Inexpensive ideas to promote visual novels in the West

[Moogy]

Originally Posted by Magedark

And Hirameki titles had Ero in them? I haven't heard of such a thing!

No, none of Hirameki's titles had ero. They did license a few eroge, but they bowdlerized them to hell and back before actually releasing them - Majo no Ocha Kai and Ishika and Honori fall under this category. They were terrible games to begin with anyway, though.

The best way to market eroge in the west is to have one of Atlus, XSEED, Aksys, NISA, etc. license a big-name title and release it with a lot of hype. Which, obviously, won't happen.

[Ojamajo_LimePie]

Originally Posted by fujifruit

In a way they are look at it this way

Video game you click buttons

Visual novel you click buttons to go to the next sentence

All you do in a video game is click a button

In a visual novel you click and read so your doing both in a visual novel.

I see your point tho XP

So the Kindle e-reader is a video game since you click a button to go to the next page?

[fujifruit]

Originally Posted by Ojamajo_LimePie

So the Kindle e-reader is a video game since you click a button to go to the next page?

Kinda O-o.... if you have fun with it :D.

[Cosign]

Originally Posted by Moogy

The best way to market eroge in the west is to have one of Atlus, XSEED, Aksys, NISA, etc. license a big-name title and release it with a lot of hype. Which, obviously, won't happen.

NISA did give us Disgaea Infinite. I guess you could call that a big-name title sans hype.

Originally Posted by dsp2003

E17 PSP port sucks (especially after they've replaced both opening and ending - those monkeys from Cyberfront has no taste).

Ojamajo_LimePie, actually I was talking this long time ago - neither of VNs without actual gameplay should be called "games", but nobody's listening... -_-

Intentional misrepresenting of the interactive books as games is the most significant mistake of the current VN publishers - ask gamers to read, when they'd better sit and watch for hurr durr supah movie blockbuster cutscenes mixed with action gameplay (helloooooo, BioWare).

I feel Visual Novels are kind of stuck between games and books.

People who like games say "Too much reading, it's too boring", people who literature say say "Not proper literature!". I really don't know what to call them or who to target them to.

NISA did give us Disgaea Infinite. I guess you could call that a big-name title sans hype.

It will never be ported to PC, so who cares? Just if you don't know, people who bought PC won't buy another device just to play games or read VNs, so they will never find out about the "hype". Unfortunately for the publishers, they are targeting the wrong audithory.

Huge corporations like Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and Apple want to control us and tell us what to play in which region -- that WON'T work with people who have a brain strong enough to ignore their "law" and use emulator to play on PC (at least for the reversed platforms).

[fujifruit]

Originally Posted by dsp2003

It will never be ported to PC, so who cares? Just if you don't know, people who bought PC won't buy another device just to play games or read VNs, so they will never find out about the "hype". Unfortunately for the publishers, they are targeting the wrong audithory.

Huge corporations like Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and Apple want to control us and tell us what to play in which region -- that WON'T work with people who have a brain strong enough to ignore their "law" and use emulator to play on PC (at least for the reversed platforms).

I bought my Xbox just to play halo :0...

One thing I don't understand how something so popular in Japan can be so unpopular everywhere else..

[Vatina]

Originally Posted by dsp2003

It will never be ported to PC, so who cares? Just if you don't know, people who bought PC won't buy another device just to play games or read VNs, so they will never find out about the "hype". Unfortunately for the publishers, they are targeting the wrong audithory.

Huge corporations like Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and Apple want to control us and tell us what to play in which region -- that WON'T work with people who have a brain strong enough to ignore their "law" and use emulator to play on PC (at least for the reversed platforms).

PSP is region free though. I like it partly for the large amount of visual novels released for it.

[Asceai]

Originally Posted by Vatina

PSP is region free though. I like it partly for the large amount of visual novels released for it.

SECOND NOVEL, SECOND NOVEL

[drmchsr0]

Originally Posted by dsp2003

It will never be ported to PC, so who cares? Just if you don't know, people who bought PC won't buy another device just to play games or read VNs, so they will never find out about the "hype". Unfortunately for the publishers, they are targeting the wrong audithory.

Huge corporations like Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and Apple want to control us and tell us what to play in which region -- that WON'T work with people who have a brain strong enough to ignore their "law" and use emulator to play on PC (at least for the reversed platforms).

First of all, out of all the companies you listed, only Apple is trying to dictate what we are trying to play, read, and use on Apple products (and in some cases, ONLY on Apple products), and eventually, the rest of the world. Steve Jobs is a dick like that.

Secondly, region coding isn't an attempt on trying to curb what we are trying to play (considering that this is the Internet Age and there's a ton of ways to waste your time without having to resort to downloading eroge and the like), but a misguided attempt to make more money. (The DS and PSP are region free, and I do believe the PS3 is, but PS3 has no games trololololololololol)

Thirdly, a man who is willing to oppose the law will do so anyway. You don't need a brain for that, just being wilful and thickheaded is more than enough. And I'm not even deigning to enter the theological argument.

Fourthly (and this is directed to Moogy as well), if you want Disgaea Infinite or VNs to get popular, the best thing to do is to buy the game and tell everyone how wonderful the game is. Because that is how the corporation thinks. If everyone bought a copy of the game, then they'd consider porting it to other platforms. Use the market forces to your advantage and start making a difference today. It's only a small door that is being opened, but we all should boldly enter that door.

We live in an age where we can disseminate information relatively freely via the Internet. Twitter, Facebook (LOL), blogging, Youtube et al are not just mere conveniences, but are tools to help us all.

But hey, if you want to justify downloading by trying to emplace some form of misguided morals to it or pretend to not notice that your actions WILL harm society, then it's fine by me. It's your life, and quite frankly, I can only just rail at people, being only stupid bits transmitted via electrical impulses.

[Asceai]

Originally Posted by drmchsr0

(considering that this is the Internet Age and there's a ton of ways to waste your time without having to resort to downloading eroge and the like)

Originally Posted by drmchsr0

But hey, if you want to justify downloading by trying to emplace some form of misguided morals to it or pretend to not notice that your actions WILL harm society, then it's fine by me. It's your life, and quite frankly, I can only just rail at people, being only stupid bits transmitted via electrical impulses.

Excuse me? If you're replying to dsp, I don't see anywhere where he said anything about piracy. In fact, I don't see anyone saying anything about piracy in this entire thread! Is your reading comprehension terrible or are you just projecting in order to rant about something that happened to be pissing you off at the time when you decided to browse the gemot?

Finally, there is nothing illegal about 'downloading'. Don't use the term if you don't mean it. Don't say things like "if you want to justify downloading by trying to emplace some form of misguided morals to it or pretend to not notice that your actions WILL harm society" - there are plenty of other terms you can use.. I download eroge all the time. Are you calling me a pirate?

[drmchsr0]

Originally Posted by Asceai

Excuse me? If you're replying to dsp, I don't see anywhere where he said anything about piracy. In fact, I don't see anyone saying anything about piracy in this entire thread! Is your reading comprehension terrible or are you just projecting in order to rant about something that happened to be pissing you off at the time when you decided to browse the gemot?

Finally, there is nothing illegal about 'downloading'. Don't use the term if you don't mean it. Don't say things like "if you want to justify downloading by trying to emplace some form of misguided morals to it or pretend to not notice that your actions WILL harm society" - there are plenty of other terms you can use.. I download eroge all the time. Are you calling me a pirate?

Under the Berne Convention (Using the 1971 Paris Text, taken from http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview.html), the right to copy (Article 9) and the right to translate (Article 8) belong to the country where the work is from (in this case, the Japanese softhouse). Of course, one could argue that downloading does not affect sales and/or cause the poor softhouse to go bankrupt, and considering that our limited actions do NOT have that much of a marked impact on the domestic market, it's quite possible to say that we ARE not breaking Article 9 of the Berne Convention into so many little pieces.

However, this is all conjecture and until Japan as a whole (read: their government) puts its foot down regarding downloading outside it's borders (which would most likely fall under the laws of where we live), we'll never hear anything definitive.

Also, I don't think I am in any position to judge people. If you want to admit to your wrongdoing, well, that's your decision and not mine.

[Moogy]

Haha oh wow. You are sure dense. Here's a protip, he was talking about the literal phrasing of the word "download," not the various meanings you appear to have ascribed to in it in your haste to ruin the internet with your schizophrenic ramblings.

Also, to anyone who might want to continue beating a dead and irrelevant horse, let me say this: Disgaea Infinite has absolutely no relevance to this issue. It's not part of an actual eroge franchise or a noteworthy eroge in its own right and was only released because it's part of the (quite popular) Disgaea franchise.

[NTX]

Originally Posted by Moogy

The best way to market eroge in the west is to have one of Atlus, XSEED, Aksys, NISA, etc. license a big-name title and release it with a lot of hype. Which, obviously, won't happen.

I don't think they'll ever go into the business "eroge", but I you probably mean non-ero VN (I assume you use the two synonymously.)

I agree that this is probably the only way the VA market would ever expand. I once read a youtube comment that "microsoft was releasing steins;gate in NA to test the waters." This of course was bullshit, but this might've actually done it assuming steins;gate is all they say it is.

As for real eroge, there's the "ero" part, so retail is pretty much out forever (mommy, I want this one!).

And flash demos would require they get the japanese developers to redraw and reprogram it in flash form. God knows jast and MG don't have the know-how. This'd take additional money, which they don't have.

Another way to hit the masses, of course, is to get someone uber famous to blog about it... though that's as unlikely as the rest.

[DaFool]

To the OP: It's not as simple as you think. Remember all those articles about surviving on the "Long Tail"? That's mostly exceptions. The market is still hit-driven, whether it's a mainstream market or a niche market like the visual novels scene. For a long time the VN scene to me was nothing but Tsukihime, F/SN, and Higurashi.

So in this respect, companies shouldn't really invest in unknown VNs but should pool all the resources they can muster just to license the hits. I believe Mangagamer and JAST USA are just recently going in that direction. Yes, there used to be a business case for licensing unknowns -- just like the anime market prior to the bubble. Cheap licenses, and not much anime on the market at that time... got me trying out stuff like M.D. Geist and a bunch of other crap simply because there was not much else. I believe the survival of all those G-Collections / Peach Princess stuff was possible before the internet age fully arrived and the fans became proactive proclaiming which are hits and which just plain suck.

A couple of more points:
*Record of Agarest War was an SRPG. In other words, it had gameplay. So we have console RPGs which are actually cheaper than PC visual novels! That's because the market is bigger so they can afford a wider distribution model with lower prices. The market is bigger because you can tap the entire anime fanbase, the RPG fanbase -- including people who wouldn't normally want to read globs of text just so they can stare at anime tits.
*Air Pressure, the example "quality" stuff you find on New Grounds, was originally an OELVN made with Ren'Py, then ported to Flash. And the dev has more in common with the greater independent games community than the Japanophilic ones. Once again, you need to tap into the bigger gaming community. You can appeal to the literature community (the other side of the spectrum), but there you already have manga... and you know you just can't win against that medium (not even anime can).