, even for amateurs. See http://www.at2.metalbat.com/?page_id=2

- Ultimately the translation's quality won't be as consistent as a one-man team however, I am asking that we sacrifice consistency for the sake of a shorter production cycle. You might say, 'Whoa hold it there'. Sacrifice translation quality? What a joke. But in my opinion, the fansubbing scene and scanlation scene, as humungous and vibrant as they have become, still produce utter works of trash. Some of the English on Baka-tsuki is garbage. But I think that people will still read them. They will read them in droves.

At the heart of everything I am saying is that, fan translators work for fans. If you don't agree with this then there is nothing more for me to say.

[jyuichi]

Originally Posted by Cosign

All of you are presuming that multiple translators automatically create an inferior output. I don't agree with that.

No, we are claiming the Clannad translation is a disaster. No-one said it was automatically doomed because of the huge staff. Just that its not a good example of fan accomplishments considering its STILL not done. I personally think group translations are probably fine as long as the staff communicates with each other to at least TRY for consistency.

Right now "we are left with an unfinished translation" just like you said a one-man team results in. Clearly a group can burn-out as well.

I suspect the unofficial patches (resulting from the public nature of the wiki) are part of why the team burnt out and stopped prematurely.There wasn't much motivation to polish it up. By the time they finished a quality work no-one would care since they had all played the half-baked one.

Where did all those staff go? you'd think someone would still be on it...

[Moogy]

The problem here is that it attracted a bunch of people without the skills to cut it, not that it attracted a large amount of people period.

Unfortunately, I think that pretty much any truly "open" project will end up heading down this road. Recruiting a skilled team is one thing, recruiting a bunch of random people is another.

Take a look at the Love Plus project on TLWiki if you want another example.

[zalas]

Originally Posted by Cosign

In a professional localization team for Japanese video games, there are a team of translators, a team of editors and finally there is one guy who checks through everything and normalizes it. See http://radio.morningproject.com/

Um... what are you trying to link to? Couldn't you at least link to a specific podcast? I've only talked to one high profile video game translation house so far, NIS America, and they claim all their game projects have one translator and one editor per project.

[Cosign]

Originally Posted by zalas

Um... what are you trying to link to? Couldn't you at least link to a specific podcast? I've only talked to one high profile video game translation house so far, NIS America, and they claim all their game projects have one translator and one editor per project.

Sorry. I didn't think anyone would care enough to click on the podcasts. These 3 guys are all professional Japanese Games translators.

It's the latest episode, episode 08. And the segment you want is near the beginning. Just start from scratch and you will bump it into real soon.

The thing about teams is that in professional localization, the roles are more defined than just each person translating a arbitrary segment of a script.

For instance, at Square Enix, there's usually only one person in charge of the main story text (and one localization director and editor for the whole project). There may or may not be other translators, but for the latter, jobs are delegated so that one person does NPC dialogues, one person does item/weapon/name text, etc.