Kureha One

I will say this I am starting to get pissed off. The game is only 25 fucking dollars and you cannot even support the industry you enjoy so much? Instead you have to steal it from others and hurt the industry in the process.

I hope you know that if you don't actually buy the mother fucking games you won't actually see anymore official releases. Which means in the near future you might not see anything at all with the way the C&Ds are going.

Every once in a while I think you should actually buy a game so that they can make money so that they can release newer and better games. Just a thought.

I would highly recommend not pirating Demonbane. If you have to buy any game it should be this one. Nitroplus will not release anymore games if this does not sell to their satisfaction. Not to mention they've already made it difficult for fan translations. If you ever hope to see another nitroplus title be released for the love of "whatever deity or science you believe" buy the title when it is released and do not pirate it.

I do think this website is very useful for when activations run out, when you need a no cd patch, need japanese games and walkthroughs & translations so the site does have its uses. I won't lie I've downloaded a few myself. I just always see the same people responding and never actually buying. It will come to bite us all in the ass eventually mark my words.

edit: I'm going to leave this here as a reminder that I'm an idiot. For what it is worth I apologize for this post.

If they weren't release here, they would be somewhere else, just like it was before this forum even existed. "The same people" that you always see wouldn't buy the games even if they weren't available somewhere else. It's not the fact that they are available to download that people don't buy it, if you don't believe me, then compare the PS3 console sales to the 360 and Wii. The PS3 still has to be cracked and their sales are lower than those of their competitors. The problem that fan translators have is caused by 2chers who want their superior Japanese games and mangas only for themselves. The same 2chers that download en masse every Western release of an eroge. And if Demonbane fails, it's only JAST's fault for not being able to analyze their market and their customers. They already know the people they are dealing with and how many games are usually bought by them, depending on the type of game. If this is a gamble placed on the people that actually buy games when a fan translation is released, then they could be in for an ugly surprise. If not, then they are confident on their usual customers. We aren't part of the equation. They already know that tens of thousands (ef alone had over 100.000 downloads) will get their games without paying for them, it's the ones that buy that they cater for and that they can depend on.

And before the "that's your excuse for pirating stuff", I don't have any means to afford JAST's and MG's releases, even though I feel bad for it. I'm more worried about getting a job to pay my bills and to treat my health problems, then to pay for games.

I'm actually buying games after I played them AND enjoyed them.

But I gotta say those are rare, and most JAST stuff are just utter boring sex games and absolutly not appealing in my eyes ( I mean come on did you really buy stuff like bazooka cafe ? >_> ). I think, the only halfway interesting title they had so far was this game about some family of problem guys/ girls living together, the game which had this controvery going about loli censoring, though I never was interested in playing it. Also Raidy or that car game which seem to be some major JAST hits are totaly unappealing for me, I tried Raidy 1 some time ago and didn't even get through the first 2 lvls, I don't see the point to grind lvls for some porn pics, rather dl some hentai cg pack or h-movie >_<

So yeh, I bought no game from JAST so far, though I bought stuff like Fate/ Stay Night, Sengoku Rance, Aoishiro which were all released by fangroups.
I just don't feel like wasting my money for crap ( I preordered demonbane since it was available though, hoping that it will open the way to Sumaga! ).
Oh and I don't buy mangagamer games out of principle, just like I don't buy any other commercial dl-only games. Gimme a proper package and I'll order Koihime asap T_T!

The games may be still be elsewhere even if the this site were gone. I get that piracy is an eternal thing. Hell I'm not even sure most places could do anything about it in the first place if they did do anything at all.

Comparing the PS3 to the 360 and the Wii is fallible. The PS3, despite my owning it, sucks. End of story. It isn't because it can't be cracked it's because it is a bad system. The games suck, the design sucks, and they have more problems than the wii and 360 put together (but not a red ring of death). Bad example of pirating affecting a market.

edit: further evidence that I'm an idiot.

In regards to the 2chers if you ban the ip from japan then you have nothing to worry about. None of these people are actually moving to C&D translations (or whatever it is called). Hopefully we will see more of them begin to do so in the future so that they can remain off the radar. I also believe that they may be some games that are being worked on but we won't be told until finished.

Now mind you many people in this day and age do not have jobs and can barely afford to live let alone buy games. I understand that. However if maybe when (if) the economy ever picks up if you could actually pay for one game would that really be that much to ask? Maybe I'm asking too much. Maybe not.

edit: Despite the rest of this I do agree with this statement that if people ever get out of whatever mess or whatever that they are in that if they actually really enjoy a game that it might not hurt to buy one (let us hope they are cheaper than now though). I'm not telling anyone to actually do this if you want to you can otherwise meh.

Mind you I'm almost positive that both jast and mangagamer know of this site and others similar to it. Whether they do not do anything because it would cost too much, attract unwanted attention, use the site themselves, or believe that this does help on occasion I do not know.

I am not saying that pirating is completely bad. Hell I do it myself (usually not for licensed english titles but that's just me). Pirating is good as well though because the captain has to actually buy the game in order to distribute it to his crew. In some ways it helps in others it hinders.

It helps because some people like laplacian will play games and if they like them they may pay for them if they have money. And it is worth the money.

The good games are hard to find though and it is a reason why pirating is so popular besides the fact it is free. You can't really tell which. It's like try it before you buy it for some people.

I do not believe that MangaYagami is completely correct about all crewmen nor do I believe my original assessment was either. I buy games after all and I pirate so I'm sure there are quite a few who are in the gray area like myself. This along with pirating is how some people get introduced to these type of things both are ways the industry is helped by pirates.

I do believe though that if more Nitroplus titles are to ever be released (they have good games) then at least this once the crews will have to get in bed with the navy-man's daughter in order to get a safe route open for more "honest business"....

just saying.

edit: where the hell was my mind when I typed this. It doesn't even make sense to me and I wrote it.

uhhh....

You know, if it's a good quality translation, then you know what? I'd buy it. If something like FSN was released officially, then yeah, I'd buy it.

But whatever. Discussion over, you're not gonna change people's minds by ranting ugly, ugly.

Let me give you the Portuguese example, there are more people with 360s than PS3s here not because people don't like the console itself, but because they can't pirate it's games. In terms of game's sales, both consoles are balanced even though there are more 360 owners over here. I know that this isn't a general rule, but it happens. Regarding the grey area, I have a couple of games and some anime DVDs that I bought when I worked and I would already have stuff from either JAST/MG if I was still working. I won't talk about buying games that were fan translated, because I don't know where I could get them through European stores so that I wouldn't have to deal with the Portuguese customs.

And even though we have to support Demonbane or Higurashi to get more and better stuff, we can't do anything about it. There are people that won't buy it, independently of their finantial situation or how much they liked it. I know a lot of people like that personally and, they don't give a damn. The companies just have to deal with it. There was a pretty good statement made by a Stardock's representative a couple of years ago who stated they saved a lot of money by not implementing copy protections on their titles, which they already knew that someone would eventually break, and that would give problems to eventual customers, so they prefer to invest that money in extended support to their games, which is only accessible to people with authentic serial numbers. I know that already goes beyond the VN market, but the question is that companies can save costs that way while they keep the same prices. The losses they have through piracy are exactly the same, since the games are distributed with the proper cracks. Sometimes, the game will take a week or two longer to have a 100% working crack, but those same people prefer to keep trying new cracks instead of buying the original game. The fact that it's harder to crack doesn't change anything. It's a question of mentality and that person's own morality. You can't change their way of thinking.

I totaly know what you mean. I had massive problems when I imported Aoishiro. German customs opened the package, like they do with everything fucking package, damn bastards they are, and asked me to visit them and explain what that game is.
I seriously had to met them and we had a discussion about what kind of game that is, and if there are any nude lolis or something in it ( the box is a bit ecchi, nothing much >_> ). Thank god Aoishiro is all ages, I know that drawn nude underage girls are allowed in Germany, but I still got quite uncomfortable during the meeting.

This is just another useless topic. Piracy is as old as the trading relationships and it will not stop.
But since piracy is bad lets check other things:
-2nd hand game commercialization
In console games, whichever they are, we can see an increase market of 2nd hand games, many of them in a really good state.
This is just a response to the economic state of the world vs price of the games.
In consoles like the ps3 this makes much difference because lots of games don't need many playthroughs and are expensive as hell.
Its just buy->resell->buy new one->resell and your game gets to travel around the world. The company gets the money from the 1st buy but nothing besides it and you get some money back from the guy that bought at a lower price. Since the companies don't complain about this market i assume its legal in terms of license ownership.
-Lending games
Another case is lending the game, i care to ask how many of you never lent a game to a friend.
In terms of costs lets see: a 20$ game and you lend it to a friend. Lets say 1000 guys do the same and the company is just burning in 20000$ (and this is just at a small scale)
We don't condemn this act since "we're just loaning to a friend or 2" but the fact it can hurt as much than common piracy, but hey its not on the net it can't hurt much, can it.....

The fact is most of us will try 1st and check the game, some we may like some we may not. And i don't know about many of you guys but i'm sure that i won't buy a game that i hate...
And finally fans will always support the companies. Just check how many fan translation sites are there and you can see that many would close without support (just remembering one that as a monthly fee of 900US$ just for their servers).
If people donate to fan translating groups they can afford to support this games and will to show appreciation for their work.
Piracy is not always bad at least i'm thankful for broadening my horizons in different types of games, especially the japanese visual novels that otherwise i wouldn't know they existed.
Hummm got a bit long... just venting out from all those that think all pirates are bad and will do bad things around the world...

There is that problem, and it's also not illegal around this parts, and the fact that they loved to duplicate the price of the games that I bought from the U.S.. As much as I may like some of those games, paying twice their original price isn't good for anyone's wallet.

I'm not going to argue that much, all I can say is that with no job, I'm not qualified to have a credit card. I believe JList also doesn't ship to my country. Then again, everything I'll try to say will probably be excuses. I'm in a dilemma, this is what happens when you live in an Asian country and your first language is English. Problems everywhere.

I live on a budget of 62.3053 USD (excluding utility bills and half the food bills) a month, which is a bit below average even in my country. I keep myself and the server alive with that amount. I gave up buying manga and reading altogether because I just couldn't make ends meet. I'll treat myself to a fig every half a yr or so if I can cough up the cash.

I'm just going to ask that people refrain from making insults, and that we keep the discussion civilized, I'm not one to abuse mod powers and censor those who have different opinions. I'm not saying anyone's not being civilized right now, I'm just saying it in advance incase things turn into a flame war. I should also check about stopping google from crawling the forum pages, incase we appear too much from the keywords lol.

i spend most of my money on music and i buy anime dvds from time to time, but i'm not too interested in buying games because...

1. i probably won't play them again anyway;
2. if i have to spend $100 (what most japanese galgames would cost) or 50 euros (what most mangagamer titles would cost) on one item i'd rather go and get a rare vinyl record off ebay, it would makes me much happier than buying some game.

@Kureha: I can write long-winded posts and/or be quite arrogant while I RAGE, but if I see that I'm going to make a fool of myself, more than I usually am, then I stop writing. If a person firmly believes on their own opinion, it isn't a reason to insult someone else, even if their argument is the opposite, flawed or inconsistent.

@godgrinder: That's how I act regarding movies and, most people have their priorities related to what they enjoy and what they actually buy. There was even the case of a renowned Portuguese football player who got caught by the police with dozens of copied DVD movies and it wasn't because he didn't have the money to buy them, lol.

I still think he's just trolling.

No one seriously give a shit about piracy and no one would be stupid enough to voice out a non-valid opinion on this site which is crawling with it. Meh, boring.

On the other hand-

No that would be stealing another thread. I shall return to my own.

Well, here are my 2 cents.
Recently there was great sale on steam. So let's compare games and prices during that sale.
Lets take top games:
Civilization IV (3 addons included) - 10$ (regular price 20$)
Dragon Age - 15$ (regular price 30$)
And what about casual games?
Plants vs Zombies - 8$ (regular price 10$)
Shatter - 5$ (regular price 10$)
And after that MangaGamer wants 26$ for, say, Cosplay Alien and 48$ for KiraKira? That make me laugh, really. I mean "Hey, guys? In what universe do you live?"

Digital only downloads without any packaging or disc for $25 is a rip off. I really enjoyed playing through Higurashi, but its a waste if you get no value for your money and there's a free cracked version on this website (which BTW I delete as soon as I am finished reading it).

And if these companies lose money and stop translating games? Heck if I care. I won't be taken for an idiot. I'd just focus my attention to other games. And anyways, I doubt that these downloads hurt sales at all. If that's true, how was Mangagamer able to release all 8 games so quickly? You can't do this unless you had good sales and expected a good return on the investment.

And another point: years ago, illegal downloading of music was said to be the nail in the coffin for the music industry. Eminem's newest album came out a few weeks ago and it sold millions.

Well, there was Hirameki's case, but their death was also their own fault.

And it's easier to ask for low prices when you've surpassed the sales target by a large margin to the point that you are only profitting, independently of the price that you are currently selling your product. A smaller market for products that are in low demand will obviously have higher prices. It's the law of supply and demand.

Another post about piracy vs legal...
Hell... not everyone lives in a nice country or had the money to spend.
I'm living in a shitty country, I work 6 days a week (60 hours per week) and can barely survive after paying the rent, food, bills. And in my situation i can't get a CC.
Hell... buying 2 games on Mangagamer = the money I spend per month (lunch, transportation from home/work/home, cigarettes).
So you thing that I can throw so easy my money?
So let's think this way... what if my situation was diffrent? Shit... I buy it legally! even don't need to think twice.
If the game is great, don't had any problem supporting them.
I owe a Xbox 360 (RRoD) with GTA 4 LE (After saving up for 5 months), Gears of War LE (After saving for almost 3 months), Resident Evil 5 LE (After saving for 3 months) and a Halo 3 Legendary Edition (After saving for 6 months).
Now i have a PS3 with 8 games... buying each game cost me 2 to 3 months of saving....
Stop the hypocresy trying to be the defender of the justice, not everyone it's so lucky to had their parent's support, a better job or living in a nice place.

p.s1: Don't get me wrong... this is a reply to kyrt and no one else.
p.s2: My parent's can't work so i support all my family... that's why i never had the privilege to attend college and that's why i had to work 60 hours per week.
p.s3: sorry for my crappy & sloppy engrish, all the english i know was learned by my self and it's not my primary lenguage as everyone can read.

Im just gonna quote with Kureha on this one, since Kureha's situation is very much similar to my own...
Yes, finance... and customs shipment problems here as well...

Although im not a student, im recently graduated college and awaiting my call into the Army... Any $$$ I get from my part-time job has to go to repaying school loans, and supporting myself. Parents arnt even giving me a single cent anymore. And im living off approx 150USD a month, with an average McDonald meal being 3-4USD... So i tend to stay home lots... So i think im still slightly better off than Kureha.

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Sorry... I've decided to deleted that bunch of stuffs from my post. I realize that it could be misinterpret and maybe cause a flame war... So im just gonna end it with this short paragraph..

Despite finance and shipping reasons... I'll continue to support the industry 'my own way'... From buying the game itself, to simply buying the game's figurine (like my Sengoku Rance's Kenshin <3). But I can only support them only when I can.

When I talked about buying their games when I have the possibility to do it, I was thinking about earning again something like my last job's income, around 700€/month. Even though I had to help with the house expenses and all that, I always had some money to spend on stuff that I like.

Compared to some of you, I can consider myself lucky to have my mother to support me. The only money that she can borrow me is for my medication and for when I go to the endocrinologist. Even then, it's not enough to treat my eyesight problems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graves%27_ophthalmopathy), but I'm glad that they aren't getting worse, so they can wait.

And yeah, the "free health services" in the European Union aren't that free and those that are, take years until they finally do something. There was this Portuguese guy who only got his letter to do a surgery that he needed after he died. That's how slow they are.

EDIT: And SaMo0204, you shouldn't worry about your English. There is barely anyone here who is an English native speaker.

I'm a minority here. How refreshing.

To be honest, I'm pretty well off, but seeing as I still live at home and rely on my parents even though I'm in college...well, I could get kicked out any moment. I just don't see the point in buying something I can get for free, unless I'm a big fan. I mean if it was the quality of like GTO, or Haruhi I'd buy it as I promised myself I would. But I mean seriously, would you buy shit like Naruto? Bleach? No, they're good for a bit of a read, but that's it.

Same with most games that are pro-licensed. Good read, but not worth buying.

I am a die hard fan of Higurashi... I would of bought it (or beg my brother to) if they were CDS I don't want to fucking but a Downloaded version of higurashi and The DAMN BGI (which rules are full of shit, in my dearest opinion).

I plan to buy and fully support Umineko last EP... (I'm not sure if it will be 7-9) but Once Umineko is over I will buy it with all of my soul. Shipping with Himeyashop is a pure and utter bitch, but in return your CDs arrive in perfect shape, which is almost worth the shipping cost.

I don't like Mangagamers way of selling games... I don't trust it at all. If I could have the CDs I would of never bother of having seen this site, but since things are how they are I found this site, which has epic original OST patches (despite not being perfect).

Privacy is a hard agruement  :-\ I think if you truly love something you'll buy it, just to support the owner, but after that I'm not that sure...

:3

IMO, if i had the money i would buy every h games i currently have, but i just don't have the money.

While from what i could read in this thread, i own a bit more than most (about 1800 CAD per month), i got too much to pay to afford these games (students loan, diverse loans, my new car + living expenses)

I am not against "piracy".

Just want to make that clear.

I apologize for the posts. I did not mean to offend (okay so at the time I did...I'm sorry though). In regards to the replies I've read them and to be honest I agree with them.

I was kinda upset about a somewhat unrelated issue. My car was stolen on July 26th (along with some forms of identification) and I kinda snapped after it finally set in. So again I apologize. So although I'm not trying to excuse my actions (who am I kidding of course I am), I'm sure you can see how the two completely unrelated things seemed to fit together in my overly tired, annoyed, and pissed off mind. For what it's worth though I am sorry.

Going off on that though I suppose where some people might buy 360, ps3, or even the damn wii games (no offense to people who like that system) I will not bring myself to do so. I would rather pay money on visual novels or figures...trying to find a damn sengoku rance figure that is out of production...than on console games. To be honest though I will have a hard time of doing much of anything for some time until this car and possibly identity theft issue i resolved.

Who in their right mind though would give a flying fuck on the legality/morality of piracy anyways? Jeez I feel like an idiot.

also this is completely unrelated but is there any reason there is a lack of hirameki games (or do people not care for them?). I'm talking mainly about phantom of inferno, exodus guilty, amusement park, hourglass of summer, etc... just curious if there is a specific reason why not that many have been uploaded. I know most of them are pretty bad but...

It seems we like discussing the morality of pirating games.

Something close to all of us at heart. Anyway, Sengoku Rance figurines would be awesome. Must put that on my list.

=D
Be cool, it's nice to know that you can understand.
I can buy Xbox 360 or PS3 games cos' we had market (and of course ppl) for those things, even we had a large market for manga.
Living in my shitty country and given my work situation.. i don't apply for having a credit card (don't get me wrong I work 60 hours per week so my salary it's above average)... so i can't buy even if i want (and not to mention my messy family situation).

Why Hirameki broke?? Cos their game suck's!!! and most of them are dvd-player type game and for all ages category. You don't need to install the game or even need a PC to play their games, just any average dvd player was enough but that's the biggest problem..... you can't save, so they impplemented the old school method... via password to 'save' your progress.

Personally the morality of pirating games is kind of a moot point. We are already doing it. Can't change the past even if we wanted to.

The question is, is pirating wrong? The answer would be something along the lines of what is wrong? Wrong is a subjective term. Hell morality itself is subjective.

When you think about it though if we are going to argue a morality issue for pirating then should we do the same for the content in the games? Personally I see nothing wrong with it but again wrong and right are subjective.

Actually what isn't subjective? ...this is a rhetorical question.

Yeah I'm really not into the whole console game systems right now. Cost too much and to be honest I just can't concentrate with most of them...having a ps3 instead of a 360 though may be one of the reasons as well. Just not as good imho.

Credit cards suck. I can't stand mine it may be useful at times but hell is it going to make me regret having it one of these days.

I suppose I tend to put most of my non-needed to live money into figurines and visual novels/anime/manga. Probably a bad habit but hey we all have our little quirks.

If you're interested in figures you can find a bunch of them (and often places to buy them...or reviews on them) on http://myfigurecollection.net/ (http://myfigurecollection.net/)

You can find many different figures, garage sets, t-shirts, gashapons, etc... there. I'm fond of the sengoku rance ones...but some of them are better than others. If you're interested there is a good place to see new and upcoming ones as well...not that I will be able to afford this little hobby for a while (not that I have many to begin with).

Also I was going to upload eternal fighter zero (memorial) but wasn't sure if anyone would be interested in it. not hentai after all and I'm not sure whether anyone would care for the bad graphics of the game.

If someone also wants to try to explain to me how to upload a torrent of an entire game with all files I may have a few others as well (I have battleraper 2, brutish mine, and a few others but they are probably not translated and I'm not sure anyone would care for them...might be able to break them into parts with megaupload if people do though.)).

In regards to Hirameki I know they went out of business (hell they butchered the games they released) but I was surprised not to see phantom at the very least...but then you reminded me they are dvd edition and that the password progress sucks, so never mind.

I stopped getting gashapons and box sets except for the occasional keychain, due to the overall lower quality. I can't afford 1/7-1/6 pvcs as much as I'ld like though.

I have the Hirameki collection (Minus one title.) but I had problems as it were to upload 1 GB let alone this thing at nearly 60 GB.

There's also a underlying problem of several of their titles being "friendlified" or "reduced" or what to call it, a lot of them have edits in terms of content and some like Tea Society as a example not only had all the erotical scenes cut but removed two routes altogether.
(They also made most games into this DVD-play stuff with passwords instead of normal games and save systems plus the edited content in most of their titles.)

They're not bad or anything as for the actual games (I've only played a few of them though.) but I wish they weren't so edited and redone.

And yeah supporting companies like Jast/Mangagamer helps as they're a small business and it's a niche market (Outside Asia.) but the price is rather hefty (They need to make a profit though of course.) and a lot of titles are rather basic and mostly just sex with a weak story, still fun and I have bought several titles but it's understandable why people acquire them via alternate ways.
(Mangagamer is a bit worse of still with Euro pricing and only download editions though more of a diverse lineup of games but they've been pretty quiet lately after the Higurashi episodes.)

MG has several games announced, some of them aren't even named yet, and Kouryuu talked about the fact that Koihime Musou is getting their entire attention until it's released.

EDIT: It seems they are almost done with that one, since they are already working on this. (http://vndb.org/v3994) It appears to be a dark themed sex romp.

New to the forum and probably already downloaded enough games to last me the rest of the year. Some I may enjoy, some I may not and most I probably wouldn't play again.  Found the thread as I was registering to help by seeding torrents and just wanted to share some thoughts on piracy before the thread disappears back into oblivion.

Piracy, as relates back to the old days, related to actual pirates who stole, raped and plundered Spanish, English or French ships around the Carribean causing terror on the high seas.  Pirates probably didn't want to be pirates except that life left them no alternatives - they either grew up as a pirate, had no real means to rely on otherwise or were actual fugitives that fled captivity.  The life of a pirate was less than glamorous with probably a lower life span than normal.  If the average life span was 40 back in those days, a pirates life span was probably between 26-30, dying either by being killed, from disease and malnutrition or from alcohol poisoning.  Essentially, a pirates life was a criminals life driven by life's necessities. 

Back in the old BBS days, the warez scene took the name of Pirates because of the dashing view that they were somehow evading the laws and travelling the high seas of the modem days sharing plundar and treasure (electronic data). And it was true as computers and the internet were in its baby years and police were actually assigned to try and crack down on these BBS dens.  As the BBS' went viral on the internet, it stopped becoming a game of cat and mouse as for every mouse caught, ten more would appear.  At some point the cat decided that they had more important things to  do. 

And that's literally where we are today.  Pirates and Piracy is such an old term it no longer applies.  There are no pirates trying to bring the downfall of businesses like Microsoft, JASTUSA, MG.  What's left is a vast network of interconnectedness that extends beyond the morality issue of wrong or right for downloading such things as non-essentials.  It is not as clear cut as saying support this or support that and it will continue to prosper.  Everything touches everything else.  The economy affects the lives of every single person.  One cannot say that one should cut their life expenses to support something that is non-essential.  If one doesn't pay for a game, and yet donates $25 a month to a charity - is one morally wrong or morally right? 

One of the hidden traits of a capitalistic society is that businesses thrive and businesses collapse - it cannot be that businesses always thrive.  Especially not in a downturn of the business cycle.  JASTUSA and MG unforunately have not done any adjustments during this global downturn and in the long run it may be the straw that breaks the camels back.  The argument that downloaders are the straw that will break their back is invalid as the necessity of money is that it be used.  If people could afford their wants as well as their needs, people would have no hesistation about paying the extra costs.  If businesses like JASTUSA / MG were to fail, yes, there would be a lull in new translated games coming out, but there will always be hackers and programmers that will pick up the slack and a new niche market will emerge for JP translated games.  Change is the only real constant in life.

It is what it is and morality is a mind game that plays itself into smaller and smaller circles.

SDragon... If there was a 'like' button... I'd like your post..

Oh.. Dont misunderstand me though...

Its more of like... a very interesting read! A very very interesting read... Quite informative too... XDDD

...

//EDIT: OHhhhh.. And WELCOME to the forums!

Thanks for the welcome inferno_flamex and I'm glad you found the post 'interesting'. ; )

My suggestion for JASTUSA and MG would be to change their pricing model from a per game purchase model to an annual membership fee with unlimited purchases.  Or separate games into a tier system (newer games, older games, etc) where different membership get unlimited for different tiers.  I believe this would increase the amount of people that would pay for membership and they could use that money to front-run future projects which could expand their business instead of managing it the way it is now.  At least they'll attract some of the money that's going towards MU, RS, DP, etc - money is always flowing, the key is to make it flow towards your business.

But that's just my opinion. 

One more post with a philosophical bent. 

Life is suffering.  We are born and we die.  In between, we're hoping to just stay out of trouble and maybe do some good.  If we're lucky, we'll gain an understanding of what the whole thing was about, but it's never gauranteed.  Like the Oracle said to Neo in 'The Matrix', "You've already made the choice, now you need to understand why you've made that choice".

Civilization is a thin thread between evolution and anarchy.  The social norms are the fabric that hold civilizations and culture together.  Entertainment has been one of the most important facets of civilizations.  During the days of Rome, the Arena, bathhouses and theatre were paramount in the lives of the masses.  In other times, alcohol and drugs take center stage.  In contemporary times, we like to think we've evolved, but in truth some things change and somethings always stay the same. 

Entertainment is a form of escapism that allows us to almost forget that life is in general a suffering, which is why it's so pervasive in all societies.  America has its sports (basketball, football, etc), Europe has its raves, techno clubs and drinking pubs, and Japan has its anime, manga and video games (though video games have permeated throughout all cultures).

Civilization maintains its day to day evolution because of the fact that 99% of the masses are entertained.  Brainwashed and controlled is such a negative connotation but essentially that's what entertainment is - a form of control.  Now let's look at that remaining 1%.  If half of the 1% revert to drugs, crime or some form of negative behaviour, we can probably expect it and deal with it.  That leaves the other half to assist positive progress by inventing new ideas, discovering new technology, etc. - Controlled evolution.  If entertainment were restricted to the point of leaving even 10-15% of the masses to fluctuate between negative and positive influences I think it's safe to say that the negative influences would take over resulting in anarchy for all.  The 99% also shifts during times of extreme stress such as tyranny and depressions (french revolution, american revolution, etc).

New Entertainment has gone viral digitally and the main reason Megaupload, Rapidshare, Hotfile, Depositfiles, etc are doing so well is partly because of the new Internet Bandwidth available to the masses, but it's also due to the amount of choices of Entertainment on the internet today.  Movies, Anime, TV Shows, Songs, Games, Audio & eBooks, Porn, etc...

This should not be construed as justification for downloading any and all forms of Entertainment thinking that you're helping society by not being a negative influence in society.  But in regards to money and entertainment, when money constraints restricts access to entertainment, avenues to acquire the entertainment become a reality and there becomes very little wiggle room for right or wrong.

(My own opinion of course)

I like this guy. Not that I read it all.

If I really like a game when I start playing it I will buy it so I can have the box art or DVD art that comes with it.  But a digital download don't even make me laugh!  I would never pay the ridiculous amount of money for a digital download.. forget it!  Give me a CD with something extra as a reward like the cards or other free gifts that G-Collections originally gave with their games.. You have to charge reasonably and give something back to keep customers  coming back to you.  This is something they all seem to have forgotten.  I'm willing to pay from $25-35 dollars for a good game with CD like Demonsbane but I will not pay more than that.. I rather go buy a nice figure I been wanting than pay more than that for a single game.

Agree partially....
I can pay more than a $25~35.... but  digital download it's really a joke!!!
I'm playing since 84' (btw I start playing games before I can read/write)... Games w/o nice box/manual/disc it's too lame. I can imagine my Halo 3 Legendary Edition w/o the helmet or my GTA 4 Limited Edition w/o the security box.... I can't imagine normal editions w/o case/manual/disc.
Meh... I'm a old school gamer so i can't imagine games thar I can't put in my hands.

Mangagamer is going to release Koihime Musou ... Unvoiced because


If you want it to be voiced, read what's written in the link below.

http://mangagamer.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/an-unfortunate-announcement-with-hope/ (http://mangagamer.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/an-unfortunate-announcement-with-hope/)

Bottom line is, please buy the game if you can, I beg of you, so we can all enjoy it fully voiced.

its a shame that the initial release will be unvoiced, but at least it should be an incentive for some people to purchase the game for the reasons stated on the blog

people will have it voice patched in a jiffy.

thats right, i forgot theres still the original voiced version

I'll buy it anyway just because I want them to translate more games. And I might enjoy it.

I hope they'll at least voice the 3 main heroines, else it's kind of a joke ...

well if they released  it with some of the characters voiced, then it kinda defeats the purpose of the announcement

Well there were tons of characters in it, at least 20 I'd guess. So kind of understandable that Nexton might want to save on the royalities for the vocal studios, but releasing the game with absolutly no voiced characters is really pretty bold ...

2000 sold copies, hard to imagine they'll manage in my opinion.

just hope theres gonna be enough buyers for them to release the patch

Like I said, someone will rip the japanese game voices and release a patch.

Somebody posted a link in the blog post discussion basically saying voice acting is a huge expense for eroge. Which makes some sense since considering the content of most eroge, how many dudes can it take to write some stuff, and put some art work and music along with it in a probably pre-existing vn engine?

Also I wonder how many of those people going "wow 2000 copies they'll never manage" are planning on pirating it? I ain't gonna say "omg piracy is teh ebil" since I admittedly do it too, but if people can't at least shell out for games they like or are really looking forward to it won't be long before we're stuck with a bunch of no-name sex romps and a couple major fan translated vns a year. It's kinda fucked up for Mangagamer to essentially hold the voices hostage for sales but they wouldn't have to in the first place if piracy wasn't so rampant since, as small as the VN market is, 2,000 sales shouldn't be that hard to swing for a fairly anticipated title like this.

2000 sales probably wouldn't be too hard to achieve, despite market size if all those who end up playing it bought it, but highly unlikely that will going to happen

You know? I actually went and got a Visa Debit card, and then found out that it doesn't work for international payments. Only local ones.

thats.... weird

Well, I'll buy it if I can, no matter if it it's futile or not, in hopes they'll release the voice patch and get Shin Koihime Musou translated.

Also, Kureha, I do realise that a voice patch by an anon wouldn't take too long, but still, are people really that unwilling to support the game they like or look forward to play? Heck, I mean even the shittiest western games are selling over 2000 copies, and they're more expensive than this.

That's what happens when you're in a niche market. Your average FPS playing teenagers won't be asking their moms and dads to buy Koihime for them like they do with those rehashed shootem ups or other games.

That sucks. The only reason I have a credit card is for online international payments.

My credit card just expired, but just got my new one that will be valid next month. Assuming Koihime comes out next month that's pretty nice timing.

You're also all somehow overlooking that it's mangagamers we're talking about, *wink* *wink* digital copies. And 2000 copies seems even more unlikely now~

i think it was a tough number to achieve already to begin with, thats why nexton set it as the target

"Mom, dad, there's an anime porn game I really wanna get..."

i just call them visual novels there none the wiser.... I hope.... did i mention im 23

So, I heard that MangaGamer is going out of business...

RIP mangagamer  :'(

it was short but you translated some great games :D

and this folks is why you use % of profit instead of a flat sum..... if a bunch of voice actors dont agree you politely exsplain that they get some profit rather than NO profit this way...

honestely "tallent" these days are stupid

Your so right.. who wants english voices anyway? They can't even do the sound of an orgasm without sounding so fake.  I hate english dubbed h-episodes or games.. keep it in the original language.  So releasing unvoiced is just BS.. they should put the original voices in it.

Did someone post about Koihime Musou being dubbed? I don't think so.

He bumped a 4 month old topic only to say something off topic. Oh interweb you make me lol.

long live the trolls...