We’ve got an article for you from Playism. They answer your questions kindly.
Hello to all LA-MULANA fans in the West! Nice to meet you!
This is the staff of Playism. We’re currently assisting in bringing LA-MULANA to Western audiences.
We understand that some of you may have misgivings about our localization and we apologize for the lack of a proper explanation.
This is the official blog of LA-MULANA,
but please allow us to make our official announcement.
Release date
The English version of LA-MULANA will be made available for download when the English version of our site opens on July 13, 2012 (at 4 PM Japan Standard Time).
The address is http://www.playism-games.com/.
The site is currently only showing a countdown clock, but as soon as it reaches 0, the English version of Playism will be opened.
Localization
Both the localization and the debug of LA-MULANA were handled by the native English speakers of the Playism team. We have done our utmost to preserve the full quality of this wonderful product.
However, it seems that, in regards to the PR (such as the promotional video) that was provided by Nigoro, a lack of support from our side has resulted in some confusion.
Playism is only comprised of a small group of people, but we hope to be able to provide better support wherever possible in the future.
DRM
As a general principle, we respect the developers’ view on DRM,
but LA-MULANA is being offered free of any DRM measures.
All of the games that are available when our site opens will be DRM-free, with the exception of SpaceChem.
Price
LA-MULANA will be made available for $14.99 USD.
We are also planning a special gift campaign for buyers.
For payment systems, we intend to use Paypal.
Platform
The Playism team consists of Japanese, Americans and a group of people from a variety of nationalities.
In order to bring LA-MULANA to the rest of the world before anyone else, and in order to breathe new life into the development environment of Japanese Games, we have decided that the wisest choice would be to open our own Western site to build a bridge between Japan and the West.
However, we do not intend to rob products of their possibilities or users of their convenience.
If possible, we would like to expand the wonderful products of Japan to all platforms (including Steam of course) as part of the Playism brand.
Starting on July 13, we at Playism aim to provide LA-MULANA and many other exciting games of undeniable quality. We hope to see you soon!
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Your mission statement pleases me. Let’s face it, not even Atlus can deliver us every game we want; there’s definitely a place for Playism.
So if I’m understanding this correctly, Nigoro is awesome for making this DRM-free! DRM-free is better than Steam except for Achievements. If those are ever added, I would hope that we can somehow get Steam keys for the game after buying it on Playism.
Ok, I’m convinced. I see no Engrish there.
Good translation job, actually, GREAT translation job. You kinda went Cave Story on it.
What I mean by that is you didn’t just translate to English and had the sentence make sense, but you also added a bit of character to the text (such as the gun guy).
Also I’m gonna have SO much fun commentating at Xelpud’s Bat Curry recipe.
Also for those that are kinda dumb on time zones: 4pm Japan Time is about 3am the same day EST. Convert from there, I won’t do everything for you.
Will there be any chance of this coming to Apple Mac computers in the future? Thank you! Three Days!!!
TAKE ALL MY MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just 3 days to go, three more days!
I’ve heard nothing but good things about the game’s translation from those who have played the beta, and those screenshots only reinforce that. Then again, I don’t think that people had a problem with you guys translating it so much as they have with the distribution. I know a lot of people were hoping for a Steam release, though I personally prefer this DRM-free download method you’re using. You can fully expect me to be at your site when that clock hits 0, and I’ll be checking back to see what other games you have to offer.
If purchased on playism now…and if the game is later released on steam, will buyers be given steam codes as a show of good faith that their purchase meant something and they would only need to buy the game once? I know that the company who released the game hack, slash, loot gave out steam codes to everyone who had purchased their game prior to the steam release
I hereby pledge to buy it both on PC and on WiiWare, should that happen. Mark my words.
Looking foward to 13th of July! 😀 Can’t wait!
Paypal account ready!
Will you be offering any other payment methods? I’ve never been able to get PayPal to work with my card and I really don’t want to wait any longer until the game is offered on other distribution sites.
Yeah, this is about how I expected everything would work. Thanks for clearing all of this up! You guys are awesome! *Is now eagerly awaiting for the site to open*
Thank you for the clarification. Everything is good news!
Maybe you guys could take a pass through the manual at some point?
The dialog presented thus far looks great. You’ve definitely got this customer hooked.
Good news!
Looking forward to know other great japanese games!
2 days, 21 hours to go!
I might have missed this bit of information: Will La-Mulana hit WiiWare in the US and Europe? I’d only be considering to buy the PC version in case there was no chance of it ever hitting WiiWare at all.
Thanks for engaging with your western fans. Yes, you have fans!
Keep up the communication, it’s rare to see a japanese dev who is progressive about online distribution of their games.
I’ll be spreading the word about La Mulana to my friends, can’t wait to play.
Lack of DRM isn’t going to hurt this game at all. Since it’s a digital release, pirates aren’t going to get it any sooner than legit buyers. And after it’s released, it would’ve been cracked in a day even with DRM.
I’m buying the game as soon as possible, I’ve been waiting a long time to be able to give you guys my money. It’s more than well deserved.
Translation seems perfectly fine here. I’d encourage once again you to re-translate the manual to a similar quality.
oh dang so no DRM? Really hoping people won’t pirate this game … I will definitely try to get it from the site when it goes live!
3 more days! ^___^
Yeah, sorry about what I said earlier. You’ve got a customer.
Great-looking translation there. :3
I suspected this is how Playism would work :). I look forward to the many games Playism intends to bring over from Japan to the rest of the world! Good luck you guys!