?Absolute Territory Event ● Xuan Xuan Enters

White Saki post to start. First, I want to clarify that I am not an undercover agent sent by a Chinese localization team or a magazine; I am just an ordinary ACG fan who has been involved in the ACG community for several years. This morning, I saw that G Bar, Shepherd Bar, and many other places were discussing the 'Absolute Territory incident,' most of which consisted of aimless insults towards the Absolute Territory magazine and expressions of sadness about the current situation. First of all, I acknowledge that the magazine was at fault for including a Chinese localization patch on the disc without the consent of the localization team, and this series of events indeed started from that fact. However, from a purely observer's perspective, after some calm consideration, I must say that except for a very small portion of ACG fans who benefited, the magazine, the localization team, and Galgamers were all victims in this incident. Let's take a look at this incident from different angles.

Note:
ACGer: Anime, Comic, Game, and other fans of two-dimensional culture.
Galgamer: Fan of Galgames.

Today 20:47 Comment by Guo Gong who loves poetry (Level 1) 2nd floor

Here, as a former regular buyer of Absolute Territory, I want to first give everyone an introduction to this magazine. I believe anyone with some understanding of the ACG world is not unfamiliar with the name of this magazine. Absolute Territory is a magazine dedicated to introducing Galgames. Given the low popularity of Gal in mainland China, the magazine's positioning was extremely niche from the start. Its small potential audience determined that it was a fan-oriented magazine, meaning that the readership must be ACG fans who have some understanding of Galgames or consider Galgames a hobby. I further divide this group into 'core Galgamers' and 'non-core Galgamers.' For core Galgamers, who already have a relatively deep understanding of Galgames, they generally possess the ability to gather and search for resources. Additionally, now that forums and bulletin boards are relatively open, registering an account or making a request is not difficult at all. Therefore, the DVD resources included with the magazine hold little value for these people. This type of audience mostly buys the magazine for the giveaways or for the content of the magazine itself.Therefore, the DVD users of the magazine are generally those who do not have the habit or ability to collect resources, and those who do not invest much in Gal games—“non-core Galgamers”—or even ordinary ACG fans (people who have some understanding of ACG but not in depth, and only purchase because of the cute girls on the magazine cover or some content that attracts them). Of course, these people account for only a small proportion of the overall buyers; most buyers are core Galgamers.

Now, let's look at the trigger of this incident—the DVD gift that included the Chinese translation patch and the trial version of "The Shepherd of the Great Library." Let me analyze the reasons for such an arrangement from the magazine's perspective:

First, why include the translation patch? According to the parties involved, that is, the magazine, the purpose of including the patch was to let more people know about this game and promote it. Whether the intention of “letting more people know about this game” is good or not, we won't discuss for now, but I personally cannot agree with this explanation. When players receive a translation patch, they can't play it without the main game, so in order to use this patch (or even if there were no patch, but they became interested in the game through the magazine), they would inevitably look everywhere for the main game. And for a game like Shepherd, which already has a Chinese version, finding the main game also means finding the translation patch. Therefore, giving the patch is undoubtedly redundant. So, what is the purpose of giving the patch? No matter how you think about it, there is only one: to tell buyers, "This game has been translated into Chinese!"

Imagine this: if you, as a buyer, are standing in front of the magazine, hesitating whether to buy it, and suddenly see that the magazine comes with a Chinese translation patch, what does it mean? It means I can immediately play this game, and I can immediately pursue the cute girl on the cover! And if you're not a professional Galgamer, you will definitely be curious about what this game is about, whether it's worth pursuing, or decide to buy the magazine on the spot and study it while playing when you get home. This method increases the potential buyer population of the magazine, but its essence for profit is obvious. Moreover, the trial version included on the disc also served to encourage buyers.

Now, some readers will definitely ask: if the purpose is to promote the game, why not just give the main game directly? My answer is:Firstly, DVD capacity is an issue. A single DVD generally holds 4GB, while the main game of The Shepherd is over 7GB. Although compression is possible, it requires technical skills, and achieving a 50% compression rate is not easy. Adding more DVDs would also increase costs, which does not align with the principle of cost-effectiveness. Therefore, giving away a demo version is the safest option.

Secondly, even if the magazine ignores the feelings of the translation team whose patch was pirated, they would never dare to offend the game's original developer, August. The magazine is well aware that giving away the full game is a blatant infringement on August's rights. Once it leads to a lawsuit, it would become an international case, and the scale of a Japanese corporation is not comparable to that of a small Chinese magazine.

In summary, since the legal consequences of giving away the full game can be predicted, the magazine should also estimate that giving away a translation patch is an infringement on the translation team. So, the question arises: on what grounds does the magazine dare to ignore this infringement and continue giving away the translation patch? My view is:

1. Translation teams are more like informal fan groups, not for profit, and sometimes not even formally organized (without legal registration with the national industry and commerce administration). Therefore, their translation activities are not protected by law. Even if problems arise, the magazine can shield itself from liability as a precaution. Of course, I don't believe the magazine initially had this mindset when distributing the patch. The magazine's intentions were probably good, but they lacked legal awareness and didn't fully consider the implications of redistribution. The special nature of the Galgame industry, the risks of translation, and the non-public nature of the content mean that translation teams are destined to remain low-profile and endure in silence.

2. The magazine had no malicious intent, but they misunderstood the translation team's intentions. They assumed: if the translation team dares to release a patch online, it means they aim to promote the game. Since you want to promote the game, our magazine will help you by including your patch on the discs that come with the publication. This way, it promotes the game and earns money at the same time—a win-win situation, so why not do it?Since I helped you promote it, then we have a win-win cooperation. Since it is a win-win cooperation, the benefits must outweigh the drawbacks, so the localization team should turn a blind eye to the infringement. This idea is indeed not bad, and many doujin creators in Japan also precisely leverage this mindset of copyright holders to create doujin works. However, this is China, not Japan. The firm stance taken by AnAi after the incident probably far exceeded the magazine's expectations. Clearly, both sides did not reach a tacit understanding on this issue.

After analyzing the magazine, let's analyze the subjective mentality of the localization team:

The original intention of the localization team to release patches for free, in my humble opinion, is also to promote the game. This approach is no different from devout Christians distributing Bibles at the church entrance. However, this promotion has principles and limitations. For example, the platforms where the Chinese patch is released must be well-known ACG forums or relatively large Tieba communities. These places all have good forum rules or regulations, managed by a group of like-minded, devoted ACG enthusiasts, so there is no need to worry about problems. Moreover, the release of localization patches is also based on the respect and ethical standards of ACGers towards Galgames and many other sectors of the ACG industry. In other words, the localization team has given each and every one of us, who enjoy their work, full trust. This trust is purely moral, similar to a social contract.

But sadly, in recent years, with a large influx of people into the ACG community, this originally pure field has begun to become a mix of the good and the bad. The confidence and enthusiasm of the localization community has been severely hit by a series of incidents. For example, this Absolute Territory incident was an action taken unilaterally by the magazine, ignoring the premise of promoting Galgames. This brought worldly pressures to the Galgame field, which, although niche, had a decent survival environment and a group of loyal supporters.

As Galgamers, we absolutely cannot allow the term 'erotic game' to be synonymous with Galgames. I am not discussing adult games here, but there are still too many Galgames that have moved us deeply, especially for the devoted localization teams. Seeing a game they have painstakingly localized, like their own child, receive criticism from the public, one can imagine the indignation in their hearts.The promotion of the magazine allowed some people who should not have been exposed to Galgame to come into contact with Galgame, and it also gave certain whistleblowers a handle on this industry. It must be said that this is purely harmful and offers no benefit to the Gal environment. At the same time, for the translation group, the localization work—which was intended to benefit the public for free—was stolen and used for profit, which amounts to a complete denial of the noble, universal intent to ‘benefit the public' and all the effort put into it. Moreover, this kind of localization work carries considerable risk. In the eyes of the translation group, the magazine's actions are self-serving and harmful to others, taking advantage of their situation; it's no wonder that Xingai reacted so aggressively. Finally, due to the misinterpretation of traditional concepts, once this localization work was exposed, it is hard to say whether there will be an investigation. At the very least, as many forum users worry, it already falls into the category of spreading ‘harmonious' materials. From this perspective, the translation group's decision to withdraw and cease activities is entirely understandable.

Returning to the magazine, the reason we say it should not be overly blamed is that, although the magazine was the instigator of the incident, it is also a victim. This is because it misjudged the act of distributing localization patches and its consequences (as mentioned above), which led to losses for buyers, meaning its own market share would shrink significantly.

Regardless of whether this incident can be satisfactorily resolved, even if Absolute Domain survives, after this ordeal, based on everyone's views, I, like everyone else, tend to side with the translation group. This is not only because the translation group provided us with a lot of free services, but also because this incident indeed resulted from the magazine failing to anticipate the consequences of its actions. Legally speaking, the magazine was subjectively at fault, and as mentioned earlier, the magazine was indeed profit-oriented; it just misplayed. Therefore, it is bound to lose a significant portion of its core ACGer audience. These ACGers may develop a poor impression of Absolute Domain and refuse to buy the magazine in the future. For a FANS-oriented magazine with a small audience that absolutely cannot follow a low-profit, high-volume model, this is potentially fatal.Originally, the core ACG fans bought magazines mainly for the sake of formality, as collectibles, or to save the time cost of looking for news and editorials. Now, since it involves a matter of principle, they will naturally refuse to purchase again, because this magazine is not like everyday necessities such as oil, salt, soy sauce, or vinegar—it is not essential to them. What's even worse is that these core buyers usually buy every issue, which means Absolute Territory will definitely lose a significant number of returning customers this time. So how many readers will Absolute Territory have in the future? Non-core ACGers? Or even just ordinary ACGers who don't count as that? In either case, the probability of them becoming returning customers is very low. So, although Absolute Territory seems to have gained some benefit from this incident, in the long run, its actions have unconsciously damaged its reputation.

Today 20:48 Comment by Guo Gong who loves poetry (Level 1) 4th floor:

In addition, ACGers, especially Galgame players, are naturally the victims, which doesn't need much explanation. Many forum users even joke about having everyone pass N2 or N3 tests, which shows that most players are still quite reliant on translation groups.

So, after saying so much, this is roughly my personal analysis of the overall situation.