No Fun(ds) Allowed

May 6th, 2013

   

Well, that’s that then. All the more time I have to focus on Seinarukana and nothing but, I guess. No, I have no idea what’s next for LWR yet and at best, it’s likely cold storage for a long while. Yes, I am at least a little happy to see that this kind of thing is indeed viable. Yes, I am confused how they still haven’t actually contacted me myself besides the snippy letter, but I think we’re long past technicalities. I’m thankful to everyone who tried to support it though, so thank you.

Posted in Games | 47 Comments »

47 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Delstius says:
    May 6, 2013 at 9:40 am

    Well that was sorta expected but this is still silly to be polite.

    Anyway you can always put a flattr button on your blog, I’m pretty sure people will love to finance your endless anime ranting :)

  • fate1122 says:
    May 6, 2013 at 9:45 am

    Wow, what jews. Since they most likely don’t even know this website you could still do a thing for this project. just set it up here.

  • fate1122 says:
    May 6, 2013 at 9:47 am

    Also you shouldn’t of even contacted them.

  • Kaisos says:
    May 6, 2013 at 10:35 am

    I agree with the above two, you should set up a donate button here.

  • Kastel says:
    May 6, 2013 at 10:43 am

    I supported your kickstarter with a $100 because I love translators and their work. It is a shame it didn’t go through. It really sucked for me and I can’t imagine the disappointment you are going through right now.

    I do hope you’ll try to attempt translating it again at some point. Without a doubt, I’ll donate a $100 to your next projects if the time comes.

  • Mickey says:
    May 6, 2013 at 11:32 am

    I quite like your work, so this news comes as a great disappointment. And while you’ve made your stance on donations clear, I really think you should reconsider – a lot of people are willing to put money behind you and your projects, me included, and the most efficient and surefire way of getting said funds would be a donations button or some other means of directly donating money to you.

  • Wahfuu says:
    May 6, 2013 at 11:35 am

    I agree that you should set up a donation option here. I backed you myself and would do it again. It’s sad to see it get taken down. Hope it all works out for you.

  • someone says:
    May 6, 2013 at 11:38 am

    I’m also willing to donate to a new LWR project. Just ask for our money and we will give it to you.

  • robert says:
    May 6, 2013 at 12:14 pm

    I think refusing donations is a really bad idea: people here love your work and would be glad to support you if you give them a chance to do that, and the kickstarter being funded after less than two days proves that better than anything else.

    Not only that, but a donation button won’t have kickstarter taking up part of your money and would have a generic objective rather than being focused on a specific project.

    Please, give it a try, I’m sure you would be happy about the results and the fans would end up even happier knowing they supported another project and one of the scene’s good guys.

  • fate1122 says:
    May 6, 2013 at 1:01 pm

    aroduc just do a paypal donate button and make it so you say you are just asking for funds to live and to continue translating , not to translate a specific copy righted material and you should be fine. they cant do shit and you should of did that too begin with.

  • robert says:
    May 6, 2013 at 1:13 pm

    What fate and I said, there’s no need to drop this project just because kickstarter isn’t viable anymore.

  • Anonymous says:
    May 6, 2013 at 1:41 pm

    I’m just chipping in to say thta I’d be happy to donate if you added a donate button for your expenses. Kickstarter isn’t the be all and end all.

  • Norse says:
    May 6, 2013 at 1:55 pm

    Yo, I agree with the above posters, I would gladly give you 100 dollars if you want to continue this translation.

    Those Monochrome guys are the worst since they’re basically spitting on free licensing money just to keep their games in Japan, don’t make the same mistake by refusing to adapt to a new payment model, what matters is that you’re funded and can continue working on this game, not that you’re funded through Kickstarter.

  • Raptor says:
    May 6, 2013 at 2:35 pm

    Dito
    if you add a donate button here, I’d throw my money at you

  • Chou says:
    May 6, 2013 at 3:06 pm

    I got an email saying from Kickstarter saying the project got cancelled. Fuck that! If you set up a donation bar, I will donate. =)

  • invinciblegod says:
    May 6, 2013 at 3:54 pm

    Oh, I didn’t know that the translation was contingent on funding. I thought you were going to translate it regardless. It’s too bad. Well, hopefully I will be able to play it without translation in a few more years of learning.

  • Crazyboy says:
    May 6, 2013 at 4:31 pm

    That suck…
    I didn’t pledge, but i was going to do it in the last few days
    Like many said already you should add a donation button, i would be more then gladly to donate some money.

  • Anonymous says:
    May 6, 2013 at 4:48 pm

    I’m told that Dark Translations collected donations through Paypal and that didn’t work out well for them either.

    Would all you supportive people above be willing to donate in bitcoins? I fear that’s the only way to safely gather money for an objective of questionable legality such as this.

    • Anonymous says:
      May 7, 2013 at 2:28 am

      Aroduc has the benefit of also running an anime blog. It’s a little more messy when he’s asking for donations that aren’t strictly going to translations.

  • Talisman says:
    May 6, 2013 at 5:09 pm

    There’s no advice I can think of. The industry is mostly clear cut between the those willing to tempt an overseas deal and those fine with secluded borders.

    Donations in some form are likely viable, though they come with their own share of issues.

    Just go at it one thing at a time.

  • Yden says:
    May 6, 2013 at 5:19 pm

    What was the exact reason for the canceling of the kickstarter?

    • WpmZ says:
      May 7, 2013 at 12:36 am

      The exact reason was simple. The Japanese executives who have the copyrights to the translation target sent a Cease and Desist (C&D aka DMCA) to Kickstarter and/or Aroduc and the project was pulled down.

      A shame too as the project reached $2500 in VERY short order, I think in only 4 or 5 days we got to the target.

  • JC says:
    May 6, 2013 at 5:22 pm

    I’m disappointed the Kickstarter was canceled, but I’m more than willing to donate like others have mentioned.

  • robert says:
    May 6, 2013 at 8:08 pm

    There’s absolutely no issue with a donation button as long as it’s aimed at the entire site (or at Aroduc as a person) rather than at an individual translation project, it would really be a shame to avoid doing it when you have so many people ready to support your effort.

  • FullMetalAce0 says:
    May 6, 2013 at 10:03 pm

    Donated via kickstarter, would have no problem doing it again if you put up a donate button. Lots of people do streams and receive donations, lots of it just to pay their expenses so they can keep doing what people want to see them doing. I think a lot of people would like to see you (and other excellent translators) keep translating and giving us a chance to understand some great games!

  • VDZ says:
    May 7, 2013 at 4:18 am

    I suppose I’ll be the one to voice a dissenting opinion. I contributed to the Kickstarter, but I would not donate via a regular ‘give me money’ button.

    I’m generally not a fan of involving money in fan translation, but given a good enough reason and a clear goal for the funds I’m not unwilling to donate. The Romanesque kickstarter did just that – Aroduc doesn’t have the money required to work on it, so he asked for the amount required for that for the specific goal of translating Romanesque. Considering the copyright holder’s response to attempts at a legal localization, I don’t oppose involving money in that project.

    However, I don’t feel the same for all projects, and I don’t want to randomly throw money at a translator and hope he’ll use it well. A situation that is likely to occur when you give money like that is that translators use the donations for ‘a little money on the side’ rather than to become able to translate things they otherwise couldn’t translate. And most of all, I don’t want to have anything to do with any situation where a translator has conflicting financial interests with the original creators; people translating things regardless of reasonable objection from the creators (as opposed to the Monochroma’s ‘fuck you gaijin’) and making money off of it.

    Involving money in fan translation should be the exception, not the rule. I would not donate to translators outside of very special exceptions; turning translation into a business should be left to companies like JAST and MangaGamer.

  • Pat says:
    May 7, 2013 at 9:14 am

    VDZ, it’s your money, if you don’t want to help it’s fine, but that doesn’t mean other people can’t think the opposite.

    It makes absolutely no sense to have pretty much everyone on the web accepting donations (FullMetalAce mentioned the people behind streaming programs, like on TwitchTv, where donations are the rule) while fantranslators are held to some bogus “no money” rule despite having one of the hardest roles.

    Because fantranslations are hard. Aroduc has worked on games that are far bigger than lots of official localized ones. There’s not a single legitimate reason why he shouldn’t be able to turn a profit since he’s providing a service. If he was some billionaire working for fun maybe you could be right, but afaik he’s a young guy with the usual issues everyone of us has, and he probably can’t devote his energy to a funny hobby if he can’t eat or pay his rent.

    By the way, I would totally help if there was a donation option.

    • omo says:
      May 7, 2013 at 11:15 am

      >> It makes absolutely no sense to have pretty much everyone on the web accepting donations (FullMetalAce mentioned the people behind streaming programs, like on TwitchTv, where donations are the rule) while fantranslators are held to some bogus “no money” rule despite having one of the hardest roles.

      Complain to your law makers. Unauthorized translation and subsequent distribution is without any doubt a form of copyright infringement. Yeah it’s unfair, I agree, but that’s just how the law is written. It’s not even a grey area of copyright law like replays and play-with-me vids. You can do it, but you don’t have the right to do it and it gets worse when $ is involved.

      With that said, there are plenty of people out there that probably shouldn’t be asking for donations in the first place, but that’s a matter of opinions.

      • Pat says:
        May 7, 2013 at 3:00 pm

        As others have said before, no one is suggesting Aroduc to put up a donation button for Romanesque. If the donations are simply to support him and his blog there are really no issues, and he can continue working on his translations without worrying too much.

      • Anonymous says:
        May 7, 2013 at 3:41 pm

        Not to turn this into a debate, but depending on where you live, the cease and desists from an insular Japanese company are something of a joke. They simply don’t have the money or time to try and pursue a court case in, say, the UK.

        That said, if people were to donate money to Aroduc for the purpose of supporting his anime blog and Aroduc was to use the free time said money provided him doing translations, then what’s wrong with that?

        • Pat says:
          May 7, 2013 at 7:34 pm

          Indeed, I can’t see anything even remotely questionable about that, and I’m not sure why Aroduc was fine with a Kickstarter but isn’t even considering a simple donation system like the one thousands of web denizens have employed for years.

  • MrTyrant says:
    May 7, 2013 at 12:42 pm

    Seinarukana special edition or just the normal boring one?

    • Jikorde says:
      May 7, 2013 at 1:06 pm

      It’s Jast localization, which means the actual development company sre the ones deciding on the version.
      Aka, it will probably the normal edition just like every other official vn release.

      Though I could be wrong and would like to.

  • Pat says:
    May 7, 2013 at 3:05 pm

    Aside from the donation business, have you thought about using Indiegogo instead of Kickstarter? They seem to have friendlier policies, and you can have more freedom in creating your project’s goals (they run flexible campaigns that allows to obtain the pledged sum even if the goal hasn’t been reached, for instance, even if that isn’t your issue).

  • Kenki says:
    May 8, 2013 at 7:01 am

    As I already stated on your forums, you run an anime blog, it’s a lot of work and most of us here don’t think you should be doing it for free. So stop hesitating and put up a donation button, for the work you do on your anime reviews ;).

  • daddycool says:
    May 8, 2013 at 11:05 am

    Just to add my 2 cents (slightly more indeed), I own the game (YES the original game in Japanese that I can not play …) and would definitely pay $100 for the translation. I have been willing to play it for many years …
    Anyway overall I love your translation, so keep up the good work.

  • arknoir says:
    May 10, 2013 at 5:57 am

    To be frank mate, just put a donation button up. Even I of the unwashed masses who ain’t gonna pretend he understands everything about kickstarters and stuff would donate to the site because if you disappeared, I’d have to stop being cynical and read Random Curiousty with the somewhat impression every anime is good and filled up of care bears goodness or Patrick McGoohan level of ingenuity and I don’t want to feel good.

    P.S do a kickstarter to translate Shura no Mon and Ninja Burai Dentetsu. I’ll give you half a crown towards your Uni studies.

  • Anonymous says:
    May 11, 2013 at 4:25 am

    Why not slap the same project on, say, indiegogo just to mess with Monochroma? And after that gets DMCA’d, just follow the list with another site. Infinite fun.

  • Hana says:
    May 11, 2013 at 8:05 am

    I would gladly help with a donation if there was a donation button. It would be nice to see Aroduc answering the comments here, people only want to support him and his projects.

  • Y10NRDY says:
    May 12, 2013 at 10:55 am

    I think you’re making a big mistake dropping the project, man. You made it clear that you still planned on translating Romanesque, but that the KS would allow you to devote your time to it. But now that the money has been withdrawn it’s on “cold storage at best.”

    You’re doing a daring thing by accepting money for translations. I was (AM) in full support of you getting paid for your work – or whatever you wanna label it as, but you can’t pull the rug out after people have been willing to back you. That shakes people’s faith.

    Put a donate button up. I see absolutely no problem with this. Work on Romanesque at your own pace, even. No one can fault you for it… but dropping it altogether after the KS thing didn’t work out is a sketchy move.

    Good luck.

  • Narukana-sama Worshiper says:
    May 14, 2013 at 12:55 pm

    I’m not going to get into the KS situation, but I just wanted to say that as a long-time EnA/SNK fan who has been around since the day NightEye159 first started EnA and also SNK, I’m not sure how to react to this. While I’m disappointed about how long it’s taking SNK to be completed, I’m happy it’s still getting translated and hasn’t been left for dead. So, I’m thankful for you to have picked up on SNK.

    But… while I don’t doubt your translation ability, Aroduc, I’m not sure if your style is…ideal for Seinarukana. NightEye159 did EnA, and many fans, including myself, like his translation. He did a considerable amount translating SNK as well. His style is, well, fairly literal and unlocalized to a reasonable degree. Your style, Aroduc, is pretty liberal and quite localized.

    Anyways, I’ll get to the point. Would you please be willing to go over the translated script NightEye159 did (Dakkodango should be able to get it for you if they already haven’t or you can check out the archive summary/excerpt that he did for Narukana’s route) and consider following his translation style? I know you’ll most likely be against it, but even changing your style to match his to a small degree would be greatly appreciated.