How should i understand that? That the Games looking creeper with my JP OS?
for sure
The Merchandising thingy sounds nice, but i think its only for milking the Cows. When i look at there Prices for the Games i know that the other stuff would be same expensive. And that is only for ppl who didnt know where they should get the Stuff.
They planning to attract People who arent in that Games but want to play “pervert” Stuff
Well, I’m glad to hear that they will be fixing the rampant typos in their games. For me, this is a big boost for their “Andemon buyability”, since I’m not fond of rewarding shoddy work. One or two typos in a game is one thing (in fact, I can’t think of a game I’ve played yet that hasn’t had at least one), but all over the place is just plain sloppy. Good to know that what we saw were advanced copies. (Let’s just hope that those who have purcahsed the game actually are going to get the real deal and not just the advance copy…)
The DRM thing is another concern, although I suppose if I have to, I’ll deal with it. The whole “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” thing is going to be an issue for a few people who may have problems with the game running or with issues during installs. Here’s a good question: what’s their support policy? I mean, if I have a problem with a PP game, I can email them or post to the game issues forum here and get a reply and something being done about it fairly quickly. I guess what I’m asking is, what happens if something catastrophic occurs and I lose my 3 tries because of some glitch, install error, the game hates my video card, etc? I mean, “Sorry, you lose!” isn’t customer support.
Part of the reason PP gets my dollar is because I can trust that if something goes wrong, they’ll do the right thing. That’s worth something to me; good customer support is value added to the product. I can hope that Manga Gamer can provide similar support, but I have my doubts. It sounds very much like they will take a hardline stance concerning their protection scheme (and they may even be required to by their agreements with the Japanese). Sadly, pirates will have already cracked their games and the legitimate customer looking for support will probably get screwed.
Indeed. The thing that always cracks me up is the proof that DRM schemes don’t work: Sins of the Solar Empire. Here’s a game that came out, was actually top-selling for a few weeks (beating out Call of Duty 4 for a little while, even). The company that put it out had record sales, even better than they were anticipating… Amount of copy-protection: ZERO.
Conclusion: if you put out a good game, people will buy it. The “crackers” don’t buy games, they crack them and play them for free instead. People who download games for free aren’t going to buy your games because there’s a DRM in place: they’ll simply wait for the cracker to do his job and then download the game once they’re done.
EDIT: for clarity.
sigh
I hate them already. Now it only remains to see if they actually do fix the titles the way they said they would. If not, then there’s no problem, but if so …
don’t worry someone will make a crack for the games
Don’t count on it, it’s protection through obscurity. I doubt any group with the know-how and capabilities to actually make cracks like that will end up doing so because they’ll be too busy making them for Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3.
didn’t somebody say there were already copies of the beta versions hacked and floating loose?
For that matter, ‘protection through obscurity’ was how they were trying to hide their beta website. Didn’t work terribly well.
It’s impossible to guess, really. I don’t know anything about hacking circles and how they decide what to go after, or how hard things are to hack. Me, I only work in translation patches, and then only if they’re easy. 
That doesn’t help me. This company is still forcing me to choose between two basic principles I hold dear:
I don’t buy sabotageware, and
The b-game market needs to expand
If these nitwits fail, because in their ineptitude they fail to understand basic market realities, then we’re not much better off than we were when MegaTech imploded. So I don’t want them to fail. But they insist on insulting their customers with this nonsense, and I loathe any company that goes to such great lengths to tell me to bend over and assume the position. And for THAT price? Hah, in their dreams.
This leaves me in a bit of a quandary, and that just ticks me off even more. 
LOL! You’re not serious are you? What papillon pointed out pretty much says everything for itself.
First off Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 aren’t even out yet - may not be out until 2009 given Blizzard’s perfectionist nature - so these “only elite game” people you mention aren’t busy with them. The reality of the matter is, the beta got some attention on a few chan sites - thus it got all the publicity it needed to get hacked. End of story.
There are cracks for obsolete 3COM switch protocols from the 1990’s. Seriously. People would hack a kitchen sink if it was digital and had DRM, just to say they hacked a digital kitchen sink DRM. That’s just the rampant nature of the Internet.
Thanks for doing the interview 
Maybe they aren’t talking about mosaic removal, but manually redrawing genitalia, which was done for a few of the early PP games?
I’m still not reaching for my credit card yet - assuming the translation and font problems are fixed by the 10th, there’s still the ongoing problem with the activation system.
Thank you for your advice.
We have discussed the issue and changed our policy. Now, you can
activate 5 times and if you exceed the limit, please contact us with
your “Order ID” and email address. we can activate one more time.
Please understand we need DRM for all games. That is “must” requirement
from the manufacturers for us to sell their games.
Your understanding for this issue would be very much appreciated.
We are having good responses from our supporters. Trust us, we’ll
survive forever!!
We will try hard to keep introducing trendy Dating Sims games from Japan.
this is their email: info@manga-corp.com
better than nothing
Thanks for that. I wanted to know where I could send an email, to tell them about the illegal downloads. Maybe they can do something about it. 8)
You don’t pull any punches, do you Nandemonai?
I had a funny feeling that the DRM was a requirement from the Japanese manufacturers. And given that, it’s nice to know that they are at least trying to make it worthwhile for the customer to buy the game and not get burnt. The idea that you can contact them in cases where you need another activation (using your order number and email address) sounds at least reasonable. There’s not much else they can do and not have the manufacturers blow them out of the water with breach of contract (“No DRM, no more games for you…”). If the requirement comes from Japan, there’s little these guys can do except try to be accommodating to the customers and provide excellent customer support so that legit problems get solved. Honestly, that’s between a rock and a hard place, but hopefully the customer service will be enough to handle any issues that crop up.
I want to support these guys, provided that their typos and such are fixed. If they’re willing to work with the customer, which is what the email reply seems to indicate, I’m willing to try them. Chances are, though, I’m not going to buy from them until I know with reasonable certainty that what we saw earlier isn’t what we’re getting when they go live.
Thanks for the info, omark.
If you ever bought Japanese games in d/l sites (such as DLSite.com), you’d know that some kind of activation system is common, though.
Yes, it’s how I understood what Mr. Endou told me, at least. It looks like they’re doing some kind of super-weird OS check in order to display the fonts appropriately for it. Since they don’t want reverse import by Japanese people, chance exists that the game won’t look right, or even not work under a Japanese OS.
I wonder how that will effect those of us who have an English-language operating system, but have fooled around with AppLocale and such to play imported Japanese games. My computer currently says it’s in Japan, even though it’s sitting in Washington.
As I wrote, I notified Mr. Endou about my post of his interview here. Here’s his reply:
The copy I bought didn’t do anything weird, and many of my PC settings are in Japanese mode. However my Windows was installed as English, with Japanese support later “activated” (i.e. font packages, JPN keyboard support, etc). I believe their “scanner” only goes after Windows installed with Japanese installed as the primary.
On a side note, their DRM activation seems to block Japanese IP addresses.
Then, it’s coherent with their anti-reverse importing policy and may be yet another reason for the gamemakers to ask for it.
http://forums.megatokyo.com/index.php?showtopic=1730481
http://forums.novelnews.net/showthread.php?t=35434
Yep, it’s surprising to see how much popular the Mangagamer topic is now.
On a side note, has anyone poked here too?