Is Hirameki going bankrupt or what?

[nhat]

I just bought a few visual novels from them recently (hourglass of summer, Ever 17, Inferno and a few others if anyone cares) I noticed that their site hasn't been update for months and their message board been done for a while.

Seriously it would suck if they went bankrupt and left because they are the only company that brings non-ero games over here. Anyone knows what's going on with them lately?

Seriously it would suck if they went bankrupt and left because they are the only company that brings non-ero games over here. Anyone knows what's going on with them lately?

0. Their site wasn't updated since the Febrary of 2007th.
1. Their board was attacked by torrent spammers at the June-July of 2007th. The board was recovered.
2. Their board was attacked by torrent spammers at the September of 2007th again. Currently their board is "in maintenance mode", which means "totally dead".

I'm starting to think that they'll close soon as well (if that's not happened already), unfortunately. :(

To tell you the truth, IMHO their releases weren't the AAA class but A- (outdated titles, several ridiculous mistypes (remember "Massage History" gag from Ever17) and random crash-to-desktop).

But, not in the least, they were a good & sensible translators. :|

Well I purchased a title from them only to find out that any nudity scenes the original had were removed. So what do they expect? The games were not really children type games.. than they removed any adult content their games had.. of course they would fail.. Not very bright in their marketing.

[The One Freeman]

Blasted spammers, ruining good things! >.<

[mutio]

Well, the problem is that
a) removing the h-scenes can bring the games to a wider audience, however it can also turn off people
b) this is the biggest problem. The japanese companies want ridicously high license fees for their games since there live in their "own world" (visual novels/ eroges are well sold in Japan) and don't understand that the interesting party in the western world is much much smaller.
In the end Hirameki just cannot afford getting rights for the real hits (Kanon, Fate/ stay night or just all the new visual novels, I personaly would love to see Otoboku in english). And those older titles, well most of them aren't something special. So here's the problem.

[KaioShin]

Another problem, especially in the beginning:

The animeplay format is horrible. If they get back into gears I really hope they'll release the games as they were on the PC and not in some horribly clunky DVD format that needs passwords for saving progress >_>

And I'd appreciate the option to get versions of the games with h-scenes. They can remove them, as long as a untouched version is available too. That way they won't scare off anyone, those who stay away from h and those who want it. Maybe making different versions of one game is also a licensing issue, I don't know.

I wouldn't bet on a comeback though. How can a company operate for a year without income? I doubt they sold stuff from their backlog that much. If they want to stay in business they need somethinh new. It's propably too late.

Well, at least the other company tries harder to get more non-sexfest games now too, so it's not the end of the world yet.

[rg4619]

According to JAST USA, story-based titles don't sell well, so I'm not sure if ero content would've helped in a big way. American consumers either choose to go all the way (hardcore porn game) or to go without.

This isn't stopping them from experimenting with stuff like Snow Sakura and Yume Miru Kusuri (a middle ground). After all, Kana sold well for G-Collections due to word of mouth response (and the pseudo-incest emphasis), but they've made it clear that they're skeptical about sales potential.

this is the biggest problem. The japanese companies want ridicously high license fees for their games since there live in their "own world" (visual novels/ eroges are well sold in Japan) and don't understand that the interesting party in the western world is much much smaller.
In the end Hirameki just cannot afford getting rights for the real hits (Kanon, Fate/ stay night or just all the new visual novels, I personaly would love to see Otoboku in english). And those older titles, well most of them aren't something special. So here's the problem.

Yep. Due to these issues, Hirameki stopped chasing high-profile games, opting to work with less established developers (as well as KID).

Some other companies are interested in English localizations. There's CIRCUS (who promises to work out reasonable licensing fees and who is interested in all-ages releases) and possibly 0verflow. Maybe even Nekoneko Soft if someone were to ask. However, it seems that no one from the western side is interested in talking.

[GreatSaintLouis]

Originally Posted by rg4619

According to JAST USA, story-based titles don't sell well

Maybe if JAST's "story-based" titles weren't such crap they'd find feel differently--Yume Miru Kusuri cannot make up for JAST's entire back catalog on its own.

Am I missing something? I don't think any of Hirameki's well known titles (Ever 17, Phantom of Inferno, Hourglass of Summer come to mind) had anything chopped off.

[rg4619]

Am I missing something? I don't think any of Hirameki's well known titles (Ever 17, Phantom of Inferno, Hourglass of Summer come to mind) had anything chopped off.

Digiturbo/Nitroplus removed the ero scenes from Phantom of Inferno when they made the DVD-PG. However, Ever17 and Hourglass of Summer were all-ages releases to begin with.

[quote=kouryuu;36882]Actually, you lose for proving Godwin's Law. [QUOTE]

Yeah I hate it when people reference Hitler, that bastard. I used to idolize him until I found out HE was a dirty Jew. Can you believe that? I grew out of that stage anyways. Now I only hate black "people." All you damn arabs remember that!

[Nanatuha]

Many DVD-PG game published in Japan is changed to non x-rated. I guess Hirameki Int is not the company to be blamed for even if the modification messed up titles. Maybe but for their decision which they chose.

Originally Posted by mutio

this is the biggest problem. The japanese companies want ridicously high license fees for their games since there live in their "own world" (visual novels/ eroges are well sold in Japan) and don't understand that the interesting party in the western world is much much smaller.

I think it's a matter of vise versa. An untranslated English game with Japanese manual is sold here 8800Yen(about $80) which I can buy $20 at any US retail store. It seems there's certain demand even with such price, and the price is probably necessary to make profit enough. It's all depends on how thier consumer thinks :P

Originally Posted by mutio

I personaly would love to see Otoboku in english

I wonder if Himeya-soft has completely lost the will to deal with English market with their own title, even as a license holder? Otoboku is their property.

[nhat]

I looked at other VN publishers but all of them have ero content in them, so far Hirameki is the only publisher that doesn't have ero in all their games which I want because 1. I perfer a good VN with a good story and not have a ero scene popped up and 2. Show it to friends and family that might be interested in VN.

[nhat]

Originally Posted by dsp2003

0. Their site wasn't updated since the Febrary of 2007th.
1. Their board was attacked by torrent spammers at the June-July of 2007th. The board was recovered.
2. Their board was attacked by torrent spammers at the September of 2007th again. Currently their board is "in maintenance mode", which means "totally dead".

I'm starting to think that they'll close soon as well (if that's not happened already), unfortunately. :(

To tell you the truth, IMHO their releases weren't the AAA class but A- (outdated titles, several ridiculous mistypes (remember "Massage History" gag from Ever17) and random crash-to-desktop).

But, not in the least, they were a good & sensible translators. :|

Wait, is there a reason why spammers were attacking such a small company? That is so cruel.

Originally Posted by nhat

Wait, is there a reason why spammers were attacking such a small company? That is so cruel.

They're losers. You know peoples like SA and such that likes to troll and annoy any person they dislike.
However, what they did obviously was useless as it is well known that most peoples who'd buy the game wouldn't go as low as doing what you know.