Poll: Fan Translations - Boon or Bane to the English Market?

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

I ran across a post on another board that got me thinking. The person made a list of visual novels in English he recommended, ranked by popularity (in his opinion). This list of around 10 games didn’t include any commercially localized VN’s currently in retail distribution.

This got me thinking: are fan translations promoting the visual novel industry as a whole, or have they gotten to the point that they’re actively outcompeting their commercially localized counterparts? Are there people playing the fan translated titles that would’ve otherwise bought commerically localized titles? If you were Peter Payne, would you be concerned about the blossoming fan translation community?

For the purposes of this poll, assume that fan translators are translating games that would never be commercially localized (e.g., there’s no competition for individual titles).

#2

I don’t honestly see much impact. I don’t think that fan translations help widening the market (because if you’re searching info on fan-translated visual novels, you probably are already a visual novel fan yourself), nor that they steal customers from commercially released titles.

Certainly, the best localized titles I’ve played so far are fan-translated, but I still keep playing games from JAST or Mangagamer. I will surely play each and every Nitro+ games released, and I’m definitely interested in Higurashi - just as surely as I’ll play Majikoi when it gets translated by Yandere. So, really, no impact at all.

#3

I can’t see how fan translated games would be harming commercially localised games, maybe unless the quality of the fan translated titles were far superior to the commercialised ones. There simply is such a small number of titles getting translated that I can’t see them competing out the commercial titles on the average erogame-player’s time budget. If anything I’d say that it’s more likely a boon, renewing and keeping up interest in the genre between the long breaks in commercial releases (not that fan translations are completed all that often either). Of course, this is from a western sales point of view; I have no idea if the fan translation scene has any effect on the Japanese developers/distributors’ willingness to license titles for commercial translation. Considering the cost of importing erogames from Japan, I can’t imagine fan translations having any appreciable effect on the sales of the original games (Yosuga no Sora + Haruka na Sora cost me almost $300 including taxes and customs handling here), rather they might be seen as a cause of increased piracy of the titles.

Anyway, I can’t see fan translations harming the sales of the commercially released titles in the west at this point in time. I guess one could draw parallels to the anime fansub community or the manga scanlation community vs. sales in the western hemisphere. I personally think it simply encourages a higher consumption of it as a whole (it did for me at least). But it’s hard to say how it impacts sales as a whole, since you could argue that it makes people accustomed to this sort of entertainment being free, making them less likely to buy the commercial titles and more likely to pirate them. No doubt this happens as well, but it’s impossible to say if it is so prevalent that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.

#4

Pretty much what’s already been said… it’s a mixed bag.

I know it irks me that I can’t sell copies of english Aoi Shiro to my site visitors or encourage others to play the game… nobody I come in to contact with is hardcore enough to try and track down the original legal Japanese copy in order to apply an English fanpatch to it, and while it’s not my business what moral choices other people make, I certainly wouldn’t want to encourage my own customers to go out and steal stuff! So in terms of my own forum I’d rather ignore the existence of fan translations.

However, I know that many customers already actively follow that sort of thing and it doesn’t stop them or me from buying games.

#5

I’m pretty hardcore at this sort of thing. I’ve got Sudzukuri Dragon and Sayonara wo Oshiete in my drawer, and Moshimo Ashita ga Hare Naraba and Konata Yori Kanata Made sitting in my bookshelf.

The only thing holding me back is that every single indication I’ve found is that the game is not very good. Convince me otherwise and I’ll see what I can do.

#6

It fits my tastes perfectly, but not necessarily yours. :slight_smile:

Shoujo-ai content (Even if the protagonist is too dense to understand when girls throw themselves at her)
Non-wussy female characters (more than one! And at least one classic sweet helpless cute little cook for you to rescue, too. cuddles Yasumi)
Vampires (Well, close enough. A lot of blood-drinking anyway.)
Drama, dark magic, blood sacrifice (I eat this stuff up)
An awful lot of linguistics jokes (Despite my inability to understand Japanese, I’m fascinated by the connections between concepts in the written language)
High number of endings (… I can’t imagine trying to deal with this without a walkthrough.)

Downsides, for me:
The “normal” material (everything not having to do with the big dramatic plot) can get tiresome, and there are so many variations on every scene that even on skip you’re going to be slogging through a lot of interactions you’ve mostly seen before. No, I really don’t care what you’re having for lunch today, GET BACK TO THE PLOT.

Paths sort of have to be unlocked in order, which allows you to get yourself trapped in dead ends. Again, the walkthrough is my friend.

The shoujo-ai content likes to run along the border of suggestiveness without following through. It’s blatantly obvious that X has a crush on you, and she’ll tell you that in her path, but even in her ending it’s not clear whether you two end up anything more than good friends. Y is clearly into girls, but despite some flirting and one real kiss (as opposed to the contrived scenarios for things that look like kisses but aren’t, which most other characters have) you are definitely NOT a couple in her ending.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure a lot of Fatal Hearts’ customers would love it, if I could sell it to them.

It’s entirely possible it’s not very good if you’ve had better things available. For me, it’s the best thing since Ever 17. (yes, edging YMK. Although I haven’t quite managed to finish this yet, and I haven’t played Family Project, so my data isn’t complete.) Because it presses my buttons.

#7

Personally speaking, the attention on fan translations and MangaGamer has definitely reduced my interest in JAST USA’s lineup. Whereas Princess Waltz and Family Project were incredible announcements in 2007 (purchased both nonetheless, but I haven’t gotten around to reading much of either), they no longer had the same impact upon release.

On VN-related forums, I’ve noticed the same thing across the board. Where story-focused games are concerned, word of mouth hype is crucial, and I suspect that JAST USA will struggle at this unless they can acquire higher profile licenses (this is where they’re at a significant disadvantage, althouth having Nitro+ on board is a good start). People need to talk about the games to promote interest.

#8

I think there is only one problem for PP at least :
Fans translates great games and PP is limited to whatever they can have.

An example :

Here are the VN I still have to try :

PP
Cosplay academy
Downhill Night

Mangamer
Suika
Da Capo
Hinata Bokko
Edelweiss
Shuffle

Fan translations :
Kanon
AoiShiro
Tears of Tiara
Tshukihime
Fate

Furthermore there are all the upcoming VN from mangagamer I’ll have to buy.

  • all the fan translations we’ll have sooner or later.

So now guess which VN will stay for months or years on my desk…
Cosplay academy
Downhill Night

I’ll still buy PP’s releases because I want to support them but… honestly the VN PP translates can’t be compared to those fan-translated.

When I look at the upcoming PP games I fear it will be even worse because DN2, DN3, LWR2 and cat girl alliance don’t have a chance against what the fan translators (and mangagamer) will give us (except for Demonbane).

#9

Bane.

I felt it was much more of a mixed bag until the sentiment of choosing fan-translations of certain titles over the licensed titles. And most of the people that I have seen choose the fan-translations aren’t upstanding importers. Yes it might hurt the wallet a bit more, and it would take some work to get the game uncensored, but I hate that many people take the cheap way out and steal instead of importing.

Pirating does effect the landscape in the west since that steals sales away from the companies. I don’t know the numbers, but I’m sure that if all the pirated copies had been bought instead of stolen, there would be quite a few more titles available in official English translations. Fan translations just make it too easy to bypass legal translating companies.

#10

Leaning towards bane.

One example where there are figures available, are the games Dark Translations has worked on. All of the translations that they have completed so far, are for eroges that are available on English dlsite, and they provide a purchase link, next to where you can download the patch. Only one of the games they’ve translated has sold over 200 copies on eng dlsite (Anti-Demon Ninja Asagi), with the others ranging from 174 down to 23 sales. There are two arguments against these figures being completely representative, namely people who would otherwise buy the games are not aware that a translation exists, the other being that people might be buying the packaged versions, instead of the dl ones. The first is more significant than the second, but even then I’m sure that hundreds, and probably thousands of people have played the games without purchasing them, despite how easy they are to purchase - no DRM, website is completely in English, no importing issues etc.

At the moment, I think the Nitro+ collaboration between JAST and the fan translations is probably an ideal way of going about it, as for various reasons, people who would pirate the game if there was a translation patch would be willing to buy an official English version of the title - it’s a win/win for both Nitro+ who would earn far more money from the license than they’d get from the handful of people who bought the game, as well as JAST.

#11

If piracy of Japanese games (by English speakers) affects piracy of English games, I’d expect the link would be fairly weak–something along the lines of promoting a culture of piracy. Even if piracy of Japanese games was halted, I doubt it’d have a significant effect on the English commercial market. Personally I think competition between fan translated games and commercially localized games for a player’s time is a much stronger argument.

Edit: You seem to be making the argument that Japanese companies are wary of localizing their games due to piracy, and that fan translations affect this perception somehow. I highly doubt that. For the most part, these companies are probably worried about widespread piracy (or even importing) of English games sabotaging sales of the Japanese originals. A game getting fan translated really has little to do with that at all–it creates both additional sales of the original and additional piracy. But we’re talking perception here anyway, not numbers. It’s not like they need GOOD reasons to be worried anyway, or that their perception is at all tied to what’s actually happening.

#12

I honestly don’t know.

But, on a personal level I’ll say it’s a boon. Without fan translations; there’s a large chance my interest in visual novels may have dwindled between releases, and it’s entirely possible I might have moved on by now, leaving the VN market. It fan translations of other types of video games that eventually increased my interest in these types of games. Then I found a really good visual novel… “Phantom of Inferno” and learnt of Hirameki games… which finally led me to JAST/PP/G-Collection games and the mature VN market.

Another positive note; without fan-translations I might wonder how many people would know about Nitro+. And on the grand scheme I can safely say fan-translations have done much for spreading knowledge of VN companies and their games. I certainly wouldn’t know 90% of the information I’ve learnt without them; much less appreciate the many various VN games out there.

On the other hand… with fan translations making more headway recently, at bringing some of the best offerings of high quality games into english with higher quality… than the official english companies; you have to question how that impacts the image of official companies.

I guess the information I’d like to know; is how much of the fan-translation community is part of the customer base. If it’s an overly large percentage 50%+, then I think a closer pairing of fan-translation/the community and the official company would be in order; to maximize the company’s potential. If the fan-translation community doesn’t affect the company at all; then there’s no real reason to even acknowledge the fan-translations.

bottomline :
If fan translations are a significant boon or bane to the english market, then I think it’s only logical to find a way to use that power to your advantage.
Otherwise, don’t even worry about it.

In my ideal world… :lol:

[spoiler=]I’d have my stable company that is making money regularly, then I’d create a secondary company with limited funds that is completely open to customers. I’d want this secondary company’s funds, objectives, and all usually behind the scenes info to be all accessible to customers.
I’d work together very openly with all the customers, to attempt to achieve what the customers/fans want. But, depending on their constant input/output to direct the company. Also safe donations would be accepted :smiley:

I’d want to be the center-stage of the fan-translation community. If the customers are constantly complaining about professional translations, and saying fan-translations are doing a better job; then I’d see what the customers want.
Plan A ) Find a group with an already completed or translation that’s already underway. Contact the group to see if they’d like to make their translation official. If all is go; then I’d make it known to the english community about my interest in making the fan-translation official. I’d want word to spread to the unofficial japanese communities. Then I’d want to approach the actual Japanese company with the demo/translation; and attempt negociations.
If all fails, then I’d simply inform the community of the results and look to the next translation group/project that the community is interested in. Somehow the legalities would have to be stated so that if the translation is incomplete; yet gets released by the translation group anyways, your company is not liable. You only approached the original company with a potential offer as a middleman/liscensor, which was rejected etc.

I dunno… something like that, all in my ideal world anyways[/spoiler]

#13

Part of the issue is with Japanese companies being a bit wary, but most of it comes from the companies seeking to license a product. Considering the penetration of piracy into the western markets, any licensing company is taking a risk on trying to distribute a niche product. The music industry, a non-niche industry by any means, has been devestated by piracy… an extremely small niche market in the west for Eroge games has to be wary of licensing products, seeing as how so many fan-translations have encouraged western piracy of many games instead of importing it.

I was talking more about fan translations impacting the efforts of localisation companies and not the impact they have on Japan itself. Japan’s industry is much more grounded and far more mainstream than the Eroge industry in the US. And fan translations shouldn’t effect them… they can already understand the material. I would also argue against the licensed western material making a negative impact on Japanese sales… though uncensored, titles are out in Japan for years before the uncensored copies tend to be availabe legally.

#14

Can you provide some real data to show this? Don’t buy the recording industry’s crap - everything points to sales having gone up.

#15

I’ll have to search for the article, but it was a piece last year that dealt with the growth of P2P networks and file-sharing decimating the music industry. Though I would venture a guess and share the movie industry and PC gaming industry has taken far more of a hit.

#16

It’s silly that such list didn’t contain any commercial products, but it’s understandable. Fan translations and companies work on two entirely different principles.
Latter looks for games they can get licenses for cheap, and stuff that will sell. This likely will lead to lots of products that are considered “low quality” by more seasoned crowd. Just look at JAST’s releases, going against tons of purely sex-romp titles are Yume Miru Kusuri, Crescendo, Kana: Little Sister, DiviDead and… I guess that’s it? You could also include Ever17 and Phantom of Inferno, but those were Hirameki’s releases. Also Family Project and Princess Waltz, but personally I didn’t like those two that much.
Fan-translators don’t have to worry about something like “will this game sell”. They translate games that translators them self find good, and usually this results in best games being made available for English readers.
Since you can’t go without mentioning the other company these days, let’s cover Mangagamer too. They’ve released lots of excellent, more story driven titles in English, and if they hold onto their schedule they will continue to do so.

To me, if it wasn’t for fan-translation of Tsukihime and other stuff I would’ve never bothered to buy any of the official products. But I guess it’s true that fan-translations are making it harder for JAST since now people aren’t thinking that sex-romps are that amazing anymore. Princess Waltz would’ve been amazing release few years ago, but thanks to fan-translations lots of people thought “Oh, it’s ripping off Fate/Stay Night”.
There’s starting to be crowd for more story oriented titles, JAST’s tactic of releasing one game that weights on story and many that’re about sex will not just work anymore.

#17

And they’re still largely in the red…

#18

Source? This may have changed after releasing Kira Kira and Shuffle! But I doubt anyone here knows precisely.

#19

Well, this is largely because despite releasing good titles, Mangagamer has no idea how to handle PR. As far as I know they only have adverts on Sankaku Complex.

I think the last “report” on their financial state was before Shuffle was released. Things have probebly changed, but who knows how.

#20

Source link: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6469&p=94654#p94654

That was in early July. I doubt much has changed since then.

But here’s some Alexa data:
Mangagamer: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/mangagamer.com
JAST USA: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/jastusa.com

According to their reach statistic, the two sites have about equal traffic right now. Keep in mind however that JAST USA sells through multiple outlets, while Mangagamer only sells through Mangagamer.com. Therefore JAST USA almost certainly has significantly more “views” of its games–probably several fold more.