[Locked] FAKKU State of the Union 2016

To be fair though, Fakku was never "the biggest" in anything back then. It was simply the most well-known and friendlier site compared to the rest, with a tight-knit community.
For Numbers of uploaded manga/doujin, Fakku was never on top, there was always a bigger site elsewhere with a bigger library.
When the Upload section was still there, anything in there never beat other sites dedicated to that kind of content.
Fakku's sub/scanlation work was small compared to bigger ones.

In the past Fakku almost did everything but it was never the biggest. It even tried to do image-booru's for a while.

Nicely said. Just reminiscing over the changes this year. I didn't subscribe right away, but I have been for past few months, definitely getting my fap's worth I feel. Plus all the books are awesome. I like ProjectHentai stuff too, but just quality wise, the KS is the only thing comparable to what Fakku does every time :)

It's been a year now, lets see how things went!



Whoops! Looks like deleting 90% of the website and whoring yourself out for cash backfired. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Actually things are significantly better now! The site is more stable, our income is more stable, we have 20+ full-time employees (instead of just me), and we get to work with the artists and publishers whose comics we've been fapping to for so many years.

Now, instead of FAKKU being just another scanlation website, I get to meet my favorite artists and they say things like this


or this


See you next year when you decide to make another dumb post!

But Jacob! Apparently any hint of legitimately earning money from any point in the 'art' chain means you've sold out! And pure hits is the only metric of a site's worth! Our favorite vid makers should post more reviews for free without whining about having to eat, the devs behind our favorite indy game should work themselves sick for love, writers can give us books easily while working dreary day jobs, and you should go back to being a pirate site that offers the artists we love nadda!

Wow. I only started laughing near the end of that.

NICE!

Legally selling stuff >>>> Relying on hits and Google Ads..

Let's keep this list growing for future use on mommy's special star posters?









You don't understand! They're already paying for internet so all it's content is automatically free! kek

Dashiell, I owe you an apology for my behaviour to you before in a previous thread. I had incorrectly assumed and misunderstood what you had said.

Yeah, like 900 numbers.


Good on you. Trim your posts, but good on you. :)

Ad venue at .0025 a click vs selling stuff and subscriptions. It's kinda like someone saying a webstore need clicks to pay the bills.

Oops my bad. All sorted now. Thanks for the advice :)

>implying

Considering all of my favorites and comments were already deleted, might was well just delete my account at this point. Nice job completely glossing over the point of removing massive parts of the website. You succeeded in doing nothing but creating mass dead links, erasing personal lists, and nuking years of community interaction. If you actually cared about artists, why would you not leave all these pages up? This would allow the website to be used as a catalog of sorts for people to buy the comic from the distributor.



Dank memes bro! Yes, I definitely said that Fakku selling books and merch was bad! Like, who does that?



Amazing how many assumptions you can pull out of a simple nondescript sentence. I guess jumping to conclusions, instead of actually asking questions, is the way things swing these days, eh? Fakku had been earning money long before Jacob decided to turn it into a cash cow, and I was completely fine with it. Why? It's the methodology. Taking one of the worlds most popular scanslation sites, deleting it, and using it to sell incredibly overpriced subscriptions to see translated pictures, is not only incredibly arrogant, but mind-numbingly greedy. Despite personal philosophy that sites of this nature should be a work of passion, not of monetary gain, there are a plethora of ways to get a website funded and profitable. Donations, premium accounts, patreons, stores, etc. "Pay-to-play" websites in general have always been the most god aweful methods of not only growing a site, but even providing a service in general. You should make people want to give you money, not demand it. Fakku will just go the way of HentaiKey that way, which would already be lost to oblivion, had Zone not be there to keep them afloat. Also, your analogies don't fit here at all. You listed a bunch of types of original content creators, that is not what Fakku is. Fakku is service, purporting to be the "official" translators for various hentai. The dont make anything, sans their merch, obviously.

Tl;Dr: Making money on a site is fine. Erasing an existing one and using it's popularity to promote a paysite is shitty, and a bad idea.

Users had six months to export their favorites. While unfortunate, it was necessary to remove unlicensed content for reasons that should be obvious.


There's a big difference between running a scanlation site and a proper publishing business with employees and where every piece of content is licensed.


If you don't want the content translated, you still have to option to buy this month's magazines directly from Japan for $21.


Depends on the kind of website. I would be surprised if there are publishers/licensing companies that get by on ad revenue or donations alone. If that was actually a feasible alternative, I'm sure most businesses would go with that model, yet to my knowledge, the majority tend to chose some form of subscription service.


Not sure what you're trying to imply with the quotes, but overall that's true. However, what we do is offer an alternative to piracy, which in turn most definitely supports the original content creators. And again, if you prefer to import this content so you can read it in Japanese with censorship, you can still do that.

You do realize before FAKKU actually started playing by the rules and legally acquiring the right to the intellectual property from official sources in Japan, they were just one of many pirate sites offering content they legally did not have the right to distribute, correct?

Once FAKKU went legit, they no longer could continue to host content illegally anymore. FAKKU's business partners in Japan, like Wani, would not allow FAKKU to continue to have pirated content and continue doing legal business with FAKKU at the same time. Either FAKKU is nothing more than one of many pirate sites hosting illegally obtained content or it is a legal, for profit, business aimed at providing a revenue link between the western fanbase and the content creators and license holders in Japan. It can't be both and continue to run legally. This means FAKKU had to remove all illegally hosted content and also had to clean up the site to show business partners in Japan they were serious about dong things the right way from then out.

I, for one, am glad FAKKU made the change. Now the artists actually get something financially for our views besides kudos, and we get super high resolution, direct from the creators, images, which are fully uncensored to boot. No pirate site can offer you that, unless they are taking it directly from FAKKU and reposting it on their site.



How else is one supposed to interpret the line "whoring yourself out for cash" in the context of FAKKU switching to a legal subscription model? If FAKKU legally selling stuff versus illegally hosting stuff was not your point previously with the Alexa ranking, then what, exactly, was your point?



Maybe, just maybe, FAKKU wants to actually, you know, give something back to the artists by going legit and stop profiting from illegal means by themselves. Maybe FAKKU's goal isn't just getting as many hits as possible but actually growing legal ero manga distribution in the west. FAKKU going legit is a win-win for both artists and FAKKU alike. Being a pirate site only benefits FAKKU directly, and at the expense of the content creator getting paid anything for viewership of their content.

As far as I know, HentaiKey is an illegal operation hosting content they don't legally have permission to have from the content creators. Any money they make goes to line their own coffers and doesn't give back to the ones who made the content. Supporting that is supporting someone profiting off of another person's hard work and efforts. The original content creators listed above are all ones FAKKU is working with to legally bring their content to the west. I imagine FAKKU pays them a licensing fee to do so as well. They are all thrilled to have a legal way to gain viewership and revenue abroad through FAKKU's efforts. That's something the pirate sites can't do.

FAKKU being a service and not a content creator itself has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Not sure why you even wasted time typing that tbh. The bottom line is FAKKU's service both works with and supports the artists, while other "services" out there don't. FAKKU also does indeed make original translations for works hosted on the site now, as well as employs several people to work on making English typeset graphics for the works. FAKKU is indeed official, in that they actually, you know, legally work with the content creators and pay to license their content for distribution in English. Also, they do make things, like the English translated tankobon books and some doujinshi. While they do not create the original content, they do create the officially licensed English equivalent in both print and digital format with legal permission from the creator.

Yeah, I get it. FAKKU was previously a pirate site and profited from illegally hosting the content then, making them look hypocritical now that they are legit. That said, I applaud FAKKU for realizing the error of their ways and going the legal route now. They can use their ill-gotten brand to actually affect positive change and grow legal, artist supporting, ero manga distribution outside of Japan. That's a lot nobler aim in my view than continuing down the pirate path, never giving back to the artists, and being a petulant child who feels entitled to things they don't own for free because internet.

Note that you can still, even now, export your favorites and get the full list including the deleted content, if you wish to look them up elsewhere.

I accept.
Out of context it might seen that way.








Your post is implying a lot.
You don't know how legal publishing work.
You don't know how to make company that doesn't go bankrupt within month.
You don't have mirror in your house so you can't self reflect.



Pirated part of the website which had to go because stealing content while hosting legal content looks bad for partners, you have no idea how close are ties of everyone within business segment. It doesn't matter they they're competing ie if your company tried to fuck over BMW all other car makers and their sub companies would know it. It's goddamn miracle that Wani agreed (for anything to begin with) for slow transition.




Yeah sure they like to see that first google result is to their pirated works. /facepalm
Fakku IS distributor, they can only sell what they have contract for and leaving link to buy from someone else would not only not bring any profit since you most definitely mean directly from Wani, it's worthless for us too because we don't need collection of butchered by shitty censorship law works in unreadable moon runes.



You're implying it with your post, buy that mirror already.



Amazing how you can assume that Fakku managed to make money with ads in era of adblock (anyone not using it is just stupid, javascript and flash are 2 most vulnerable parts of web browsing). For all we know Jacob could as well keep Fakku alive out of his pocket without asking users for money.


"Fuck legal business, fuck artist and publishers in Japan I want free shit!" Yeah you sound entitled.
Fakku subscription is at constant 12,95$ (10$ + payment processor fees) which makes it one of cheapest out there, all other porn sites only give you 10$ if you subscribe for 12 months at once, 30$ for single month which makes trying out extremely expensive.
Translated, never censored and in quality straight from source, goddamn scam!


Suuure kid, paying contract to Wanimagazines and tankoubon's artists, employees and server surely can be covered by passion. Oh wait you mean pirate websites that steal shit and publish it for free... /facepalm
No legal business works on donations.


Fucking shops demanding money man, they should just have everything free while few people are walking around collecting donation.
Fucking Steam not giving away games for free.
Fucking public transport asking for tickets for money.
Fucking iTunes (actually...) not giving music for free.


Hard to go that way when you're legal company rather than trying to sell pirated content available elsewhere.



Hey mister brick head, if you didn't notice yet I will spill it out for you, these tweets that went over your head in previous posts are these artists that you like to fuck over with your shitty suggestions advertising or commenting on their releases on Fakku so your shitty implying with quotation mark is worthless but you're too fucking dense to notice it.


Like no one done that before, it's easier to keep current brand and use it for new stuff than selling/freeing it and get Atari.

Thanks that's what I already do, however, I don't pay that much. Buying mags separately

just makes you pay for shipping unnecessarily. My gripe was not about translations, it

was about the price. A 1 year subscription to Fakku is more expensive then a 1 year

subscription to Brazzers, who is far larger, and is a original content creator. A wee

bit absurd. Also the fact that they have no free/trial section, asking people so

blindly jump into a subscription without knowing what they're even going to get.


You are acting like Fakku is a major publisher/licensing company. They aren't. Nearly

every single small/indie team gets by on alternative methods these days. Look at

Breeding Season, they raked in nearly a million dollars over the course of making

their game, simply with patreon. Gelbooru and swfchan went the same route and are

doing fine. Not saying crowdfunding is the only method, but acting like forced

subscriptions are the only way, isn't the best way to look at this situation.


Hardly. You have no parody material now. At all. I said "official" as you now feel the

need to completely ignore all comics and artists that make parody works, simply

because it is technically illegal in Japan for them to be sold. This literally means

that by buying a Fakku subscription, I would be doing less then I already am to support

the artists that I like, as I wouldn't even be supporting them at all.



Yes, I do. If I wasn't clear enough, I was not talking about leaving the actual comics

up, as I understand why they could not legally do that in their new contracts, I was

talking about leaving the information pages themselves up.



Like I said before, locking an entire website to charge upwards of $156 for a year

subscription is not simply "switching to a legal model", it is extremely excessive.


You sure like to treat Fakku a lot like a saint, toiling to give back to those

creators who gave to it. Sure is a shame that Fakku doesn't treat it's users with the

same grace. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. As far as HentaiKey goes, I don't give a shit. I used them as

an example, because Fakku is using the same model as they are now for revenue, and HK

is a sinking ship. And Fakku being a service and not a content creator has absolutely

nothing to do with anything? Are you serious, or only ironically acting ignorant?

Fakku does not own any of the digital works they post on the site. This makes all the

difference in the world. The way they run, and charge for the site serves to suggest

otherwise, and this is the issue. What i'm curious about is why you wasted time

typing out half of the things you did in your post. The tangents you ran off in dealt

with subjects I was not even talking about. When I say "making money on a site is

fine", and then proceed to talk about being "entitled to things they don't own for

free because internet", you sound like a utter moron. There are literally hundreds of

free hentai sites out there, I could have cared less if Fakku deleted itself last year.

Fakku changing does not affect one's ability to get this material in the slightest. I

was happy that Fakku decided to work with the original artists to get uncensored works

to the US, and money to the creators. What I am not happy with is how they handled it,

and that is the entire point of this post.



It is banally obvious that I was referring to Jacob's implications.
Keep those ad-homs coming, kid. :^)


Refer to my first response to エロカワ. Apparently "webpage" and "entire hentai comic" mean the same thing now. I never suggested leaving the comics themselves there. English r hard!


Buy that dictionary already. A phonics book too. You seem to not know how to use tenses correctly. ;^)


>Literally jumps to conclusions, puts words in my mouth, and is doing exactly what I was criticizing before.
Wew lad, the memes write themselves these days.


How many times does it need to be said to get it through your thick skull? That isn't what Im saying, as much as childish, argumentative types like you would want it to be. And please stop talking out of your ass. PornHub Premium costs a low as $7.99 a month for a year. Reality Kings is $9.95 a month. You want a site like Fakku? Filthy Figments costs $89.99 for a year, and they produce OC. They also all have different payment lengths for deals, and trials, all of which Fakku threw by the wayside.


"...premium accounts, patreons, stores, etc." Are you blind, or can you not read? I have said time and time again that I support suporting artists by selling their works in book form or with premium accounts.


Did you just come here to bitch, instead of attempting to add any value to the conversation? None of those things are like a paysite in the slightest. Feel free to continue complaining about arguments that were not made. Makes for a good laugh.



Awww, that's a cute little temper tantrum you had there. :) More salty ad-homs! Nice job answering nothing. Also, it's spell*


Bandwagoning is not an argument. Yes, it is easier to keep a brand, and that's is exactly why I called it shitty. They are using their ill-gotten popularity to bolster their new model.

That's the retail price for the magazines without any shipping. If you pay considerably less, I doubt you're buying these magazines. This month the subscription is $13 (or $10 if you took advantage of the December discount) for $21 worth of content before any import fees or localization. A one-month subscription to Brazzers is $30 from what I can tell, so I don't really see your point. I also think the production of real life porn and hentai publishing is far too different to make any worthwhile comparison.



We were a sponsor at Anime Expo 2016 along with companies such as Crunchyroll and Square Enix, and we recently became a corporate member of the CBLDF, so pretending like Fakku is a small indie team is a bit silly. Breeding Season ran a crowdfunding campaign for one game, which again is completely different from what we're doing (that also didn't end too well). And comparing licensing and localizing manga to running a booru site is frankly a ridiculous thing to do. If you read the Patreon page for Gelbooru, it even says they're not making enough from ads/donations to pay (what sounds like) their one part-time employee other than the admin. By contrast, we have dozens of full-time employees and are constantly growing the staff. All your comparisons are very unfair/naive.



That seems completely irrelevant to the topic at hand (us supporting content creators), but very well. Yes, there are a lot of creators out there that aren't on Fakku yet, and it's highly unlikely that one company can ever cover the localization of the entire Japanese market. However, this is just the same flawed argument I've seen countless times before: "I'm not interested in the content so the service is bad." That simply means it's not a service for you (at this point in time), but for someone who wants to read the biggest and most popular Japanese ero manga magazines uncensored and in English, a subscription has a lot of value to it.

Honestly, you seem to be operating under a lot of misconceptions. I think it's fair to say you're determined that the service isn't for you, and that's fine. You're not accomplishing much by coming here with the sole intention of agitating others, and it just comes off as childish.

Ps: I didn't read the rest of your post where you replied to other users.

Given FAKKU's option to C&D or go legit, I see nothing wrong with them choosing a sub model. If they are to succeed with the Wani deal, they need a steady stream of revenue at the onset and the most reliable way to get that is subs. From what I can gather Jacob gave everyone a decent amount of time notice things were to change, but did not post a sticky to it on the main page or something. I can see how some may be upset over such a seemingly abrupt change, but then again, the site was not exactly all that legal to begin with, so it's kind of hard to feel any sympathy for people losing one of many pirate options out there.

As to it being excessive, I don't mind the current price point for what we get. I do wish Jacob will consider discounts for longer sub terms, like 5%, 10%, and 20% off for subbing 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months, respectively. As well as if he would consider a loyalty program for store discounts, with like fap points or something.



I don't think FAKKU is saintly or righteous, far from it, but I do think it is our best bet to get a legal distribution channel open with content makers in Japan. This change is a first step in that direction, and there will always be growing pains with such a drastic change. One only need look at Crunchyroll to see how going from dark side to legit isn't easy but can work out well in the long run. CR is far from perfect, too, but it has amassed a steady increase in subscribers over the years, to the tune of 750,000 now as compared to only 250,000 just a few years ago. I think CR's success can be translated to FAKKU, just on a smaller scale because it is adult material and more niche than anime, which is already niche. The key with this model is showing their license partners in Japan it is a viable way of distributing their works. From what I can see thus far, FAKKU is having success in getting subs and selling books. Otherwise, they wouldn't continue to sign new artists month after month, as they would not want to do business with FAKKU if they were failing.




HK isn't comparable with FAKKU for two reasons. 1. They don't legally pay a license fee from an actual license holder in Japan for content, they just fucking take it for free without consent. 2. FAKKU seems to actually be doing fine with the sub model based on a steady amount of partnerships with new artists.

I don't see any signs FAKKU is a sinking ship at this point, far from it.




Again, it is meaningless whether FAKKU makes its own stuff or not. That $12.95 a month has to be split up between FAKKU (its employees, operating costs, licensing fees, overhead, etc...), the publishers they work with, and the content creators. If anything, FAKKU producing the content would save them money and lower costs, not raise them. Bear in mind, the audience for this type of content is limited due to its niche appeal. Unlike CR which has more mainstream stuff, i.e. not only adult content, FAKKU has to make up for that with a higher overall cost for subs per month, especially as it grows.




And yet, strangely enough, here you are...




Posting the Alexa ranking and implying lower site traffic means anything in terms of FAKKU's strategy backfiring sure is a strange way to voice any valid concern, no?

If you just wanted to tell Jacob what he could do to improve things and get you to sign on board, then that was a pretty passive aggressive and poorly thought out way of conveying things. A constructive description of what FAKKU does wrong in your view followed by suggestions to improve would probably be a better way of going about it if your goal was to affect positive changes.



You are comparing apples and oranges here. Porn sites with mainstream live actors and videos are quite the different animal than a niche thing like manga from Japan, and ero manga at that. The markets for each, while sharing some tiny overlap, are quite different. Porn sites like the ones you mention have much, much larger markets to draw subs from and can afford to charge less for subs, especially if they make their own content. You can maybe compare FAKKU with JAV HD, which licenses content from Japan, for a better analogy. Its prices are about the same, with the only difference really being discounts offered on the longer sub lengths, which is something I hope FAKKU can offer later, too. Again, though, that's live action porn and videos, so it is hard to even compare them from that standpoint.