"Vote with your dollars?"

Is it my imagination or has Jast's recent licensing line-up nothing more than games already being worked on by fan translators?

What ever happened to buying the type of game you like then Jast will licence more of it?

Is it more like if you want something licenced, translate it yourself and we'll licence it at the last minute?

I don't mean to rant, but this leaves Jast as being a rather boring company. Since their line up is just going to be something from TL Wiki.

[KaioShin]

Eien no Aselia was already released, so what's to whine about? Normally only the pirates rant about this stuff since they get "robbed" of their free patches.

Mangagamer also has released Higurashi and Soul Link, both had fan translations ongoing.

JAST finally wants to release quality games and not just sex romps. And that tends to be the kind of game picked up by fan translators too. That's where the connection is.

I don't mind them releasing games translated by fans, but when their entire line-up is nothing but fan translated games, then it gets boring. If they announce they have a new game up their sleeve, its probably just another fan translation.

The difference with Manga Gamer is, while they also release fan translated games, they also have a whole load of titles no one has worked on. So there's still some buzz when they say they have some new games up their sleeve.

If both Jast and Manga Gamer only licence games already completed or nearly completed by fan translators, what's to look forward to? Other than the fact you can buy their version at a much cheaper price than paying imports and not bother patching it (so I say, but some people will import the game in advance and end up wasting a load of money)

I disagree that sex romps are the games that tend to be picked up by fan translators, with the exception of Dark Translations.

Bottom line of my rant is, release games that have been worked on by fans if you think it will sell (by all means do it, the fan translators will be bailed out of trouble), but have some original titles in there too.

I don't think you're appreciating just how hard it is to get Japanese companies to agree to release in the west. JAST get turned down by 95% of the companies they try.

It's sad but the truth is many companies want there games to stay Japanese only, and will only agree when fan translators force their hand and the two choices are license and make a little money or fan translation and get pirated to hell.

Anyway they do have some upcoming games like Kikouyoku Senki Tenkuu no Yumina and Cleavage that did not come from the fan community.

[TDOMMX]

I should note that the JAST release of Aselia is using Xuse's own English translation, not Dakkongo's. As with My Girlfriend is the President, I think this is just another case of bad timing with the license announcement.

[KaioShin]

Originally Posted by Strum

I disagree that sex romps are the games that tend to be picked up by fan translators, with the exception of Dark Translations.

Actually I was saying exactly the opposite. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

JAST has always been accused and looked down on by certain parts of the community cause they mostly released sex romps. The more story heavy games are what most fan translators are interested in. Now JAST finally wants to bring over higher quality games and it's a natural development IMO that there will be a higher intersection with fan translated projects because of that, since both are looking now at the same list of candidates to chose from.

This is what people always wanted JAST to do, I'm disappointed people can even find fault in that.

[Stranger]

soooo...
Fan Translation = killing any chance of an official release?

hummmm..... nice, very nice

P.S. if you are looking forward to something, does it matter if it is fan translated or not?

[zalas]

Originally Posted by Strum

Is it my imagination or has Jast's recent licensing line-up nothing more than games already being worked on by fan translators?

Wouldn't that mean that JAST USA has been picking up more and more popular games? Isn't that a good thing?

@Zalas: Just because a game is translated by fans doesn't mean its popular with the masses. They only translate games that they personally like. If it becomes popular in the online community, then it's purely a coincidence.

@Stranger: Quite the opposite, it seems the way to make Jast licence something is to translate it yourself. It doesn't really matter if a game is fan translated or licenced. It's just that if Jast disappeared, they won't be missed since all the games they were planning to release would have been translated by fans anyway.

I just getting the feeling Jast doesn't know what to licence and is just hanging around tl wiki and licencing whatever is there. What's next I wonder, Wheel Country, Sunflower Girl maybe? Oh, well spotted unregistered. I had completly forgotten all about that, its just Jast's recent announcements have all been disappointing.

[zalas]

Originally Posted by Strum

@Zalas: Just because a game is translated by fans doesn't mean its popular with the masses. They only translate games that they personally like. If it becomes popular in the online community, then it's purely a coincidence.

So are you saying that games popular with fans aren't necessarily games that are popular with the masses in the online community (i.e. fans)?

Originally Posted by Strum

I just getting the feeling Jast doesn't know what to licence and is just hanging around tl wiki and licencing whatever is there.

Can you honestly believe that, when ALcot and XUSE were the ones who approached JAST USA in the first place and not the other way around?

Originally Posted by zalas

So are you saying that games popular with fans aren't necessarily games that are popular with the masses in the online community (i.e. fans)?

Can you honestly believe that, when ALcot and XUSE were the ones who approached JAST USA in the first place and not the other way around?

Fan translators represent the minority ie themselves. They translate games they want and not what people beg for, in forums and such. You can't really say that the games being worked on by fans are what the masses have been asking for. Have people even heard of those games before fan translators started working on it? (excluding games that have anime adaptation)

As for ALcot and XUSE, I see your point but it just looks that way to me. Maybe this is all just a coincidence, or maybe its because of the points raised by an unregistered user. Either way, I still believe we're going to see a lot more fan translated stuff being licensed (nothing wrong with that) and almost no original titles (titles that require them to actually translate and not just check over)

[zalas]

Originally Posted by Strum

Fan translators represent the minority ie themselves. They translate games they want and not what people beg for, in forums and such. You can't really say that the games being worked on by fans are what the masses have been asking for.

This is based on the false assumption that people who work in fan translation projects are not part of the set of people who like playing such games. It is very rare (but not impossible) that someone joins a translation project having never been part of this community. Therefore, we can consider people who work on translation projects a sampling (albeit slightly nonuniform, since not everyone is willing to put in voluntary time and effort) of the community. Thus, it is very unimaginable that there is no correlation between preferences of the community and preferences of people working on fan translation projects, especially given how many fan translation projects there are. You even have *translators* who decided to pick up translating a game because they wanted to play it originally in English. (I personally don't recommend doing this <_<)

Have people even heard of those games before fan translators started working on it? (excluding games that have anime adaptation)

Yes, guess where some of the project staff come from... A lot of times, what happens is that some info about some game in Japan leaks over to the English-speaking community, and a group of fans form to try to tackle the game.

As for ALcot and XUSE, I see your point but it just looks that way to me. Maybe this is all just a coincidence, or maybe its because of the points raised by an unregistered user. Either way, I still believe we're going to see a lot more fan translated stuff being licensed (nothing wrong with that) and almost no original titles (titles that require them to actually translate and not just check over)

Well, JAST USA's current lineup as far as we can tell:
Demonbane (only partially fan translated before being picked up)
OsaDai (pretty much fully fan translated before being picked up)
Aselia (fan translation not to be used, translation provided by XUSE, but still need to be polished)
Yumina (no previous existing translation)
OsaDai and Aselia started from contact initiated the original companies. As far as I can tell, Demonbane fan translators were contacted after talks with Nitro+ had started.

So yes, as JAST USA starts picking up new high-profile titles from new companies, there will be a higher chance of their having been a fan translation of said titles. However, that's more coincidence than anything else, since high profile titles tend to be more likely to spawn fan translation projects.

[NTX]

Originally Posted by Strum

Fan translators represent the minority ie themselves. They translate games they want and not what people beg for, in forums and such. You can't really say that the games being worked on by fans are what the masses have been asking for.

There aren't "masses" in the first place. Anime is a niche, and visual novels are a niche within that niche.

Originally Posted by Strum

Have people even heard of those games before fan translators started working on it? (excluding games that have anime adaptation)

Mean no offense, but how long have you been a fan? A lot of projects are started due to fan hype (more of half of tlwiki's active projects list). As far as I remember, the only current fan-anticipated VN I didn't see mentioned around the boards (before its project started) is Yu-no.

[LoSs]

I'm sorry, I didn't know you were longing for new Zyx title so much...

Originally Posted by LoSs

I'm sorry, I didn't know you were longing for new Zyx title so much...

.
Zyx titles are definitely better than any of mangagamer's nukige