Anonymous asked:
What is the reason you won't do a translation for a game that some other translator is also doing? I think you have built up quite a huge following and the quality of your work speaks for itself. You have also mentioned that you don't do this for money so what is stopping you from saying screw those other translators and just doing whatever the hell game you fancy. I for one really appreciate your work and think you are by far the best translator of eroges out there.
Redundancy. This isn't like the manga world, where it's not a big deal to have multiple competing translations. Doing VNs takes a load of time, so it's not worth the effort if someone else gets there first, and all you're really doing is supplying the public with a slightly different version of what they already have. If two translators are going to waste months of their time on something, would you prefer that it result in two new games in English, or one game in English twice?
The same logic applies in reverse to games that seem likely to get localized, because people naturally gravitate towards whatever the official translation is. You may release a patch years before it gets picked up, but that translation will ultimately be made superfluous, so you could have spent your time on something else. That's why I was always iffy about doing games like Kuroinu 2, because I was sure that MangaGamer would pick it up and render my effort redundant.