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[LiquidMetal14]

He's not charging for it or anything. It's a donation button. Plenty of websites have them. You don't have to donate to get the patch and if you want to throw a few bucks to someone who worked on the fan translation then why not? No one is forcing them to. And if SE really wanted to get money from the Type-0 game they had years to release it on last gen consoles or as a download only thing for Vita (or hell, crossbuy PS3/Vita and 360). They've had a translation done in house and VO work done on it (not sure if 100% or not) for years. They've had plenty of oppurtunity to release it in some fashion in the west to get profit out of it and not make fans resort to doing th ejob themselves.

Yeah, it's hella questionable including actual code in the patch (something that by all means SE should go after) but that stuff is useless unless you have the dumped iso of disk 1 or 2 to patch it on to.

I also think it's mainly assumed here on GAF that people would legally purchase a copy in order to play this. So SE would basically imply piracy is hurting the sales of a 3 year old project when I would also say that we wouldn't even be talking about FFT0 like this if it wasn't for the translation teams work. I get that there are many who pirate but there are also a fair amount who also support the games if something like this came up in the case of FFT0.

There is some grey area here since we don't know about all the happening behind the scenes.

 

[Shizuka]

I know that the team strived to deliver the best experience in their reach for fans all around the world, but sometimes, gamers don't need that. Sure, a lot of people will acknowledge the quality of the project, but most people just want to be able to play the game in a language they can understand, period.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

and if you want to throw a few bucks to someone who worked on the fan translation then why not?

It's illegal...

 

[CorvoSol]

Boy this whole thing has been very confusing, and leaves me feeling a little sheepish about some of the stuff I said and did prior to the patch's release, and a bit lost, haha. I still think the team should be proud of what they got done, but I really wish this had all gone down differently. All of the team members I interacted with were always really cool people to me.

 

[SliceSabre]

People may not like it but I fully get why SE sent the C&D letter. I mean there is a thing about defending your property and that is what SE was merely doing.

Also seems this isn't that typically "Big bad corporation throwing its weight around" sort of situation a lot fo people thought it was and this Sky fellow certainly doesn't come out smelling good and SE looks totally reasonable now.

I mean if I had to guess he was probably aware SE was doing their own localization of the game and decided to spite them and release his team's version first because of the work they put in In my opinion that is not a fan move, that is the move of an angry child. A real fan would not have done such a thing that will surely affect sales of the SE localized version of the game coming out not to mention pissing off his team at the same time.

 

[ambientmystic]

I'll just repost what I wrote in the now locked thread:-

Nice write-up.

Hmm.. I didn't know that Squeenix reached out to Sky under NDA whilst the translation was in progress. This changes quite a bit.

I didn't really see any missing text and/or untranslated vidoes throughout my two complete playthroughs of the game though, as Adam states in your article. It was pretty flawless in my opinion.

The following is a bit of an unpopular and selfish opinion, but in some way I can almost understand why Sky did what he did with regards to the translation, legal ramifications be damned. All those hundreds and hundreds of man hours from his team would've have gone to complete and utter waste if he had complied with Squeenix.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

It's illegal...

I'm going to send him a gift card to Sizzler then by Golly!

 

[Nairume]

I know that the team strived to deliver the best experience in their reach for fans all around the world, but sometimes, gamers don't need that. Sure, a lot of people will acknowledge the quality of the project, but most people just want to be able to play the game in a language they can understand, period.

Isn't the patch, as is, a bit unstable? I imagine people would also like an experience that doesn't have a high chance of locking up on them.

 

[CorvoSol]

Isn't the patch, as is, a bit unstable? I imagine people would also like an experience that doesn't have a high chance of locking up on them.

I haven't experienced any major glitches since playing with the patch. Had one or two instances of text running off the screen, couple-a typo's and one untranslated bit at the very end, but I haven't had it like, crash my PSP or anything.

 

[ambientmystic]

Isn't the patch, as is, a bit unstable? I imagine people would also like an experience that doesn't have a high chance of locking up on them.

Hardly, I've successfully done 2 complete playthroughs so far using PPSSPP. No issues here, except for a potential lockup if you use/load savestates prior to viewing the Crimson Codex in the Crystarium. Only other lockups I've seen reported/experienced are due to the use of CWCheats (like Infinite Phantasma collection time) in the game.

It's completely, and 100% playable.

 

[Zomba13]

It's illegal...

It's illegal to have a donation button up on your website that you use to host a bunch of projects and such?

If you find my work useful and would like to colaborate on the development of my projects, consider donating the ammount you find right.

All my projects are free of charge, just like everyone is free to pay if the job is appreciated

It's just saying "Hey, if you like me or my work and want to donate here you go, you can. You don't have to pay for anything though you are just throwing some cash my way if you appreciate me." exactly like Durante's site, exactly like Spoony's site and exactly like a bunch of other websites.

 

[Nairume]

I haven't experienced any major glitches since playing with the patch. Had one or two instances of text running off the screen, couple-a typo's and one untranslated bit at the very end, but I haven't had it like, crash my PSP or anything.

Ah, that's good to hear. Friend of mine had said that the game was super crashy for him, but it may have been an issue with his copy or just being super unlucky.

 

[Im_Special]

It's illegal to have a donation button up on your website that you use to host a bunch of projects and such?

I dunno, but if its not I'm gonna go donate right away to Pirate Bay.

 

[Datschge]

I don't believe he was unaware it was coming, he knew, else Square would have never been so adamant to approach them, have them sign an NDA and so on.

On the other hand the NDA ensures we may never get to hear Sky's POV regarding the events. The team members don't know about it, the article is quick to make it sound like some sweet meetings ("the conversations were friendly and casual"), we got a premature translation patch release with its subsequent pulling, as well as a premature game announcement. Makes me think the talks weren't that sweet to begin with.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

I dunno, but if its not I'm gonna go donate right away to Pirate Bay.

We're through the looking glass here folks!

 

[Wereroku]

Wow even GideonZhi is in the comments of this one and makes a really good point about not harming the companies that you admire. Great article Jason and really does suggest Sky knew what was going to happen. I do wonder if he was pissed that it was going to be a PS4/One release or did he just want to get his work out there. I am guessing he is going to have a hard time finding another team to work with him after this though.

 

[AwShucks]

All I know is from the moment that SE announced the port I no longer cared about the fan translation project. Depending on price I might buy it on release or I may wait a bit, but I do plan on playing it at some point.

I am guessing he is going to have a hard time finding another team to work with him after this though.

It does paint him in a bad light.

 

[Im_Special]

You can call donations whatever you want, 'Paypal' 'Bitcoin' 'Adsense' 'whatever', it still enabled Sky to make a single penny from this project, which now gives SE legal grounds to go after him that they may not have had before.

See Sky is from Spain this is true, and normally Spaniards and their law just don't give a crap about this kind of thing so long as you aren't getting money out of it, OH WAIT, donations.

 

[Vamphuntr]

I think that the timing of this particular announcement was probably in response to the patch release. It is certainly uncharacteristic of SE to announce something for the first time via a PS Blog post for NA and EU only without any information. Not to mention that the announcement was so hurried that they didn't even have their facts straight.

Maybe you are right. I still really find it hard to believe they would announce the game only to cause problems for the fan translation team. I mean I could believe the timing to announce it at E3 could have been because of the fan translation but to simply announce a new project because of a fan made translation got released seems excessive to me.

 

[Wereroku]

Maybe you are right. I still really find it hard to believe they would announce the game only to cause problems for the fan translation team. I mean I could believe the timing to announce it at E3 could have been because of the fan translation but to simply announce a new project because of a fan made translation got released seems excessive to me.

It probably wasn't to cause trouble for the translation but to get people talking about something else and to get them to hold of playing the original. It did make sense that it was so rushed that they got the platforms wrong.

 

[Aveyn Knight]

I know that the team strived to deliver the best experience in their reach for fans all around the world, but sometimes, gamers don't need that. Sure, a lot of people will acknowledge the quality of the project, but most people just want to be able to play the game in a language they can understand, period.

People will always demand, for better or worse. However the people in the project team are the ones fulfilling those demands, so they have every right to release the product when they think it's "ready".

If people don't like it, tough. Without the fan translators, they wouldn't be playing the game in their language in the first place ; )

 

[JC Lately]

Ugh, typical he said/she said fan project runaround. I’m getting Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes flashbacks. We’ll never know what really went down.

I just hope Nintendo doesn’t decide to pull the same thing for the Mother 4 fan game this winter. They seemed content enough to let the Mother 3 fan translation proceed, so maybe they are more indifferent to this kinda thing than Square is.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

I know that the team strived to deliver the best experience in their reach for fans all around the world, but sometimes, gamers don't need that. Sure, a lot of people will acknowledge the quality of the project, but most people just want to be able to play the game in a language they can understand, period.

"If you're going to do something, do it right." I personally really appreciate it when a fan translator wants to give special care to their release to make sure that what people are getting is top notch, not only translation wise but in terms of bugs and glitches too.

 

[jschreier]

Jubileus 'The Creator' Schreier.

.

 

[Ludist210]

Good read. Interesting that Square Enix sounds like the good guys in this article, whereas you'd think it's Sky and his team before reading it (which, in reality, paints Sky out to be an ego-maniac and the rest of his team sounds level-headed).

 

[extralite]

I'm not sure what you're referring to. Fan translations don't receive C&Ds. That's not a common occurrence (or even one that's actually happened outside of zero-day Pokemon translation patches), when you're phrasing it like it is.
Regardless, it's pretty clear that they got him to remove the patch due to the distribution of copyrighted material, not because it's a fan translation of something they intended to release.

http://www.cjam.info/en/legal-informations/copyright/168-translations-and-copyright
Any translation published without permission infringes copyrights.

 

[Death Penalty]

Things are never as black and white as people try to make them seem, and as always it's incredibly easy to make out the bigger party as the villain. The fact of the matter seems to be that both parties did some stupid things, and I'm inclined to support SE's decision of the cease and desist. At the end of the day, SE is just trying to do anything it can to protect this game's financial success and they're not wrong to do so. They even reached out to the translation team to find compromise according to this, and they had absolutely no obligation to do that whatsoever.

I don't blame them for switching the console, either. Vita and PSP are both floundering in the West, and the piracy figures are astronomical. If no one buys these handhelds or their games, developers won't make games for them. For that reason, I hope people will buy Type-0 if they like the game even if they don't like what happened here. My hands-on time with Type-0 showed that it was something special and it's a big worry that SE almost didn't localize it at all. I'd like to see more games like Type-0 made, and I'd like to see those games get localized.

 

[zewone]

Good article. I'm currently playing through the fan translation and it's amazing. It's so well put together, it's hard to believe it's not official.

 

[Shizuka]

People will always demand, for better or worse. However the people in the project team are the ones fulfilling those demands, so they have every right to release the product when they think it's "ready".

If people don't like it, tough. Without the fan translators, they wouldn't be playing the game in their language in the first place ; )

That's the problem, the team had different opinions on "ready".

 

[IntelliHeath]

かぎをかける if old



Great write-up by Jubileus 'The Creator' Schreier. Read the full article here.

That was very interesting read.

 

[Curler]

I don't blame them for switching the console, either. Vita and PSP are both floundering in the West, and the piracy figures are astronomical. If no one buys these handhelds or their games, developers won't make games for them.

Well, Vita hasn't yet been open for piracy. This is also the type of game that would help SELL more handhelds (especially if it was an exclusive). I don't have the link on me, but 20% of FFX HD sales were on Vita. That's a pretty large percent for a "dead" system!

 

[Mandoric]

http://www.cjam.info/en/legal-informations/copyright/168-translations-and-copyright
Any translation published without permission infringes copyrights.

There is a history in the field of ignoring them as not worth the effort and bad press to stop, or of tacitly treating them as hype-builders. There's also a strong history within the field of fan-translating late S-E releases. Remember, FF2 and FF5 were both translated officially, shelved, fantranslated without incident, and then officially released soon after.

On the other hand, I've done a fair amount of fantranslation in a field where it's not uncommon to release the whole thing prepatched and include mocking comments about the official publisher if there's a day or two between Japanese and US release, and even there I don't think I've seen anyone in a first-world country ignore explicit demands. If that IS what went down then any bad blood due to broken private agreements (that the rest of the team didn't know about) is probably far more of a provocation than any detail of the patch.

 

[extralite]

There is a history in the field of ignoring them as not worth the effort and bad press to stop, or of tacitly treating them as hype-builders. There's also a strong history within the field of fan-translating late S-E releases. Remember, FF2 and FF5 were both translated officially, shelved, fantranslated, and then officially released soon after.

On the other hand, I've done a fair amount of fantranslation in a field where it's not uncommon to release the whole thing prepatched and include mocking comments about the official publisher if there's a day or two between Japanese and US release, and even there I don't think I've seen anyone in a first-world country ignore explicit demands. If that IS what went down then any bad blood due to broken private agreements (that the rest of the team didn't know about) is probably far more of a provocation than any detail of the patch.

I know, fan translations are often tolerated. That doesn't change the fact that the right holders have the legal grounds to send c&d letters. A translation is not new material, it is covered by the same copyright as the source.

 

[Mandoric]

I know, fan translations are often tolerated. That doesn't change the fact that the right holders have the legal grounds to send c&d letters. A translation is not new material, it is covered by the same copyright as the source.

Yep. (Well, technically covered by both the original work's copyright and a copyright by its authors.)

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Ugh, typical he said/she said fan project runaround. I’m getting Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes flashbacks. We’ll never know what really went down.

There was nothing mysterious about Crimson Echoes. "He said/she said" stuff only came from people who hated one of the co-directors since YEARS before the project even began, and the co-directors were just mostly too exhausted to keep repeating the same things after doing it for the first few weeks. There was no drama within the team.

Square Enix does seem to be slightly better at communicating with fans nowadays than in the Sonia Im era though.

 

[SaintGalgo]

Hm... Reminds me of this, but... reversed.

 

[Jinko]

Too bad SE, it's out there now, maybe you should pull your finger out next time.

Too bad we can't get a fan translation of DQ7 3DS.

though Sky could not tell me anything about those conversations or even acknowledge that they had happened. It's my understanding that from Square Enix's end, the conversations were friendly and casual, and representatives for the publisher saw legal action as a last resort.

And why would the writer assume that ?

To me Sky didn't come across as a dick, must be frustrating to work on something for so long for a company to take it away like that.
Not that it wasn't SE's right to do so but meh.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

Too bad SE it's out there now, maybe you should pull your finger out next time.

Too bad we can't get a fan translation of DQ7 3DS.

It could happen just not anytime soon. I still can't believe Nintendo hasn't decided to use that as release filler for the 3DS yet.

 

[Saikyo]

This new info makes sky kinda of a dick with his team. But I guess Square said to him that they were developing a remaster for ps4/x360 and "too bad" for anyone waiting for it on psp or vita...

And same thing that Gabe Newell says about pirated games, a lot of people who downloaded and played the patch werent going to go and buy the game and a system anyway, more unlikely for PS4/Xbone in their early years, also the patcher is not that stable and I saw some having problem with it so I dont think there was so much "lost sold" units for the announced current gen version.

Square could at least announce it on psn now too so Vita players can play it at some form...people who want to play it in mobile form can only play in japanese or playing the patched version.

Tales of Hearts R imho is another case, it wasnt requested for so many years and the port that was chosen for translation was for another portable.

 

[Zomba13]

You can call donations whatever you want, 'Paypal' 'Bitcoin' 'Adsense' 'whatever', it still enabled Sky to make a single penny from this project, which now gives SE legal grounds to go after him that they may not have had before.

See Sky is from Spain this is true, and normally Spaniards and their law just don't give a crap about this kind of thing so long as you aren't getting money out of it, OH WAIT, donations.

You do know what a donation is right? It's not an exchange of currency for goods or services. If he was selling the patch then yeah, I'd see you point. Same thing if Pirate Bay sold you access to their torrents or site listings or whatever and only had copyrighted material.

It's a donation button on his personal website that even includes an explanation that everything is free to download and the donation button is there if people want to donate out of appreciation (same reason why people would donate to Durante, because they appreciate the work). The button was there before the fantranslation was out and it's there after it's been removed so he wasn't using it to "sell" the patch.

 

[Dark_castle]

Good read. Interesting that Square Enix sounds like the good guys in this article, whereas you'd think it's Sky and his team before reading it (which, in reality, paints Sky out to be an ego-maniac and the rest of his team sounds level-headed).

Because this is likely a gray situation. People had knee jerk reactions in the previous thread because of the thread title and OP and because it's SE. People likes to hate on the company nowadays.

 

[Mandoric]

You do know what a donation is right? It's not an exchange of currency for goods or services. If he was selling the patch then yeah, I'd see you point. Same thing if Pirate Bay sold you access to their torrents or site listings or whatever and only had copyrighted material.

It's a donation button on his personal website that even includes an explanation that everything is free to download and the donation button is there if people want to donate out of appreciation (same reason why people would donate to Durante, because they appreciate the work). The button was there before the fantranslation was out and it's there after it's been removed so he wasn't using it to "sell" the patch.

"Pay what you want without specifying a project" doesn't make you not a bootlegger in the eyes of the law, it just makes you a bootlegger who's bad at business in the eyes of the law.

It's by no means uncommon, and it's usually overlooked because by definition it's not exactly pushing fat stacks of cash, but it's still one of many things that you CAN be nailed for if you manage to make someone very, very angry.

 

[Cheerilee]

Square had a full and proper translation, ready to go for years. They were neglecting the game.

Square knew the release date of the patch, and were "friendly and casually" negotiating with Sky to kill it, with legal action on the table as a last resort. But before legal action, what would it cost to make the patch simply go away? They weren't trying to buy the patch, because they already had better. They were trying to buy Sky's silence.

Square had Sky under an NDA in their negotiations, but they didn't tell him they wanted his patch dead because they intended to announce a port of the game at E3 (that's one of the few things Sky can confirm), they just wanted his patch dead. Square could have safely told Sky that the reason they wanted his patch dead was because they had real plans for it. But Square didn't say that. And from the rushed nature of the E3 announcement, it seems likely that they didn't have any real plans for the game.

From Sky's perspective, he had no choice but to release the patch ahead of schedule, before his talks with Square stopped being friendly and casual. He was in this to make the game playable in English, not for personal gain.

He really should have talked about the situation with his team beforehand, but if they're mad that he released the patch before it was finished, how mad would they be if he had taken the bribe?

 

[Wereroku]

It could happen just not anytime soon. I still can't believe Nintendo hasn't decided to use that as release filler for the 3DS yet.

DQVII's script in insane it wouldn't fall into the filler department. I would bet the amount of money it would take to translate and localize DQVII would ensure it would never make a return on investment. It would have to be a prestige release meant to reward the userbase and get good word of mouth about the 3DS.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

It could happen just not anytime soon. I still can't believe Nintendo hasn't decided to use that as release filler for the 3DS yet.

DQVII would be an insane project to tackle.

 

[cj_iwakura]

I'm less bothered about Square and more that Sky would backstab his entire team like that.

He probably just blacklisted himself in the community, too. I doubt anyone will work with him on a project again.

Fan translations are a team effort. Few if any get done by just one person, and Sky should have respected their wishes.

Hell, unwritten common decency law with a fan translation: if it gets licensed, you stop. The Danganronpa guys took their patch down when NIS licensed it.

 

[Wereroku]

Square had a full and proper translation, ready to go for years. They were neglecting the game.

Square knew the release date of the patch, and were "friendly and casually" negotiating with Sky to kill it, with legal action on the table as a last resort. But before legal action, what would it cost to make the patch simply go away? They weren't trying to buy the patch, because they already had better. They were trying to buy Sky's silence.

Square had Sky under an NDA in their negotiations, but they didn't tell him they wanted his patch dead because they intended to announce a port of the game at E3 (that's one of the few things Sky can confirm), they just wanted his patch dead. Square could have safely told Sky that the reason they wanted his patch dead was because they had real plans for it. But Square didn't say that. And from the rushed nature of the E3 announcement, it seems likely that they didn't have any real plans for the game.

From Sky's perspective, he had no choice but to release the patch ahead of schedule, before his talks with Square stopped being friendly and casual. He was in this to make the game playable in English, not for personal gain.

He really should have talked about the situation with his team about it beforehand, but if they're mad that he released the patch before it was finished, how mad would they be if he had taken the bribe?

I am pretty sure he knew it was going to get a release and either was angry at being told by Square to cease development or just wanted to get the work out there. Anyway he didn't tell the team because they would have wanted to end the translation if they knew it was getting an english release or they would want to stop to avoid legal repercussions.

 

[Aureon]

Sky's work is impressive and i thank him for it, but anyone thinking the path release wasn't rushed because he knew T-0 was going to be announced the day after is deluding himself.

I'm less bothered about Square and more that Sky would backstab his entire team like that.

He probably just blacklisted himself in the community, too. I doubt anyone will work with him on a project again.

Fan translations are a team effort. Few if any get done by just one person, and Sky should have respected their wishes.

Hell, unwritten common decency law with a fan translation: if it gets licensed, you stop. The Danganronpa guys took their patch down when NIS licensed it.

From what i've seen on the gbatemp forums, Sky is kind of a mess to work with. Dedicated to hell and back, but also quite a big ego.

 

[Faabulous]

"Pay what you want without specifying a project" doesn't make you not a bootlegger in the eyes of the law, it just makes you a bootlegger who's bad at business in the eyes of the law.

It's by no means uncommon, and it's usually overlooked because by definition it's not exactly pushing fat stacks of cash, but it's still one of many things that you CAN be nailed for if you manage to make someone very, very angry.

Don't know where you live, but that's not how the law works here in where I live.

Donations aren't payment. They are donations. In the eyes of the law donations are donations not bad business, and to donate here means to give monetary compensation without expectations.

 

[Wereroku]

Don't know where you live, but that's not how the law works here in where I live.

Donations aren't payment. They are donations. In the eyes of the law donations are donations not bad business, and to donate here means to give monetary compensation without expectations.

You can't donate money to someone committing a criminal act and claim it wasn't payment for the criminal act. The tricky thing with fan translations are that they are not really criminal until the rights holder asserts their copyright. In the case of say Durante he is enhancing Namco's software and has tacit approval to do so thus he is not committing a criminal act. In Sky's case it became a crime with the rights holder told him to stop the translation and he released it instead.