Hi everybody, this is Tay. It’s been a busy few days. A lot of changes have occurred at Fuwanovel, and in the next day or two I will be posting an in-depth look into all the cool new and upcoming site features. This post is a little more specific: as was announced on the forums, Fuwanovel is ending its support and supply of torrents. Regardless of how you feel about this, please pay attention to what comes next:
We’ve had some of this in the past, too, but ever since Tuesday’s news I’ve been made aware of several new groups who are trying to repackage our torrents with malware and hawk them as “Fuwanovel” or “pre-patched” torrents. Please be extremely cautious whenever you see these keywords. We recommend you avoid them altogether.
If you used Fuwanovel because you had difficulty patching games in the past, please be aware that we’ll be stepping up our support of patching instructions and putting out patching guides in the next few weeks. In the immediate future you can always post help requests in the volunteer tech support board.
Changing our site’s direction wasn’t an easy decision, but it was the right one to make.
This is fucking shit.
Nothing else but shit.
I’ll expand on what Randy Lek said, and talk about the hypocrisy of a site that build itself around ignoring intellectual property under the guise of providing content for those that can’t speak Japanese and then suddenly turns and says “You know what guys, piracy is really bad(now that it affects us directly a not just the content creator)” but enough about Fakku.
It’s like neither of you even read the post you’re whining about.
How exactly would that be hypocritical? People change, views change, stances on piracy change. The VN market growing has a direct consequence of license owners being more protective of their work, and going through the appropriate channels to do so.
Fuwanovel as a torrent site might’ve grown to be too big for its own good, so the paradigm change makes a lot of sense. One you might’ve noticed and even approved of if either of you didn’t stop reading after “no more fuwa torrents”.
My personal opinion: Growing this big as a community (not as a torrent repository) and forsaking torrents might enable us to fulfill the original goal of spreading the word about VNs better. New site and community features are going to – at least try to – fill the void.
That’s how Crunchyroll did it, so why not join the bandwagon ?
The admin has discussed this prior. His web host won’t allow torrents that breach IP and thus copyright. As far as I can tell there will still be links to external blogs with translations and Nyaa is where the torrents can be found including English translations trust me on that.
Really he could just say sod off, but the fact is he lost money on this and took the risks, and now he can’t anymore not if he wants the site to be up next year, instead he is trying to do anything he can to complete his original goal spread VN knowledge. I must admit I could never host torrents out of fear of what’s happened here so just bear in mind the risk before demanding something.
so true about fakku, that thing they did really pissed off long time lurkers and fans of the site, me included, it really feels like they screwed us over (i still bought copies of homonculus and gunma’s books though)… i mean piracy is bad, don’t get me wrong, but these games are so hard to get, even the ones that were legitly localized by mangagamer or jastUSA are so hard to get outside USA… these companies should really consider digital distribution via steam or something (the steam versions remove the H-stuff though)
It’s bullshit.
Shitstorm about hypocrisy of this site in 3… 2… 1…
^+1
I dunno about hypocrisy; this is about malware infestation, which was always a risk. Still sad to see things change.
Do the Translation-Teams know about this? What will they do? Continue translating their projects or stop? Time will show us…..
You might as well just shut the site down save everyone the trouble of keeping up for no reason.
It’s sad that people are taking advantage of fuwanovel’s reputation in order to hawk malware to other users. This isn’t hypocrisy; fuwanovel is trying to make sure you don’t load your computer with various viruses and turn it into a brick.
Thanks for the info, tay!
Yeah, can you imagine how hard it would be to create an acc on Nyaa and other trackers and tell users to only download from that account? Thank god they’re just going to stop promoting piracy now that is financially interesting for them to do so.
Tell us more about this Fuwanovel and joining the bandwagon to profit? Seriously +1 to what you wrote as it’s only logical to create an account where the name Fuwanovel or something else would be the safe measure to go with but if the incentive to profit from what started with Aaeru and her approach only to have another team take over and profit off her work is hypocrisy.
Where do you even get the idea from that anyone would profit from this?
The new domain has already been bought and used for emergencies, true, but the new server doesn’t come free like the one we were using before did (an offering by an old friend of Aaeru’s).
There are no ads around the site either, Fuwanovel has always been running at a loss. No one is making any financial profits from the site, the only thing we (as in the people running the site, but hopefully everyone else as well) get out of the site is the enjoyment of being around like-minded individuals who share a common hobby and passion.
So what use will this site have then? Well, thanks and bye i guess, it was nice the almost full year I used it.
RIP Fuwanovel.
Without hosting pre-patches this site will be dead in a few months time.
It’s already dying forum wise.
I don’t understand… for me, the safest torrent from fuwanovel is… on fuwanovel.
People who doesn’t download the torrent from fuwanovel… won’t know that fuwanovel has deleted them, and they will only download torrent with Malwares o/
This decision doesn’t make any sense xD
Well this sucks. The reason I fell in love with fuwanovel in the first place was the convenience of having pre-patched torrents with plenty of seeders. It’s the one thing erogedownload has always been sorely lacking. Downloading large games and their patches in parts is a real pain in the ass.
Tay is it ?
if you are making this changes and deleting the prepatch from fuwa novel, the risk of other VN lover downloading from torrent of getting viruses and malwares will just increase, if you think carefully the safest place to get the torrent is here from fuwanovel. why would they bother searching on the torrent site ? reconsider pls
If you read between the lines it’s pretty damn obvious they were in fear of legal troubles. You go host torrents and get the police knocking at your door and the host taking down your website if you want.
So how will I be able to play up and coming visual novels that are still currently being translated? I really dont have the money to import nor do I know any sites where i can get a copy of the game without having to worry about viruses and other malware.
If you want torrents simply use sukebei.nyaa.se
Search with the Japanese name, lookup at vndb if you don’t know the name. Well known unloaders are girlcelly and mikocon among others. That’s basically what people who read vn’s in native jp do.
but the thing is you can hardly find vns that are released in a couple of years (like 5 years and such) that has any seeders. yes they’re on nyaa but what’s the point if you can’t download them.
Tay is it ?
if you are making this changes and deleting the prepatch from fuwa novel, the risk of other VN lover downloading from torrent of getting viruses and malwares will just increase, if you think carefully the safest place to get the torrent is here from fuwanovel. why would they bother searching on the torrent site ? reconsider pls
^Totally agree. It doesn’t make any sense. Just report torrents marked as fuwanovel outside fuwanovel itself. This is a strong community, it shouldn’t be that much of a problem to do so.
And besides, anyone that decides to download something marked as fuwanovel outside of fuwanovel, is pretty much an idiot. Why would you download something outside here when it’s here that you get the most seeds and therefor the game way faster?
Lol i never knew fuwanovel has pre-patched torrents..Anyway they are still releasing patches under them so where’s the problem. They say they are even readily help troubleshoot if you face any problem. I usually just download the jp ver on sukebei then go erogedownload to get my crack/patch. Girlcelly on sukebei is quite reliable as they themselves release most of vn releases in jp and have quite abit of seeders too
This is what put me off getting VN’s before Fuwanovel.
Nyaa seems like a alternative for English translated VN’s, too many blogs to follow otherwise.
Steam seems to be getting more VN’s too, just most of them are the trashy H scene filled (removed on steam) type of VN’s, I find those kind of VN’s too cringey.
So sad ….
I understand your point of view, but it will greatly affect the community. It may seem as a good idea if the truth was something completely different, like being threatened with prison, fines and so on … but to protect us? If there is someone who can still be oblivious to viruses and download from anywhere, then this is natural selection among website surfers. Anyway, at least please make it possible to obtain the latest english patches with some instructions. It would become too boring otherwise…
I disagree
As someone who regularly buys translated VNs and imports ones that aren’t (then applying a patch of course) I am disappointed to see you taking this route. I was first introduced to VNs through sites like this back when I didn’t have a clue how to properly install and patch a VN. Without sites like fuwanovel as it used to be not as many people will get into VNs due to lack of pre-patching Sure I get that you plan on having patching instructions here, but I also know how much some people can screw this up even with perfect instructions. Also, if you really are wanting to protect people form spyware/virus possibly included in fake fuwa torrents wouldn’t it be better to maybe provide information on what torrents were actually fuwa ones like a specific date uploaded or the uploading account rather than just disclaiming all torrents with your name? As it stands, it feels more like you are also trying to prevent downloads of even torrents that actually were yours just to cover your legal behind. I also have some reservations about taking a site that was dedicated to pre-patching things for accessibility and re-branding in as a news and patching notes site. To be honest, the VN subreddit likely will have more up to date news and the patch notes with VN patches have been fairly good as of late so I’m not too worried about it.
All of that said, you have been a good site to me in the past and I continue to wish you the best in whatever you do going forward.
shit
I’m all for supporting official English releases, and it would be nice if newbies were introduced to VNs through legal avenues instead of illegal ones.
Taking down torrents sure won’t help the industry any, though. Would the Grisaia kickstarter have made quadruple its goal if it weren’t for all the people who downloaded the VN from sites like Fuwanovel, then spread the word about how funny it is? Absolutely not.
When people go to Fuwanovel looking to pirate a VN they want, and find it isn’t available, they will not decide to pay over $100 to import the title from Japan. They will go find a download elsewhere, or they won’t read it at all. Importing visual novels, especially adult visual novels, is a tremendous hassle and prohibitively expensive. Most VN readers are young: people in their mid-twenties, college-aged people, and even younger. They don’t have that kind of money lying around. People today are also just used to consuming media for free. This is especially true for anime fans, who stopped buying DVDs once Crunchyroll and Hulu took off.
Your goals are noble. Maybe you’ll reach some of them. But this is not going to lead to more people buying VNs. If anything, it might lead to less people buying them, due to lack of word of mouth.
DOWNLOAD ALL THE OLD TORRENTS THAT WONT BE SEEDED ANYMORE
So I guess it’s no longer “Fuwanovel: Makie Visual Novels Popular in the West” but “Fuwanovel: Visual Novel News Site”
I wish Aaeru is still here. This would never happen
Yeah it would never have happened. Too bad she just left the whole site to rot and die like a year and a half ago, without Tay you wouldn’t have any fuwanovel left period.
i don’t think she “just left”. i bet she died irl. i mean 1 year and a half inactive even in twitter. that’s something almost impossible nowadays
While I do find this sad, I am afraid that I am pretty sure I know the reasons. Fuwanovel simply grew to big to be able to continue what they were doing without scrutiny and, almost certainly, legal issues. Well, I’ll still be sticking around thou, ain’t getting free from me anytime soon.
PS:
The people making a shitstorm, please, use your brain(if you have one) before posting. And then, if you still feel like making a shitstorm, please take some classes in how communities work and what’s acceptable for them during their different stages.
April’s Fool Day?Also,what you wrote made ZERO sense:
“I’ve been made aware of several new groups who are trying to repackage our torrents with malware and hawk them as “Fuwanovel” or “pre-patched” torrents. Please be extremely cautious whenever you see these keywords. We recommend you avoid them altogether”.
-Why would anyone download from another place other than Fuwanovel.org?It should be their fault for downloading random stuff without digging some information first.
Also,I still don’t get the people that say :”Piracy=bad,roflomg,this will teach them to get the actual game insted of dwnloading it”.
-Piracy isn’t bad,it’s actually good,because it makes people support the actual game (and help the industry) if they liked it.Just because there are people that abuse it,it doesn’t means it’s bad.In fact,if we follow this kind of logic,then eating is bad,because if you eat a lot,you’ll die (no joke,there are actually people that died from eating a lot).Oh wait,watching T.V. and spending time 24/7 in front of the P.C is bad too,so we should get rid of it!(there are people that died for spending a lot of time in front of the T.V./P.C).
My point is,that I hate the kind of people that mistake piracy for abuse.If you pirate a videogame,the person that gave you the link usually tells you to delete the file after 24 hours have passed,since it’s like playing a Demo of what the actual game is (to know if you will like it or not)
Anyway,back to the topic,I don’t think that I’ll be following the site anymore,mostly because I find it actually pointless to do so (yeah,you still get news for “translated”VN,but you still have to suffer the whole process of importing said game,look for the patch,patch it,make sure there aren’t any errors with the patch,etc…)
Now,before you start to bash me,this is MY opinion,not yours.
like wtf? It’s their fault for downloading torrent from other website than Fuwanovel…. there is no reason for you guys to delete the exsiting torrent….. you should just post note saying like Do not download torrent with name fuwanovel unless it’s from our website…
We’re not removing torrents because people are trying to spread malware, but the other way around. Please give the post another read.
I personally don’t see the problem with what the owner of this site said. As an avid fan of VNs, I for one, don’t mind patching the games myself. It’s not hard, and if you whiners who find it troublesome too look up methods or type a sentence to ask for help want to complain, just get the hell out of here and never play VNs again. Pre-patched this, pre-patched that. Gosh, you would think that finding a translation patch online is like trying to pass an exam with 100%, the way you whiners are complaining. If you want to keep using those malware FuwaNovel torrents, be my guest. Go ahead and screw your software up. Don’t come whining here later about how: “It said FuwaNovel. You guys are promoting malware.”
I use this website in order to be up to date on progress in translations, so tards like whiners like some of you are just annoying.
Meh, good riddance then. It’s time for the next level.
I’ve never liked pre-patched stuff (in fact, I’ve never downloaded such releases), I’m not THAT lazy, and definitely I’m not dumb – just give me a patch, crystal-clear instructions (this is important), and I’ll figure out the rest (like finding the original VN files elsewhere – yes, it can be difficult when the only options are a $150 DVD purchase that might not even be legal to import into your own country) or a torrent with a single seed in some former Soviet Bloc country. Patience is a virtue, ‘mmmkay?
If you’re THAT dumb that you must be spoonfeed, well… please get away from the computer. Go with your drama elsewhere, noone wants whiny kids around. And if you’re dumb enough to fall into a malware trap (despite having been warned on posts like this one, and having a lot of technological resources to prevent it, like non-shitty AV programs)… well, sucks to be you, I guess.
Glad to see that the site is evolving, and embracing even more their mission of spreading the visual novel medium around the world.
Guy 1: hey, what is that anime thingy that you’re doing.
Guy 2: it’s a visual novel
Guy 1: what’s that?
Guy 2: it’s a . Your choices decides the outcome of the story.
Guy 1: cool. Where can i get that?
Guy 2: you can buy in on . It cost $$$. You interested?
Guy 1: nah nevermind
Well this is… unfortunate… I used Fuwanovel to easily find and download visual novels in english… Now I guess it’s just another site that tells me when a new translation is available… like so many others that I already visit.
Sad.
Also liked how most releases were just “extract and play” instead of having to actually install the damn thing.
well…
fuck.
i was GOING to download dmmd and dmmd re:connect because both of my other one that i download before stopped working. and i had to delete them…
brb gonna sob
So basically, Fuwanovel is not even fucking worth being around anymore.
Awesome man, best fuck up ever.
Whelp, with Fuwa no longer releasing their safe torrents, I had to try other sites to find pre-patched VN’s and ended up F’ing my computer pretty hard. Thank you for removing the only torrents I knew were safe and leaving us with a sess pool of your rip-offs that include malware and viruses.
If you’re going to pirate, please pirate responsibly.
…or just buy your games and patch them like you were supposed to in the first place? It’s ironic, but the audience for prepatched torrents is exactly the naive crowd that griefers have always been eager to exploit. Hopefully you’ll learn from this experience and not be such an easy target in the future. Or maybe you’ll keep blaming others for your mistakes. The choice is up to you.
Wow, this is a lame change. :/