If you honestly thought Persona 5 was releasing this year you're naive to put it nicely.
"Basically the J-List site relaunch is being prioritized over getting this release out on time. A JAST staff member commented that JAST's project manager is working 15hr days--and it's not to get Shiny Days released. All that's left for the digital release is the installer, which they've had a full 11 days to work on with no progress. This isn't rocket science. If JAST wanted to they likely could have had this up and running several days ago. But instead they've been ordered to help with the J-List site relaunch. J-List lays their golden eggs. JAST is just a side business. They've chosen to allocate resources accordingly."
That's my PR line to disappointed fans in other communities. I trust my own disappointment is evident.
Oh well, it’s not like I’m desperate do play this particular VN, have another 10 or so on my backlog.
Hit me up on my email when its’ ready to be purchased/downloaded.
"If you honestly thought Persona 5 was releasing this year you're naive to put it nicely."
Nah I couldnt care less about this series and dont understand whats the big fuss about it, but I see that alot of people on video games forums are throwing temper tantrumes about it being delayed.
It really isn’t that difficult to implement Metalink/HTTP. I’m also having a hard time understanding how this ‘problem’ was not addressed much earlier.
They knew the game was 15GB when they started translating. This should have been one of the first things they addressed.
Metalink - Wikipedia
@Nier because its a game people have been looking forward to and it keeps getting delayed. Every thing they wanted done ended up not happening. They wanted to sell the game in anime expo, it didn't happen. They wanted to release it in june/July, it didn't' happen. They wanted to release it in aug 25, it didn't happen. They wanted to release it on sept 18 and have the download done alot earlier. It didn't happen. No shit people would be mad. Everyone has already been mad about the censoring and this stuff happens.
There is a lesson to be learn; If you do not respect your customers, you cannot expect respect from them.
You will not get money from me, and I will be playing this, one way or another.
@Carthage and any other would be pirates. i have no right to stop you from pirating this game, as i to have downloaded games before i decided to buy them, some of which i have not bought, however what jast is doing is not a lack of respect towards you, it is however a business decision for them to save time, work, and frustration, for them and you as a customer. i to may be obtaining this game in other ways depending on how fast the download speeds are, however that will not stop me from my purchase, which i have already asked them to charge my card for it. you not buying this game is in a way hypocritical, because they will not be able to grow as a company and meet your expectations without your support. just something i want you to think about as someone who enjoys this kind of media
@swift talon I completely agree with you. I too am as upset as anyone over the delay but JAST is a small company that put in a whole lot of time and word to bring us these products and with out them many of these VN titles we play may never get translated.
@Swift talon The thing though, is JAST USA won't grow without having people being angry. If everyone is going to be easy on them, I don't think they're going to change. They're just going to take advantage of that and spend more time on this and perhaps even delay it more because their customers are too friendly and don't mind getting fed whatever is in front of them. Its the same for censoring. If everyone is going to accept everything that is being fed to them. Nothing will change. You're going too easy on them. Theres honestly no excuse. For any company this is already a failure, to not be able to make the date and then delay it multiple times. Therese no excuses for that. Consumers aren't suppose to care about companies circumstances. The companies are suppose to get what they want and then they consume it.
@swift talon Also, keep in mind. This is coming from someone who is a huge fan but had enough of their stuff. I've been very patient with them and I've been trying very hard to understand everything but they just keep disappointing me and theres a limit as to how much you disappoint your customer until they move on to the next store. Not saying I will ignore shiny days and move on but seriously, they gotta get their things together. You're really not making your company look good with this.
John, companies know that anime and video game fans are pushovers and will kiss their ass and defend them no matter how many promises they break.
A game can ship with cuts and changes they didn't communicate about and you'd still have people defending them like we should be glad they even graced us with their presence, especially when it comes to translations, it's like starving kids desperate for whatever they can get.
Granted, I'm not particularly mad about this situation because I never expected them to live up to their dates in the first place, but I don't like that they are not compensating and making up to their customers in any way, we should just be happy we're getting something at all despite some people having already paid months ago.
The least they could do is offer a bonus/store credit or preferably let us choose the keychain we want for those that are in the first 1000 orders, surely they can handle something like that while they're waiting on copies to be made and the site/download to be ready.
I'm just irritated at being strung along, and how apparently the J-List site renewal is more important than meeting their 2nd release date. I don't pretend that I'm somehow entitled to having this game in my hands by X date. Rather, from a marketing perspective these fake-outs irritate customers and make my job harder. I've been actively promoting these games based on their release date information. My efforts go to waste when they can't meet their release dates (because people lose interest and hype fizzles out). If they're not going to put in the basic effort to get releases out when they say they will, why should I spend my time and put my reputation at stake marketing their titles for them? I've made sacrifices to get the word out, and those sacrifices are being squandered. THAT's what irritates me. It makes me think twice whether I want to do this all over again for Seinarukana if that's how it's going to be.
And no, no release date at all is NOT a valid alternative. Set release dates and make them. Set them with a large amount of leeway if need be. Just make your release dates and don't give the excuse that something more important (that was completely anticipated) came up! And if there's going to be a delay, I want to hear about it a week or more in advance. Not the day of!
@sanahtil, not more important, it's just that this has to go off at a certain time based on the developers involved. Not that the new site isn't also way late (groan).
It also hasn't helped that 0verflow is a shadow of its former self, with few staffers around, which has lead to delays getting files from them. It's the story of the modern eroge industry in far too many cases, alas.
@john, you are 100% right. We've really been working hard to do this, mainly to get the backlog cleared after we refreshed/improved the JAST site, a process which all started a year ago and has been quite successful overall, though obviously we need to do better still.
@John, we certainly hope you don't take that option. I can guarantee that we do care deeply about all our customers, even when they're breaking our balls on this forum. We're very aware that customers who are our biggest fans (or the biggest fans of the games we're releasing, at least) are the ones most hosed when these delays, and normal casual fans who aren't paying as much attention are less inconvenienced, and we think of you guys first. Sadly, delays are unavoidable.
I’ve been curious because I know you get 35+ endings, does Makoto get his own mom in one of them?
Modern eroge business isn't very modern at all. If they actually invested into a platform (See Steam, GoG Galaxy, BattleNet, Origin etc.) you would have an easy time to track, buy, download, update games and integrated DRM that won't be noticed.
The old ways of needin to buy a hard copy in a store and then browse the makers site for the patch to fix bugs is just too ancient. Most people don't even bother patching broken games, and then they get a bad experience because it was broken.
You could also integrate walkthroughs and such with the game pages to help people enjoy the games when they get stuck.
"We've really been working hard to do this, mainly to get the backlog cleared after we refreshed/improved the JAST site, a process which all started a year ago and has been quite successful overall, though obviously we need to do better still."
Progress on the newly announced titles (Flowers and Super Sonico) has been quite good. I've been pleasantly surprised.
Your marketing still needs work. It's good that JAST is maintaining a social media presence. But spamming images on Twitter only goes so far. You need to actually have functioning game websites up when games are ready for preorder, or at least a few weeks before the intended release date. And most of all, you need demos for your games. Games with full animation like Shiny Days scream for a demo and gameplay footage (and still images actually harm them marketing-wise because the games aren't meant to be experienced without motion!). Same with gameplay titles like Seinarukana. Without proper marketing these titles won't live up to their sales potential. The Japanese companies seem to effectively market to their Japanese customers. Why can't you do the same for your English customers?
You definitely are right about the casual fan part. Which is in large part why I think I won’t be purchasing games from JAST unless they are titles that I’m really looking forward to.
It’s just too much of a hassle to check back and forth between release date and delays for something I may never end up playing anyways.