Steam now allows the sale of adult only games on their store,the only hurdle to releasing your VN there has disappeared

[Valjean Lafitte]

Except we don't want and never wanted to offer DLC, and even if we did, we wouldn't charge for it. In fact, we even made an April's Fool post on the blog about this very thing before, and judging from your choice of strikethrough, I suspect you knew of it.

So no, 4LS wouldn't benefit from that, with or without quotes. Your suggestion is invalid.

Please take a step a back and look at the quote above and consider whether or not such a hostile tone is warranted. In my humble opinion, it is not. Other devs do not talk to their fans this way, least of all in response to a few innocent suggestions offered in answer to a question said dev asked. Only on the official KS forums can we not link to freeware Steam games, only on the KS forums can we expect to get a stern message from the forum administrator about doing such a thing; it's partly why I haven't posted here in ages--I can respect the way you do things (had to, otherwise I wouldn't be allowed to post), but I don't have to like it.

Except we don't want and never wanted to offer DLC, and even if we did, we wouldn't charge for it.

...Except, unlike the April Fools joke, this is not in-game DLC. This is selling artbooks and other goodies, something 4LS has done at Comiket for years now.

judging from your choice of strikethrough, I suspect you knew of it.

That was the joke, and it frustrates and saddens me that it failed so hard to connect with the editor of one of my favorite visual novels. I shouldn't expect this kind of response to a well-intended post. My jaw shouldn't drop, and I should have to immediately ask myself "Jesus, what did I do to upset him?".

[Silentcook]

I know that it can be difficult (or even impossible) to gauge tone from pure text, but even so, I completely fail to see any hostility in my reply. Certainly none was intended, so first of all, I apologize for the misunderstanding. I'll also quote my message, to keep everything straight and on record:

Also, kindly keep commercial links out of the forums, for reasons that should be self-evident.

If I may, some keys to interpret when I'm actively annoyed at someone: I tend to use italics, CAPITALS, profanity, and four-letter words aplenty. Any writer on these forums who ever had me as an editor is free to confirm or deny, just do it through PMs.

That aside, about the rest of your points:

-Like I said, I'm not talking about in-game DLC, but about any DLC at all. 4LS has sold physical copies of artbooks at Comiket for years now, sure... for fairly unusual definitions of "4LS" and "sold", since I, for example, have never seen one red cent from that, which works anyway as I've always been in fact assured that the things are sold at production cost. Relatively recently the JP translation team has been acknowledged by us as "4LS Japan", but I haven't the faintest idea about their policies.

In any case, 4LS as a group is just not set up to handle sales and distribute profit, which is a major reason why this kind of thing will never happen. Add to that our avowed no-profit policy, and it becomes a double never.

-The joke was clear, it's just that it's... old. Very old. Years and years old. Uninterrupted years and years old, even. I don't think it's very strange to expect that I'm tired of laughing, or even chuckling, at it...


So yeah, the question remains: who benefits? And given the above, I'll also add that any answers of "Valve" can go fuck themselves with a rusty rake, sideways.

[Valjean Lafitte]

I know that it can be difficult (or even impossible) to gauge tone from pure text, but even so, I completely fail to see any hostility in my reply. Certainly none was intended, so first of all, I apologize for the misunderstanding. I'll also quote my message, to keep everything straight and on record:

Also, kindly keep commercial links out of the forums, for reasons that should be self-evident.

If I may, some keys to interpret when I'm actively annoyed at someone: I tend to use italics, CAPITALS, profanity, and four-letter words aplenty. Any writer on these forums who ever had me as an editor is free to confirm or deny, just do it through PMs.

That aside, about the rest of your points:

-Like I said, I'm not talking about in-game DLC, but about any DLC at all. 4LS has sold physical copies of artbooks at Comiket for years now, sure... for fairly unusual definitions of "4LS" and "sold", since I, for example, have never seen one red cent from that, which works anyway as I've always been in fact assured that the things are sold at production cost. Relatively recently the JP translation team has been acknowledged by us as "4LS Japan", but I haven't the faintest idea about their policies.

In any case, 4LS as a group is just not set up to handle sales and distribute profit, which is a major reason why this kind of thing will never happen. Add to that our avowed no-profit policy, and it becomes a double never.

Thank you for taking the time to explain all of this to me. I always figured that 4LS Japan was not necessarily beholden to 4LS' rules, that since the translation was finished they just sort of do their own thing. But with new artbooks coming out every other year or so, it's not exactly clear where those profits go, so I know you can forgive me for assuming they were divided among the artists whose works were featured. I wasn't aware that they were only being sold at production cost (which does make me question how it could be worth the trouble to fly to Japan and set up a table year after year, but that's neither here nor there).

[Mirage_GSM]

Well, I assume that most of the Japanese translation team already lives in Japan, so they don't have to fly there and that the costs of setting up a stall at Comiket will make up a sizeable part of the production costs.

@SC: Is it okay for me to call myself part of 4LS Germany?

[Valjean Lafitte]

Well, I assume that most of the Japanese translation team already lives in Japan, so they don't have to fly there and that the costs of setting up a stall at Comiket will make up a sizeable part of the production costs.

@SC: Is it okay for me to call myself part of 4LS Germany?

I was referring more to Suriko/Crud/Aura swapping in and out year after year. There's usually at least one writer from 4LS Classic around at those events, right? Even if they say they're there as fans, they spend a sizable chunk of the day at the Katawa Shoujo booth talking to fans, selling things, etc. I've never been to Comiket myself, but it sounds like a lot of work. Whereas when Raide, Weee, Moekki, etc. go they can at least make a profit selling their artwork.

[Mirage_GSM]

Well, I can certainly relate to that. A friend of mine often has a booth seling Anime and Manga at conventions, and I often spend sizeable chunks of time helping out even if I'm there with a regular ticket.
I'm thinking about going to Comiket for the first time myself next year - not sure if it will work out time-wise yet, but if it does I certainly plan to say hallo.