four years later...still rushed.
I think the cause of this ridiculous situation is none other than SE's general sluggishness.
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The Final Fantasy Fan Translation Drama
- Thread starter Nibel
- Start date
four years later...still rushed.
I think the cause of this ridiculous situation is none other than SE's general sluggishness.
He's willing to adhere to his NDA, to the point of not even admitting that words were spoken, but he's willing to confirm straight-up "I had no information about any E3 announcement."
cj_iwakura
Member
The key word being E3. He knew something was up.
Thats talking in a circle. What if Square originally planned to announce it at Gamescom? Then he could say I had no information about any E3 announcement. Also that doesn't mean that he didn't know about the existence of the english release itself.
I think it's more a case of good-naturedly ignoring that only a small percentage of the people playing fan-translations are actually buying the game to do so (not necessarily on GAF, but in general). As long as you don't straight up admit that you are playing a pirated version, you're given the benefit of doubt, since it's not really in anybody's interest to punish those who play a fan-translation.
Yeah, iIf he didn't know about E3 specifically, he certainly put 2 and 2 together.
Broadly speaking, it's (correctly) seen as a very, very weak attempt to launder money - when the sole or primary reason to donate is an illegal act, the courts have no interest in playing pretend. This commonly plays out in prostitution and racketeering cases.
Zomba13
Member
I'm still of the opinion that as the donation button was there before this and is still there after this then who gives a fuck?
Should he have removed the button when the translation went up? Should he make a super duper bold font note saying "DO NOT DONATE TO ME IF YOU WANT THE FFT0 TRANSLATION?
Should he have removed the button when the translation went up? Should he make a super duper bold font note saying "DO NOT DONATE TO ME IF YOU WANT THE FFT0 TRANSLATION?
Yeah, re-reading it...
I definitely pegged his motivation wrong. He selfishly wanted to release his translation before Square release theirs (regardless of whether theirs even existed at that point).
In terms of doing everything possible to mitigate (not remove!) things which could potentially bring down the hammer? A split-out project site with no donation button would work better.
In realistic terms? None of the above, you're already outside the law and it doesn't hurt you any -more- if they decide to hang you twice.
Didn't one or more of the actors list roles from Type-0 in their portfolios some time ago? I don't think there's any doubt that it existed, just a fair doubt that it was permafrozen hard enough for no one to mind (like FF2, FF5, DQ5).
TrafalgarLaw
Banned
Fuck Square Enix for not being able to localize a mere PSP game with a 1000 man studio, sending a C&D to a 10 man team that actually can localize it. Don't forget they made FF13 vomit for years that no one wanted but a simple localisation of a much clamored PSP game is too much?
I read it all, good work Schreier.
Taking everything into consideration, SE's C&D after the translation was released still makes no sense. They could have just ignored it at that point, the Streisand effect will hit them and the patch is still widely available.
I don't know what I'd have done.
Taking everything into consideration, SE's C&D after the translation was released still makes no sense. They could have just ignored it at that point, the Streisand effect will hit them and the patch is still widely available.
Can you blame him? After all that work during the years, when SE was adamant about not localizing it... and then they just change their mind and you worked for nothing, a bunch of years of work down the drain.
I don't know what I'd have done.
I don't see how that's selfish motivation at all. The patch release was going to be before the actual game release from SE anyway (and I think we should start a pool on when we'll actually get media on the SE Type-0 release), but if someone has been working on something like this for years because SE has chosen to give the western audience a middle-finger while continuing to demonstrate their inability to release anything in a timely fashion, then I can see why someone would say "screw that" - PARTICULARLY if he knew what the platforms were going to be.
SE's Japanese devs have been feeding gamers shit for the past decade and the one little piece of sweet they've managed to release in that time gets caught up in non-localization hell as they push out more and more Lightning BS - well excuse me, but SE can keep it. Nothing useful has come out of that publisher that wasn't Eidos in years and the fact that they can't keep anyone informed about what's coming isn't the fans' fault and its not the press's fault, it's SE's own damn fault.
They have to defend their ip for one and for another this will ensure it never gets any additional work done on it and as several other members of the team said it has quite a few bugs and some unfinished parts.
Except the illegal act is not the sole -or primary reason to donate to this dude. He has a website that took donations way before he even started translating Type-0.
Because releasing it early wasn't a 'team' decision, it was made by him. He fucked over the rest of the people that worked on it. That's why it's selfish. It's like you didn't even read the article.
Trigonometrize.
Member
It's more than just that though dude. This is a sort of obscure Japanese handheld game from 2011 being announced at an American expo (or around it rather). No one expected it, so you can't really say that. We're not talking about Far Cry 4 or Batman here.
Like I said at the end of my first post, he knew.
For, of course, other romhacking projects. Even beyond that, it would be a really hard argument to make that any uptick, or even holding steady as he turned his full attention toward Type-0, wasn't because of it due to the far larger audience given by working in English. (Obviously, if donations DECLINED while Type-0 was in the oven, that would be a good argument.)
APZonerunner
Member
Will say this, Kagari will (probably) corroborate to an extent: the fact that it was officially in the works wasn't exactly a well kept secret if you knew who to speak to - the fact it was HD platforms only was even rumbling around behind the scenes, though not in a verifiable, printable-rumor way... and as such, I wouldn't be surprised if Sky knew before E3.
E3 being the venue surprised me, though. I expected Agito at E3 and Type 0 HD later (Gamesco or TGS), and Type 0 being at E3 knocked me back a bit.
E3 being the venue surprised me, though. I expected Agito at E3 and Type 0 HD later (Gamesco or TGS), and Type 0 being at E3 knocked me back a bit.
It doesn't matter, its not Sky's call to make.
The translation was a collaboration. He wasn't paying them for a job. He didn't talk about it with the team, and they don't seem pretty happy with his decision.
This is just a very selfish act, whether it was for fame & glory or just to say "fuck you" to SE doesn't really change that fact.
I think it's important to make the distinction that it wasn't at E3. They didn't announce it anywhere at E3, not on any stages, not in any interviews -- it was a press release/blog post made during the week of E3.
APZonerunner
Member
Yeah, of course. Announced during E3 is the correct wording. Anyway, like I say - it was pretty plain it was coming if you knew where to look, even with platform details, but I expected Agito first and then a Type 0 announcement later. The fact Agito had a trailer and proper media and stuff at E3 sits with that, IMO. It felt like Type 0 was moved up into the E3 announcement docket for one reason or another. Maybe the translation was a factor, maybe not... there's always a ton of factors at play in those scenarios.
Oh, I was aware it was coming too. And since so many of us knew about it, I'm sure that information made it to Sky as well. I just think that SE didn't plan to make any announcements at E3 and sort of rushed into it at the last minute.
At the end of the day, it is the project lead's responsibility to say when enough is enough. I had zoned out long before release, and don't really have any interest in playing through to see if it was a good decision, but it being his prerogative no matter who it makes mad is the only effective way to run a fan translation.
LowParry
Member
Tell us how you really feel.
Anywho. I'm really curious to what kind of talks were going on between the translation team and SE. It seems like it was going to be a good outcome. Hell, I think with Sky's decision to release the translation before it was fully complete may have delayed the game even further. Unless there's some sort of deal left on the table but at this rate, it's probably completely gone to due to pulling the trigger to early out of spite. GG Sky.
Yep. Ass-backwards moral compass. Sky stuck it to The Man, but he burned bridges and alienated himself in the process.
And as stated, Type-0 coming over on consoles was out in the wild for some time. That article suggests the team thought Sky's original August release target was too early. I wouldn't be surprised if he figured Type-0 would be a TGS reveal. He moved when he learned SE was moving much earlier.
Do you think it was supposed to be a TGS announcement?
Ultimately I still blame SE as they're the ones who dragged the translation out this long in the first place. I think Sky did the right thing as the decision does come down to him as team leader and it seems it was a 'release then or release never' type situation. Once SE had announced the translation, that patch was never coming out.
TheBryanJZX90
Member
There really is absolutely no copyright defense to fan translations, no matter how little of the original game's data is included in the release. Other commonly repeated pieces of misinformation in this area of law include that if you're not charging for your translation you're ok, or if the company isn't releasing the game in your country you're ok, or that a translation is "fair use."
Nope. If you actually release a translation of someone else's copyrighted material, you have violated their copyright. Fair use is a really murky area, but no judge ia ever going to declare a translation fair use. The only way you are going to not lose in court is if they think you're not worth the effort or they think it would be bad PR.
birthbysleep
Member
If consoles was in the pipeline for awhile, how do we explain the vita mess up.
Human error. "It was floating around for a while" == "The guy who wrote the PS Blog post new exactly what platforms it was on! Conspiracy!"
It was a mistake.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
I figure that would be a kind of rule that is unspoken as anyone who's been here long enough knows to be legit about the hobby.
ElectricKaibutsu
Member
Very interesting. Thanks for another great article, Jason.
Personally I believe every game should be available in every language. Of course that's impossible, but I can't see anything wrong with fan translations. I'm glad for the fans that Sky released the patch while he still could.
Personally I believe every game should be available in every language. Of course that's impossible, but I can't see anything wrong with fan translations. I'm glad for the fans that Sky released the patch while he still could.
Xilium
Member
While I understand the frustration that people have with SE taking forever with the localization/western release of the game (I'm one of those people), I also see the fan translation as being almost entirely negative in the eyes of SE. Bluntly put, I have to imagine that 90% of the people that download the translation patch also pirated the game. Piracy and fan-translations tend to go hand-in-hand as is, then you add to that the fact that the PSP is one the the most pirate friendly consoles to ever be released and the fact that to play the game legitimately, you would have to import it, I can totally see that from SE's point-of-view that the whole situation is just a whirlwind of lost sales (especially if they were just waiting for the PS4/XBO to do and HD release of the game).
I thought it was made public first at the end of the Agito localization announcment trailer on the SE present channel.
http://youtu.be/mQice_T4Nio
The only "good outcome" I could see for this situation would be if they ended up hiring part of the translation team, or making some sort of "compensation" to them for doing that job so they shut their mouths and cancel their project...
It's not a really good outcome, it's actually kind of selfish since the fans would have to wait for another 3-4 years for a localized port of the game being released in a console most of them don't really have right now, or even intended to buy, since it was a portable title =/
Being a person that had given up entirely the idea that SE would even say a word about this localization(although it supposedly was on the way looong ago), i'm really glad this patch was launched...if the negotiations kept going, we might never see anything about that game again(c'mon, they haven't shown new progress in FFXV, and it's been more than a year)... That was probably a risky and hard decision for Sky to make, but I really think Square needed something like this so they wake up and learn that if they don't respect their western fans they are going to be exposed to that kind of risks =/... so i guess it was the right call, although it may have made the team angry right now...
This way all the blame goes to Sky though, and I really wish him good luck =/, Kotaku it's making it sound like he is a total jerk =P, and , last time I saw, jerks don't really care so much about another people to the point of releasing translations that werte supposed to be released like, 3 years ago, y'know .-.
Anyway, the job the team made was amazing and I'm really glad it got released, even is just for some weeks, I was taking japanese classes so I could understand what was going on in this game @_@, and i'm certainly buying it for ps4 too because I believe square made an amazing job on type-0 and they should make more games like this...but how many years are going to pass until we hear about this game again .-.?
cheststrongwell
my cake, fuck off
It's not a true fan translation without fan translation drama.
Do we have a number for how many people have downloaded the translation? They said 100,000 in 4 days, but what is the total number?
Yes, this is correct. I wasn't attempting to state otherwise. But the fact remains that game fan translations have not been pursued legally historically, there is just not much precedent for it. It seems highly unlikely that SE would have done so if this did not include actual game data.
Im_Special
Member
That's putting it lightly, the whole patch was basically a full ISO; there's even a small 136KB tool floating around that converts the patch to a standard ISO without the need of the original game.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
What if the decision to not plan a vita version is due to the loss sales from that 100k downloads? I understand that not all of these 100k people will translate to sales, but even a portion of that is a significant amount.
If he's the team lead, it is still his responsibility to at least inform the team before he release it regardless too.
The article stated that SE was hoping to reach a compromise that will allow both side to be happy. And that they were reluctant to take legal action. If SE is trying to be a dick, they will have stopped everything soon right after the announcement in March.
Perhaps you can't get a lawyer to take action and/or send a C&D letter until the translation patch is released too? There are lots of fine prints involve these. Drafting a C&D letter and sending it formally by a lawyer is a more complicated process than writing a snail letter to your relative. I imagine that releasing it early means he have broken the NDA and so SE calls everything off and take the legal action.
If he's the team lead, it is still his responsibility to at least inform the team before he release it regardless too.
The article stated that SE was hoping to reach a compromise that will allow both side to be happy. And that they were reluctant to take legal action. If SE is trying to be a dick, they will have stopped everything soon right after the announcement in March.
Perhaps you can't get a lawyer to take action and/or send a C&D letter until the translation patch is released too? There are lots of fine prints involve these. Drafting a C&D letter and sending it formally by a lawyer is a more complicated process than writing a snail letter to your relative. I imagine that releasing it early means he have broken the NDA and so SE calls everything off and take the legal action.
Wow.
It's not. PSP is dead. Vita is dead. The audience needs to accept these realities instead of peddling weak defenses like "But XSEED still makes PSP games!!" and other such silliness.
They were already very obviously reluctant to put out X/X-2 HD on Vita.
Sky sounds like a person scorned, either he felt they were lying to him, jerking him around or felt like they weren't going to give him something and because of that he released it when he did without the rest of the teams say so. Definitely a dick move to do so without them all agreeing if nothing else.
Smiles and Cries
Member
so things like Project M3 could have been stopped in Nintendo?
this seems strange because I thought companies did not mind this stuff so long as you were not making money out of it
this seems strange because I thought companies did not mind this stuff so long as you were not making money out of it
That and you don't redistribute the game along with the patch.
Which is what happened here.
Elaugaufein
Member
If SE expected to be made or broken by 100 k sales on a project I very much doubt they would have undertaken it.
Its worth noting fan translations aren't strictly negative. Some communities basically exist because of fan translations and some games that may have never been localized or had enough steam at launch to carry, have had communities ready to buy them solely because of fan translations.
copelandmaster
Member
Holy shit...
Yeah... They should have tried something else. Red flags galore. I wouldn't have touched that shit with a 10 foot pole unless 15-20 years had passed or something.
I fully empathize with Sky wight now. He and his team put years into something for everyone, and now SE wants to shut it down? Just looking at it from his perspective, I would feel extremely upset and I wouldn't blame myself for feeling that way.
And yeah, the ISO is over 2 GB and is literally the whole game. I don't see what the problem with that is when a patch essentially renders a new game itself anyway. Whether it's a small patch or a large one, it still does the same thing.
And yeah, the ISO is over 2 GB and is literally the whole game. I don't see what the problem with that is when a patch essentially renders a new game itself anyway. Whether it's a small patch or a large one, it still does the same thing.
Look at the sales of Bravely Default and Lightning Returns again. 100k is suddenly nothing?
And that was just the first 4 days, not the total number.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
You misunderstood my point. I am saying that perhaps they were going to have a vita/ps4/xbox release, but due to the 100k download (from potential customers on the vita/ps4/xbox), they lower the profit and sales forecast and decided to scale back the budget...which means cutting the vita version.