Untold History of Japanese games KS guy is getting sued

[Ed Oscuro]

Interesting and I almost suspect I had this backwards from the start but - why is this guy mentioning in comments that Agness agreed to "leak documents from Konami?" That surely doesn't sound like it's on the up-and-up.

I will give the guy some slack for this being his first project, but ethical lapses and tone-deafness about editorial good practice (let alone best practices) I find harder to accept, if that's what's going on here.

[Skykid]

I suspect he's aimlessly thrown it in as a dig.

Makes no difference though, have you read the diatribe on the Twitter page? It reads like schizophrenia 101.

"Deleting all my previous game translation work to make room for legal documentation"

Because hard drives just aren't big enough these days.

"HASHTAG ENTITLEMENT"

Fuck you social justice.

"Here's a picture of my sister and her kids, look who you've been railing on internet and feel sorry"

I'm sure that will fly in court.



Honestly, I feel like writing a big WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP on that page, but I'm too lazy to care.

[cfx]

.

[BIL]

What in the sweet mothering fuck Mr. Scepziwwwww is terror incarnate, apparently.

A PITIFUL DISPLAY FROM ALL INVOLVED (・｀ω´・)

[Lord Satori]

terror incarnate[/img]

No, that title goes to the owners of Amy's Baking Company. The only restaurant to date that Gordon Ramsay has had to walk out on.

[Udderdude]

The Kickstarter backers are getting a bit more for their money, it seems. The court documents should provide plenty of entertainment ..

[MX7]

I've been delving in to this book over the last few weeks. I'd rather the questions were edited out to create a more seamless reading experience, but the topics and revelations are absolutely fascinating. Especially enjoying the wealth of new information on Japanese home computers. Great bedtime reading.

[zinger]

Thanks for the impressions MX7. I've been a bit sceptical about this book, considering the author's affiliation with HG101, but finally added it to my christmas wishlist this morning (it's actually the only thing on it).

[MX7]

If I was being painfully honest I could add a few criticisms. Sometimes the interview style can be slightly dry and the grainy black and white pictures make it seem a little cheap. But that's just nitpicking. The book is like a telephone directory. Although it's a little barebones, the transcription represents a monolithic effort. There's absolutely facinating conversations with developers I've never heard of talking about games I've never heard of (but instantly investigated). Comparing it to other supposed enthusiast books (like the passable Arcade Mania), it's clearly in a very different league.

[zinger]

Sounds cool enough. The description from Amazon is very tempting:

This book reveals more secrets about the history of Japanese games than ever before, with 36 interviewees and exclusive archive photos.

Konami's secret games console, the origin of Game Arts and Quintet, unusual events at Telenet, stories on Falcom, politics behind Enix's game programming contests, a tour of the Love-de-Lic and WARP offices (with layout sketches). Every interviewee is asked about unreleased titles.

Foreword by GAMESIDE magazine's editor-in-chief, Yusaku Yamamoto.

Hitoshi YONEDA: Japanese cover artist, Falcom, Sega, Phantasy Star II cover

Tatsuo NOMURA: Google engineer, 8-bit Maps, working with Square-Enix, Dragon Quest

Katsutoshi EGUCHI: Life of Kenji Eno, Real Sound for Saturn, Bitmap Brothers, Gods and Xenon 2, CESA and ratings, Dreamcast creation, Michael Nyman, WARP

Toru HIDAKA: Enix programmer, lecturer, Kouichi Nakamura, PC-88 (code, graphics, music), converting Ultima, a changing industry

Roy OZAKI & Kouichi YOTSUI: Mitchell Corp, Capcom (rare photos), Pang and Bubble Buster, Strider, Cannon Dancer, Gamshara, Puzz Loop and Zuma, Polarium, Suzuki Bakuhatsu, Namco's System 10 board, Nintendo, Data East, gangsters

Masaaki KUKINO: Konami and SNK (office map), unreleased games, Haunted Castle (aka: Castlevania), Asterix, Crime Fighters, Silent Scope, King of Fighters

Suikoden Chapter: Yoshitaka Murayama, Harry Inaba, Jeremy Blaustein, Casey Loe, Konami's unreleased games console/handheld, difficulties of localisation

Ryukushi07: Visual novels, eroge, doujin, Comiket, Umineko, Higurashi When They Cry, Rose Gun Days, Key, Jun Maeda

Kotaro UCHIKOSHI: Visual novels, Pepsiman, Memories Off, Never 7, Ever 17, Remember 11, EVE, pressures of making erotic games, 999, Virtue's Last Reward, Danganronpa

ZUN: Touhou shooters, PC-98 versus Windows, office sketches, Taito, Bujingai, PS2 bench-marking, Comiket, doujin, indie, beer

Yoshiro KIMURA: Square Soft, Romancing SaGa, Rule of Rose, Chulip, Little King's Story, Love-de-Lic (office sketches), Moon, Lack of Love, Kenichi Nishi, Grasshopper, rare art

Kouji YOKOTA: Telenet, Falcom, Game Arts, Quintet (rare photos), Megami Tensei on FC and MSX, ActRaiser, Illusion of Gaia, Gaiares, Lunar: EB, Valis, history of Ys III, Masaki Hashimoto & Tomoyoshi Miyazaki, Granstream Saga

Jun Nagashima: Falcom (office sketch), creation of Popful Mail, Ys V on SFC, Studio Alex

Yuzo KOSHIRO: Falcom, Sega, Quintet, Ancient, sister joining industry, doujin, The Scheme, music column, studio tour, Joe Hisaishi, origin of Sonic on 8-bit systems, Bare Knuckle 4

Masamoto MORITA: Sega (layout), arcade rivalry with consoles, end of Sega hardware, Die Hard Arcade

Akira TAKIGUCHI: ASCII, AX series, Game Arts, Taito deals, MSX prototype, Apple II in Japan, PC-6001, CBM PET

Masakuni MITSUHASHI: ASCII, AX series, Game Arts, Silpheed on PC-88 and MCD, cut content, Lunar: EB debugging

Kohei IKEDA: Game Arts co-founder (office maps), Thexder, new model of PC-88, shift to consoles

Hiroshi SUZUKI: First stealth game, deal with Taito, Lupin III, computers and early culture

Tomonori SUGIYAMA: Vanguard, Enix, unreleased Saturn hardware, Game Arts, Falcom, Lunar: SSS and EB for MCD and Saturn, Grandia

Yutaka ISOKAWA: Namco's desire to launch a console, Enix, Vanguard, Catrap, NeGcon controller

Yasuhito SAITO: dB-SOFT, Data West (maps), programming 177, Macadam Soft, Bounty Arms (PS1), Layla (FC), Rayxanber, Cross Blaim

Takaki KOBAYASHI & Keite ABE: dB-SOFT, Agenda, SmileBoom, Riot City, Prince of Persia, BASIC for NDS + 3DS, SNK

Keiji INAFUNE: Mega Man, Mighty No.9, Capcom, Comcept, Akira Kitamura, Famicom limitations

Stephen & William ROZNER: Mega Man 1 & 3 for DOS, Capcom USA, Street Fighter on C64, Mega Man X and Street Fighter II on PC

Makoto GOTO: Shubibinman 2, Don Quixote (MEGA LD), Sega Pico, Phil Fish question

I've never actually read any video game history books before. Not that I'm not interested, it's just that I doubt any of those written so far are very good. I what mean else is out there? I have Sore wa Pong kara hajimatta, which is supposed to be great, but I've only just begun reading it, and it's going to take some effort to get through it.

[GSK]

He released a Kindle version recently, so you needn't buy the book if that's something you're unsure about.

The book is okay in spite of the author, essentially. It's a project that would have been better serviced by, like, anyone else.

[Limbrooke]

To link towards comments I made earlier in the year on this book:
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 0#p1049570

It's really not worth the $50 for a physical copy and had I the foresight would not have backed this project at all. There are some interesting reads but the line of questioning at times is odd and really goes off on an unrelated tangent for very long stretches. It was annoying when redacted content was removed but still shown as it would have appeared and the editting has a rough feel - not what I was expecting. The most appealing thing about this book was the detailing of the line-up for Vol. 2 which frankly has a far more interesting interview selection. It's not bad just not great.