vanyk
Shrine Maiden
I would like to talk about another questionable topic: crowdfunding. Many Touhou fans heard about unsuccessful crowdfunding campaign(s) from the mid 10s which caused heated discussions and reaction from Team Shanghai Alice (TSA). And they also heard about recent successful crowdfunding campaigns by creators of Danmaku Kagura and The Sealed Esoteric History. These campaigns went smoothly and weren't stopped by TSA.
Since the mid 10s the attitude in Touhou community towards crowdfunding changed greatly. COVID had an additional impact which made such ideas less unthinkable. But were there any other important events? How did the attitude of TSA change? So we will talk about the history of Touhou and crowdfunding.
The first known Touhou crowdfunding campaign was conducted by Korean fans in 2014. TEAM DDS wanted to create a Touhou fangame for Bangnyeon Sonyeo Tanmagje (방년 소녀 탄막제), Korean Touhou-only doujinshi sales event. This fangame had a long history of development, but it was finished and was sold on Touhou-only sales events and the creator had gifts for sponsors. This crowdfunding campaign was nearly unknown outside of Korea, so it didn't face any problems.
The next campaign is much more well-known. GS System (American fangroup) wanted to create an English Touhou card game and they started the campaign. But Japanese fans found out about this project and some of them were not very happy about it so GS System had to contact ZUN and they had to cancel this project.
But what was ZUN's opinion about crowdfunding? He talked about Kickstarter on March 2014, and he wasn't very happy about it:
By the way, Ruw was more tolerant towards crowdfunding. Even though he criticized it, he wasn't fully against it and he used Kickstarter. So the cancellation of the previous crowdfunding campaign was mostly ZUN's idea.
And now we will move to the most well-known incident: Touhou Super Smash Battles. As you know this is a Western project to create a Touhou fighting fangame and later they decided to start the campaign, but the campaign and the behavior of the creator was criticized. Later people from Japan and later ZUN noticed it and ZUN was against it. So Ruw also was against this project and made that diagram about differences between Indie and Doujin. And after all of these they had to stop the campaign.
But at the same time another crowdfunding campaign began organized by... Sony. That was a Chinese Touhou fangame which participated in Sony's project which included crowdfunding. This project was noticed by Ruw too. But Sony's project wasn't cancelled and was later developed into The Disappearing of Gensokyo. So this can be considered as the second successful crowdfunding campaign.
After these campaigns there were not many other attempts for some time. There was a Korean campaign which couldn't raise enough money for a fangame (but there was a demo version). There was an attempt to create a Touhou beach volleyball game, which wasn't successful either. In addition, Shanghai EXE, which was gathering money via donations, was cancelled, so the idea of raising money before release (including crowdfunding) was criticized again.
But at about the same time some Touhou circles like Unlucky Morpheus and Yuuhei Satellite began to use crowdfunding for non-Touhou projects and that was a serious move. But they didn't stop. In 2019, Yuuhei Satellite, Tamaonsen and Shoujo Fractal decided to organize 東方SOS, a Touhou LIVE performance, and they raised money via crowdfunding. And it was successful. After this Shinra-Bansho, COOL＆CREATE and DiGiTAL WiNG started their campaign to create a new anthem song for Touhou arrangement and to make LIVE performances. There was also nagomix COUNTDOWN which had Touhou elements. As we can see, crowdfunding became more acceptable before COVID (even though Ruw wasn't very happy about the crowdfunding idea).
In 2020 even more campaigns were conducted. One Japanese fan wanted to make a Touhou Card Game. He tried to contact TSA to ask if that was allowed, but he didn't get any reply, so they made the game without crowdfunding (this fangame even appeared on Touhou Station). There was another Japanese fan who decided to organize an All-or-Nothing crowdfunding-like campaign for Touhou sake. And it was successful. There was also a Western crowdfunding campaign for a magazine which had Touhou arts and they even managed to get an allowance from TSA. So, if small projects can organize crowdfunding campaigns now, then bigger projects can be organized too?
One company decided to "support" Touhou. It was Y's Co., Ltd. (株式会社Y's) which used Oshitai Support Advertising and announced about that on Touhou Yomoyama News. And what did this "support" look like?
And all of these for 3500000 yen. The fact that they only collected 3% of required money shows that nearly nobody was interested in this. This project was very unsuccessful.
There were other attempts. The Great Touhou Project Exhibition, even though it was sponsored by different companies, decided to conduct a crowdfunding campaign. This one was more successful, as they gathered 64% of required money.
Both of these projects got an allowance from TSA. But they were not well-known in the West. Finally, we can move to a well-known one: Touhou Danmaku Kagura Phantasia Lost by Unknown X. As their mobile gacha service was terminated they decided to release a PC version for which they raised quite a lot of money. They also made announcements about this on Touhou Garakuta which helped them to gain even more attention.
There were also some smaller projects. A small company Glassworks MOVE (グラスワークスMOVE) decided to create anniversary Touhou glass souvenirs for EoSD and PCB. They also used Touhou Garakuta for announcements. In the West, there was a a successful campaign to make Touhou arrangements.
And there were many Korean projects. There was an unsuccessful attempt to raise money for a Touhou fangame, but there was no announcement about cancellation. There were successful projects to create Touhou metal goods. Even Houraisai raised money by crowdfunding.
We can see that crowdfunding became much more acceptable and that there was nearly no regulation. But such a situation didn't last long.
In 2024, Kyoto Fantasy Trope didn't have money to make a new episode of The Sealed Esoteric History. So they decided to conduct crowdfunding campaign(s) to raise some money. Invitation from Gensokyo (a Korean Touhou Project orchestra concert) planned to raise some money via crowdfunding too.
And it looks like this time TSA noticed how widespread Touhou crowdfunding campaigns were, so they decided to limit them. ZUN updated guidelines and added the following:
After this Kyoto Fantasy Trope got an allowance from TSA to continue the campaign. But it looks like Invitation from Gensokyo decided not to take a risk so they abandoned this idea.
But Glassworks MOVE managed to get an allowance for crowdfunding. And they published an announcement about the campaign on Touhou Garakuta.
There was also a notorious Touhou Chronicle Zero, which raised money before release. But this game was very controversial, so it was cancelled back then. It is not directly related to crowdfunding, but I think this should be mentioned too.
So as we can see the change in attitude towards crowdfunding. At first TSA and Japanese fans were against it. After the dust from the first incidents settled, some groups made new attempts at crowdfunding. Later Japanese fans became more supportive and so TSA became not against it. Campaigns became more serious and more spread and when TSA realized the scale they decided to limit it (but not to prohibit it). Still raising money before release is a questionable topic but not as unthinkable as before. For now, there are no new serious Touhou crowdfunding campaigns. But we can expect that new campaigns may be conducted in the near future when some groups would be brave enough to start new campaigns again.
Since the mid 10s the attitude in Touhou community towards crowdfunding changed greatly. COVID had an additional impact which made such ideas less unthinkable. But were there any other important events? How did the attitude of TSA change? So we will talk about the history of Touhou and crowdfunding.
The first known Touhou crowdfunding campaign was conducted by Korean fans in 2014. TEAM DDS wanted to create a Touhou fangame for Bangnyeon Sonyeo Tanmagje (방년 소녀 탄막제), Korean Touhou-only doujinshi sales event. This fangame had a long history of development, but it was finished and was sold on Touhou-only sales events and the creator had gifts for sponsors. This crowdfunding campaign was nearly unknown outside of Korea, so it didn't face any problems.
The next campaign is much more well-known. GS System (American fangroup) wanted to create an English Touhou card game and they started the campaign. But Japanese fans found out about this project and some of them were not very happy about it so GS System had to contact ZUN and they had to cancel this project.
But what was ZUN's opinion about crowdfunding? He talked about Kickstarter on March 2014, and he wasn't very happy about it:
By the way, Ruw was more tolerant towards crowdfunding. Even though he criticized it, he wasn't fully against it and he used Kickstarter. So the cancellation of the previous crowdfunding campaign was mostly ZUN's idea.
And now we will move to the most well-known incident: Touhou Super Smash Battles. As you know this is a Western project to create a Touhou fighting fangame and later they decided to start the campaign, but the campaign and the behavior of the creator was criticized. Later people from Japan and later ZUN noticed it and ZUN was against it. So Ruw also was against this project and made that diagram about differences between Indie and Doujin. And after all of these they had to stop the campaign.
But at the same time another crowdfunding campaign began organized by... Sony. That was a Chinese Touhou fangame which participated in Sony's project which included crowdfunding. This project was noticed by Ruw too. But Sony's project wasn't cancelled and was later developed into The Disappearing of Gensokyo. So this can be considered as the second successful crowdfunding campaign.
After these campaigns there were not many other attempts for some time. There was a Korean campaign which couldn't raise enough money for a fangame (but there was a demo version). There was an attempt to create a Touhou beach volleyball game, which wasn't successful either. In addition, Shanghai EXE, which was gathering money via donations, was cancelled, so the idea of raising money before release (including crowdfunding) was criticized again.
But at about the same time some Touhou circles like Unlucky Morpheus and Yuuhei Satellite began to use crowdfunding for non-Touhou projects and that was a serious move. But they didn't stop. In 2019, Yuuhei Satellite, Tamaonsen and Shoujo Fractal decided to organize 東方SOS, a Touhou LIVE performance, and they raised money via crowdfunding. And it was successful. After this Shinra-Bansho, COOL＆CREATE and DiGiTAL WiNG started their campaign to create a new anthem song for Touhou arrangement and to make LIVE performances. There was also nagomix COUNTDOWN which had Touhou elements. As we can see, crowdfunding became more acceptable before COVID (even though Ruw wasn't very happy about the crowdfunding idea).
In 2020 even more campaigns were conducted. One Japanese fan wanted to make a Touhou Card Game. He tried to contact TSA to ask if that was allowed, but he didn't get any reply, so they made the game without crowdfunding (this fangame even appeared on Touhou Station). There was another Japanese fan who decided to organize an All-or-Nothing crowdfunding-like campaign for Touhou sake. And it was successful. There was also a Western crowdfunding campaign for a magazine which had Touhou arts and they even managed to get an allowance from TSA. So, if small projects can organize crowdfunding campaigns now, then bigger projects can be organized too?
One company decided to "support" Touhou. It was Y's Co., Ltd. (株式会社Y's) which used Oshitai Support Advertising and announced about that on Touhou Yomoyama News. And what did this "support" look like?
And all of these for 3500000 yen. The fact that they only collected 3% of required money shows that nearly nobody was interested in this. This project was very unsuccessful.
There were other attempts. The Great Touhou Project Exhibition, even though it was sponsored by different companies, decided to conduct a crowdfunding campaign. This one was more successful, as they gathered 64% of required money.
Both of these projects got an allowance from TSA. But they were not well-known in the West. Finally, we can move to a well-known one: Touhou Danmaku Kagura Phantasia Lost by Unknown X. As their mobile gacha service was terminated they decided to release a PC version for which they raised quite a lot of money. They also made announcements about this on Touhou Garakuta which helped them to gain even more attention.
There were also some smaller projects. A small company Glassworks MOVE (グラスワークスMOVE) decided to create anniversary Touhou glass souvenirs for EoSD and PCB. They also used Touhou Garakuta for announcements. In the West, there was a a successful campaign to make Touhou arrangements.
And there were many Korean projects. There was an unsuccessful attempt to raise money for a Touhou fangame, but there was no announcement about cancellation. There were successful projects to create Touhou metal goods. Even Houraisai raised money by crowdfunding.
We can see that crowdfunding became much more acceptable and that there was nearly no regulation. But such a situation didn't last long.
In 2024, Kyoto Fantasy Trope didn't have money to make a new episode of The Sealed Esoteric History. So they decided to conduct crowdfunding campaign(s) to raise some money. Invitation from Gensokyo (a Korean Touhou Project orchestra concert) planned to raise some money via crowdfunding too.
And it looks like this time TSA noticed how widespread Touhou crowdfunding campaigns were, so they decided to limit them. ZUN updated guidelines and added the following:
After this Kyoto Fantasy Trope got an allowance from TSA to continue the campaign. But it looks like Invitation from Gensokyo decided not to take a risk so they abandoned this idea.
But Glassworks MOVE managed to get an allowance for crowdfunding. And they published an announcement about the campaign on Touhou Garakuta.
There was also a notorious Touhou Chronicle Zero, which raised money before release. But this game was very controversial, so it was cancelled back then. It is not directly related to crowdfunding, but I think this should be mentioned too.
So as we can see the change in attitude towards crowdfunding. At first TSA and Japanese fans were against it. After the dust from the first incidents settled, some groups made new attempts at crowdfunding. Later Japanese fans became more supportive and so TSA became not against it. Campaigns became more serious and more spread and when TSA realized the scale they decided to limit it (but not to prohibit it). Still raising money before release is a questionable topic but not as unthinkable as before. For now, there are no new serious Touhou crowdfunding campaigns. But we can expect that new campaigns may be conducted in the near future when some groups would be brave enough to start new campaigns again.
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