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"The Untold History of Japanese Video Game Developers", HG101 bookstarter (£50k goal)

D

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
Interested in ordering a copy but I'm wondering... is the book full-color inside or is it just b/w? I can't tell how much this sounds up my alley, wish I contributed to the kickstarter.
 
U

Uncle Rupee

Banned
Is that seriously the cover of the book? It doesn't bode well for the interior layout... I'm still interested but it's not available on Amazon Canada
 
D

discoalucard

i am a butthurt babby that can only drool in wonder at shiney objects
djtiesto said:
Interested in ordering a copy but I'm wondering... is the book full-color inside or is it just b/w? I can't tell how much this sounds up my alley, wish I contributed to the kickstarter.
Click to expand...

Black and white, if you check the above link there are some photographs of the layout.

Dunno why he went with the cover he did. The backer ones were pretty sleek.
 
D

Dragoon En Regalia

Member
Uncle Rupee said:
Is that seriously the cover of the book? It doesn't bode well for the interior layout... I'm still interested but it's not available on Amazon Canada
Click to expand...
Layout previews can be found at the Hardcore Gaming 101 page. They're spartan, but easy to read and inexpensive to print. Nothing's intentionally of bad quality, it's just economic.
 
A

Armitage Shanks

Member
BwCaUTGIgAAmCyM.jpg


I just received my backers' copy and frankly it's a LOT more impressive than this thread had lead me to believe! For one, it's a pill! The layout seems fine and readable. I'm a happy KS backer. Recent projects have left me annoyed with the crowdsourcing system, but this project delivers, if you ask me. Well done, John! Looks great! Can't wait to get stuck in!
 
A

Armitage Shanks

Member
mclem said:
That's a nice cover; which version is that?
Click to expand...

Um... I dunno. Gold edition? I'm a terrible (or awesome?) Kickstarter backer. I see, I want, I throw money at it, I forget about it. And then suddenly I get rewards and I'm all happy again**.

The book is pretty huge and thick. The cover is great quality. The layout inside is fine and readable. Perhaps could have used a little designing to make columns of text stand out a little better (some extra page elements or lines?) - but it's still immensely readable. Good quality photos, some filling the whole page.

I think if it had been hard-cover and had colour photos inside it'd be a pretty awesome coffee-table book that he could charge a pretty penny for, too!


** I lie. I kept a fairly close eye on this project's updates just for the sheer drama of it. :)
 
C

chrominance

Member
Armitage Shanks said:
Um... I dunno. Gold edition? I'm a terrible (or awesome?) Kickstarter backer. I see, I want, I throw money at it, I forget about it. And then suddenly I get rewards and I'm all happy again**.

The book is pretty huge and thick. The cover is great quality. The layout inside is fine and readable. Perhaps could have used a little designing to make columns of text stand out a little better (some extra page elements or lines?) - but it's still immensely readable. Good quality photos, some filling the whole page.

I think if it had been hard-cover and had colour photos inside it'd be a pretty awesome coffee-table book that he could charge a pretty penny for, too!


** I lie. I kept a fairly close eye on this project's updates just for the sheer drama of it. :)
Click to expand...

99% sure it's Gold, that's what my copy looks like and I believe I ordered the Gold edition as well.
 
M

mclem

Member
sörine;127382981 said:
Oh man, now I wish I'd have downgraded to gold. Great cover.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think I prefer Gold now.

Still, it's the contribution that counts, and the content we really invested in, and that's good throughout :)
 
C

Celine

Member
Just got my "silver edition" copy.
Cannot wait to read it (especially Yokota feature for Quintet info!).

I just want say it's really cool that a book like this could be realized.

jTrUaHZl.jpg
 
S

sörine

Banned
mclem said:
Yeah, I think I prefer Gold now.

Still, it's the contribution that counts, and the content we really invested in, and that's good throughout :)
Click to expand...
True. I sunk in more money for the project not the cover and I'm thrilled with the book regardless.

That said, even the Silver cover looks better I think. Gold > Silver > Platinum
 
C

Celine

Member
The info about Konami cancelled portable system and photos/sketches about Quintet (namely Soul Blader II art and the photo with Miyazaki) validates alone my pledge.
 
O

okiemok

Member
I happily order this via Amazon this week...even though they said "in stock", it has yet to ship after several days. Anyone order from AMZN and get a ship confirmation yet?


EDIT: NM - I just got the notification it has shipped!
 
smbu2000

smbu2000

Member
Received my Plat. Copy about a week ago. Haven't had a chance to read through a lot of it yet, but I'm very happy with how it turned out from what I've seen so far.
 
Ban Puncher

Ban Puncher

Member
I got my Gold KS edition a week ago.

Fascinating read so far. Recommend to anyone with an interest in old Japanese games and want to have a bit of a peek behind the curtain.
 
D

daoster

Member
Is the Murayama bit interesting? Does it offer anything new or some cool insight into the series? Or is it rather short, and not so meaty.
 
C

Celine

Member
daoster said:
Is the Murayama bit interesting? Does it offer anything new or some cool insight into the series? Or is it rather short, and not so meaty.
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It's about 5 pages long.
I've only read the first couple of answers where Murayama talks about Konami cancelled portable game console.

Also he was asked about the first public unveiling of Suikoden (mid 1994):
6aZahIH.jpg


There is also a shorter interview to Jeremy Blaustein.
 
N

Niahak

Member
daoster said:
Is the Murayama bit interesting? Does it offer anything new or some cool insight into the series? Or is it rather short, and not so meaty.
Click to expand...

The only cool insight for me was that Suikoden II was based primarily on a dramatic retelling of the relationship between Xiang Yu and Liu Bang during the Chu-Han contention, rather than Romance of the Three Kingdoms as I expected. The stories sort of have echoes of each other, so I suspect that's the basis for Jowy/Riou's relationship, while other parts like recruiting Shu are based in ROTK - but of course that's my own theory.

The Blaustein interview was mostly information that we already knew. Some of the sections where NickRox chimes in were actually taken from posts on this forum and elsewhere, if I don't miss my guess (a footnote says they were from "public forum posts"). There was also an interview with the lead of localization for the first game, which was interesting but not particularly informative.
 
F

FlexMentallo

Member
Finished reading this yesterday. Fascinating book and will definitely pick up the future volumes.

I did find the interview style a little grating at times. There were quite a few cases of John or that french game preservation guy interrupting the developer they were interviewing to show off their own knowledge or abruptly correcting the interview subject. At times they were dismissive of discussion that wasn't specifically related to old school Japanese PC games, as well. Probably just driven by their enthusiasm for the PC topic, but there were a bunch of times I had the reaction of 'Hey, I want to hear what the developer has to say, not what you interviewers have to say'.
 
D

Dragoon En Regalia

Member
John and Joseph's comments could have landed in the anecdotes more often. Then again, Joseph usually had something technical to say, whereas John would exclaim "TELL ME MORE!" without irony.
 
S

Sondar

Member
Anyone in the UK received their silver copies yet? Bit miffed that I can buy it now from Amazon, yet I'm a backer & still not received it.

Edit

My copy arrived this afternoon.
 
J

jschreier

Member
Really wish I wasn't getting long rambling messages telling me to report someone's Twitter account when all I wanted was a book about Japanese games.
 
M

meppi

Member
Yeah, I somehow missed out on the drama, but keep getting these mails.

Not implied to report someone about something I know little to nothing about.
Very strange deal. :-/
 
gingerbeardman

gingerbeardman

Member
You could opt out of Kickstarter communication about the project?

Personally I'm not too bothered, as I can just ignore the updates.

And I say that as somebody who blocked the Japanese woman on Twitter weeks ago on my own decision.
 
S

sörine

Banned
Yeah, that last backer message was the weirdest one. Honestly John should just shut his mouth and file a countersuit for harassment, he has a much better case.
 
K

kiyoaki

Member
People who are still interested in getting this book might want to read the author's latest KS update:

On 27 November, to coincide with Black Friday deals, I will be doing the following:

* Making the Gold Edition available for sale on Amazon
* Making publicly available discount codes for both print versions (redeemable on the CreateSpace store)
* Making the digital version available on Amazon Kindle
* Temporarily reducing the price of the DVD

The price discounts will last until the end of December.
Click to expand...

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...tory-of-japanese-game-developers/posts/994986

Thought I'd recommend this since I've been quite happy with how the book turned out, the surrounding drama notwithstanding.
 
M

Marty Chinn

Member
kiyoaki said:
People who are still interested in getting this book might want to read the author's latest KS update:



https://www.kickstarter.com/project...tory-of-japanese-game-developers/posts/994986

Thought I'd recommend this since I've been quite happy with how the book turned out, the surrounding drama notwithstanding.
Click to expand...

Wait what? He has a digital version now? I thought he couldn't offer a digital version which is why he took it away from backers? Why all of a sudden can he have a digital version?
 
D

Dragoon En Regalia

Member
Can't remember why he backed out on the digital version to begin with (Kaku wars most likely), but it'll be great if he can get it up no-trouble on Amazon for those who've passed on the book edition. Hopefully this is how John can package and sell/
give to Platinum backers for free
the following two volumes.
 
@

@MUWANdo

Banned
He didn't give a reason for backing out at the time, but he's now saying he cancelled the digital version because he couldn't be bothered to make it on his own, basically.
 
D

Dragoon En Regalia

Member
@MUWANdo said:
He didn't give a reason for backing out at the time, but he's now saying he cancelled the digital version because he couldn't be bothered to make it on his own, basically.
Click to expand...
Oh wow, really? I hope Derboo isn't going to pull that excuse whenever his books come out.

Anyway, I just want to read the Naosuke Arai interview; for some reason it's left it out of the book despite being promised from the start.
 
D

discoalucard

i am a butthurt babby that can only drool in wonder at shiney objects
I can't say for certain why the original digital version was cancelled because I don't know, but the drive for a digital version came about due to concerns that a $40 printed book was too expensive for a lot of people, so a cheaper alternative needed to be created. Unfortunately converting a book into Kindle format is much more difficult than it should be - even though this was constructed in MS Word, it has a lot of particular formatting and a whole ton of footnotes that needed to be manually coded. Since working with it was proving to a pain, John hired someone else to get it in order.
 
E

exmachina64

Banned
discoalucard said:
Unfortunately converting a book into Kindle format is much more difficult than it should be - even though this was constructed in MS Word, it has a lot of particular formatting and a whole ton of footnotes that needed to be manually coded. Since working with it was proving to a pain, John hired someone else to get it in order.
Click to expand...

To be clear, it's not exporting into KF8 (the Kindle digital file format) that's troublesome, it's that if you want the end result to be readable and look good, you have to invest time into formating it in Adobe InDesign - like a physical book.

Anyone who's suffered through a public domain eBook that was formatted in Word will appreciate the time spent creating a properly formatted layout.

If you're holding down a job and don't necessarily have the time to learn InDesign, I can see why you'd want to hire a professional.

I was disappointed when the digital version was cancelled, but stumbled upon the newly released digital versions on Amazon earlier today.
 
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