Score one for the good guys

Visual Novel Community Anime/Otaku Discussions
#1

Publishers’ Organization Combats Piracy

http://www.rightstuf.com/rssite/main/news/individual/?ForumThreadName=FT0000000403&ReturnTo=Main

“The Animation Co-Op Defense League, a group representing anime publishers specializing in adult releases, issued a press release annoucing some of their recent successes in the fight against the illegal distrubition of their series and properties. Of note, they mention action taken against 10,738 infringers, which include 5006 movie file-sharing links, 2123 picture file-sharing links and 3609 blog posts pointing readers to illegally distributed works…”

The press release goes into detail, but I found this part interesting:
“With the creation of the ACDL, all of the US based Hentai distributors and studios as well as the Japanese production houses are working together to combat this problem…”

I wonder if the Bgame industry falls under the umbrella of this group or, barring that, if something similar could/would be set up in order to protect the rights of Bgame developers, publishers, and distributors. Or is the foreign market for Bgames so small that it’s unlikely?

#2

http://blackrainbow.jp/imp01.html

Strong action against piracy is always laudable, but even the industry itself is not safe :roll: (apparently, someone inside Black Rainbow leaked the complete Ura Saiminjutsu2 files to the Net one week before the official release. Worse, this also compromised the safety/efficiency of the new -and costly- online anticopy protection implemented on the fan disk, promptly cracked on the same day of release, yesterday).
Shingly Whiplash struck again, I guess :lol: .
Oh well, me now I’ve one more reason to support those unfortunate guys, I will definitely buy their fan disk when will become available from DLsite. If you too want to help, Ura Saiminjutsu2 is here:

http://www.himeyashop.com/product_info. … ts_id/9365

#3

That’s messed up about industry insiders leaking shit. Don’t they wanna make any money? I’d like to get paid for my time and work, I know that. Well, it will be nice when I can visit anime boards and not be the only person there that legitimately buys these games. Always with the damn torrents. It really irks me, and I report it often, but I know I only am seeing a small portion of the overall pirate picture.

#4

They DO want to make money. Often this is the problem. This is a classic Prisoner’s Dilemma: ‘defecting’ has immediate benefits for whoever did it – he might have even actually got paid, or he got ‘cred’ with some kind of ‘scene’ which he wanted to get in order for other reasons, or he got to watch [guy] who he’s secretly loathed for years suffer as he deals with the problem. But in the long term, defecting means everyone loses.

Or it could have been as simple as someone (who is an idiot) trusted the wrong friend (who is also an idiot) when said friend said “nonono, I won’t do anything stupid with the golden master”.

#5

I guess wanting to make money without having to do anything but sneak out a copy early is pretty tempting if the worker doesn’t make good money. I still prefer to be paid for honest work though, so stuff like that flies over my head. I usually just don’t think about it.

#6

Awesome. Just pure awesome. This new turn of events, has been VERY effective. Given the amount of bitching I saw on 4chan and a few pirate boards, it even got the “HK” ring (not giving the full name) - the largest source of illegal hentai stuff on the web… for North America at least. Too bad the alliance can only target titles that were licensed by NA companies. They can’t do anything about unlicensed titles. :expressionless:

So the rumor was true… I thought it was just some 2chan lies. Sad. :cry:

People in the Japanese gaming industry are VERY underpaid. Many make the equivalent of minimum wage ($55 per day). Sometimes they make less, because the work is handled via contract commission (i.e. a large payment is made up front, but the total work involved was longer or more difficult than expected). While I don’t advocate betrayal of trust, it only serves to highlight the darker side of game production. While there’s little talk of it made in the media, IP theft is a huge problem with the gaming industry too.

#7

Bear in mind that with software leaks, the culprit isn’t necessarily involved with development. It could be an entry-level production assistant or even a part-time beta tester (IIRC, the English version of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories was leaked this way). There are plenty of people with access to the final or near-final game.

Also, members of the gaming press are sometimes responsible for leaks (nowadays, some publishers watermark review builds, but others still provide boxed copies in advance).

#8

I’m really hoping that’s the case. The company is really small, lacking the resources in money and personnel that larger groups can afford, so the possibility remains.

The “big boys” like Capcom and Konami contract beta testing professionals. Not only do they provide top quality service, but it allows for accountability and lawsuits if there’s a compromise.

The even “bigger boys” like EA and Square-Enix, have an entire division devoted to beta testing, who are individually assigned serial numbered versions so they can be traced back to an individual for record keeping. You actually have a security clearance for the flagship projects, during their conceptual phase.

Most envious of all are groups like Blizzard and BioWare, who have security locked down so tight, it makes the CIA envious - Starcraft 2 anyone? They don’t even publish how their practices work.

Advertising occurs in the middle months of a 9 month production phase, which coincides with the completion of the first beta. Usual practice is to only allow the “first stage” available in the press versions and provide still photo mockups for the subsequent levels. In the “cartridge” era this wasn’t the case, because it cost more to produce a limited run for the press, than it did for store production (per cart that is). Therefore press release versions were made when the beta was 70% to 90% complete, so they’d at least have the same chipset as the commercial edition.

But that’s just a random observation. I’ve come to rapidly learn how different the console and eroge markets handle production. They share the same fundamentals, but the executions are completely unalike.
To be honest, I think eroge do a lot of things wrong, which probably accounts greatly for their “low market share” in the overall digital industry. Errr… in a big picture context of course! I’m not claiming Peach Princess is inefficient or anything. :wink:

#9

it’s awesome to hear intellectual infringement is finally being cracked down on.

#10

boo

#11

Serial tracking is how they do testing at the company i beta test for, indivisually serial coded with our name. The company i’m beta testing for i wouldn’t classify as a EA or Square-Enix. Probably not even a Konami or Capcom. Maybe a Koei. So it’s not just the big-boys that use serial coding.