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Japanese game devs face font dilemma as license increases from $380 to $20k

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Re: Japanese game devs face font dilemma as license increases from $380 to $20k

#2
What do I feel like custom font generation is one thing AI could be really good at but so far I haven’t seen anything of that sort? Seems like you could easily prompt whatever vibe you’re looking for in a font, why even bother buying commercial fonts at that point. Am I just not looking in the right places?

Re: Japanese game devs face font dilemma as license increases from $380 to $20k

#3
post #2

What do I feel like custom font generation is one thing AI could be really good at but so far I haven’t seen anything of that sort? Seems like you could easily prompt whatever vibe you’re looking for in a font, why even bother buying commercial fonts at that point. Am I just not looking in the right places?

A few hours ago, [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46127400

Re: Japanese game devs face font dilemma as license increases from $380 to $20k

#4
post #2

What do I feel like custom font generation is one thing AI could be really good at but so far I haven’t seen anything of that sort? Seems like you could easily prompt whatever vibe you’re looking for in a font, why even bother buying commercial fonts at that point. Am I just not looking in the right places?

> What do I feel like custom font generation is one thing AI could be really good at

Probably because you're wrong. Anybody can make a font, making a good font is a highly under appreciated art form.

Re: Japanese game devs face font dilemma as license increases from $380 to $20k

#5
post #2

What do I feel like custom font generation is one thing AI could be really good at but so far I haven’t seen anything of that sort? Seems like you could easily prompt whatever vibe you’re looking for in a font, why even bother buying commercial fonts at that point. Am I just not looking in the right places?

perhaps when the clocks at https://clocks.brianmoore.com/ consistently make sense, AI could make a font.

Even then, I wouldn't want it making a kanji font. Consider 感 and 惑, both of which would be taught before high school.

Re: Japanese game devs face font dilemma as license increases from $380 to $20k

#6
Are there no fonts that are open for anyone to use, like what does a Linux distribution ship? Surely those can render Japanese characters?

Maybe it's because it's a dumb question but the article doesn't really set the stage for me why it's an issue that 1 font licensing company raised its prices. I guess they must have a monopoly or else this change isn't commercially viable (the article just says "one of the country's leading font licensing services"), but even then, there ought to be open options

Re: Japanese game devs face font dilemma as license increases from $380 to $20k

#7
post #2

What do I feel like custom font generation is one thing AI could be really good at but so far I haven’t seen anything of that sort? Seems like you could easily prompt whatever vibe you’re looking for in a font, why even bother buying commercial fonts at that point. Am I just not looking in the right places?

As I understand it you can't protect the appearance of a font so imperceptible differences can be made on a copy unless you do a design patent which only lasts 15 years and isn't always done. (In the US)

It would be pretty easy to make a font generator using LLMs and visual models.

Re: Japanese game devs face font dilemma as license increases from $380 to $20k

#8
post #6

Are there no fonts that are open for anyone to use, like what does a Linux distribution ship? Surely those can render Japanese characters? Maybe it's because it's a dumb question but the article doesn't really set the stage for me why it's an issue that 1 font licensing company raised its prices. I guess they must have a monopoly or else this change isn't commercially viable (the article just says "one of the country…

There’s the unifont, but it’s not really something you’d want to ship in a game. The main focus is apparently on making sure every character is covered, not that it looks nice.

Re: Japanese game devs face font dilemma as license increases from $380 to $20k

#9
post #6

Are there no fonts that are open for anyone to use, like what does a Linux distribution ship? Surely those can render Japanese characters? Maybe it's because it's a dumb question but the article doesn't really set the stage for me why it's an issue that 1 font licensing company raised its prices. I guess they must have a monopoly or else this change isn't commercially viable (the article just says "one of the country…

When you're making a work of art (such as a game) you don't just want any old font, you want one that serves a particular aesthetic purpose.

If you've picked a typeface, and designed other UI elements that look good in conjunction with it, but suddenly that typeface becomes unaffordable, then you have to do some work to find an alternative that's still acceptable.

In particular, game UI tends to be designed around the particular dimensions (metrics) of a font's characters. So a string of text whose size is "just right" in one font might look too big or too small in another, even at the same nominal font size. And this can affect many different pieces of text throughout a game.

Re: Japanese game devs face font dilemma as license increases from $380 to $20k

#10
post #5
post #2

What do I feel like custom font generation is one thing AI could be really good at but so far I haven’t seen anything of that sort? Seems like you could easily prompt whatever vibe you’re looking for in a font, why even bother buying commercial fonts at that point. Am I just not looking in the right places?

perhaps when the clocks at https://clocks.brianmoore.com/ consistently make sense, AI could make a font. Even then, I wouldn't want it making a kanji font. Consider 感 and 惑, both of which would be taught before high school.

Wow, K2 is killing it on this for me. Three minutes have been 100% correct now.

Haiku 3.5 had a one right too. But k2 apparently is very good at html and css.

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