Weissvulf's post about how to buy SOM

[Holy_Diver]

You shouldn't worry about that. There are trade laws about selling software directly outside your own country. You can of course import Som (equivalent to buying it while in Japan / taking it home) and for what it's worth the agreement on the additional downloads homepage has like 3 clauses specifically about Ireland which would not be there/make any sense if Som was somehow "illegal" that way.

I did not expect From to still have/be selling copies of Som. In theory someone in Japan could purchase a few copies and turn around and sell them to whoever wants them.

[dmpdesign]

If you want to get a definitive answer, find a copyright lawyer and have them investigate the law for you.

[coffee]

Madison-San,

I am one of people who look forward to your new work.
The thing described as follows is my personal interpretation, and does not have the intention of restraining someone.

-----

In Japan, SoM is not annulled software but a present sales commodity.
FROM-SOFTWARE sells it directly by the mail order, though it is not sold in the shop.
Therefore, everyone the living in Japan can obtain a formal package of SoM with the new article in a constant price. (7000YEN)

FROM-SOFTWARE does not send out to foreign countries.
But they do not worry who buys.
Even if a buyer ships it to overseas, they do not care.
Even if an overseas man receives and uses it, they do not care.

They care about these.
The payment method "Cash on delivery".
SoM is only supported Win95/98 (in fact, that is not supported).
They send it only to Japan to use "Cash on delivery".

It is a fact above.
It is my guess as follows.

FROM-SOFTWARE will not worry even if the customize tool developed, and even if someone does reverse engineering SoM.
Because it does not bring FROM-SOFTWARE the disadvantage.

I think that FROM-SOFTWARE does severe correspondence when the illegal copy of SoM appear in Japan.
I do not know how they correspond in other countries.

[Holy_Diver]

Coffee, do you know how From' originally went about distributing Som?

If it was only sold by mail order. Maybe that is one reason it was not more popular

[coffee]

SoM was sold at a PC game shop for the first a few years.
It seems that the shop still had stock till in 2005.
I think It seems that however, there were not many buyers.
that most owners bought SoM in the time.

Although people with PC began to increase in number in Japan around in 2000,
it had not spread through ordinary homes yet.
All KF fans were PlayStation users, and the PC user was rare.
Even if someone had PC, it was the low spec PC for office work mostly.
(2MB VGA etc...)
All the owners of the high spec PC were only playing EROGE.
Therefore, SoM did not sell much in Japan.

Maybe FROM-SOFTWARE abolished the development section of PC game, because SoM did not sell.
I thinks that it is a reason that even the extremely simple bug is not revised.

SoM which can be purchased at FROM-SOFTWARE is the dead stock which was not able to be got order.
They want to part with the stock, but do not intend to support it.
"Selling only to the person who understood the situation" is their intention.

[Holy_Diver]

7000? seems a bit "high dollar" for out of print overstock. I suppose dealing with people on an individual basis has it's premium.

Can you still find the "game" in the odd store? Any idea how many original copies remain?

[coffee]

The following charges are included in 7000 yen.
* SoM main body
* Consumption tax
* Shipping fee
* Cash-on-delivery charge

The main body of SoM is around 5900 yen when I calculate.
This is the cheaper one as a PC game.
By the way, a formal price of SoM is 9280 yen.
The person who had bought it in the shop paid 9744 yen for the main body and the consumption tax.
I do not think that it is a price that can be readily bought.

Do you mean "game" is SoM?
Actually, I looked for second-hand goods of SoM in Akihabara last year.
However, new/second-hand article of SoM were not found to me.
Although I also looked for the Web shop, it was not found at the shop in Japan at least.
If you want for SoM to come to hand at a low price, an auction must be checked briskly.