Japanese games adding more restrictions

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

http://visual-novels.net/vn/index.php?o … iew&id=932

SAGA PLANETS, a studio under Visual Arts (which owns various brands such as Key,Spray, etc.) has added a system check to thier latest release (Natsu Yume Nagisa) that verifies the user is running the Japanese version of Microsoft Windows. If the user is running a copy of Windows from outside Japan this warning will appear:

This Game is Japan Only
This game is only possible to be played within Japan.
For it to work, you need “Japanese Version Windows”.
The game will now close.

While it is common for non-Unicode program handling to need to be set to Japanese in order for a game to run, this is a technical limitation of the games and is easily fixed by changing the settings or using AppLocale. Some games have also required certain system settings such as date & time regional format to be “Japanese” for the game to run properly but these did not require a particular version of Windows to be purchased.

#2

By keeping foreigners with moral agenda away from their games, that’s how. Not that it matters, since you can probably just use Applocale to fool it into believing you’re using Japanese windows.

#3

Western “fans” have been telling “It’s not our problem, we’re not concerned, deal with it yourselves, as an internal matter. Stop implicating us with your internal problems.” so it’s what they’re doing: they keep anything related to that “internal problem” to themselves. How is it irrational and why are you surprised by that attitude?

I mean, they had an activity, their activity profited many people, their activity got into problem, so they asked the people to whom their activity profited to come and help them. Then, said people told them: “It’s not our problem, we don’t want to bother with it, deal with it yourself.” Now these people wondered why they got upset and then refused to let these people keep profiting from their work?

#4

or use an older version of realive aswell that been tested from what the rest of that post says :smiley: at the very least it is an incovenices

#5

It’s the general attitude I observed in the general western erogee fandom, from visiting blogs and forums. If I got such an opinion about them, I can guess that Japanese companies and fans cannot have a much more positive opinion.

Uh, no. They got western support after all, and western fans can (politely) write to the counterpowers of these supporters. I mean, sure, some people in Unicef support the stand against erogames (or so the Japanese people with such an agenda let people think), but it doesn’t mean there aren’t people in Unicef more level-headed about the issue who could be persuaded to give Japan a break about the matter. Sure, the Japanese politicians are the people with the power to decide, but they’re helped by an international context generally hostile to such games and western fans can help with making this context less hostile.

Also, showing support to the erogee companies probably gives their people moral strength, even if no actual help is given. It’s the principle behind encouragement, really.

#6

Whatever the effect on the political situation (probably minimal), this isn’t going to stop foreigners from playing the games. What it’s going to do is push previously loyal customers to piracy. Copy protection is much tighter than these locale restrictions will ever be. This won’t be a barrier to pirates. Give loyal customers the finger (honestly, this display even makes Minori look friendly), and they’ll respond in kind–perhaps with more than simply pirating the game in disgust.

#7

I wonder how much of this is simply to create the illusion of doing something in response to a problem – like the whole airline screening, DRM, etc. You know, show your superiors that you’re doing something to “solve the problem.” In either case, what does the game manual say for people living outside Japan? I know minori had instructions in their manuals.

#8

Letter writing is a good way to do it. Narg posted some addresses back a while ago. Believe it or not, letters do have an impact. Even if your specific letter doesn’t get read by anyone other than secratary, it is noted. You get people you know to write in and that kind of input makes a difference. That’s what Equality Now did and look what happened.

That’s why whining and saying you can’t do anything is just an excuse to blame others when there is certainly something you can do. The letters can be in English and just telling your opinion; in fact the latter is better than trying to spout out a bunch of facts. Just let them know why your concerned and why they should be more open rather than closed.

#9

It’s not that big of a deal, just set up dual boot with Japanese XP for these games.

#10

If you can get it, that might be a better alternative for the problems using Japanese fonts in the English version causes.

#11

And it has never meant to be a barrier to pirates. Its focus is to discourage non Japanese based gamers from playing the game. I still hope that someone would release a patch, that we can apply to the game, to make the game playable on any XP version.

Very interesting, I think I’ll start searching for a copy. I have one question though, can we use Japanese Windows with standard 101 key keyboard? I mean, considering that Japanese has far more characters than standard alphabet, will it require certain input method to cover those characters? I have no experience using non English PC so far.
Thank you in advance.

My biggest apology for this post. I quoted Dark Shiki in the first quote, not Zalas.

#12

That works - provided you also have the japanese IME installed that already comes with all other versions of XP and is additionally installed when you add east-asian (including japanese) fonts to your system.

In japanese IME, you type simple romaji - that are automatically converted into kana (when you either type the vowel of the current kana or - in case of ‘n’ - the consonant of the next kana). As soon as the kana for the current word are written, you press the space-bar and the IME displays a list of all kanjis that would match with the currently typed word. Select one of them - and the kana are simply replaced by the selected kanji.

I once watched in a Toraha-anime Chika using a very similar input method - that first displayed romaji, then kana and in the end kanji, so I guess that the usual means of typing used on japanese computers is the same - and they actually all use standard keyboards.
At the very least, I so far never saw a kana/kanji-based keyboard - but that could be an interesting topic for the introductional part in one of Peter’s next newsletters before he goes over straight to business with it… :wink:

#13

Or not.
The standard Microsoft Japanese IME is QWERTY-based so it doesn’t work with an AZERTY keyboard. If I press “asa”, I have 3qsq3 instead of ??? displayed!

#14

Standard qwerty keyboard should work just fine in Jpn XP. I haven’t encountered a game where I need Jpn XP yet, but I have installed Chinese XP before, they keyboard works just fine, you can switch to Chinese input and just type pinyin for it. I’d imagine Jpn XP would probably be the same, except you would type kana.

#15

Thread revival time!

I was wondering what people think of the idea of breaking the game disc in half and sending it back to VisualArt’s accompanied by a printout of the ‘Japan Only’ error message?

It’s something that was mentioned in Majikoi, and I recall people apparently doing that with Kakyuusei 2, and it sounds sort of fun.

#16

The problem I see with that is it requires buying the game, then destroying something I own merely to make a statement. Sounds a lot like buying a gun, then shooting myself in the foot to show a gun maker that guns are dangerous. All I’d care about as the gun maker is that I made one more sale.

#17

I thought the original post of this thread made it clear that I had already bought the game =P

#18

it’s up to you. I don’t think it’ll work as they obviously added that for a reason and are making someone angry they don’t care about making angry, unless that someone goes and gets Japanese players to boycott buying the game. That I don’t see happening.

However, it should be possible to remove or fake the id check for windows for such games.

#19

If you really want to piss them off, sue them for selling defective products. Sure, it will cost you an arm and a leg, but it will cost them a lot more, being a foreign company. Of course, you’d have to be out of your mind to actually attempt this feat :slight_smile:

#20

Just return the game for being defective and get your money back. It doesn’t work on your computer; that’s reason enough to return it. Either that or circumvent the check and move on.