English Translation Patch for Wind -a breath of heart-

No Name Losers has recently completed their English translation patch for Wind -a breath of heart-. Only people who could prove to NNL that they own the original DVD copy of the game could get the patch directly in their IRC channel. Those who own the CD version need not apply. In order to prove that you own the game, you had to do things like answering questions related to the game packaging and box contents within a set time limit and taking full-body pictures of you and the game box, along with a torn-up customer feedback form and a destroyed support disc (supposedly not needed by the game…). Needless to say, the reaction from 4chan, Hongfire and the other usual suspects was not one of joy. Of course, a lot of those people are just unhappy that they don’t get to play the game, but even so there are some very valid points made (I like to compare them to undigested pieces of corn in a pile of shit) that I would like to highlight here.

I am not interested in the game and I speak Japanese fine, thus it does not matter to me whether or not NNL decides to release the patch. That said, I do feel strongly about this because it affects the community as a whole. Now, the IRC anime community is quite small and I’ve already annoyed quite a few people by ranting about this topic in the SOS-dan channel today. I hope, whoever you are, that you understand that I am not being personal about this. Even if you are related to NNL in anyway at all, please read on. This is what I have to say and I hope you will at least read it.

First of all, I know what everyone is going to tell me. I’ve been hearing it all day long. Yes, NNL did make the patch and they are free to do what they want with it, even if it means keeping it sealed away forever. (Although legally speaking the patch was done without the copyright holder’s permission and thus it still legally belongs to the game company.) I am not going to say that NNL must release the patch to the public, I’m just suggesting that they should. With that, I shall present my points.

I assume that NNL is doing this because the people who spent years translating this do not want to hurt the game company by encouraging piracy. I cannot deny that a person who downloads an illegal copy of a game he does not own is a pirate, that is a true and fair definition. However, is it such a bad thing to encourage more people to download the game (illegally as it may be) when those people would probably never ever touch the game without the translation? A person who does not speak Japanese is outside the targeted audience of the game. If he pirates the game, it does not hurt the company, it only helps to foster a new market. I know this sounds like a generic excuse, but I’ve felt its effects firsthand and I do believe in it.

If NNL gives the patch out without restrictions, a lot of people will download the game illegally, true. But that means that a lot of people who would otherwise never have touched the game will now give it a try, and some of thems will become fans of the series. I can say for certain that out of those people who become fans (because they are now able to understand the game), at least some of them will end up buying the game.

On the other hand, what happens if NNL gives the patch only to people who can prove that they own the DVD version of the game? Most people who own the game already played it. They probably speak Japanese. Those who haven’t bought it aren’t going to buy it just because there’s now an English translation for it (which they may or may not be able to obtain successfully even after they buy the game). The fact that the tests involved are largely arbitary and even a person with the game in his hand may possibly fail them only further aggravates the situation. And let us not forget those people with the CD version of the game…

That leaves us with some hardcore Wind fans who do not speak Japanese, have never played the game itself, but somehow have already purchased the correct version of the game. All three of them. I fail to see how this helps the game company.

Visual novels are at the same stage in North America as anime was 20 years ago. Few people know about them, few people watch/play them, few of them are available in English. Whatever one may think of the fansubbing community today, I think we can all agree that fansub in those days was the number one reason for foreign proliferation of anime. What NNL is doing is basically denying what fansubs have done for the community. We are pirates, I admit that. But speaking from personal experience, I would never have spent thousands of dollars on anime and related products if not for this form of piracy we call fansubbing. That’s right, fansubbing is piracy. Those video and audio files are copyrighted. Even the translation itself is illegal without the author’s permission. Fansubs are illegal. But I would like to think that those thousands of dollars I spent thanks to fansubs did do some good for the anime industry.

And I think those of you at NNL do agree with me. Afterall, you are a fansubbing group. You have fansubs containing copyrighted footages up for download in your BitTorrent section. Why do you not ask the people downloading those files to prove that they own the original R2 DVD? The answer is simple: you KNOW that they do not. And that is part of fansubbing. We are copyright infringers, but we have a greater goal, or at least we like to believe that we do. We hope that we are helping to make the series we love more popular. We hope that at least some of the people who didn’t know about the series will now end up becoming fans for life. We hope that at least some of those pay for the legitimate copy. We are helping to create markets where there were none.

So why should it be any different for visual novels? Why are you turning the whole system upside down just because we are now dealing with a game instead of a video? Anime has become quite popular in North America and I can see why there are people calling for fansubs to stop now that illegal fan translations are no longer so vital to the survival of the fandom. But visual novels are 20 years too early for that.

Once again, it’s NNL’s time and effort and it’s up to them to decide whether they want to release the patch or let it become a forgotten part of the history of fan translations. (We call it kuroi rekishi.)

But seriously, years of effort just for three or four people? It’s NNL’s decision, but I can’t help but feel that it’s a sad loss for the community. It could’ve been so much more.

Call me a busybody because I am one. *plays BGM*

P.S. You can read about the latest developements from VisualNews.