Minori: “Come to Japan to Play our Games, Foreigners!”
- Categories: Games, News
- Date: Apr 27, 2010 02:31 JST
- Tags: Censorship, Copyright, Eroge, Internet, Law, Minori, Translation, Visual Novels
In an update to its standard “foreigners go home” unwelcome page for non-Yamato barbarians, eroge publisher Minori has updated with a lengthy screed essentially telling fans to come to Japan if they want to play their games, and to get lost otherwise.
Their full statement to foreigners is not worth reproducing here (and it is entirely in Japanese, of course), but the gist of it is that Minori considers its actions in crudely shutting down an unauthorised fan translation entirely justified by internationally agreed WTO regulations regarding the treatment of translation copyright (Minori is entirely correct in thinking this, and acting well within its rights).
It then goes on to give its supposed rationale for stopping any international release – it is worried about its legal obligations to ensure its software is properly rated overseas, and that it is fully legal (it appears they are concerned about loli content, although they say nothing specific); they also claim to be worried about their “many, many” overseas fans falling foul of censorship laws in their own wretched nations – a familiar claim.
They also say “We are saddened to so often be called a bunch of foreigner-hating racists – we are only pursuing the cause of world happiness.”
They part with a jolly suggestion to fans:
“Inhabitants of foreign lands! Why not come to Japan? As long as you play our games in Japan, and are over 18, there’s no risk at all! There are lots of shops in Akihabara. It’s a bit hot in summer, but it’s a nice place all the same – we’ll be waiting for you!”
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Yay, an invitation is exactly what I was waiting for!
I don't know... Based on their history, this looks like a foreigner trap. We should be careful...
No no, I'm sure they'll be giving out free lolis as welcome presents.
PEOPLE! PEOPLE! PEOPLE!!!
It's just standard issue damage control. Don't let your guards down and feeling all warm and comfy yet.
In the meantime, continue pirating Minori's stuff out of spite for at least one year more! lol
i guess the only way for minori to stop pirating is to go the cross days way and install a virus along with it
Minori = epic troll
They pay for my plane ticket, I'll go play their game.
yeah
let's go to japan play eroge and make a lot of kids, japan problem solved
Excellent.
Invitation to become NEET in Japan
Mu point is that if I had the money + time to travel to Japan the last thing I would do while being there is to waste my time in a boring date sim. There are thousands of things to see in Japan and a stupid eroge are not one of these.
Yeah come to a country so far a away just to play a stupid date sim game...
cos' it's safe to play in Japan....play in some other country(etc. England) and get jailed
Thats the same reasoning that people from oppressed nations came to USA.TO BE FREE.We can go to Japan and become its citizen to be free from "oppression".I Just need a good excuse for the immigration officers,because reason to live and work in Japan so I can play more eroge sound very very retarded.
Ppl came to America cuz they didn't wanna pay dat 800 anymore and now a couple hundred years later we gotta go to Japan to avoid payin dat 800. Oppression sucks. Where next, Germany?
Getting Japanese citizenship is nothing short of a miracle, so good luck with that.
Yeah, that's right. Come to Japan and settle here. Live the exciting life of a salaryman. Zangyou all night til morning, baby!
All for what? Oh that's right! To be able to play Minori games.
i guess they must take us foreigners are a bunch of bakas!
edit: here's a better idea! why don't you have them licensed in english overseas?
Nice company with nice stuff, but extremely annoying and shit.
Just like a decent ammount of women in this world. |:V
ya get it licensed in english so that they can appear on CNN? so that more people like EN can further blame them for rape and what not.
Just like a decent amount of men, funny that huh?
@Jmac:
Good thinking.
Actually, no, they are not. The fact is that many games that these people make run fine on Windows PC's after putting it into 'Japanese mode'.
The few that don't? There are cracks that remove the 'protections' to keep things from being sold outside of Japan.
The problem is their ridiculous licensing restrictions.
They require you to let the game you license be rated by the ESRB, which costs money, and is predictably going to end up with an "Adults Only" tag anyway. The potential publisher just stamping "Adults Only" and treating and selling it as such is not enough.
I think they actually insist on this because the Japanese ratings board (that I continuously forget the name of) also ensures the -legality- of the content rather than just rate it, and probably assume the ESRB does the same.
I suppose there is some fear towards them getting treated as CP distributors if they don't have their games rated overseas before selling the licenses.
In practice, however, their restrictions mean noone will feasibly actually license the title. And their Japanese games are intentionally made so they're only supposed to run on Japanese windows. It's rather annoying.
agreed.... people look at companies that make decisions like this as if they have some kind of evil intent behind their actions, when in fact they are simply trying to avoid the truble and hassel of releasing in foreign countries where the majority of people in these countries have different views.
All according to keikaku, of course
Somehow, this local meme is already starting to become stale.
I seem to be having deja vu these days.
(TN: deja vu means go Google)
Subete keikaku doori.
Note: keikaku means plan.
Re: becoming stale.
All according to keikaku.
TN: keikaku means plan.
Keikaku? What's a keikaku? Translator's Note anyone?
Translator's note: TN means Translator's Note.
even if i went now, i'd make sure to pirate their games or play competitor games. Anything but give them any business.
That's so cool. I'm just waiting for the plane ticket... 'Cause Japan flights ain't cheap. 500-700€, just to have the ability to play some games is a bit overrated... Even more when the region restriction is unreasonable.
日本国外の人みんなおいで！
こっちでお話しよう！！多少の英語はわかります
http://qiufen.bbspink.com/test/read.cgi/hgame/1266163109/
Google cache works -- though it looks like the site is having problems.
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=site:minori.ph&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 [http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=site:minori.ph&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8]
Google image search for those interested:
http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=site%3Aminori.ph&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi [http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=site:minori.ph&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi]
As an American I don't wait for a damn invitation. If I want something I take it.
Yeah, no problem Minori. Let me just book my $1000 flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo. Then spend a few thousand more for lodging and other expenses I'll likely tally up for a week or two. No problem, Minori. We've all got money to burn in this currently world economy. And it's obviously a logical action to do this for the sake of an eroge.
Wait...no it doesn't. Hey Minori, stop being xenophobic ignoramuses. There is decent money to be made if you choose to localize your games overseas.
You remember "Iowa manga trial".
Already hentai mangas are illegal, next are hentai games.
minori says "These are illegal in your country. Don't play or play inside Japan."
This is a social responsibility, isn't it.
You're an idiot. Handly got in trouble for buying stuff like manga that involved animals rapping children. There not a jury in the country that would find that obscene.
But a game like "Ef- A fairy tail of two-- you'd have to be blind to argue it lacks artistic merit.
It makes my blood boil when people beat around the bush like this; just be fucking honest, tell us to "GTFO FILTHY GAIJIN". I'd appreciate it more and would think better of Minori if they did that, instead of giving us this two-faced pussy excuse.
Get a set of balls Minori, it's not like nobody knows you're xenophobic.
Whoever is in Minori's PR department needs to be fired.
Seriously this sort of shit is what they teach us to avoid when doing damage control in management.
/facepalm
Solves nothing because the game is in Japanese, duh!
If I come to japan I'm fucking some of your women.
You mean raping? Sophisticated Japanese women don't want to get laid with ugly gaijin...
That's just saying hi in Japan.
Why you all ignore the main problem?
This isn't a piracy - profit problem.
This is a political - legal problem.
Hentai games and mangas are illegal in some country.
If you want to play the games, you should establish the company translating the games, publish the games publicly, censorship the contents to fit the local laws, and take the accusation risk by feminist or CNN, and etc...
In japan, hentan games are legal products (people sometimes frown, but legal), why don't you translate and publish in legal way at your own country?
There's little need for that. Importing is rather easy now days. Pretty much any1 can import games from japan, it may be expensive but rather easy in the end.
The problem with visual novels is that they are still rather obscure. Getting new audience trough fan translations (and maybe even trough piracy!) could help a lot. Some games might anger the feminists (well so does porn but what have they been able to do about that? nothing?) but there are plenty games that might turn in to a new boom just like anime/manga did.
The popularity of these games outside japan seems to have exploded in recent years, thanks to great translations for games such as Umineko, FSN, tsukihime, Ever17, YMK etc they may still be pretty obscure but so far future is looking pretty good.
They forgot to say "...but once you're finished playing, go home please". Japan loves foreigners, as long as they go home once they're done...