Visual Novel only kickstarter

How many people here know about Kickstarter? If so I'm sure you know they do not allow 18+ content. How many people here would be interested in a Visual Novel only kickstarter, that puts all Visual Novels available and legal in the western world up for funding, and they only kick off once they are backed completely, meaning you do not get charged until they are successfully funded, and at the same time there is no time limit to any Visual Novel funding period?

The website would be divided between 18+ content and All age content. To access 18+ content you would need to register with the website first and register your credit card to prove your age. No fees or charges will happen until a successful funding occurs.

The whole process would actually be managed by a company with full time translators and relationship developers to get Japanese companies on board, and of course website designers.

This process would actually give Japanese companies a risk free way of promoting their Visual Novels over seas, since they are not charged for making a kickstarter, they only make money after the funding process is complete. And all funding cost is transparent with everyone.

The ideal situation is every single New and not too old visual novel will be available for funding whenever the information is available from the official companies making them (cost of licensing etc.)

Another ideal would be a visual novel engine built within the company that can fit any kind of Visual Novel into it for proper wide screen scaling and font. So the Japanese companies provide the assets, while the in house staff import it to the completely new engine that will be used for all games, thus there would be no worry of non compatibility with different versions of Windows or Mac.

After a successful funding, the games will be available for purchase on the website in the "completely section" or "shop section", and also be available for purchase from sites like Mangagamer and Jastusa. Hopefully making this the steam version for visual novels, but including 18+ content.

For people actually interest in understanding more about behind the scenes of what people might want to know more about, you can refer to the Mangagamer forums in my link there. Feel free to ask questions here as well if you want.

I don't really have a problem with them being on kickstarter. Didn't things that have 18plus content like huniepop get kickstarted? It's kind of a double standard. I can understand them wanting to keep out certain 18plus content though.

But I wouldn't use it myself because I'm at the point where I just read untranslated stuff and support the titles I really enjoy. I'm also not big on the whole crowd funding thing in general. I'm still happy to see things make it over though.

I'm definitely in support of more visual novels, especially eroge but English translations have been.. slow. I mean if you think about it, as far as fan translation goes, only a tiny fraction of of VNs have been completed. Meanwhile there are many thousands of manga and anime seen through. What I'm trying to say is that translators (especially fan translators) tend to work on things that they want to work on. And even then a lot of translation work isn't up to standard. Visual novels can be very lengthy so it's not trivial for someone to say they want to pick something up. This works out well for the Sekai Project because they're a group who know each other and they get to choose which projects they want to kickstart.

There's also the question of compensation. Seems like you can't expect to get paid much for the hard work that goes into it, which is a real shame. Of course with Kickstarter a lot of money can go into a popular VN but I fear that the lesser ones might not do very well.

I really would like to see more VNs in English but I think these problems need to be addressed before we can see this sort of thing.

I think you bring some fair points. Obviously if this service ever came to be they would be actual full time translation groups that get paid more than average.

Since it is a professional translation group with a few fan translators involved, it will keep the spirit of the Visual Novel (since the fans will be mostly doing the editing or quality assurance), the translation speed would be much faster than you expect normally. And the amount of translation groups the company has depends on how popular the service is. As it gets more popular there will be more staff.

If you didn't know Kickstarter makes A LOT of money. By being able to make 10% of total funding, the money will go back to the staff as well as further develop the service to benefit consumers and workers alike. The owner of the company is a fan of Visual Novels too, he knows there has to be a good wage and policy in the company for this to ever become something huge and official in the west. So this is quality first before money if that makes any sense, because as long as the company can sustain itself, the owner rather give more back to us consumers and workers.

If you are able to read Japanese of course that would be the best :)
I'm sure a lot of people also wish they had the same ability as you.
However since a lot of us don't we depend on fan translations or official licensing from Mangagamer or JastUSA. What this service brings us is more choices on what we want translated and hopefully a faster translation time with good quality once it's funded. Not to mention we will be able to get special rewards such as art books, music, pillow cases and what not.

Obviously this service will also benefit the original companies by opening up a customer base they don't currently support. So it really is up to you whether you want the special rewards and a translated visual novel through an official western market.