The Whole Story of TSSB and ZUN - partial transcript

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kgP_2oQ9Vs

[skip]

6:09
We tweeted the story to ZUN and his friends as a link on the Twitter feed.
06:13
It was then that we finally received an email from his copyright team Shanghai Alice through Mr. Fumio Oyamada, on January 16, 6pm.
06:22
He explained, while Shanghai Alice's copyright term stated that, though it is not technically written in policy, crowdfunding is not recognized as a valid mean to support a project because it is an investment, and those investment methods are not tolerated.
06:33
At the end of the email, there was a plea that translated to: Using all of your own abilities, PLEASE create the game.

06:39
It sounded like he was cool with everything as long as we make it all within our own abilities.
06:44
The only restriction was crowdfunding, and we are completely fine with halting the campaign in respect with ZUN's opinion, regardless of legality.
06:50
The only thing he doesn't like about the crowdfunding is that it seems "backwards" in the sense that money is made before the project is done.
06:57
So it seems as long as money doesn't appear till after the project is made, it should be safe for distribution on a doujin site.

07:02
Continuing along this thought process, we ARE a registered doujin circle, and it is completely within our own ability to put a game onto the WiiU.
07:11
Also, it specifically states in ZUN's policy that you are not allowed to distribute Touhou games through websites that are primarily used by foreigners.
07:20
So, as of now, the closest outlet we know that is used mostly by Japanese, but also used by many foreigners, is the WiiU e-shop.
07:28
My Japanese friends, including my father, read the email and told me that it seems pretty safe to translate the last part as:
07:35
You can do whatever you want, just do it yourself and without crowdfunding.
07:39
So you don't need to send another email asking specific questions.

07:44
However, I knew that FromSoySauce could not make any more assumptions after reading it.
07:49
Shade started typing up a reply saying thank you very much for your email, and affirming that we will cease the campaign as we started(?) from the very beginning.
07:57
At the very end, I asked one final question very clearly, inquiring whether or not we could distribute the game on the WiiU e-shop, and awaited their response.
08:05
You can view exactly what I said in the email below on January 17.

08:09
Dear Mr. Fumio Oyamada of Team Shanghai Alice.
08:13
Japanese is fine, so please do not worry.
08:15
It's a pleasure to meet you, and thank you so much for responding so quickly.
08:19
My name is Kunihiko Higuchi of the FSS team.
08:22
We completely understand and respect your decision, and will cancel the funding of the campaign.
08:27
We have one final question regarding copyrights to ensure that FSS will cause no more troubles.
08:32
There are fan Touhou games being sold on the mobile app store and the Sony PlayStation network right now.
08:39
Once Touhou Smash is complete, will ZUN allow FSS to sell the game through the WiiU e-shop?
08:45
Again, thank you so much for your quick and clear response.
08:49
Kevin Kunihiko Higuchi, FromSoySauce

08:52
The next morning, we discovered they responded with a follow-up email quickly after, saying they did not acknowledge our pledge to cancel the IndieGoGo campaign.
08:59
They said that in terms of fangame, Touhou copyright is not a problem.
09:04
It is simply a matter of ZUN talking with the original author the following game.
09:09
The WiiU, Amazon, and Steam: Not acceptable selling areas according to ZUN.
09:13
In regard to the PlayStation network in Japan, SCE and ZUN have a mutual agreement, but releasing Touhou on the WiiU is a matter between ZUN and Nintendo alone.
09:22
That is all. Best Regards,

09:25
And that leads us to today. So for those of you wondering whether or not this project has been approved:
09:30
YES, Team Shanghai Alice themselves have told us to PLEASE use everything within our own abilities--
09:35
except for the WiiU, Steam, Amazon, and any website primarily used by gaijins, and crowdfunding.
09:40
That’s quite a lot of no’s, but the biggest thing is that they gave us the important yes, the game has the clear(?) to fly, and that’s what it’s gonna do.
09:47
Now, priority one is to get the money back to you.
09:49
Despite our efforts looking and looking, we cannot find the feature on IndieGoGo that lets us officially cancel the campaign.
09:54
But we will do our best to do what we can, even if it means reimbursing each contributor one at a time.
09:59
What we can do is change the title of the campaign, letting everyone viewing know that it has been discontinued and is no longer accepting donations.
10:06
Simultaneously, all the contributors will be emailed and informed on the campaign’s status.
10:11
There, we will say the campaign has been discontinued and all donations will be reimbursed when IndieGoGo gives us access to the funds, 15 days after the campaign is over.

[skip]

11:23
But hopefully this may(?) I could financially support myself that way.
11:27
I’ll be taking a break from college. This should allow me to put more time into animation, since we are forbidden from hiring animators.
11:33
I’ll...continue to make music.
11:35
As for the game itself, the recent events mean we need to factor(?) a new plan.
11:40
First off, we’ve already released the beta of the demo. The real demo will feature Tenshi.
11:43
After that, we’ll start to restylize the graphics.
11:45
We’ve read all the comments, and the game will be taking in anime style art from then on.
11:50
Second, there will be a demo featuring 4 playable characters afterwards.

[skip]

13:00
So if there’s anything to be learned from our mistakes, if you have any questions for ZUN, try not to email him using the address on his site.
13:08
We learned too late, and many people started to tell us that he apparently virtually never emails anyone.
13:13
He handles everyone through Mr. Fumio Oyamada.
13:16
But more important than that, try not to use email so much as Twitter.

13:20
Now, we know FromSoySauce has caused quite a controversy.
13:24
That was never our intention. We are sorry for any trouble that it has caused.
13:30
We honestly just love Smash Bros. and love Touhou and thought it’d be cool and wanted it to be the biggest and the best game it could be.
13:40
We guarantee that everyone who wants their money back is going to get refunded.
13:44
If you don’t get your money back, I’ll pay you personally from my pocket.
13:48
We wanted to give special thanks to every one of our supporters and subscribers for being there for us, telling us warm things in the midst of all the chaos.
13:56
You guys are the reason the channel still exists, and I can’t wait to show you what other games and tutorials we have planned for you in the future.
14:02
So again, to everyone who supported us, thank you.
14:07
Sorry to everyone we caused trouble for. We tried our best to follow all the rules.
14:12
But I guess stuff just happens sometimes.
14:15
This is FromSoySauce, out.