About one thing Lamuness said in the newsletter

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

Well, I’ll quote what he said there and then question it:

"A number of people have asked us about why there are almost no playable demos for bishoujo games. A lot of it has to do with differences in video game culture between the U.S. and Japan – simply put, Japanese game companies almost never make them, so it’s not possible for us to translate demos and make them available for download"

This sounds like a lie, or close to it, since there is playable demos for some games; there is the Brave Soul playable demo (and from what Unicorn has said, there may be one more BS demo). and futhermore, Unicorn has more or less confirmed that a couple of other playable demos made by Crowd. So instead of saying that “We can’t put out playable demos”, why not say that “There is some demos out there, but we’re short on time and resources to translate and redo them in english, and to do that would delay our work on our current games too, and you don’t want that, right?”… or something like that, anyway?

#2
quote:
Originally posted by Spectator Beholder:
Well, I'll quote what he said there and then question it:

"A number of people have asked us about why there are almost no playable demos for bishoujo games. A lot of it has to do with differences in video game culture between the U.S. and Japan -- simply put, Japanese game companies almost never make them, so it's not possible for us to translate demos and make them available for download"

"...Japanese game companies almost never make them..."
Usually, you'll have a trailer or movie, but only very rarely a playable demo.
#3

Yeah, but even still, playable demos like the Japanese Brave Soul work fine on English Windows, so I see no reason to provide that (Especially considering that most of the non-playable demos are also in Japanese aswell).

#4

Don’t ask me about that part…I didn’t write that part at least. I wrote a totally different reasoning as a draft but I guess they decide to write something else

For the most part here’s how things work:
1. Peter tells me to write an update every 2 weeks.
2. I write a draft and send it to him
3. He and the other staff make the final changes and additions
4. They send it out to the mailing list
5. They update the main page
6. I add it in the archives at the BBS.

Peter asked me to write something about why there are no demos…but the thing is I wasn’t so sure about what he meant by “demo” (whether it’s a playable demo or trailer movies, but I think he meant the former)…anyhow, this is what I wrote in the draft (which got discarded):

A number of people have asked us about why there are almost no playable
demos for bishoujo games. Most bishoujo games are heavily driven by the
storyline, not by gameplay like most English PC games. While it may be easy
for English PC games to just take one sample “stage” and call it their demo,
to make a demo of a bishoujo title with a partial and fragmented storyline
proves to be non-coherent. However, there are downloadable
trailers/teaser/demo movies in our downloads section, so please visit our
website for more information

Which I guess kinda goes along what is being written in the newsletter (although I didn’t write the final version)…

[This message has been edited by Lamuness (edited 08-13-2002).]

#5

Well, you’re right, but still… The letter seems to hint of that “there is no playable demos of the games that PP plans to release.”… The letter doens’t say that, of course, but when saying that “The Japanese companies almost never make any playable demos…”, then some people would take it as there is no playable Crowd demos, which isn’t true at all (and people who knows this, and translates what you say as “there is no playable Crowd games” would protest…

sigh Sorry that I’m making a big fuss about this, but I just don’t want any misunderstandings here, if you know what I mean. I wish it had been said in another way, or at least that you had said that “Yes, there is playable demos, but we don’t have time to work on them… and if we do, that might delay our work on the current games”. Or something like that…

#6

Yes, I see what you mean…but hey, it’s kinda too late now, no? (when the newsletter is already sent out)

I too was a bit shocked when I first read it.

#7
quote:
Originally posted by Lamuness:
Yes, I see what you mean...but hey, it's kinda too late now, no? (when the newsletter is already sent out)

I too was a bit shocked when I first read it.

True, it might be too late now, unless you writte some kind of "correction" in next newletter. I really have to think that Peter, or whoever made the final edit of the letter was a little careless there [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/frown.gif[/img]

#8
quote:
Originally posted by woodelf:
I suspect it is the time that the japanese companies have to spend on converting the stuff to english, rather than PP's time. I agree that demo's don't sell B-games.

you are right about that, but that wasn't my point either ^^;;. I'd rather want them to spend their time and money on gmaes rather than demos, no matter how good, but at the same time, a company should be honest with the customers, shouldn't it? If there is misunderstandings, that will affect the customers's trust of the company (in short: when the people who asked for demos read what was written in the newsletter, "misreads" it, thinks that there is no japanese PA demos of the games PP is going to release and then gets to know that there actually _is_ some demos, might not be happy about the fact that PP lied to them (if you see it from that point of view, anyway) and lose some of the trust in PP).

#9

Brr, you draw an unatrractive picture in my mind (still, I wonder if I would think that if Peach Princess hadn’t been there? ). Well, I actually wouldn’t mind if some fan-group or so managed to do a good fan-translation of a game and then found a way to patch it into that game. In that way, I could still buy the game legaly and then just - patch, and I can understand it! Many english fans doens’t really seem to ask for anything more than that; even people here have sometimes said that it’d be nice if some japanese companies released some english-language patches for their games…

I’ve put my faith in PP for a long time now and I’ll do so until PP ceases to exist or I lose interest in Adult bishoujo Games (Prays to the Bishoujo Goddess that neither of the things will happen).

[This message has been edited by Spectator Beholder (edited 08-14-2002).]

#10

I see no problem here at all. If a person misreads that part about H-games having almost no playable demos out there, then he has nothing to blame but his own lack of comprehension skills. Remember, the purpose of demos is to try them out before buying the game. It lets the buyer make an informed purchase. But you can also make an informed purchase by reading reviews and doing research on the games. There are actually a ton of Japanese reviews on H-games out there, except most people are too illiterate to read them. I mean, who needs demos when you have 70+ reviews on kiminozo and 100+ reviews on AIR (I’m not making the numbers up). Unfortunately, the situation is different in the foreign market.

#11
quote:
Originally posted by gaogao:
I see no problem here at all. If a person misreads that part about H-games having almost no playable demos out there, then he has nothing to blame but his own lack of comprehension skills. Remember, the purpose of demos is to try them out before buying the game. It lets the buyer make an informed purchase. But you can also make an informed purchase by reading reviews and doing research on the games. There are actually a ton of Japanese reviews on H-games out there, except most people are too illiterate to read them. I mean, who needs demos when you have 70+ reviews on kiminozo and 100+ reviews on AIR (I'm not making the numbers up). Unfortunately, the situation is different in the foreign market.

Yeah, not lots of reviews here... and that might be a part of why people thinks that the movie demos are very vauge and can't decide if they should buy or not buy. fortunately, sites like LadyPhoenix's and Rowena-sans sites, as well as Gamelex GS US does help a little there, but still... Hmm, speaking about Gamelex Gs US, anyone who know what's happned to them? There haven't been any new reviews there for a while and yesterday, I mailed them to ask what's happened, but no answer so far [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/frown.gif[/img].

Say, Unicorn-san, since you are one of the few who've palyed somw Crowd/Will games (and other games as well)before they've gotten released here, why not start a review site too? ^_^.

#12
quote:
Originally posted by woodelf:
But the point is PP has a hard time meeting deadlines because of many factors.I find it better for them to say how things are going every few months than have release dates keep being pushed back. If PP was a dis-honest company we would have [b]*** Peach Pirate **
Auto-play patch for all your faverite games.
( Download them for $14.95 -- easy credit -- no age checking -- from our off shore-server)
Using our software patch ( $9.95 per character) the game plays itself for that girl so you can veiw all the H-pictures with knowing Japanese. E-Z scroll text ( $4.95 ) you get scrolling text and sounds for the Adult material ( the only real part of the game).
As long as PP has its doors open I know I just need to wait, the games will come.

[/b]

That would be truly evil, about in line with AT&T Broadband, who want to charge me the full fee for an account so I can hook up another computer to the high speed connection.

#13
quote:
Originally posted by Spectator Beholder:
Well, I actually wouldn't mind if some fan-group or so managed to do a good fan-translation of a game and then found a way to patch it into that game. In that way, I could still buy the game legaly and then just - patch, and I can understand it! Many english fans doens't really seem to ask for anything more than that; even people here have sometimes said that it'd be nice if some japanese companies released some english-language patches for their games...

[This message has been edited by Spectator Beholder (edited 08-14-2002).]

Not to be preachy or anything...but, um, yeah you would. I think I found one that someone had patched, actually; it was really bad--horribly translated, incredibly repetitive, and seemed to basically be looping.

But even aside from that, and aside from the illegality and the "go shove it" attitude towards the Japanese creators such a position would essentially be...consider all the various technical issues that have been mentioned by Lamuness et al. Now consider that what you have is a bunch of guys hex editing the game to try to get it to work, especially with the whole text-box issue.

The emperor has no clothes.

#14
quote:
Originally posted by Spectator Beholder:

Say, Unicorn-san, since you are one of the few who've palyed somw Crowd/Will games (and other games as well)before they've gotten released here, why not start a review site too? ^_^.

I don't think, an own review site would be a good idea. It is much more valuable, to read as much reviews, as possible, of different persons regarding the same game, in order to get an impression, if a game suits the own taste.

This (besides my holy mission [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img] ) is, why I write revies for ladyphoenix-sama: She will release reviews from different persons and give the visitors an opportunity to compare them. Plus: Much more people would be interested in reviews of english ported games than original japanese games.

Maybe, after I have finished all reviews on english games, I planned doing for her, I may as well write reviews about the japanese games and upload them to the himeya-website.

If you want, I'll keep you informed if that happens. Right now, there are about 10 more reviews to be written for our goddess, so I did not even make a todo-list of japanese games to be reviewed.

#15
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
Not to be preachy or anything...but, um, yeah you would. I think I found one that someone had patched, actually; it was really bad--horribly translated, incredibly repetitive, and seemed to basically be looping.

But even aside from that, and aside from the illegality and the "go shove it" attitude towards the Japanese creators such a position would essentially be...consider all the various technical issues that have been mentioned by Lamuness et al. Now consider that what you have is a bunch of guys hex editing the game to try to get it to work, especially with the whole text-box issue.

The emperor has no clothes.

Yeah, I know that. And Peach Princess has help from Crowd too, but even then it isn't so easy... but bacially, what you want to say is (I suppose) that it is hard even for the most skilled fans to do (and PP is relying much on fans, since most who work for PP are fans, or friends of fans who do some of the work as a personal favor to the fan). And if some tried to fan-translate it and patch it into the game, it would be even harder to do that, I imagine...

#16
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
I don't think, an own review site would be a good idea. It is much more valuable, to read as much reviews, as possible, of different persons regarding the same game, in order to get an impression, if a game suits the own taste.

This (besides my holy mission [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img] ) is, why I write revies for ladyphoenix-sama: She will release reviews from different persons and give the visitors an opportunity to compare them. Plus: Much more people would be interested in reviews of english ported games than original japanese games.

Maybe, after I have finished all reviews on english games, I planned doing for her, I may as well write reviews about the japanese games and upload them to the himeya-website.

If you want, I'll keep you informed if that happens. Right now, there are about 10 more reviews to be written for our goddess, so I did not even make a todo-list of japanese games to be reviewed.

Well, you're right that it hepls more to make reviews for english games rather than just Japanese ones, but still... most english fans seems to rather want to hear about japanese games, rather than the english ones, since they feel that the japanese market has more to offer (which is true, I suppose, and i know that some people here have brought at least a couple of Japanese games for that reason only).

but besides, I think you at least could add some reviews of Crows/Will games to Ladyphoeni's page, especially the ones PP has brought the rights to. That'd help to get people interested in them as well ^_^.

#17

Well, I know my usual practice is whenver I find a site that does accept reviews and doesn’t have one for the games I’m familiar with, I try to take time out to write a couple for them. Unfortunately, I’ve been rather busy myself to write any. I’ve been meaning to write a few for Hentai Neko for a couple of months now. Just really hard to find the time right now to put together a nicely thought thru review.

#18

Actually, the no demo thing does hold true for most games.

Demos are availiable for only about 60% of the games that released everything year and out of that 60%, less than 10% of them are playable.

What’s more, many of the publications that offer Demos in their CDs get them as exclusives, which further limits things.

Besides, it’s a waste of time anyway :stuck_out_tongue:

#19

What exactly do you mean by “waste of time”? Waste of time tha tPeach Princess would translate and redo the japanese demos into english ones? Or is it a waste to play demos at all (yeah, compared to playing the game itself, I can’t argue…)?

#20
quote:
Originally posted by Spectator Beholder:
but besides, I think you at least could add some reviews of Crows/Will games to Ladyphoeni's page, especially the ones PP has brought the rights to. That'd help to get people interested in them as well ^_^.

I already have written reviews about all released PeaPri-games for her.

But it is her policy to work on each of her main topics, one after the other, so some time may pass until they finally get posted.