I usually don’t use this site to soapbox, but if you’re reading this, I assume you’re into niche games, and at very least have heard of the omnipresent Touhou franchise.
If by some chance you haven’t, it’s a long-running shmup series basically created by one guy: a doujin/indie developer who goes by ZUN. He does it all: programming, music, art, and story.
ZUN is an extremely talented and prolific individual, and I’ll never contest that.
What I will say is that he comes across as one of the most stubborn, prideful developers in the industry, and he’s only doing him and his works harm as a result.
ZUN is notoriously protective of Touhou, to the point that he has yet to allow anyone to make an anime out of the franchise, despite what I can assume are dozens of lucrative offers.
He additionally has refused to let the games see official localization. Although there is a very devout fan community that continue to translate and patch his games for them to receive wider notice, his pride continues to belittle their efforts by refusing to let the games get any proper release, dooming them to a tiny niche.
This brings me to Playism.
The Touhou community was abuzz with the news that Playism had struck a deal with ZUN to release the newest title, Touhou 14: Double Dealing Character, digitally on PC.
This was unexpected, and a great cause for optimism. Maybe ZUN had lightened up! Maybe Touhou was finally getting the official globalization it deserved!
Except… the game was completely untranslated. Menus, story, EVERYTHING was left in Japanese.
http://playism-games.com/game/215/double-dealing-character
At ZUN’s insistence.
That neither the media or community has expressed outrage at this is beyond me.
It is unacceptable in this day and age to expect players to pay money for a lazy localization.
I’m sure there’s people out there who think that this is just a shooting game, and localization doesn’t matter.
Well, people say the same thing about BlazBlue in regards to its story mode. But there are people who play those story modes. There are people who care. And they deserve just as much respect as those who play the games to dodge ridiculous amounts of bullets. (Personally, I play them for both.)
It’s entirely possible that Playism had no control. Maybe ZUN’s stipulation was that they could only release it untranslated.
If that really is the case(and I believe it is), then were I in Playism’s shoes, I’d have told ZUN to get lost. It’s not worth the reputation, the insult to fans’ intelligence(especially when they had it patched within days), or catering to ZUN’s foolish pride.
As an aside, some may mention that Touhou games have begun to finally see some official release on Sony’s platforms… except these are only fan made ones.
All the games so far have been derivatives of Touhou works, nothing from the mainline series.
If this is the precedent that ZUN hopes to set in western territories with his franchise, then maybe it really is meant to stay over there. If ZUN doesn’t care about us, then we have no obligation to care about him.
iwakura productions 
I agree 100%, I was really pumped when it released, but then I read that it wasn’t oficially translated I just got downloaded the japanese version, he doesn’t deserve our money.
I’m simultaneously proud and ashamed to say that I am a massive Touhou fan. In fact, I was at the Touhou panel at AWA last year – I got to see the man himself. I’m kind of amazed by this, because he seemed impressed by the sheer enthusiasm of the crowd, many of whom were dressed up as characters from the series (although a lot of them, as expected, were men dressed in witch and vampire girl costumes.) I think he even admitted to considering putting Touhou on Steam if Valve was game for it. I guess all that’s down the toilet now, though. Maybe ZUN just really wants the fans to learn Japanese?
He really doesn’t like his fans back home. At this point in his life, he feels that he’s locked into a cycle where he just has to keep going until the fanbase finally gives up. He basically sees the westerners as an even worse version of what he usually has to deal with, and debacles like Touhou Smash really don’t help. I’m pretty sure his deals with Konami and Sony are 100% for free money. I don’t know why he would refuse to let DDC get translated, and I’ve never actually heard that until now… that sounds more like some problem with Playism.
wrt free money, an anime would NOT be free money unless it was garbage, and he’d probably have very little control over it. that’s why he does manga instead
It speaks of problems with source code. Regardless, it’s unacceptable, and astonishing that no media site called them out on it.
No one care about your shitty interpretation of ZUN’s majestic mind. You are just complaining abouth is decision because you are a talentless hacks who can’t into programming, music, art, and story by yourself.
MUH ANIME
This reads like an opinion piece written by a weeb secondary completely ignorant of how the Japanese industry works.
Probably because it was written by a weeb secondary completely ignorant of how the Japanese industry works.
ABS CBN: WEEB edition
Punyeta, meron mga bobo dito
Hahahahaha Gago!