Sol Press Discussion Thread
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@novurdim I think the point here is that they're trying to handle more than they actually can. Their pay is low and they even need to use Kickstarter to fund some projects. Honestly it doesn't give a good image on first impact.
That said, I haven't played any of their VNs or read their LNs/manga yet. But their LN releases so far have been pretty bad from what I've read around (which is concerning). I am actually looking forward to reading 80,000 Gold LN and now it's delayed, too.
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@myskaros said in New Challenger Approaches! Sol Press Shines Down with Two LN Licenses:
I mean... if you are unable to make the connection, I guess I don't know what to tell you. It seems pretty obvious to me.
It seems obvious to me you are making out Sol nearly bankrupt based on random Steiner hysterics.
@terabyte said in New Challenger Approaches! Sol Press Shines Down with Two LN Licenses:
I think the point here is that they're trying to handle more than they actually can. Their pay is low and they even need to use Kickstarter to fund some projects. Honestly it doesn't give a good image on first impact.
That said, I haven't played any of their VNs or read their LNs/manga yet. But their LN releases so far have been pretty bad from what I've read around (which is concerning). I am actually looking forward to reading 80,000 Gold LN and now it's delayed, too.No, the point here is that their VN-side is relatively succesful with decent releases and no currently running or unfulfilled KS. They have long announced that now that they are somewhat established, they won't run new kickstarters (and did release one game without a KS after that and almost released another, not to mention that their ln and manga aren't kickstarted either) with the exception of Itoridori because it's just too long and they want to KS all three games together.
They have used kickstarter from the very beginning, it's not a sign of doom or overwork, all you have is steiner's attempt to sink their image and we don't even really know his situation. Destroying the vn-side for the sake of ln and manga branches which I don't think they'll ever be able to handle on the acceptable level, is simply absurd, and the justification for that is even more absurd. Guspaz even connected it to the Inafune's situation somehow when they couldn't be more different.
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Let’s all take a breather here, everyone can have their own opinions on any company in the world, at the end of the day only the people involved in the management of said company know what’s really going on.
You wanna support Sol great you don’t wanna support Sol great, everyone can just vote with their wallets let the cards fall as they may.
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I'm not agitated, my english always sounds more aggressive than intended, I'm just kind of interested in how delaying a long announced and long expected kickstarter of the VN (while all other kickstarters are fullfilled with a pretty good quality) would help to release their manga and LN (which are worked on by completely different teams and were crappy from the beginning) faster. And it really looks like the reason is because Steiner was underpaid. Or do you suggest that they are so out of money that they'll took VN KS funds and pay for the work on LNs and manga with those? Then shouldn't you be happy that they are doing a kickstarter?
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@novurdim said in New Challenger Approaches! Sol Press Shines Down with Two LN Licenses:
all you have is steiner's attempt to sink their image
Yes, the only thing we have is Steiner's complaint.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, work on Nukitashi, Future Radio, and Love Among the Sunflowers, which was due to start at the beginning of this month, has been delayed slightly. We apologize, and are aiming to start as soon as possible.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, work on Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for my Retirement Light Novel and Redefining the Meta at VRMMO Academy, which was due to start at the beginning of this month, has been delayed slightly. We apologize, and are aiming to start as soon as possible.
Apologies again regarding the delays to the start of work on several of our titles. While I can’t go into details, these circumstances were truly unforeseen. Regardless, we’ve learned from this and will be reorganizing slightly internally to ensure everything is as smooth as possible in the future. Thank you for your understanding! -
@myskaros Right, I did forget about those few week global delays, but it's unrelated as my question still stands. If they supposedly don't have enough money to pay everyone, how is delaying a long planned kickstarter going to help anything.
I could also understand the talk about it being suspicious if they suddenly announced a kickstarter for the game that was previously thought to be released independently but in this case? When Itoridori was said to have a kickstater from its very announcement? Like, why? If they are as bad at releasing manga and LNs as I suspect, saying that they should focus on those and suspend VNs for the time being is like telling them to die.
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I didn't know they had a translator leave. Do we know which ones he was working on (all of the delayed ones?)? I hope, if they rebound, they get someone else on that Orphanage Demon-Lord one since I'm certain that was one of them. =(
Does it reflect poorly / breach some agreement if a company comes out and says there was a change of translator / need to hire a new translator? I mean, Nintendo was up front and just admitted they changed devs for Prime 4 (back to Retro) and delayed the game indefinitely while they restart the project.
I just really don't like the "Unforseen Circumstances" being kept so vague if not for legal reasons, but maybe they think this looks less bad to their Japanese partners?
I enjoyed Harem Royale fine enough. But I haven't gone through with a finely toothed editor like comb (and I didn't have as many complaints about their LN either for early publication efforts). I recall it being pretty good formatting wise too (unlike some of the early bubbling here for a few manga).
Harem Royale is the kind of license I'd love to see more of here too, Death Game manga. Their LN licenses were decent too (though still chasing fantasy focus mostly).
Their VN licenses, I'm kind of lukewarm to cold on, so haven't read any. They look fun enough, and I hear they've done some ok work though, but again, couldn't vouch for that.
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@terrence said in New Challenger Approaches! Sol Press Shines Down with Two LN Licenses:
I didn't know they had a translator leave. Do we know which ones he was working on (all of the delayed ones?)?
No, not the delayed ones, he only translated Harem Royal, Why shouldn't demon lord fall in love and one of the light novels iirc.
The cause for the delays is a sheer speculation as no other translator announced any problems on their side and most of them do have an active twitter. Though maybe they are just a bit more professional than Steiner and don't want to publicly bash a company, who knows. Could be some legal issues just as well.
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@terrence The only visual novel I've tried with them was Sakura Sakura and I'm sad to say I was pretty unimpressed. I made it to about the half way point but the story was just so bland I just dropped it.
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That VRMMO academy series is up to volume 6 now in Japan....
https://bookwalker.jp/dee302e0f2-8e65-452b-906f-6b032b3a9e6c/?acode=WpfPW3yk
When do you guys think we'll catch up to volume 6 in English? x_x
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@terrence At the pace they're going (if you can even call it pace?), I doubt we'll ever catch up to Japan's current/last release (unless the series ends, that is).
So far we have only V1 of 2 series out. With no V2 in sight and nothing about V1 of all their 3 new series. Not exactly what I'd call great.
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@novurdim With all due respect I think you're treating me a little unfairly here. Calling me unprofessional and claiming I was making "hysterics" without knowing the situation at all is a little unfair. All I made was a public statement so people who follow my work would know that I wouldn't be continuing with two projects. If I wanted to be unprofessional and sink their image, I have enough on them that I could have. But I happen to think a numberof people at Sol Press are decent people, which is why I held back and didn't drag them over the coals at all. I don't appreciate your interpretation of my restraint as somehow an act of hostility.
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@readingsteiner said in New Challenger Approaches! Sol Press Shines Down with Two LN Licenses:
@novurdim With all due respect I think you're treating me a little unfairly here. Calling me unprofessional and claiming I was making "hysterics" without knowing the situation at all is a little unfair. All I made was a public statement so people who follow my work would know that I wouldn't be continuing with two projects. If I wanted to be unprofessional and sink their image, I have enough on them that I could have. But I happen to think a numberof people at Sol Press are decent people, which is why I held back and didn't drag them over the coals at all. I don't appreciate your interpretation of my restraint as somehow an act of hostility.
"They should be happy I didn't do as much damage as I could have". It's a wonderful position but I don't really see how it drastically changes the situation, to be honest. I know I'll be criticized for this but eh.
There were infinite ways to make the announcement without the obvious insinuations that would only predictably make the people's imagination go wild until it ends with an escalated either villainous or "nearly bankrupt" image of Sol. Which is what we basically see everywhere now. And it will be even more enhanced after this comment where you imply that the situation is actually even worse. You either want to harm the company or you don't, you clearly wanted to and did more than enough. Which is your personal choice, of course, that I have no right to judge so there's that.
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@novurdim With all due respect, your interpretation is incorrect.
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@readingsteiner with all due respect, there's no room for interpretation
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@novurdim Then it's rather incredible that you managed to read it wrong, isn't it? Either way, I'm not here for a pissing match. I wish Sol Press well, most of their staff are good people, and I even introduced some talented newcomers to their roster. The bottom line is that I had to communicate to the people following me that I was leaving a project and also why. If you're a person who values their time and/or money, I'm sure you'll understand. People typically don't construct speculation out of no material. Regardless of whether or not I'd mentioned anything, people would still be wondering why Sol Press wasn't releasing anything in a timely manner. The only difference is that if I hadn't made my statement, you wouldn't have been able to use me as a scapegoat. It is utterly bizarre to me that you would attempt to blame an employee for being disatisfied with an employer.
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@readingsteiner I actually seem to be the only person not blaming anyone here, even Sol Press for their obvious inability to adequately release light novels, I'm simply trying to show you the weight of your words as a relatively popular public person since you incredibly seem to live in a weird world of your own and think that your statement wasn't clearly harmful to one of the parties and didn't create strong waves. I too think the situation is rather obvious so we'll just keep going in circles if this continues.
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I've only read strongest gamer from Sol press but I really enjoyed that one. I hope they do well with there upcoming novel and license releases. More books getting licensed from japan is always a good thing. Sad to hear they are having trouble but I heard they are looking to solve them so hopefully things will improve in the future cause I really like supporting publishers like Jnovelclub and Sol press.
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I'd like them to rebound from whatever this is, if for no other reason than that they're one of the only visual novel companies taking requests afaik (whether those requests lead to actual licenses or no, it's still nice to see they have a portal for some fan requests should they choose to use it; they also have a Discord should anyone want to chat with them).
We actually have quite a few LN companies that take requests now fortunately, so I'm not too worried about losing our voice as fans there. Losing competition and someone who would grab those more niche licenses would not be great though of course.
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I’ll say that I was having questions about Sol Press long before Steiner was even involved with then AFAIK. Their problems have little to do with him and a whole lot more to do with the fact that Strongest Gamer and Battle Divas came out April 2018 and we haven’t seen any LNs released from them since. In an industry where Yen Press is considered way too slow with 3-4/year, this is going to be a major hurdle to overcome. I want them to get their shit together because I really want to read 80k Gold, but at this point it’s going to take real releases happening on a consistent schedule to build themselves as a contender in the LN scene. Right now, they seem like they’ve bit off far more than they can chew and instead of building the sort of infrastructure they need, they’ve doubled down on their problems by taking on even more licenses.
