I think that’s a pretty safe assessment. (heh… asses…)
I mean anyone who played the translated Princess Maker 2 knows they pirated it. Right? :o 
[ 01-08-2008, 10:55 AM: Message edited by: Nargrakhan ]
Nah, it’s fair use. If they sued they’d lose… if you could afford to defend yourself. 
(And, of course, depending on the laws of any particular country. There may be places where ‘fair use’ doesn’t apply. Small excerpts for purposes of critique/review is usually covered though.)
[ 01-08-2008, 11:10 AM: Message edited by: papillon ]
Well the good new is that Japanese companies are a LOT more lax than American ones. The entire doujin market proves that.
I actually have tried to ask permission from several companies, but something like 5 out of 10 will totally ignore me (no reply). 3 out of 10 will say they don’t care, 1 out of 10 will give me expressed permission, and the last 1 out of 10 will give permission and ask for a link to the review.
Companies I already like, tend to answer back and be more friendly than companies I don’t like at all. Also I notice that companies which produce a lot of titles within a year (the cashcow people), tend to ignore. Guess the “bigger” you are, the less you care about your fanbase.
[ 01-08-2008, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: Nargrakhan ]
I’ll admit to DLing Nocturnal and TL '95, but that was of course before many english games were available and I had just learned of them.
Truthfully, if I had not done it, I may never have gotten into the genre. What started as a H with substance fetish, turned into a VN fetish (the H almost completely meaningless now).
Well not only are they lax in that respect, they support the doujin market and I have found 1 or 2 magika quoted saying they enjoy reading the (lemon) doujin that fans produce.
Really? I’d like to see the boxart for the DC version. Then again, I hate “all-ages” ports.
If this is true with all the former H-games they localized, the somewhere along the line, it seems people gained the impression that they were responsible for editing their titles. This probably contributed to their failure, whether it was actually true or not. Were all of of Hirameki’s censored titles all-ages console ports to begin with? I think their habit of porting their titles and going after a number of “all-ages” versions of H-games had thrown off a lot of people who don’t want to see edited versions being released.
You know, if they went after more titles that didn’t have H versions, like Ever 17, they could’ve prevented people from coming to the conclusion that they were censoring titles. As ignorant as it may be, when a title that isn’t well known in the fandom gets released and the fandom realizes that the game has an H version that isn’t being released here, they can get paranoid and think that the localization companies edited the title.
A lot of fans want a localized product to not be an edited/censored version of the original. This kinda reinforces my belief that they didn’t really know the fans they were trying to cater to. Even if fans were aware that a localized title was an all-ages version in Japan, do you really think most would be satisfied with Hirameki if it simply settles for releasing it here with no uncut alternative? I wouldn’t. Last time I checked, a toned-down title regardless of where it’s made is still a censored title.
That’s why I’d wish they simply went after titles that didn’t have H versions at all if they’re so adverse to eroge. They did it right with Ever 17 and that should’ve been the type of title they focused on in the first place… I’d still prefer it if Tea Society was released uncut here, though.
[ 01-08-2008, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: B173 M3 ]
Haha Same here xD the Games are not opened too ^^ (I don’t have Ever17 atm but i think i should buy it only hear good things about it)
Bam! 
:p
[ 01-08-2008, 07:22 PM: Message edited by: Nargrakhan ]
It’s a stupid attitude and just shows how much uninformed said “fans” are since the console editions almost always contain more material than the initial PC edition. Sure, you lose the ero-scenes but in exchange you usually gain a new character and additional routes/stories. Not even mentioning full voice-acting sometimes (when the initial games lacked it), and a cheaper price. Not mentioning that the console edition is usually the most recent version (exceptions exist but are very rare), meaning with whatever bugs in the original version fixed.
For instance, why do you think the TYPE-MOON fans were ecstatic about the PS2 edition of “Fate/stay night” and rushed to buy it even when most already had the PC edition, even when it had the ero-scenes removed?
So, “not really know(ing) the fans they were trying to cater to”? Indeed, I guess they assumed said fans knew about what they were talking, even if a little bit, and would want the most recent, most complete edition.
How is a version containing more material than the original “toned-down”?
[ 01-08-2008, 08:10 PM: Message edited by: OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol ]
Except that with Tea Society of a Witch I remember reading an entire route was cut out because someone (either Hirameki or the original devs) decided a) it would require significant rewriting to do the route with no H, and b) they couldn’t be arsed to bother.
Oh, and Phantom of Inferno had a “new” all-ages version? That means they went to the devs and said “here, have some money. Make us a non-ero edition”. Sure, it’s somewhat different than Hirameki doing the chopping, but they took a game that had no non-ero version, and had one made.
Also I was talking to the guy at their booth at ACen last year, and he told me nothing they did would ever have h-scenes because the owner’s wife was dead set against them.
[ 01-08-2008, 09:19 PM: Message edited by: Nandemonai ]
snorting into pudding
Heehee, I just had to laugh at this. Most of the time, I prefer for the games to remains as they should be, NOT editted, NOT censored, and NOT randomly inserting H-scenes either. A game in its purest essence is the best. Well hirameki is gone now so whoever complains may find that it may be for the better right now.
They most certainly did not really know their customers nearly as well as they should have. Hirameki thought that being able to play the game in any DVD player would be a big selling point. Instead, it turns out that the user interfaces for these titles blow hard. And either they, or the original makers, had to cut out most of the decision tree for an early title to get it to work. (That apparently is why one of their earliest games basically boils down to a) pick girl, b) get ending.)
People are interested in these kind of games for a few reasons. Gameplay, sex, story, graphics. [EDIT: An oversimplification, I know.] The gameplay was actively undermined by the DVD-player format, they actively shunned sex, and they changed the story around. (As others have said, only a few titles and only at first – but they did it). That basically leaves graphics – and none of their games are gonna win any awards there.
So that leaves a product that one might want to buy … why, exactly?
It took way longer than it should have for them to catch onto this. They were getting the hang of it – but they had to learn an awful lot of things via trial and error, that should have been clear from the get-go. And that would have been, if they understood their market.
And put that straw man away. You know very well what he means. Things were present in one edition that were specifically removed in others because of a controvertial, or extreme, nature. That is the very definition of toning down – altering the tone of a work for broader appeal.
Yes, it is possible to both tone something down and add new material at the same time. “Adding material” and “removing material” are not mutually exclusive, and in fact the version in question a) remove some things, and b) add more things – at the same time.
This does not negate your point that this means the fans are making outrageous demands born from ignorance; demanding that someone take the edited-for-content material, and the added material, and create an entirely new ubar-awesome edition just for the foreign markets is indeed pretty silly.
Just imagine, a game that had voice added in the console version would either have voice drop only during eroscenes, or have to have new voice recorded – if the seiyuu even are willing (suppose they got say Megumi Hayashibara for an all-ages version) – because the hscenes were never voiced in the first place. (Of course, then people would complain about THAT, “why is no voice during hscene u r [CENSORED]”)
[ 01-08-2008, 09:40 PM: Message edited by: Nandemonai ]
No, because it can just the same be considered an “enhanced” version, since material is added; the truth is that it’s no more a “toned down” nor an “enhanced” version, just a different one. If it was just a tone down version, that means that if you played the original version, playing the “toned down” version wouldn’t give you anything new – which isn’t the case.
The thing is that there are different versions of the same work and Hirameki acquire one version (instead of both?). Saying one would have prefered they acquired the rights to the other version is a matter of preference, blaming them for having “tone down” the other version is blatant ignorance.
Which is in contradiction with the point you’re trying to make.
That a game is originally the way it is in its PC incarnation may not be how “it should be”. For instance, Key’s writers have vocally expressed how they don’t like erotic contents in their games but had to put some in their original PC versions because it’s the expectation of the market and they had to do so in order to insure sales. So this edition isn’t how it should be, nor the game in its “purest essence”. Only when they were successful enough were they able to release games the way they wanted them to be: all-ages… and considering how they had to add in final ero-scenes, it seems it’s a failure.
So, heck, “how a game should be” and “the PC edition is the best” don’t go hand in hand.
[ 01-08-2008, 10:53 PM: Message edited by: OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol ]
While I won’t argue that the fandom can be quite ignorant and paranoid, but what do you expect? Anime/manga titles has had a history of being edited for foreign releases. I keep saying, if Hirameki was adverse to adult content, I’d wish they simply avoided localizing titles that had H-versions so as not to provoke misguided fan anger.
I understand that forcing H-scenes into a game for the sake of adding it in is silly and that new content may be added into an all ages version, but I’m doubtful that Hirameki would’ve been able to convice their audience that they’re getting the “better” version just because of the extra material present in the localized “all-ages” version. Considering how anime/manga has had a history of being edited, to the average fan in the anime community, the fact that controversial content is absent will most likely speak greater volumes as opposed to the extra content added in.
It doesn’t really matter what you think of the “fans”, but rather how you deal with them. They can be stupid, uninformed, or ignorant, but there’s not much you can do since they’re putting their money on the line. They don’t have to change their thinking as long as they’re the source of money to keep your business afloat. You can’t expect to make money by doing something that might step on their toes or flat-out assume that everything you offer is exactly what they want. You’ve got no other audiences to cater to.
Maybe this might sound silly, but if avoiding the title is not an option, perhaps I would’ve hit a compromise by releasing both adult and non-adult versions so the audience can decide which one they consider to be the “original” or “enhanced” version; I reeeeeally don’t think it’d be my place to decide for them. Although, there might have to be some differences in pricing and the fans might demand why “this version got voices and that edition got H scenes???”… Then again, if I just made it clear on the product page that certain features are exclusive to a particular edition, then maybe the latter possiblity might not be so damaging. Still, it’s better to give a choice than being labeled as a censor-whore.
[ 01-08-2008, 11:50 PM: Message edited by: B173 M3 ]
That would have been a great idea…but it’s hard to do when there a copies out for a lot of those type of games (unless they are pure crap) with ero and non-ero versions, even if the non-ero was made first…Or they have high licensing fees and/or complicated licensing schemes.
Then you’d have people complaining that if they made a ero version as well (such as Tea Soeciety of a Witch) they should have made an ero version, even if it wasn’t their intention to target the h market.
[ 01-08-2008, 11:59 PM: Message edited by: Jinnai ]
Then that should’ve been a sign to stop being so prudish about titles with adult content. 
Releasing an eroge when an all-ages version is be available will not be as uproar-worthy as the other way around, since you’re willing to retain controversial content that could’ve been edited out otherwise… I mean, you see a few people complain on this board about the absence of all-ages games released by PeaPri/GC/JASTUSA, but it hasn’t really impacted fan outlook on these companies, has it?
Hell, I’d say the XC3 fiasco probably did much more of a rep damage to PeaPri as opposed to its of all-ages titles…
Besides, if Hirameki didn’t intend to focus on the eroge market, it’s not like they couldn’t have localize all-ages games in addition to with adult content, would it? You could also release both all-ages and adult versions of a particular title at the same time, like I said I’d do if I had no choice…
[ 01-09-2008, 01:16 AM: Message edited by: B173 M3 ]
Well, they did learn that though. I mean I don’t know how many of their initially announced titles from K-Industry and Frontwing had h-scenes in them - probably all except Hourglass of Summer - but after their initial wave of releases, which was Amusement Park and Day of Love, none of the other titles they released had H-scenes removed - or were H-games in the first place. The reason they moved away from the DVD format though, was actually because they were hard to port to the DVD Video media, and not because people complained about the lack of h-content, as can be seen stated below:
"AMN: I¬Åfd like to inquire a bit about Hirameki¬Åfs past titles. I¬Åfve asked Mr. Shimura before regarding unreleased Frontwing and K-Industry titles such as The Sixteenth Night Love Song and 5o1 - Five O One. Mr. Shimura said that they just weren’t suited for a U.S. release but I was wondering why they weren’t suited and are there still good relations with K-Industry and/or Frontwing?
Shinichi Shimura: Well, essentially we licensed them as DVD titles and we have since discovered that it was very difficult to produce DVD titles and we have stopped doing that. So that is one of the major reasons. Wefre just not doing DVD titles anymore and when we licensed them we licensed them as DVD titles and not as PC games."
Source: http://anime.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=3036&pg=1&comments=
Also, here are the only four of the eleven unreleased Hirameki titles I’ve managed to salvage cover images for:
Just posting it here since the PP forums basically contains the entire history of the NA visual novel market from Peach Princess’ inception till the present day.
What sucks though is that a lot of the Hirameki hate - particularly the ones that say good riddance - is quite unwarranted. They weren’t a cancer to the industry; rather, they only managed to help out in the recognition of visual novels in North America - even if it was only for a few years - if anything.
[ 01-09-2008, 04:22 AM: Message edited by: Mockingbird ]
I tend to agree with you, Mockingbird. It’s an upsetting kind of attitude towards the company and what they helped to contribute while they were around to simply turn your nose up at their work. Hirameki wasn’t perfect – far from it, in fact. They did some good things too, though. Most of the “edits” people refer to weren’t even their doing. Hirameki simply went after the most “clean” versions of the games as they could because of their non-eroge image. That was just a company decision. It isn’t like their games were a 4-Kids cartoon edit, either. The only “editing” I can understand some people being upset about is Animamundi. I haven’t played the game, but from what I understand that was all Hirameki.
If you don’t agree with Hirameki’s vision and what they wanted to present to the States then that’s cool, but don’t turn a blind eye to the good they did, either. That sort of elitest attitude doesn’t help anyone. Ever 17, Phantom of Inferno, and Hourglass of Summer are still some of my favorite titles this side of the pond.
Heck, without Hourglass of Summer I never would have even checked in with PP, so Hirameki’s titles will always have a special place with me. Cheers, Hirameki. Here’s to the memories.
It’s not always about being prudish, it’s about business realities.
I have no problem with hentai. Here I am on a board talking about it! I /cannot sell it/ from my non-H company website. I /cannot sell it/ through any of the channels I sell games on. If I do manage to license dojinsoft titles, they will be non-H (originally, not edited!), because I just can’t sell anything else.
By making non-H games, Hirameki was able to put games in stores that PP could not. Even having H versions available could potentially have gotten them blacklisted from some of those avenues.
(Now, if I were them - any game THAT I EDITED MYSELF I’d probably quietly release an ‘unofficial’ patch to let people put the removed content back in if they wanted to. But if I only licensed the all-ages version, I wouldn’t HAVE the h content to put back in!)
[ 01-09-2008, 11:11 AM: Message edited by: papillon ]