I loved the VN Yumina the Ethereal, is there any chance of its fandisc getting localized?
I wouldn't mind seeing the fandisc, although I'd rather JAST work on the sequel Corona the Dragon Maiden. They appear to be of similar length, so between a title that requires playing Yumina the Ethereal, and a title that stands alone, the standalone title would probably have greater appeal.
Although given that JAST appears to have been disappointed with Yumina's sales, whether we'll see more games from Eternal at all is an open question. If Seinarukana also doesn't sell well, we may not see anymore H-RPGs from JAST at all (except for short ero-focused titles like the Raidy series).
We've still got a ton on our plate, so I can't promise anything to be honest. We weren't terribly impressed with sales of the President fandisc (http://www.jastusa.com/my-girlfriend-is-the-president-fandisc.html). One problem is, it might be too difficult to communicate what a "fandisc" is (a short sequel) to get enough people to want to buy. Obviously core fans who know these things will hopefully support us, but to the average fan a "fandisc" might seem like we're selling DLC on a disc, which we kind of are.
I think the problem with fandiscs is that your audience will always be a subset of those who played the original.
To get a fandisc to sell in the West, I think you'd have to package it together with a remake; in other words, upgrade the original title at the same time. That would get both new and old customers interested in the title again.
You could do an “adopt a fandisc” promotional campaign where fans get to vote for their favorite game’s fan disc and the winner(s) would get a kickstarter like fundraising campaign pre-order page on your store. If the pre-orders meet your goal by the end of the campaign the orders are charged, if not they’re canceled.
I feel like I’m probably making a digital pest of myself by saying so here… again… but an announced Yumina fandisc release would make me crow with glee. And I love HyugaX’s idea of funding it kickstarter-style. Collecting “pledge” preorders before translation even began would take all of the guesswork out of your potential sales numbers, yeah? I know you mentioned elsewhere that some of the companies you license from are leery of kickstarters because of the perceived unprofessionalism of that method, but maybe they wouldn’t mind as much for an international release of a smaller release like this… or so I’d hope.
I’m also in agreement with DarkShiki’s idea of packaging the fandisc with the main Yumina game as a sort of remake. (MangaGamer did something similar with Edelweiss.) You could release the original game (with the bug-patches you released in Fall 2013 hard-coded in) and the fandisc together as a “special edition” available once current supplies of the Yumina physical edition run out. This would allow you to continue selling the game at a fairly high price even after the “new” has worn off the original version, and you could sell digital versions of the fandisc stand-alone for about $20 like you did with Girlfriend is the President. While I’m pretending it’s Christmas, it could also include:
* Full Yumina soundtrack (or at least non-vocal tracks)
* Translated mini-artbook with features similar to those found here
* Large artbox similar to your other limited editions
… And that’s all I want in my stocking, Santa Claus! 
Being serious, I know there are obstacles in the way, and I’ll respect JAST’s decision if you ultimately decide it isn’t a feasible business move. But if a YTE: Forever Dreams localization ever does become a reality, I’ll be seriously stoked.
It sounds like the sales for Yumina the Ethereal didn't go very well, I still think that it was very important that Yumina got localized, and not just because it is one of my favorite visual novels.
I found out about JASTUSA from an ad in an anime magazine called OtakuUSA and Yumina was the game advertised in it. I knew nothing about Yumina or about JAST that released Visual Novels in english in an easy way to get them on your PC. Yumina seemed interesting with its dungeon crawling gameplay and unique battle system on top of being a Visual Novel which I wanted more exposure to, so I bought it shortly afterward.
Because of that ad and Yumina I was able to find out about JAST and get more visual novels. It would give great pleasure to see the fandisc and other games made by the developers of Yumina to come out in English. Luckily Seinarukana is coming out which is what I'm most hyped for this year.
Like Jacksprat1 I'll understand if the difficulties are too high in bringing the fandisc over. I still think if advertised well like it was in OtakuUSA, games like Yumina can bring more customers over and give them a great taste of visual novels.
@Jacksprat1, I know I am always being negative about stuff, but KickStarter is quite anti-porn, and removes projects that are 18+. This is our frustration...whenever paradigms change, whenever there's a fun new way of bringing products to customers or paying for products etc., it nearly always involves banning adult products in that channel. This happened when mobile app stores showed up, it happened when Steam started allowing visual novels, too. It really sucks.
Could you crowdfund an all-ages version of say, a Yumina fandisc, and then just happen to release an 18+ version at the same time? It would be complete coincidence, of course.
@ Peter Payne
I know I am always being negative about stuff, but KickStarter is quite anti-porn, and removes projects that are 18+.
Well there's always the route Sekai took with Grisaia keeping the campaign all-ages until the very end and later on letting people switch their pledges around to the adult after version using BackerKit. Not sure if that may jeopardize future KS projects for them but its been done before.
Also with your online infrastrucure in place you wouldn't even have to use such an overt ruse. You could just add a DLC card to each copy of the game that is redeemable for a DRM-free copy of either the adult or all-ages version on your website (same as your doing with your current LEs).
As long as your Japanese licensor is on board, and the game is still playable with H-scenes removed, its a strategy worth considering. Not even steam comes close to KS in terms of publicity; just compare MangaGamer's minori fundraiser to Clannad and Grisaia...
Looks like Offbeatr has a games section http://offbeatr.com/explore/display/category:games
and Indegogo's " Terms of Service don't actually address adult content, so the apparent rule would be "as long as you don't scare the horses." But there's evidence that IGG does have rules. This recent article on Crowdfunding from Sydney has a quote from IGG's Australian representative: ""We have some restrictions – we don't allow fund-raising for pornography or violence – but otherwise you can raise funds for whatever matters to you."" <- they have plenty of nude photobooks and sex toys so if worded correctly it they can be a good alternative.
The problem with adult crowdfunding sites is they take a much higher cut of the pledges: like 20% instead of 5%.
HyugaX said: "Well there's always the route Sekai took with Grisaia keeping the campaign all-ages until the very end and later on letting people switch"
This is not an option for most Visual Novels, Sekai was able to do this because Grisaia was a PC Eroge trilogy that was ported on PS Vita whitout any 18+ content, their PC version which they used to make the whole thing possible on Kickstarter was based on this PS Vita version. In Japan Grisaia on PC is only 18+.
In this case it would be an impossibility since Yumina fandisc is only 18+ (no other versions exist).
Aselia the Eternal is All Ages because JAST decided to localize the All Age PC version that was ported from the Playstation 2 version that was made available in Japan with the release of Seinarukana -The Spirit of Eternity Sword 2- Special Package.
JAST could make a kickstarter for an All-Age version of Seinarukana that would be based on the PSP version. This is how MangaGamer made two versions of Princess Evangile, an 18+ version available on their website and an All-Age version available on Steam they made themselves based on the PSP version of Princess Evangile.
@ Nier
In this case it would be an impossibility since Yumina fandisc is only 18+ (no other versions exist).
They can make their own all-ages version (with the licensor's permission) and do the KS for that version.
JAST could make a kickstarter for an All-Age version of Seinarukana that would be based on the PSP version.
Why would they do that? They already have it licensed and almost ready to go. There's no reason to do a KS. Unless you meant Steam release...
HyugaX said: "Why would they do that? They already have it licensed and almost ready to go. There's no reason to do a KS. Unless you meant Steam release..."
Well we are talking about fandiscs here and kickstarter for their localization, so the reason would be this: https://vndb.org/v833