[Locked] FAKKU State of the Union 2016

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animefreak_usa Child of Samael
luinthoron wrote...
animefreak_usa wrote...
Peshies wrote...
Hello Jacob!

I have a question about the subscription pricing payment currency (I guess you would call it?)
Although I am posting this from Japan (using VPN), I live in Australia and was wondering if it would be possible to introduce an Australian (or not even Australian but a multitude of currencies) currency payment. The reason I was wondering IF this was possible is because currently I'm paying more than what the actual subscription costs. By that, some Australian banks have surcharges added onto them when paying in a different currency, paying in USD.

I just felt this is relevant as subscribing is what a large amount of people would have to do to be able to access the products that FAKKU! offer now due to legality issues etc... and it may potentially benefit more than just a few people. Again, I don't know how it works, just trying to suggest something that may be a benefit!

Happy New Year/Happy Holidays from Sydney Australia,
Matt!


Soooooooooooooo you want to pay less because the Aussie dollar is weaker then the us dollar? Even though your still paying what the conversion of what it really is? Bank fees aside you can't really think you can just pay 12.95 in Australia dollars if it worth less in America just like canadains/euro/yens/quids. It's not like a Mexican can send in 13 pesos and think they got 13 dollars.


That's not what he's saying, though. I do get the problem as my bank recently implemented this change as well - any payments not made in euros now have an additional 1% added to them. Small enough for me myself not to care too much about it, but it may be a different amount for him, and it certainly is an additional charge that did not exist before, plus one that effects most of my credit card payments.

I get that the bank charges for converting native to foreign because that happens here when you do it at the currency exchange but how I read it as he wanted face amount over real amount. I can see I can be miss interpreting it and he means paying what ever the dollars exchange to but paying with Aussie dollars to void the extra surcharges but then the two exchange banks would have to be in Australia then. The fact the dollars go thru in native currency won't matter if fakku bank is here.
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Okay, I get removing the scanlations of things published by actual official companies with the resources and connections to distribute original material overseas legally and for a profit. That's sensible and honestly fair.

What I dislike about this decision that it seems to include fanworks as well, doujinshi made by amateur artists who love a series and want to share their love of that series via fan-comics. I understand, of course, that said doujinshi are not necessarily meant to be freely distributed online, but they are--to my admittedly loose understanding--printed in numbers strictly limited by the resources of the artist and/or circle, and generally only sold at comic conventions in Japan. Plus, since they feature copyrighted characters in materials that are almost certainly not licensed by their parent companies/copyright holders, I highly doubt that any legal, commercial English-language publishers will touch them any time soon.

To be perfectly honest, the first and foremost reason I started reading hentai on Fakku was not for the original works with original characters and settings. I've enjoyed some of them, certainly, and I have been genuinely glad to find a few of them, but for as long as I have been on this site my chief interest has been those fanmade, virtually unlicensable doujinshi which are nebulously legal even in their home country and could not POSSIBLY ever make their way west via any official means without an almost complete restructuring of how commercial publication and intellectual copyright work.

I love Naruto doujinshi, mainly because I love the original series, and I was first attracted to Fakku because it had a reasonably simple interface and a decent collection of said doujinshi with good quality English scanlations. Unless those doujinshi were simply moved behind the paywall--which I sincerely and regrettably doubt, considering what I have seen of other people's comments--then the primary reason for my ever joining this site in the first place is gone.

I still might check out original hentai occasionally, buy what I can afford when possible and convenient, but as the fan comics and doujinshi of pre-existing, copyrighted series seem to have been completely deleted, and are extremely unlikely to return under this new model, it may be a bit before I do so via Fakku. The frustration of having so many of my favorited doujinshi purged...

Well, it wasn't the most extensive list admittedly, but it is still vexing. So, feeling thus peeved, it seems like I will have to look elsewhere for my fix of Naruto characters fucking each other in the graphic novel format.

Bleh.
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i don't have any problems with the subscribing. i think i subscribe next month but at least you need to cover at least a couple of more genre. as for me vanilla is boring and for ntr or futa i would subscribe instantly.

but you make the right decision =)
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animefreak_usa wrote...
Fakku4You wrote...
Spoiler:
An idea I want to pitch here, regarding the use of Paypal.

As I understand, the issue with Paypal right now is that Paypal refuses to provide a service for subscriptions. If I am not mistaken here, then why not change your approach here?
The idea would be to introduce a Fakku Website currency (call it FFP or Fakku Fap Points) that can be purchased via Paypal and is tied to the account it was purchased with. The next step would be, like you already said is planned anyway:


Jacob wrote...


Later this year we will most likely add options to buy in monthly packages (3 months, 6 months, 12 months, etc) and we will be looking into adding a free trial.


From there, make it possible to purchase subscription via FFP.

Square Enix uses the same system for Final Fantasy 14 with their artificial currency, Crysta. You can buy Crysta via different payment options (including Paypal!) and use that currency to buy stuff from the Cash Shop of Final Fantasy 14 .... INCLUDING SUBSCRIPTION TIME!!!

...

You may all kneel before me in gratitude now.

Uhhh, you don't buy that in the cash shop, but instead in your Account Management. Still, the subscription there is purchasable with Crysta, which is the point, dammit!


That would work until paypal finds out and bans paypal site wide. A wallet made of bitcoins or Google is a possibility but using PayPal anywhere on it would be dangerous. We lost digital books payments because we asked to use PayPal as a subscription method. We still can use debt cards with credit logos and prepaid cards.... I think. No one has posted success as of right now. I would be a nice thing if a fakku card system could be a thing like PSN or steam but a last that harder then printing plastic.


Jacob wrote...


Unfortunately we won't be able to add PayPal for subscriptions anytime soon. I have personally discussed this with PayPal and although they are okay with us using them for the majority of content on our store, digital subscriptions specifically are where they draw the line. We will be looking at alternative payment options like Bitcoin, but it's going to take some time.



As far as I understand, the subscription itself is the problem. If I use paypal to pay 50$ (no subscription, a one time payment like you would on steam) to get 5000 Fakku Website Points, then spend 1295 of those website points to get the desired 1 month subscription, then where is the problem? That method certainly does not conflict with the reason Jacob stated.
Like I said, SE uses the same method and I highly doubt they would do this without Paypals consent.
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Fakku4You wrote...
Lucas Azevedo Martins wrote...
so.. all my ''favorites'' are just gone?
I really want at least an list of titles or something like that...
:(


Fakku could give everyone a list of their favorites, but what would you do with that information? Pirate it somewhere else, obviously. So giving out that information would be supporting piracy, in a way.


In my case I just want to know the autors to support and keep reading their work.
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ChrisBRosado123 wrote...
GoodByeAndThanksForAllThe wrote...
Spoiler:
Well, that was a poor decision overall. You could probably support the hybrid model with adds, but you just removed 90% of your library and then you ask for money?

You're basically asking people to pay to get less... doesn't make much sense. The worst part of it all is that your entire library will be ripped and reposted anyways!

Your reasoning is also blatantly wrong. I am not sure exactly how old you are, but I've had to deal with the Japanese industry in general, and the whole "The West are all pirates oh noes~" really doesn't hold water. The manga industry worked for a long time and still does, the problem is the availability is nigh impossible, and it comes into multi-tiered issues. First of all, no store wants to old dirty mangas. Second of all, the few that would and do, mostly sex shops, do not attract the customer that would purchase such books. This isn't just an issue with porn mangas, but with all porn magazines overall. Playboy had to redo their entire business model a few years back or fear going bankrupt. Ironically, Playboy currently has some of the best writers/actual journalists working for them!. Many other porn mags had to shut down or turn to the internet.

So you have an overall very toxic market, that is extremely unlikely to work, with a high cost of production for a small profit margin, OF COURSE THEY WOULD NEVER TAKE THAT CHANCE. Mangas are in the same boat as books, book stores are closing everywhere because of e-books and the ability to order your books online. Except availability only is hard to come by for mangas, especially older ones (DBZ full collections are going for 600$+), so people turned to the internet. Humans do as humans do, we created an entire community of people wanting the latest manga. You also have the issue of people not willing to wait a year to get the official translation, so they'll just get scanlated.

Movies are in the same boat, theater releases still worked, but renting movies was being more and more of a hassle, availability online became greater and the ease of access made sales of movies plummet. Blockbusters and what not all failed. What kind of saved the movie-release industry? Netflix/Hulu and the like. What saved(and revitalized) the PC gaming market? Steam. Did it all happen at once? No. Netflix was originally stupidly cheap, 9.99$ per year. Steam has ridiculous sales to offer product and it tooks years before Steam put a serious dent in the piracy numbers. Before Netflix there were tons of alternate TV networks for free. It always comes down to ease of use, we're a lazy creature.

So how to turn the entire hentai manga industry into a profitable business in the west? You don't start by cutting your entire library, asking for huge payments (12.95$/month? You're asking for more than Netflix VIP!).

You're basically doing everything wrong, the exact opposite of what would drive people to you. What made Steam/Spotify/Netflix/Kindle work was in order of importance:

1. Ease of access
2. Cheap prices
3. Actual content (accessing a large library)

#1 will drive people away from piracy, if its easier to use your website than to pirate, people will flock to your service. That's why Steam/Spotify/Netflix worked. But that only works if the prices are cheap! People will want an easier time accessing their content, but they won't pay a large sum for it! #3 is you pay for actual content. If netflix had like 12 movies and 20 Tv shows, nobody would sub to that.

You did the exact opposite, your website is as easy to navigate as a pirated website, you ask for ridiculous prices (12.95$, holy shit, I have to mention it again), and you just culled 90% of your library!

So how can you make a proper business model? First, you'd have to make your website an even easier experience than others. You already got some of that, there is a reason Fakku got so big. #2 needs to go down to like 2.99$/month or something of the like. At your current price point, you won't live to see the end of the year. Your ads views will plummet (I am assuming subscribers don't get ads), your number of subs will maybe stick in the 100, if that, and you won't be able to license anything.


I don't understand why people think Jacob can freely choose pricing as he pleases. Let's say you make video games. You don't distribute them. You tell Valve and G2A that you want them to sell your games. Everything's great until a couple months later when your February check from G2A drops to a measly $100. But they sold units like crazy last month. What is going on? You ask G2A what happened and they tell you "Oh yeah we cut your price by 90%". They're selling like mad but your profits have become basically nothing. You ask them why and they just say "Oh, well some people thought your price was too high. So we lowered it!" ??????????????? How is this realistic?

I also don't understand why you think Jacob can just pick and choose how he's going to deal with hosting unlicensed content. There's one little thing that can happen to derail that entire plan. Jacob talks to a particular artist or someone from Wanimagazine. All they have to say is this "Nope, I don't want to work with you because you're still a piracy hub. In fact, if you continue we will have to consider legal action." That's it. Entire plan ruined.


The problem with your logic here is that you're assuming that said person/company is giving Valve or whatever distribution company the product keys for free and then coming back to collect the profits which isn't the case, company's live valve are sold the keys to the game from the publisher before valve decides to sell the product at a set price at their discretion or how ever they see fit.

It's different when it comes to selling a product like online digital books/mangas which is licensed to said company(in this case FAKKU) a portion of the subscription fee that you pay as a consumer goes to the publisher for that licensing fee and the rest is going to maintain the website and pay for salaries to the people that run the website. The price you decide on is up decided on what is ideally sustainable for the website, because you're going to have to cut out a lot of the content that is currently on the website and account for the loss if traffic because of said decision.
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I am not happy with the change, but I understand the reasoning behind it and think it will be better for the long run. However I do have one problem with the subscription: FAKKU BOOKS!!! I hate that despite the fact that I am paying 12 something a month that I can not read many "chapters" on the site because they are part of FAKKU BOOKS. Please get rid of it or remove the chapters from the site. It is so annoying when I see a chapter I want to read and it is like "you can't read this unless you buy the book." Why?!?! 12 something a month is more then other services that give you a wider and less limiting selection. Get those FAKKU BOOKS to be part of the subscription without payment!
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evolve60 wrote...
The problem with your logic here is that you're assuming that said person/company is giving Valve or whatever distribution company the product keys for free and then coming back to collect the profits which isn't the case, company's live valve are sold the keys to the game from the publisher before valve decides to sell the product at a set price at their discretion or how ever they see fit.

It's different when it comes to selling a product like online digital books/mangas which is licensed to said company(in this case FAKKU) a portion of the subscription fee that you pay as a consumer goes to the publisher for that licensing fee and the rest is going to maintain the website and pay for salaries to the people that run the website. The price you decide on is up decided on what is ideally sustainable for the website, because you're going to have to cut out a lot of the content that is currently on the website and account for the loss if traffic because of said decision.


I get what you're saying but I still don't think FAKKU can freely set the price at their own discretion. My overall point is that we don't know the terms of their partnership so who are we to judge?

And are you certain that's how it works? As far as I can tell Valve is the entity that generates and manages all the steam keys. I'm also pretty sure the publishers are also in control on whether or not their game is put on sale. Of course I'm not in the industry so I don't really know but that's what I've gathered from reading around.
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I want to ask you guys. Why did it take so long to remove all scanlations since the scanlation removal announcement?
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Lemonian wrote...
I don't have a problem with what happened, but still 2 problems.

1. I have been looking into becoming a subscriber, but as I saw on the forum at some point that they will add other ways of payments after months you guys still haven't done. I would like a paypal way of paying, since I have no creditcard.

2. I think the price is too high for some people, if there were like tiers of subscriber. What I would like to pay for it for 1 month would be around. 8-9 dollar.

Anyway, those are my thoughts and I hope for the love of god a paypal method comes.


We hope we can see it comic 18+
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FlamingMangos wrote...
I want to ask you guys. Why did it take so long to remove all scanlations since the scanlation removal announcement?


Don't know for sure but I imagine it's to compromise with the free audience. If they did it all at once without any warning this shitstorm would be 100x bigger than it already is.
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Dear Jacob,

My name is Jacob, I have been one of those lurkers who have been sitting in the back just enjoying the plethora of content that you all have given us over the years. Although I enjoyed the free content and the illegal scanlations I have also helped fund the Fakku books as well as subscribed to the website. I was completely shocked and caught off guard by the removal of a lot of my favorite comics. Although this is my own fault as I never visited the forum or saw the warning on the top of the page. From now on I will be checking out the forums and keeping an eye on how things are proceeding with the website.

I wish you all luck in this decision and I hope that one day you will have as large of a collection as you once had.

Thank you all!

Sincerely,
Jake
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I'm sure you've just lost 99% of the people who read there hentai here. Including me.
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Hey! Been coming to Fakku for several years, mostly lurked but had an account and favorites. I think it's awesome that you are making such great strides to support the artists financially and I think it's the right thing to do in the long run!

Still, as many people have said, I'm not a subscriber since $13 a month is just too high a price right now, especially when I pay monthly for other services already (Netflix, Spotify, etc.) I love buying the books: that's something I've wanted to do in the west for a long time and the quality on them is incredible! But I don't want to have to pay another large fee on top of that just to check out a chapter that's independent of a book or from a new artist who may or may not be interesting.

I'm no business major, but I was wondering: would it be possible to take an iTunes Store approach with content here? That is, if you're not a subscriber, you could buy a chapter you're interested in for $0.99? For example, there's a new artist here named Picao whose work looks awesome, but I haven't been able to check them out due to the subscription wall. But I would've gladly paid a dollar to check it out! ($2 even...) Again, I realize that this model may be impractical/not feasible in reality, but it's a thought I've had.

Again, I think you're ultimately making the right decision, and I look forward to supporting my favorite artists through the book releases! (Already placed my pre-order for Shoujou Material, can't for Pandemonium to go on sale!) All the best in 2016!
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Kaimax Best Master-San
EvilFuzzy912 wrote...

What I dislike about this decision that it seems to include fanworks as well, doujinshi made by amateur artists who love a series and want to share their love of that series via fan-comics. I understand, of course, that said doujinshi are not necessarily meant to be freely distributed online, but they are--to my admittedly loose understanding--printed in numbers strictly limited by the resources of the artist and/or circle, and generally only sold at comic conventions in Japan. Plus, since they feature copyrighted characters in materials that are almost certainly not licensed by their parent companies/copyright holders, I highly doubt that any legal, commercial English-language publishers will touch them any time soon.


Quoted for truth

Hanayome wrote...
Doujins are not fully legal in Japan. They are in a grey zone and the anime companies turn a blind eye to the whole industry.
Fakku would have to jump through a lot of legal hoops to get doujins officially brought to the west. (negotiating with animation companies, western companies who hold the licenses etc.) And even then, the animation studio can just decide to not allow you to host their stuff after X amount of time.


Also, At least Fakku needs the consent of the author/circle before keeping doujins in the site.

As of right now, there is only 1 doujin that is free to read in fakku, and that's because the author gave the consent. Threadless a Kill la Kill doujin,
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blackice85 FAKKU! Gold
ChrisBRosado123 wrote...
FlamingMangos wrote...
I want to ask you guys. Why did it take so long to remove all scanlations since the scanlation removal announcement?


Don't know for sure but I imagine it's to compromise with the free audience. If they did it all at once without any warning this shitstorm would be 100x bigger than it already is.


Heck, I'm surprised they were able to keep them up for as long as they did. They immediately removed Wani content and then were able to sign a deal with them, but Wani still tolerated their content coexisting with illegal content for over a year after that. I would have expected that Wani would have wanted them to remove all illegal content at once, but apparently they had a grace period of sorts.

Anyhow as others have said, they can't be halfway legit, either you are or you aren't. Removing unlicensed content is the only path forward.
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I have always loved fakku, great user interface, great amount of content, etc.

But now the site has taken several massive steps backward for me to enjoy it as I used to. I am all on board for licensed and legal content, but with the purge of content, especially the removal of all the doujinshis I can't really see myself visiting fakku as much as I used to.

First with the removal of "controversial content" ie) Incest etc., however many months ago that killed the majority of my favorites list, and then this purge of "unlicensed content" that killed the remainder of it. The ENTIRETY of my favorites list, gone.

I have purchased the odd book and I am all for supporting the artists, but as I said before, this whole legitimate system is too far in its infancy and content I am interested in is really lacking for it to be worth $13 USD (Huzzah for a garbage Canadian Dollar).

However I do think that there should be the option to purchase individual chapters of a book or make digital copies of the books available with the subscription, it is also frustrating to see a chapter that looks great but you can't read it unless you buy an entire book, half of the content you're not interested in.


That being said, when and if the content returns to the good old levels and subject matter I would be more inclined to pay up for a subscription but for now, it's just not worth it. As I said before, I'm not against paying a subscription fee or buying a book, in fact, I'll still check in once in a while, maybe buy the odd book, but for now it's cheers guys, maybe someday I'll return.
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Hanayome Ultimate Laziness
Concerning the books.
The thing with the books is that they're chapters from the magazine over the course of the year/years. The content on the subscription service right now might eventually be in the author's tankouban but the sub version will still be available for reading.
Sometimes the author re-edits the chapters such as Second Wife.
Since Fakku has no plans to revisit older issues of the magazines, we will have to wait until they are released in book form to read them.
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flemming94 wrote...
I'm sure you've just lost 99% of the people who read there hentai here. Including me.


If all those 99% were like this guy with no contribution at all, then its basically profit because fakku losses unproductive bandwidth. Less publicity, sure. But trash community isnt even beneficial.
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Could you possibly add guest passes or something similar to that like Crunchyroll?