Maidens of the Kaleidoscope

~Bunbunmaru News~ => Front Page Headlines => Topic started by: cuc on April 22, 2015, 06:15:56 AM

Title: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: cuc on April 22, 2015, 06:15:56 AM
This thread is a place for discussing notable coverage by Western media in response to Playism's plan to release Touhou in the West.

Let's see how this works out :)
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: monhan on April 22, 2015, 06:25:50 AM
There's one by PC Gamer just this morning.

http://www.pcgamer.com/an-introduction-to-touhou-project-japans-biggest-indie-series/

I personally think that the article is pretty well done, pointing out the necessary details without making it overly long
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: cuc on April 22, 2015, 06:36:12 AM
EDIT: ^ Yeah, that article is why I started this thread.


First of all, I've been keeping an eye on how Western media covers the Playism announcement itself. What I found was that there hasn't been much coverage, per se. I can imagine Touhou's Western release being treated as a bigger news a few years ago, when the Western indie game market was still fledgling, and the arrival of a Japanese indie hero might be more of a cause for celebration. Ah, but that's just how things are :).

For the moment, in non-news coverage, PC Gamer has published an introduction (http://www.pcgamer.com/an-introduction-to-touhou-project-japans-biggest-indie-series/) to Touhou by Heidi Kemps. The author had made good use of the article's short length, delving into the idea behind DDC's design and the difference between the doujin and indie mentalities.

P.S. Strangely, PC Gamer also published another article (http://www.pcgamer.com//the-story-behind-the-touhou-sensation/) about Touhou's early days in Dec 2014. This was a bad article, as the author was clearly trying to pass information he found on a few wikis as insider knowledge, without any real understanding of the topic. That's why I didn't link to it back when it came out.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: eyeeye on April 22, 2015, 07:46:07 AM
Some links:

nichegamer                 :                 http://nichegamer.com/2015/04/the-first-official-touhou-localization-is-happening-thanks-to-playism/

ricedigital                    :                 http://www.ricedigital.co.uk/touhou-coming-west/

rocketnews24             :                 http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/04/11/bullet-hell-fans-in-heaven-with-shooter-series-touhou-project-officially-coming-to-the-west/

siliconera                    :                 http://www.siliconera.com/2015/04/08/playism-is-publishing-touhous-first-official-release-in-the-west/

animenewsnetwork    :                http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-04-11/playism-brings-touhou-double-dealing-character-game-to-the-west/.86926

vgchartz                      :                 http://www.vgchartz.com/article/258628/tohou-14-is-finally-coming-to-the-west-via-playism/

rockpapershotgun     :                 http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/04/09/touhou-official-english-translation/

gamnesia                    :                 http://www.gamnesia.com/news/touhou-14-will-be-localized-by-playism-games

destructoid                :                  http://www.destructoid.com/doujin-shooter-touhou-14-targets-western-release-290129.phtml

discussion on reddit /r/Games   :  http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/31rnlu/touhou_finally_coming_to_the_west/
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: N-Forza on April 22, 2015, 09:16:28 AM
A lot of people are making the assumption that this will be a localization, when the only thing Playism has said at present is that it will be available in English-speaking countries. Admittedly, it's a fair one to make, but it might be affecting people's expectations.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: mauve on April 25, 2015, 09:28:26 PM
A lot of people are making the assumption that this will be a localization, when the only thing Playism has said at present is that it will be available in English-speaking countries. Admittedly, it's a fair one to make, but it might be affecting people's expectations.
Their wording is very careful about saying that they're bringing to the "English speaking territories," rather than bringing it in English, yeah. IIRC they got asked about it and the result was that they would have some sort of news about translations at some undefined point in the future, so I'm guessing it's still in negotiations, but they managed to confirm that they got the series itself to bring over and were ecstatic enough to announce that.

Honestly I'm more interested in what this means for derivative games than it does for the originals. There's a few games I would very much like to see brought over, for their gameplay moreso than their story.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Clarste on April 25, 2015, 10:58:56 PM
My impression is that ZUN would be extremely reluctant to allow a translation because he likes to keep careful control over his works and with a translation he can't personally judge how faithful it is.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Think Komachi with a Rifle on May 02, 2015, 01:03:30 PM
Their wording is very careful about saying that they're bringing to the "English speaking territories," rather than bringing it in English, yeah. IIRC they got asked about it and the result was that they would have some sort of news about translations at some undefined point in the future, so I'm guessing it's still in negotiations, but they managed to confirm that they got the series itself to bring over and were ecstatic enough to announce that.

Honestly I'm more interested in what this means for derivative games than it does for the originals. There's a few games I would very much like to see brought over, for their gameplay moreso than their story.
Playism have also announced at least one derivative too. Also out next week, so not a long wait to see on translation etc.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: RCLeahcar on May 06, 2015, 03:42:30 PM
Apparently Suika made a little cameo appearance on ESPN (American sports channel) on Monday...

http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2015/05/04-1/touhou-project-makes-a-surprise-cameo-on-espn
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Sssgth on May 07, 2015, 03:44:52 AM
*watch warmly

And yet again, no one bothers to get it right D:
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Gamer251 on May 08, 2015, 02:04:30 AM
Following the release of the game(s) on Playism, I saw some comments on various articles that they were disappointed since it wasn't in English.
I understand their pain, but it was never stated in the first place that it wouldn't be released in English (yet).

But hey, it would be a lot easier to buy the games now~
I just hope ZUN covers the entire Windows Series.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Third Eye Lem on May 08, 2015, 05:54:48 AM
A lot of people are making the assumption that this will be a localization, when the only thing Playism has said at present is that it will be available in English-speaking countries. Admittedly, it's a fair one to make, but it might be affecting people's expectations.
Now I feel dumb for not paying closer attention. =P Still, a Touhou game released outside of Japan is nothing to scoff at, and I'll gladly support buying it...Once my Playism account is back up and running, that is. >w>;;
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: cuc on May 09, 2015, 06:40:47 AM
Destructoid review:
http://www.destructoid.com/review-touhou-14-double-dealing-character-291754.phtml
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Shadowlupus on May 09, 2015, 07:00:36 AM
TBH, I am quite disappointed.

Like what it is said in the review, this Western release could have potentially brought Touhou popularity to another level. However, Playism just felt lazy and ported the game without translating anything, thus mostly defeating the purpose of localization.  With this, it's like getting people only to know Touhou but they might not be interested cuz it is untranslated. I knew that they said that they aren't going to translate the game but it just felt really hollow.

Oh well, guess I have to wait for the overall response from the players to see whether this was the right choice.


Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Formless God on May 09, 2015, 07:06:00 AM
thus mostly defeating the purpose of localization.
i thought the purpose was so that people can play 2hus without going to da bayz
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Shadowlupus on May 09, 2015, 07:12:02 AM
Well, yes that's one thing. But wouldn't it be better to both have the games for fans to support ZUN directly and introduce the game for people who might spot the game by chance? Untranslated games would mostly hinder the probability of the latter.

If ZUN didn't allow the translation then it can't be helped. I guess we can't have everything in one go.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Clarste on May 09, 2015, 07:32:40 AM
Well, my thoughts on the matter are that this was probably ZUN's decision (note that they translated the Touhou fangame that they released at the same time), and he probably doesn't really care about introducing the series to more people. The sole purpose of this is to make it easier for existing fans to buy the Japanese games, presumably because a while ago he seemed shocked/offended at the prices people needed to pay to import.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Spotty Len on May 09, 2015, 08:21:59 AM
TBH, I am quite disappointed.

Like what it is said in the review, this Western release could have potentially brought Touhou popularity to another level. However, Playism just felt lazy and ported the game without translating anything, thus mostly defeating the purpose of localization.  With this, it's like getting people only to know Touhou but they might not be interested cuz it is untranslated. I knew that they said that they aren't going to translate the game but it just felt really hollow.
They didn't have a choice, ZUN himself didn't want it to be translated.

Not saying it's not a shame though...
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: HalfGrand on May 09, 2015, 01:20:34 PM
Quote
They didn't have a choice, ZUN himself didn't want it to be translated.

Guess were still going to have to rely on those wonderful, wonderful people who bring us translation patches for a little while longer.

It is a shame that language localization for Touhou doesn't seem to be a priority yet. This brings to mind Yotsubane with his Crimson Clover -World Ignition- rework of his original game. That game has language options for not only English but a plethora of other languages as well. This small indie game is gaining popularity *because* of it's localization.

Crimson Clover -World Ignition- is badass by the way... Double Limit Break gives me an adrenaline rush. Go support that game!

Zun-Sensei! Please reconsider your stance on marketing to the international market! You can hire your own translator to rewrite the script of your games that you can read and give your seal of approval to. Surely this can be a viable option that still stands true to your doujin/micromanagement stance for your games.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Tengukami on May 09, 2015, 02:32:15 PM
It is a shame that language localization for Touhou doesn't seem to be a priority yet.

It used to be. Pre-Ten Desires, someone or a few people would pool resources and bang out a stand-alone English patch within a couple weeks or even days of release. I don't know the specifics of what happened, but somehow thcrap moved to the forefront and the usual patching suspects went elsewhere.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Romantique Tp on May 09, 2015, 03:12:33 PM
What? English patches used to take months to come out. With thcrap you can play with a basic english translation just days after the game's release. Static patches aren't made anymore because they're obsolete, not because there's no interest in getting the games translated. The community is translating the official games faster than ever, so please don't say it's not a priority.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: mauve on May 09, 2015, 03:14:21 PM
that's language localization in an officially handled sense, not fan works.

'the usual patching suspects' mostly just grew up and apart from each other and from touhou. it happens. thpatch had nothing to do with it; though i still don't agree with their methods to this day.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: shockdude on May 09, 2015, 03:24:02 PM
It used to be. Pre-Ten Desires, someone or a few people would pool resources and bang out a stand-alone English patch within a couple weeks or even days of release. I don't know the specifics of what happened, but somehow thcrap moved to the forefront and the usual patching suspects went elsewhere.
Which happened first, the downfall of gensokyo.org or the rise of thcrap? I recall it was the former but I could be wrong.

I looked at thcrap when TH14 first came out on Playism, and it didn't seem like it'd take a lot to add Playism support to thcrap, assuming ZUN didn't do anything weird.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: KaiserKnuckle on May 09, 2015, 03:34:30 PM
@Anyone dissappointed

What matters is that, like Ayy Lmao said, we can now get Touhou with ease, and not have to have a costlier and unorthodox method of aquiring them (i.e. extra shipping and such).

Besides, like Clarste and Bigode pointed out, even if it's still un-translated on the other side of the pond, we can simply get things like ThCrap and apply it to the game with ease. Hell, it could translate it into other languages by the speakers of said languages. Not many translation patches and/or programs do things like what ThC can do with the click of a mouse.

Oh yes, and in relation to Crimzon Clover, I am thinking most other countries save Japan were happy that Clover-TAC localized it, since (iirc) the game already had a steady amount of coverage probably since what batshit insanity Unlimited had in store for players. Japan is not happy about this since they aren't so fond of Steam's digital distribution (which I find a tad hypocritical since Melonbooks DL and the like). Though, I am pretty sure that the "It has more stuff than our version!" argument isn't neccesary since World Ignition was just a port of Full Boost.

Although, given exactly WHAT dissappointed both sides about the localization (DDC to Americans: No translation, and CCWI to Japanese: digital distribution) maybe SOME liberties could be taken by Playism during the next Touhou release, or maybe they could just point out "hey, ThCrap is a thing, you should check it out" like how some devteams point out mods of their game which interested them.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Soul Devour on May 09, 2015, 03:46:11 PM
Which happened first, the downfall of gensokyo.org or the rise of thcrap? I recall it was the former but I could be wrong.

I looked at thcrap when TH14 first came out on Playism, and it didn't seem like it'd take a lot to add Playism support to thcrap, assuming ZUN didn't do anything weird.

Definitely the former. I remember Gensokyo.org releasing TDs english patch roughly two months after it came out. That was the first (and only) patch release from them that I saw firsthand but if I recall correctly, that patch had taken longer to get out compared to earlier patches.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Romantique Tp on May 09, 2015, 03:54:51 PM
Earlier patches took way longer. Out of the patches by gensokyo.org only the UFO and GFW patches took less time to complete.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Leon゠Helsing on May 09, 2015, 04:12:59 PM
Speaking of thcrap, how's it doing nowadays?
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Tengukami on May 09, 2015, 06:10:15 PM
What? English patches used to take months to come out. With thcrap you can play with a basic english translation just days after the game's release. Static patches aren't made anymore because they're obsolete, not because there's no interest in getting the games translated. The community is translating the official games faster than ever, so please don't say it's not a priority.

Then I must be misremembering, but some English patches seemed to come out pretty quickly, like in a timeframe of weeks. But again, this could just be myopic hindsight.

And I wasn't taking a jab at thcrap. I use them myself, nor do I think translating isn't a priority, as all the work being done on the wiki attests.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: mauve on May 09, 2015, 06:30:08 PM
I was with GSO, and aside from the 12.8 which was a bit rushed for a 9/9 release(har har), most of the mainline games took 2~3 months, and the fighters around 6-9. The most time consuming aspect was not usually the translation itself, but editing, verifying, and getting all the images edited. (In the case of the fighting games, there's a hell of a lot more text scattered in there than you'd think.)

Which I would not consider terribly slow, but people are impatient these days, so whatever.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Tengukami on May 09, 2015, 06:41:10 PM
I was with GSO, and aside from the 12.8 which was a bit rushed for a 9/9 release(har har), most of the mainline games took 2~3 months, and the fighters around 6-9. The most time consuming aspect was not usually the translation itself, but editing, verifying, and getting all the images edited. (In the case of the fighting games, there's a hell of a lot more text scattered in there than you'd think.)

Which I would not consider terribly slow, but people are impatient these days, so whatever.

Huh, well I'll be. Guess I did shrink the timeline looking back!
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: notext on May 09, 2015, 06:53:48 PM
Definitely the former. I remember Gensokyo.org releasing TDs english patch roughly two months after it came out. That was the first (and only) patch release from them that I saw firsthand but if I recall correctly, that patch had taken longer to get out compared to earlier patches.

This isn't true at all - the Ten Desires patch came out really quickly after the game compared to previous games in the series. I won't speak for the people who worked on it, but by the time Ten Desires came out the gensokyo.org guys had patched a whole bunch of games in the series and were really familiar with the process of doing so. If you look at their archives (http://www.gensokyo.org/archives/category/fanworks/translation-patches/page/3) you'll get a better idea. The gap between the Mountain of Faith and Subterranean Animism releases is the most telling - what allowed them to release the patches quickly was organisation and a familiarity with how to patch the game, and this came from their experience patching the previous titles. THCrap was similar in that the reason DDC got patched quickly was because the author had already gone in to patch the previous games in the series and knew how they were structured (it also had an explicit aim to replace the gensokyo.org patches by existing as a patch on day 0, regardless of translation completeness).

Before that there were fairly significant gaps between fan patches, which didn't have the level of organisation that groups put into them later. The reason that the EoSD patch that is linked from the wiki has a version number of 0.8 is because the person who was programming behind it disappeared before people were happy to call it final. And that patch came after the PCB patch.

With a fanbase as large as the Touhou fanbase you can expect someone will release a patch at some point, but you can never take the work for granted because people will move on with their lives. And releasing a fan-made translation patch within a couple of months of the game's release is definitely out of the ordinary.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: mauve on May 09, 2015, 08:19:49 PM
Yeah, TD was pretty fast comparatively, and it was two months: Game released August 13th, 2011, translation released October 24th, 2011.

Also I distinctly remember an Nmlgc video, with him complaining in the comments about how we were so unbearably slow with the TD translation. What a nice guy.

In all honesty GSO would have been absolutely positively ecstatic for someone to take over the reigns at that point, as I think we were all getting tired of the franchise at around that time, but it was really hard for any of us to endorse thpatch after the way they had acted, having basically treated us with disdain in everywhere but their public happy smiley face while talking endless shit behind our backs, without knowing any of us directly. And AFAIK, none of us agreed with the zero day translations or integrated updating with unfiltered wiki contents either. Quality takes time. It's not avoidable. (Let's not even get into the piracy discussion there...)

I do think we could have been friendly towards multilingual translations. Here's a fun one: When I updated the SWR translation to 1.06a, I had added support for proper multibyte locale so that profile names with Japanese characters would show up correctly in the translated version. Apparently, there was a Spanish translation that used ours as a base, without ever asking us about it, and this change broke that. Thanks man.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Tengukami on May 09, 2015, 08:49:12 PM
Which is exactly why I don't understand the claim that static patches are "obsolete". Surely not in the technological sense. My understanding was people at Gensokyo.org sorta stopped caring so much, and then thcrap started coming up. While I like the ease of a one-time-use static patch, I'm more or less OK with thcrap at this point, especially given there are pretty much no other options.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: shockdude on May 09, 2015, 10:53:17 PM
btw nmlgc stepped down from thcrap a few months back due to drama. He still contributes but is no longer the project lead. Since then thcrap's been in development hell.
Nmlgc has the mind of a supervillain. Even if he wasn't very likeable he was certainly good at what he did.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: HalfGrand on May 10, 2015, 12:36:21 PM
My thoughts on nmlgc and his THcrap project.

...YOU SCREWED UP THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION SECTION OF OUR GLORIOUS FANDOM YOU HIJACKER. I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR THAT!!!

Seriously, this guy just turned up out of nowhere, funneled the translation projects through his structures he setup and now we have no more standalone patches for the games I love.

Don't even get me started on his choice of name for his patcher... Thcrap? Seriously!?! That's disrespectful of us as the fans, Touhou itself and Zun who works hard to bring us the games he loves to make. I don't buy the statement they made that thcrap is an anagram for patch, nmlgc did that deliberately to be a bastard. I get pissed off every time I see THcrap sitting there obnoxiously in my DDC folder, like a tasteless joke that nmlgc made that sits there forever mocking me and us. Disrespectful! I waited for months and months for somebody to make a standalone patch for DDC but it never arrived. I had no choice but to use his evil patcher because nobody else would translate the game because Nmlgc did it first.

I wish that we had stand alone translations again for the games. Nmlgc came along selling something that nobody asked for and then suddenly all future translations for touhou are going through his patcher.

His automatic patcher isn't even increasing translation speeds like he said they would... which was the whole POINT of doing what he did in the first place. As of the date of me writing this, the front page of thpatch.net still douse not have an English translation of ISC at around ">95% coverage. Only some language called български has a full translation. GOOD JOB THPATCH.NET! Your translation patches are incredibly overdue that 2 more games have come out since that one.

Lets not forget this old gem either: http://thcrap.tumblr.com/
"yo please dont support nmlgc he aint a nice person". I was determined to boycott him for his bastard-like behavior but no... He hijacked the touhou patching community and he runs the whole show now. We have no CHOICE but to use his translations because there is nothing else.

The touhou translation patch community is in shambles because of nmlgc and I am in hatred of him because of that. We had something beautiful, something that other fandoms only dreamed they would have... and this guy screwed it all up with his thcrap that holds us all in contempt.

I personally hope that thpatch.net burns and that we return to the glorious days of stand alone patches by people who truly love the touhou series. I don't play many other game series besides Touhou, I boycotted AAA games years ago due to DRM practices and corporate crap that they pull on us. Touhou was a game series that I loved and came from a good hearted place in ZUN's doujin mindset. I don't ask for much in games except a good translation of my favorites. nmlgc took that away from me.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: HalfGrand on May 10, 2015, 12:38:18 PM
Pardon me for derailing this topic with my distaste for Thcrap by the way guys. I just wanted to put my thoughts out there on nmlgc and what he has done to our translation community since that was just being discussed.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: Tengukami on May 10, 2015, 12:42:06 PM
How about we not stir up/recount/incite patch drama please.
Title: Re: Media coverage following news of Playism's Western Touhou release
Post by: cuc on May 18, 2015, 07:27:20 AM
Playism has retweeted two more reviews from Middle of Nowhere Gaming (http://middleofnowheregaming.com/2015/05/15/touhou-14-double-dealing-character-review/) and APGNation (http://apgnation.com/articles/2015/05/15/17010/touhou-14-double-dealing-character-review).

Is there any interesting Western reportage in non-English languages?