[drmchsr0] Fridays – Did you know that the CEO of OVERDRIVE is pretty baller?
on June 24th, 2011 at 2:10 pm
I know, I promised PANZER WORLD GALIENT last week, but I can’t justify introducing that show. Not until I manage to watch the first 10 episodes or something.
I can’t even justify introducing a show when I’ve done the 3-episode test, to be honest. Usually, I’d introduce a show when I’m at least halfway through, or in the case of longer shows, when I’ve watched at least 10 episodes.
Sorry about that. Galient will have to wait until next week. In the meantime, I give to you a special treat. (No, not the chibi Phillipfox)
By now, everyone has heard about Mangagamer, good news or otherwise.
They’re well-known for translating/localizing, publishing and promoting translated Visual Novels for sale in the International Market (currently focusing on America since that’s where the money is, for now).
Most people may only remember MangaGamer’s rocky start, where unlike JAST USA, they had only one recognizable game and their translations weren’t up to snuff. (And in JAST USA’s defense, it was a reboot of a failed attempt to break into the American market by Nirtoplus, so…)
You probably remember them as the guys who brought over Koihime Musou and Shuffle!. Unvoiced (OH THE HORRORS).
Taking a leaf out of Valve’s and probably Notch’s book, the CEO of OVERDRIVE (and overall in-charge of MangaGamer), bamboo, has taken to chatting with the international audience at large via webcam and a streaming service.
Now, you’re gonna tell me, you stupid hamster, Valve uses it’s forums (and Steam) and Notch relies on emails, Twitter and his blog to communicate with fans of their games, so what’s so special about some guy from Japan talking to people via webcam?
You’re right in saying that this isn’t new. Game developers have been known to talk to the fans at some point in gaming history. If it’s not through smail mail, it’s through IRC and more recently, via Twitter and blogging.
While I personally believe it wouldn’t take much to encourage Notch to pull off what bamboo did, the fact that bamboo did this (probably out of goodwill or from a well-intentioned suggestion) on his own free will, imo, is a bit shocking. Most CEOs usually don’t talk to the customers, outside of a large public event, like, say, E3.
The other part of this? Well, bamboo is pretty baller.
Of course, this is probably because he is the CEO of a company that sells escapism to lonely men in Japan, but there’s no way a CEPO would come dressed in geeky tee-shirts, declaring his love for breasts AND glibly suggest genocide (he’s kidding about that last one, folks!) to the problem of software piracy. All on company time. In most cases, this would be a PR disaster for the company.
Which goes to show how pretty cool he is. Or disturbing. I don’t know.
If you’d like to hop on the live chat, well, follow @MangaGamer on Twitter. They’ll announce when these live chats are taking place.
Oh, and before I go…
For their 10th Anniversary, TYPE-MOON has decided to adapt a doujin work into anime, FOR THE LULZ. Sadly, it’s not “That’s Why I Assault Ren”. Though it would be rather hilarious. (Yeah, it’s that TAKE-MOON adaptation they mentioned a while back.)
See you next week, for when I finally wrestle some time to watch through THE GALIENT WORLD.
SHUT UP MAN I AM NOT CONSTRAINED BY RULES AND SUCH
I have very mixed feelings about MangaGamer. I will only say that I have an extreme dislike for censorship of anysort. I judge businesses more by their actions.
Since when have they censored things? I’d like to know.
If anything, I’d be wary of JAST, considering that they already screwed up once, and they have some of the worst people working with them. Not to mention that MangaGamer does pay it’s freelancers, something that JAST has not done, to my knowledge.