Several years ago, I thought I had a working definition of ‘evil’. Deliberately choosing any course of action you know to help yourself, and harm others, is evil. A friend of mine pointed out that this definition is worthless, for it implies everyone is evil and that the word doesn’t mean anything; for by willfully abandoning all material wealth (say, donating all income to charity) a great many others would be immeasurably aided.
Moving to the current topic … The question is not only about “harming the market”. It cannot be, for then we end up at Dave E’s philosophy. I did not buy Water Closet. Does that mean I’m not a true fan? No. It means I didn’t buy Water Closet. The logical conclusion of the “such and such is bad because it harms the market” argument, is that I have harmed the market and this therefore somehow must be a bad thing. I do not think it is a bad thing that I haven’t bought WC. I don’t think I have some sort of obligation to the US market. I think any logic which implies otherwise, must be erroneous.
The sales numbers for the story-heavy games are so low right now that I could artificially inflate the sales number by plowing the money I’m putting in savings right now, into buying a tremendous number of copies of Bishoujo games that I already own and … doing whatever with them. Coasters, sell them at a loss, drop them off the Empire State Building and place bets on how many times I hit people; whatever. The sales figures are (I think) low enough that I could artificially boost apparent sales by a significant percentage with only hundreds of units per year (dispersed across multiple titles). This would undeniably help the market, in a sense. Sales figures would appear to be higher, the Japanese companies might like this and move into our market more.
Should I be condemned for deliberately choosing not to do this?
Other factors must be considered. The point was raised that “if big names are fannotated, they won’t be brought over not ever”. This may true; in a limited sense. Indeed if Kanon is successfully fannotated (as seems likely) then it is much less likely that it will be brought over. But I fail to see what effect this would have on FUTURE titles. If the Kanon fannotation proved popular enough it might raise peoples’ awareness about these titles. People might start making noise about wanting them. This is the whole idea of fansubbing and there’s no reason it can’t be applied here. Kanon might not ever be brought over. But Key might take notice, and other games may well be.
I personally feel that the goal isn’t “expanding the market”. Expansion for its own sake seems to me to be backward. Why do we care that the market expands? These games are an art form (… err, some of them are - and these are the ones we’re talking about). We wish to experience more of this art for ourselves; and we also wish this art to be more widely acknowledged and experienced by others. Ideally the creators should be compensated - piracy should never be openly condoned - but that is not the only goal here. At least it isn’t my only goal here.
[This message has been edited by Nandemonai (edited 06-13-2004).]