About BL games (To the staff)

[Bogg]

@YouStoopet

First of all, Higurashi isn’t even popular in japan, the Visual novel was a doujin and the anime adaption sold terribly.

what people in the west and foreign countries like doesn’t really move an inch of butthair in japan, we don’t make Eroges and Visual novels so we don’t decide what’s “better then 90% of the official games released”, that statement was really dumb and ignorant, You clearly have no clue what’s going on within the eroge industry.

To put it bluntly, Higurashi isn’t better than even 1% of the official games, i can assure you that because i can tell you barely played any visual novels at all.

And for the record, 18+ sells better than All/ages, i don’t need to tell you that since for each all ages game there is a hundred 18+ game.

Bottom line, keep your invalid views to yourself, if the japanese or Visual novel otakus saw that “better then 90% of the official games released” statement, You’d be a laughing stock. but that’s beside the point, I don’t think an official eroge company would bother licensing a Doujin game, because they’re DOUJIN games after all, they’re FAN-MADE.

P,S why don’t you go look around Getchu a bit and learn a little here and there about the rankings and how the industry works?

Hmm well Higurashi must have done something right since there are 2 anime adaptations, 2 ova spinoffs, manga adaptations, drama cds a PS2, DS and iphone verion of the games. And your one percent estimate must be off because there are a lot of crappy official releases.cough Water Closet cough Gokuin no Sentou cough Sandwiched by my wife and her sister cough and the list could go on and on.
Edit: almost forgot about the 2 film adaptations of Higurashi as well.

[Lipp]

@YouStoopet

First of all, Higurashi isn’t even popular in japan, the Visual novel was a doujin and the anime adaption sold terribly.

If it sold terribly why has it become a big franchise?

Last I checked:
[]It’s been ported to a further 2 consoles
[]had at-least 2 remakes
[]2 anime series
[]2 ova series
[]2 sets of drama cds
[]2 live action movies
[]officially licensed into 2 languages
[]fan-translated into 1 language
[]a manga adaption
[]an english translated manga adaption
[]various spin-off games
[]and more.
If it weren’t popular that wouldn’t happen.

According to erogamescape (first Higurashi game): http://erogamescape.dyndns.org/~ap2/ero … me=4136#ad
Median: 86/100
Average: 83/100
Standard deviation: 14

Compared to demonbane: http://erogamescape.dyndns.org/~ap2/ero … me=2704#ad
Median: 82/100
Average: 79/100
Standard deviation: 13

Higurashi scored higher.
(and on the note of erogegamescape, I’m curious now for anyone reading. The above titles are skewed to the left but does erogegamescape have any titles skewed to the right?)

what people in the west and foreign countries like doesn’t really move an inch of butthair in japan, we don’t make Eroges and Visual novels so we don’t decide what’s “better then 90% of the official games released”, that statement was really dumb and ignorant, You clearly have no clue what’s going on within the eroge industry.

Oh i know whats going on in the industry, and thus why people need to react according. We have what sells and Japan has what sells.
The very first higurashi is ranked 39th on VNDB with the second ranked 59th. The highest numbered VN i can find is #20964
39/20964100 = 0.186 = 0.19 = Higurashi is in the top 1%
59/20964100 = 0.281 = 0.28 = Higurashi Kai is in the top 1%
So when one goes by ranking alone, arguably you would assume that both are better than 99% of other titles.

As for what we like and they like, higurashi is practically the same on both sides.
Erogegamescape average: 83/100
VNDB average: 8.46/10
To compare the two we need to make them fall under the same ranking system:
8.46/10 x 10 = 84.6/100

Results:
Erogegamescape average: 83/100
VNDB average: 84.6/100
Japanese players and Western players have given it roughly the same average score. There’s a 1.6 difference which is inside the range of the standard deviation from Erogegamescape

To put it bluntly, Higurashi isn’t better than even 1% of the official games, i can assure you that because i can tell you barely played any visual novels at all.

Now this is your personal opinion.
I’ve made it clear before to people that I dislike Muvluv despite the general fandom considering it one of the best titles released. Mecha has never been my thing (and KimiNozo interests me much more), does that mean its a bad title? Course not. The theme just isn’t my thing.

And for the record, 18+ sells better than All/ages, i don’t need to tell you that since for each all ages game there is a hundred 18+ game.

That’s not in dispute here. One can even see hard numbers for that over on DLsite. Its not always accurate however, one just needs to look at ‘Hatoful Boyfriend’ to see how the trend can be broken. But 9 out of 10 times, yes 18+ does sell better.

Bottom line, keep your invalid views to yourself, if the japanese or Visual novel otakus saw that “better then 90% of the official games released” statement, You’d be a laughing stock. but that’s beside the point, I don’t think an official eroge company would bother licensing a Doujin game, because they’re DOUJIN games after all, they’re FAN-MADE.

Mangagamer licensed all 4 Higurashi games.
Mangagamer licensed all 4 Higurashi Kai games.
JASTUSA licensed Yukkuri Panic.
Thats 9 doujin games licensed. I’d be surprised if Mangagamer doesn’t make it 10 with Higurashi Rei eventually.

Putting the number into perspective, by my count:
JASTUSA have released 68 titles
Mangagamer have released 21 titles
68+21 = 89
9/89*100 = 10.11%
10.11% of total titles we have had English releases for by the big 2 have been doujin games.

If you wanna add KittyMedia into that then add 4:
89+4 = 93
9/93*100 = 9.68%

P,S why don’t you go look around Getchu a bit and learn a little here and there about the rankings and how the industry works?

I’d much rather get my rankings from erogamescape then Getchu.

[Lancer-X]

I think counting all 8 eps of Higurashi as 8 separate games is kind of cheating as each 4 ep set is approximately the length of a full-length eroge- and they’re very much parts of a larger story. We don’t count all of the Harvest December series as separate titles, do we? Hell, I suppose under that system you could count Escalation as two titles since Escalation and Yukkuri Panic: Escalation were separate releases originally!
I would say Higurashi probably is better than 90% of released eroges, but you have to realise how large that number is. There’s a lot of great titles that are much better than Higurashi, but there’s a HUGE amount of garbage. If we say there’s about 10,000 titles - it’s a good number because that smooths out the outliers of absolute garbage nobody would ever count as well as things like ports - we say that Higurashi is better than all but 1000 titles. This is probably a fair assessment. For reference, at about the #1000 mark is Da Capo II (going by egs). Is Higurashi better than Da Capo II? I would say so. In any case, being better than 90% of titles is a pretty low bar.

I’d much rather get my rankings from erogamescape then Getchu.

They’re different things. Getchu is a better measure of how things sold. EGS is subjective opinion, which means it’s generally a better way of getting an idea about how good something is, but is of course subject to all sorts of factors.

That said, YouStoopet never answered my question: ‘counts as what?’ I’m still confused about what this Princess Maker Braveness or whatever the heck it is has to count as. I wasn’t under the impression it was being suggested as a choice title for JAST to release - after all, there’s probably a hell of a lot of legal issues involved with releasing a doujin trademark-infringer of a well-known franchise. So what does it not count as? A game?

[Nargrakhan]

@Lancer-X

I’m still confused about what this Princess Maker Braveness or whatever the heck it is has to count as. I wasn’t under the impression it was being suggested as a choice title for JAST to release - after all, there’s probably a hell of a lot of legal issues involved with releasing a doujin trademark-infringer of a well-known franchise. So what does it not count as? A game?

Prince Maker Braveness is a gender flipped, Chinese fan made version of the Princess Maker series. Fun fact: Princess Maker is considerably more popular in Korea than it is in Japan, but China/Taiwan/Singapore give it much love as well. I suppose Prince Maker Braveness is alright. Though I’ve played the entirety of the original series, I never was a true fan of Princess Maker… the sole exception being PM4 (as it was more story driven, than statistic building… Naoto Tenhiro is a god too).

Anyways, from what I gather, YouStoopet is saying that Prince Maker Braveness “doesn’t count” as being a possibility for JAST or MangaGamer or what not, to officially release in English, because it’s a doujin based on a copyrighted intellectual property (Gainax in this case). Furthermore, the international licensing rights for Princess Maker are held by another party: it’s either CyberFront or GeneX (too lazy to check). They’re the ones who did the Korean and Chinese versions. So basically, anyone who wants to do Prince Maker Braveness, would have to jump through a load of hoops: the original Chinese creators, Gainax, and the international holder. I’m pretty sure Gainax would never recognize the Chinese group for legal reasons, and lord knows how much CyberFront or GeneX would charge to allow access to their international distribution rights (they made more money off the Princess Maker series than Gainax if rumors are believable), so that makes it a dead deal from the start.

Why go through all that hassle to release an English commercial doujin of Princess Maker? It’s more hardship than getting one of the real Princess Makers.

EDIT

@YouStoopet

And for the record, 18+ sells better than All/ages, i don’t need to tell you that since for each all ages game there is a hundred 18+ game.

In what context are we talking here? Doujin? BL? Bishoujo?

If were talking bisoujo as a general whole, there isn’t a single top tier 18+ that outsold the top tier all ages. Tokimeki Memorial was a massive record breaker in it’s glory days, and that was all ages. Depending on your parameters of what constitutes a b-game: all age series such as Sakura Taisen (an entirety of 4.5 million copies) and iDOLM@STER (Namco has frequently reported profit in the million of dollars for that franchise) have done more than anything the 18+ market can claim. They are not the only all ages to do this.

[Lipp]

@Lancer-X

I think counting all 8 eps of Higurashi as 8 separate games is kind of cheating as each 4 ep set is approximately the length of a full-length eroge- and they’re very much parts of a larger story. We don’t count all of the Harvest December series as separate titles, do we? Hell, I suppose under that system you could count Escalation as two titles since Escalation and Yukkuri Panic: Escalation were separate releases originally!
I would say Higurashi probably is better than 90% of released eroges, but you have to realise how large that number is. There’s a lot of great titles that are much better than Higurashi, but there’s a HUGE amount of garbage. If we say there’s about 10,000 titles - it’s a good number because that smooths out the outliers of absolute garbage nobody would ever count as well as things like ports - we say that Higurashi is better than all but 1000 titles. This is probably a fair assessment. For reference, at about the #1000 mark is Da Capo II (going by egs). Is Higurashi better than Da Capo II? I would say so. In any case, being better than 90% of titles is a pretty low bar.

I’d much rather get my rankings from erogamescape then Getchu.

They’re different things. Getchu is a better measure of how things sold. EGS is subjective opinion, which means it’s generally a better way of getting an idea about how good something is, but is of course subject to all sorts of factors.

That said, YouStoopet never answered my question: ‘counts as what?’ I’m still confused about what this Princess Maker Braveness or whatever the heck it is has to count as. I wasn’t under the impression it was being suggested as a choice title for JAST to release - after all, there’s probably a hell of a lot of legal issues involved with releasing a doujin trademark-infringer of a well-known franchise. So what does it not count as? A game?

The Higurashi thing is a bit of a mixed issue, I’ve seen the whole “is it 2 games or 8” thing mentioned before. I personally consider it to be 8 separate games that were eventually grouped into 2 collections. And the only reason I go by that theory rather then the other is that each game was released as single title in Japan and could be played as a single title. They weren’t released as a collection till after each set of 4 was completed. The remakes which included the 8 + extras I count as 1 title since that was how the remake was originally released. Same thing with Rei, I consider that 1 title as that was how it was originally released. But yeah its just a personal thing and it goes both ways with how people consider it.

And yeah I prefer the subjective opinion rather then sale numbers. I forget if it was here or the Mangagamer forums but a user pointed out ‘Enter_the_Matrix’ to me as an example and it’s always stuck with me. The game had some of the highest sales for 2003 and yet players opinions were bad with reviews calling it unfinished, sloppy and just plain bad. So sales numbers as you can see aren’t the greatest indicator of how good a game is.

As for Prince Maker 2 Braveness
It has no way been mentioned as a title for JAST to license as the title itself has never been for commercial sale (None of the Prince Maker games have ever been for commercial sale).
The original version was released as a free download for fans of Alfagame (they have other games they sell commercially). The translator of the game contacted Alfagame and they gave the translator permission to release it. The conditions being as long as credit was given and they didn’t release it for profit. Furthermore Alfagame even did some coding work and made some improvements upon the game for its English release, mostly it was stuff to make it easier but they also fixed bugs that were present when playing in Windows Vista or 7 (the game was made around the early XP time).

And as from my understanding, YouStoopet is saying it doesn’t count as a title being released due to it being both originally chinese (not originally Japanese) and for being Doujin (not official).

[Lancer-X]

If were talking bisoujo as a general whole, there isn’t a single top tier 18+ that outsold the top tier all ages. Tokimeki Memorial was a massive record breaker in it’s glory days, and that was all ages. Depending on your parameters of what constitutes a b-game: all age series such as Sakura Taisen (an entirety of 4.5 million copies) and iDOLM@STER (Namco has frequently reported profit in the million of dollars for that franchise) have done more than anything the 18+ market can claim. They are not the only all ages to do this.

I was thinking this myself. Of course, I wouldn’t count iDOLM@STER or Sakura Taisen due to relative distance from the medium, but certainly Tokimeki Memorial alone more than nullifies the ‘all-ages doesn’t sell’ argument and it is unmistakeably part of the medium, having a huge influence on eroge itself. Love Plus probably also counts, although I’d argue it takes some of the most annoying things from eroge and makes a whole game around it. Couldn’t stand it.

[Nargrakhan]

@Lancer-X

Of course, I wouldn’t count iDOLM@STER or Sakura Taisen due to relative distance from the medium.

True enough. Although if you gut them to the core: Sakura Taisen is just a grid tactical with a bgame, and iDOLM@STER an raising simulator with a bgame. It’s just that Red Company and Namco had a much larger budget to produce their title, so the non-bgame parts are highly polished. However without their bgame element, Sakura Taisen and iDOLM@STER would not be the titles they are. There had been bgames before them with tacticals and raising simulators… just nothing as on their scope (again, because of budget).

[Lancer-X]

@Nargrakhan

@Lancer-X

Of course, I wouldn’t count iDOLM@STER or Sakura Taisen due to relative distance from the medium.

True enough. Although if you gut them to the core: Sakura Taisen is just a grid tactical with a bgame, and iDOLM@STER an raising simulator with a bgame. It’s just that Red Company and Namco had a much larger budget to produce their title, so the non-bgame parts are highly polished. However without their bgame element, Sakura Taisen and iDOLM@STER would not be the titles they are. There had been bgames before them with tacticals and raising simulators… just nothing as on their scope (again, because of budget).

I don’t think it’s necessarily the quality/polish of the gameplay segments, although that admittedly is a bit of a factor- I consider it more the proportion. Those games have tiny scripts compared to… well, what is it most people think of when it comes to eroge+gameplay? Sengoku Rance. Same with Eien no Aselia- while a good bit shorter than Sengoku Rance, it’s still quite a bit bigger than anything I’ve seen out of those two franchises. On the other hand, the gameplay segments in Sakura Taisen etc. are certainly quite a bit more polished and plainly consumed a lot more of the development effort than the novel portions. That’s all the distinction is for me.

[TDOMMX]

Wow. All this talk about doujin games and not a single mention of Tsukihime or its progeny. I supposed I should be impressed…?

@YouStoopet

[…]I don’t think an official eroge company would bother licensing a Doujin game, because they’re DOUJIN games after all, they’re FAN-MADE.

Does Piece of Wonder count?

JAST has gone on the record saying they’d love to publish indie titles in English if they can work out appropriate arrangement with their developers (…damn it, I wish I remembered which podcast that was from…).

[Nandemonai]

Yeah, never mind the fact that MangaGamer is even more official than Jast USA, being literally an arm of a Japanese eroge conglomerate - and they licensed Higurashi.

Never mind the fact that many of these development houses are really small, putting out games made on shoestring budgets … the line between dojin and official release can be rather small. Just ask Type-Moon

[Nandemonai]

@Lipp

And yeah I prefer the subjective opinion rather then sale numbers. I forget if it was here or the Mangagamer forums but a user pointed out ‘Enter_the_Matrix’ to me as an example and it’s always stuck with me. The game had some of the highest sales for 2003 and yet players opinions were bad with reviews calling it unfinished, sloppy and just plain bad. So sales numbers as you can see aren’t the greatest indicator of how good a game is.

There’s a better example of this. Jaws Unleashed, the game where you play as Jaws, a man-eating shark. He needs to find keycards to open doors. This is not a joke. This actually happens in the game.

What is a joke? Its sales figures. Half a million copies. Of a game in which a shark has to find key cards.

[Lipp]

@TDOMMX

Wow. All this talk about doujin games and not a single mention of Tsukihime or its progeny. I supposed I should be impressed…?

@YouStoopet

[…]I don’t think an official eroge company would bother licensing a Doujin game, because they’re DOUJIN games after all, they’re FAN-MADE.

Does Piece of Wonder count?

JAST has gone on the record saying they’d love to publish indie titles in English if they can work out appropriate arrangement with their developers (…damn it, I wish I remembered which podcast that was from…).

Isnt that from AX a year or 2 ago?

[YouStoopet]

@Bogg

@YouStoopet

First of all, Higurashi isn’t even popular in japan, the Visual novel was a doujin and the anime adaption sold terribly.

what people in the west and foreign countries like doesn’t really move an inch of butthair in japan, we don’t make Eroges and Visual novels so we don’t decide what’s “better then 90% of the official games released”, that statement was really dumb and ignorant, You clearly have no clue what’s going on within the eroge industry.

To put it bluntly, Higurashi isn’t better than even 1% of the official games, i can assure you that because i can tell you barely played any visual novels at all.

And for the record, 18+ sells better than All/ages, i don’t need to tell you that since for each all ages game there is a hundred 18+ game.

Bottom line, keep your invalid views to yourself, if the japanese or Visual novel otakus saw that “better then 90% of the official games released” statement, You’d be a laughing stock. but that’s beside the point, I don’t think an official eroge company would bother licensing a Doujin game, because they’re DOUJIN games after all, they’re FAN-MADE.

P,S why don’t you go look around Getchu a bit and learn a little here and there about the rankings and how the industry works?

Hmm well Higurashi must have done something right since there are 2 anime adaptations, 2 ova spinoffs, manga adaptations, drama cds a PS2, DS and iphone verion of the games. And your one percent estimate must be off because there are a lot of crappy official releases.cough Water Closet cough Gokuin no Sentou cough Sandwiched by my wife and her sister cough and the list could go on and on.
Edit: almost forgot about the 2 film adaptations of Higurashi as well.

@Lipp

@YouStoopet

First of all, Higurashi isn’t even popular in japan, the Visual novel was a doujin and the anime adaption sold terribly.

If it sold terribly why has it become a big franchise?

Last I checked:
[]It’s been ported to a further 2 consoles
[]had at-least 2 remakes
[]2 anime series
[]2 ova series
[]2 sets of drama cds
[]2 live action movies
[]officially licensed into 2 languages
[]fan-translated into 1 language
[]a manga adaption
[]an english translated manga adaption
[]various spin-off games
[]and more.
If it weren’t popular that wouldn’t happen.

According to erogamescape (first Higurashi game): http://erogamescape.dyndns.org/~ap2/ero … me=4136#ad
Median: 86/100
Average: 83/100
Standard deviation: 14

Compared to demonbane: http://erogamescape.dyndns.org/~ap2/ero … me=2704#ad
Median: 82/100
Average: 79/100
Standard deviation: 13

Higurashi scored higher.
(and on the note of erogegamescape, I’m curious now for anyone reading. The above titles are skewed to the left but does erogegamescape have any titles skewed to the right?)

what people in the west and foreign countries like doesn’t really move an inch of butthair in japan, we don’t make Eroges and Visual novels so we don’t decide what’s “better then 90% of the official games released”, that statement was really dumb and ignorant, You clearly have no clue what’s going on within the eroge industry.

Oh i know whats going on in the industry, and thus why people need to react according. We have what sells and Japan has what sells.
The very first higurashi is ranked 39th on VNDB with the second ranked 59th. The highest numbered VN i can find is #20964
39/20964100 = 0.186 = 0.19 = Higurashi is in the top 1%
59/20964100 = 0.281 = 0.28 = Higurashi Kai is in the top 1%
So when one goes by ranking alone, arguably you would assume that both are better than 99% of other titles.

As for what we like and they like, higurashi is practically the same on both sides.
Erogegamescape average: 83/100
VNDB average: 8.46/10
To compare the two we need to make them fall under the same ranking system:
8.46/10 x 10 = 84.6/100

Results:
Erogegamescape average: 83/100
VNDB average: 84.6/100
Japanese players and Western players have given it roughly the same average score. There’s a 1.6 difference which is inside the range of the standard deviation from Erogegamescape

To put it bluntly, Higurashi isn’t better than even 1% of the official games, i can assure you that because i can tell you barely played any visual novels at all.

Now this is your personal opinion.
I’ve made it clear before to people that I dislike Muvluv despite the general fandom considering it one of the best titles released. Mecha has never been my thing (and KimiNozo interests me much more), does that mean its a bad title? Course not. The theme just isn’t my thing.

And for the record, 18+ sells better than All/ages, i don’t need to tell you that since for each all ages game there is a hundred 18+ game.

That’s not in dispute here. One can even see hard numbers for that over on DLsite. Its not always accurate however, one just needs to look at ‘Hatoful Boyfriend’ to see how the trend can be broken. But 9 out of 10 times, yes 18+ does sell better.

Bottom line, keep your invalid views to yourself, if the japanese or Visual novel otakus saw that “better then 90% of the official games released” statement, You’d be a laughing stock. but that’s beside the point, I don’t think an official eroge company would bother licensing a Doujin game, because they’re DOUJIN games after all, they’re FAN-MADE.

Mangagamer licensed all 4 Higurashi games.
Mangagamer licensed all 4 Higurashi Kai games.
JASTUSA licensed Yukkuri Panic.
Thats 9 doujin games licensed. I’d be surprised if Mangagamer doesn’t make it 10 with Higurashi Rei eventually.

Putting the number into perspective, by my count:
JASTUSA have released 68 titles
Mangagamer have released 21 titles
68+21 = 89
9/89*100 = 10.11%
10.11% of total titles we have had English releases for by the big 2 have been doujin games.

If you wanna add KittyMedia into that then add 4:
89+4 = 93
9/93*100 = 9.68%

P,S why don’t you go look around Getchu a bit and learn a little here and there about the rankings and how the industry works?

I’d much rather get my rankings from erogamescape then Getchu.

Just because it got spin-offs and manga adaptions doesn’t necessarily mean it’s popular.

Alot of Unpopular series get spin-offs and stuff to advertise them. or they just feel like making them.

Kore wa zombie desuka’s sales never even sold 3k units and it got 2 seasons, a Light novel, an OVA, a manga adaption and god knows what’s next.
The otome game Hiiro no Kakera’s sales were terrible and it’s got nearly 3 sequels, an anime adaption, crapload of fan-discs, etc.Another sold barely 2k units and it’s getting (or already got?) a live action movie adaption.

i could go on and make a large list of unpopular series that get adaptions and spin-offs. also, there are situations where Popular animes don’t get sh!t, take magica madoka for example, its the second best selling and there were no OVA’s, no second seasons, no movies, no sht. so it’s a bit of a complicated buisness here.

I’m sorry, but the score an anime, manga, or visual novel gets doesn’t mean crap, what matters is the sales numbers, if it sold good, it’s popular, if it didn’t, regardless of how many adaptions and spin-offs or scores on some random site it got, then it’s nowhere near popular.

“Oh i know whats going on in the industry, and thus why people need to react according. We have what sells and Japan has what sells.
The very first higurashi is ranked 39th on VNDB with the second ranked 59th. The highest numbered VN i can find is #20964
39/20964100 = 0.186 = 0.19 = Higurashi is in the top 1%
59/20964100 = 0.281 = 0.28 = Higurashi Kai is in the top 1%
So when one goes by ranking alone, arguably you would assume that both are better than 99% of other titles”

Sir, you just proved you really don’t know a thing. VNDB is an english visual novel site, therefor the rankings and scores there have nothing to do with the actual ranking of a series.

“Now this is your personal opinion.
I’ve made it clear before to people that I dislike Muvluv despite the general fandom considering it one of the best titles released. Mecha has never been my thing (and KimiNozo interests me much more), does that mean its a bad title? Course not. The theme just isn’t my thing.”

Dude, i never said anything about Muv-Luv. so basically what’s happening here, you’re just mentioning the english-adapted eroges forgetting all the shit that’s getting realeased monthly and that is getting ten times better sales than both Muv-Luv and your precious higurashi.

And i apperciate if you cut the “better than 99%” crap, Do you have any clue what you’re trying to say? Look here sir, each month there’s like, 30-50 Visual novel releases, and at least 10 of them stand out. higurashi is an old doujin game, and to tell me that it’s better than 99% of the visual novels is just plain absurd, while in reality it’s nowhere better than even 1% of the VN’s.

“That’s not in dispute here. One can even see hard numbers for that over on DLsite. Its not always accurate however, one just needs to look at ‘Hatoful Boyfriend’ to see how the trend can be broken. But 9 out of 10 times, yes 18+ does sell better.”

DLsite is mostly Doujin titles, the numbers there don’t affect the actual visual novel industry.
“Hatoful boyfriend” is just some random fan-made furry otome game, i can’t even comperehend how you came to mention that title.

“I’d much rather get my rankings from erogamescape then Getchu”

Getchu has authentic rankings and is a reliable site, it’s unarguably one of the best, if not, the best Visual novel related site out there.
And currently, the top selling/ranked item there is a the black liquid box, a package with a good amount of 18+ and Nukiges collection into one box. (Recent ones)

“That said, YouStoopet never answered my question: ‘counts as what?’ I’m still confused about what this Princess Maker Braveness or whatever the heck it is has to count as. I wasn’t under the impression it was being suggested as a choice title for JAST to release - after all, there’s probably a hell of a lot of legal issues involved with releasing a doujin trademark-infringer of a well-known franchise. So what does it not count as? A game?”

It doesn’t count as an authentic Visual novel, and let’s face it, do you think a doujin game would outsell an official visual novel?
i mean granted, there are some doujin games that outsold official visual novels, but if you put an average doujin game with an average visual novel, the Visual novel will outsell the doujin one by a mile, that is a given fact.

"In what context are we talking here? Doujin? BL? Bishoujo?

If were talking bisoujo as a general whole, there isn’t a single top tier 18+ that outsold the top tier all ages. Tokimeki Memorial was a massive record breaker in it’s glory days, and that was all ages. Depending on your parameters of what constitutes a b-game: all age series such as Sakura Taisen (an entirety of 4.5 million copies) and iDOLM@STER (Namco has frequently reported profit in the million of dollars for that franchise) have done more than anything the 18+ market can claim. They are not the only all ages to do this."

I’m talking about Visual novels, Bishoujo, yes, those. Visual novels is what they’re commonly called. and FYI, BL and Doujin games don’t sell (And by don’t sell, i don’t mean they DON’T SELL, i mean their sales are incredibly low to even consider mentioning them), so it’s only logical to know that i’m talking about Eroges, Bishoujo games, Galges, you know, the usual stuff that fills the markets.

has anyone ever before told you that Sakura Taisen is an SRPG? Not to mention it first came out in Sega saturn, then windows, then Dreamcast, then PS2, then PSP. if that didn’t sell, then i don’t know what will.
iDOLM@STER is a Raising simulation, you basically “make” idols. it’s also a rythm game, so it doesn’t count as a visual novel.

Oh, and here’s something for ya.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Busters!

Little busters ecstasy (The 18+ version of Little busters) sold over 100k units, untill this day, it outsold nearly every all-ages Visual novel out there.

Bottom line, Top tier 18+ Outsell Top tier all-ages by a mile. and of course, we’re talking about authentic visual novels, not some SRPG or Music raising simulation or some crap of that sort.

Some of you guys have alot to learn, i’m not trying to be a jerk here, but before tries to make a point, you need to have something to back it up. not bragging, but i’ve been an otaku for years and i’m quite knowledgable when it comes down to this stuff. believe me.

[Nargrakhan]

@YouStoopet

has anyone ever before told you that Sakura Taisen is an SRPG?

Has anyone ever before told you that Dengeki, Enterbrain, Famitsu and dozens of other major publications consider the Sakura Taisen (???) series a galge? Just look how they categorize them in a sales chart or financial report. However for the sake of argument, I’ll just exclude them for this purpose.

@YouStoopet

Oh, and here’s something for ya.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Busters!

Little busters ecstasy (The 18+ version of Little busters) sold over 100k units, untill this day, it outsold nearly every all-ages Visual novel out there.

Bottom line, Top tier 18+ Outsell Top tier all-ages by a mile.

Your argument is false. Tokimeki Memorial (???) is one of the foundation bishojo titles and entirely all ages. It sold more than 500,000 copies for a single edition, and remains unchallenged in that feat (even saving Konami from bankruptcy at the time). The franchise in it’s entirely has sold millions of copies. You could combine the sales of Kanon + Air + Clannad, all versions of them, and they STILL would have less numbers than TokiMemo.

As for Little Buster, go ahead and pretend it sold twice as much than it did: I bet all ages LovePlus (???) still wins (over 400,000 copies at last check; may beat the TokiMemo record by the end of 2012). Just for historic nostalgia: the original Sentimental Graffiti (???) even out sold it (over 225,000 copies).

The single best selling 18+ title off all time is Nonomura Byouin no Hitobito (???). It sold more than 300,000 copies. I believe Kakyuusei (???) is the single #2 best selling eroge of all time, with over 250,000 copies. Note this the first version of them: not renewals/ports/reboots/remakes/etc. Other 18+ may have outsold them in terms of sales when you count all their rehashes, but the original release of them will not (which is moot, because the total number of sale for these two would also increase in that case).

Japanese spelling of the titles were included, so others can confirm the numbers for themselves and see I’m not making them up. So yea… an all ages has outsold the best selling 18+. That is pretty much fact… and more so if you count Sakura Taisen as a galge, which as I pointed out, the industry watchers already do.

@YouStoopet

and of course, we’re talking about authentic visual novels, not some SRPG or Music raising simulation or some crap of that sort.

There’s some major bastardization of the wording of visual novel in this thread. Are we being purist with the terminology? Are we making a distinction between ADV and NVL? If that is the case, then yes, not a single all ages [u]NVL[/u] has ever outsold an 18+ [u]NVL[/u]. That is only in the case of a pure NVL. [u]ADV[/u]? All ages have curbed stomped the shit out of 18+ (and in that case, series like Sakura Taisen and Princess Maker would most definitely count in the argument).

[Lipp]

Just because it got spin-offs and manga adaptions doesn’t necessarily mean it’s popular.

Alot of Unpopular series get spin-offs and stuff to advertise them. or they just feel like making them.

Kore wa zombie desuka’s sales never even sold 3k units and it got 2 seasons, a Light novel, an OVA, a manga adaption and god knows what’s next.
The otome game Hiiro no Kakera’s sales were terrible and it’s got nearly 3 sequels, an anime adaption, crapload of fan-discs, etc.Another sold barely 2k units and it’s getting (or already got?) a live action movie adaption.

i could go on and make a large list of unpopular series that get adaptions and spin-offs. also, there are situations where Popular animes don’t get sh!t, take magica madoka for example, its the second best selling and there were no OVA’s, no second seasons, no movies, no sht. so it’s a bit of a complicated buisness here.

http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2 … in-profits
Kore wa zombie desuka has been profitable and is described a hit, furthermore a net profit of 6.3 billion yen is far more then 3k sales.

I’m sorry, but the score an anime, manga, or visual novel gets doesn’t mean crap, what matters is the sales numbers, if it sold good, it’s popular, if it didn’t, regardless of how many adaptions and spin-offs or scores on some random site it got, then it’s nowhere near popular.

False
Unless you wanna tell me that ‘Enter the Matrix’ or as Nandemonai mentioned ‘Jaws’ is popular due to it getting lots of sales. Both games despite being best sellers have some of the worst ratings ever in gaming. The score they receive means everything.

“Oh i know whats going on in the industry, and thus why people need to react according. We have what sells and Japan has what sells.
The very first higurashi is ranked 39th on VNDB with the second ranked 59th. The highest numbered VN i can find is #20964
39/20964100 = 0.186 = 0.19 = Higurashi is in the top 1%
59/20964100 = 0.281 = 0.28 = Higurashi Kai is in the top 1%
So when one goes by ranking alone, arguably you would assume that both are better than 99% of other titles”

Sir, you just proved you really don’t know a thing. VNDB is an english visual novel site, therefor the rankings and scores there have nothing to do with the actual ranking of a series.

I am referring here TO the English side of things. And yes they mean everything. As you yourself said, what sells in Japan wont necessarily sell here. However when the scores are calculated both to scale out 100 theirs a similarity as both fall under the deviation. Showing that in Higurashi’s case, both sides think of the game similarly and furthermore in English its deemed as one of the better titles.

“Now this is your personal opinion.
I’ve made it clear before to people that I dislike Muvluv despite the general fandom considering it one of the best titles released. Mecha has never been my thing (and KimiNozo interests me much more), does that mean its a bad title? Course not. The theme just isn’t my thing.”

Dude, i never said anything about Muv-Luv. so basically what’s happening here, you’re just mentioning the english-adapted eroges forgetting all the shit that’s getting realeased monthly and that is getting ten times better sales than both Muv-Luv and your precious higurashi.

I’m using an example here? What don’t you understand about that.
The fandom considers it to be grand, i don’t, its an example.

And i apperciate if you cut the “better than 99%” crap, Do you have any clue what you’re trying to say? Look here sir, each month there’s like, 30-50 Visual novel releases, and at least 10 of them stand out. higurashi is an old doujin game, and to tell me that it’s better than 99% of the visual novels is just plain absurd, while in reality it’s nowhere better than even 1% of the VN’s.

You do the math then, because Higurashi is currently in the top 1% of VNDB

“That’s not in dispute here. One can even see hard numbers for that over on DLsite. Its not always accurate however, one just needs to look at ‘Hatoful Boyfriend’ to see how the trend can be broken. But 9 out of 10 times, yes 18+ does sell better.”

DLsite is mostly Doujin titles, the numbers there don’t affect the actual visual novel industry.
“Hatoful boyfriend” is just some random fan-made furry otome game, i can’t even comperehend how you came to mention that title.

So what if they’re doujin titles? The numbers do affect the industry, some of the big names in the ‘official’ industry have started off as doujin companies. Look at Type-Moon, they began as doujin and through sales and recognition have become an official company.
And yeah so what if Hatoful Boyfriend is doujin? To date its sold 1898 copies on DLsite english, that’s more then most of Mangagamers titles (only 1 of which has ‘sort-of’ broken 2k sales). So the games done something right.

“I’d much rather get my rankings from erogamescape then Getchu”

Getchu has authentic rankings and is a reliable site, it’s unarguably one of the best, if not, the best Visual novel related site out there.
And currently, the top selling/ranked item there is a the black liquid box, a package with a good amount of 18+ and Nukiges collection into one box. (Recent ones)

As has already been stated, Getchu ranks on sales
Erogamescape ranks on user ratings/reviews.
They use different numbers/factors to calculate their ratings and as the above ‘Enter The Matrix’ and ‘Jaws’ show. It happens to movie games all the time, you hear about them outselling games that deserve the sales just because they’re based on a movie.
Sales =/= Good game
Scores as-well aren’t 100% accurate but are more accurate then sales.

“That said, YouStoopet never answered my question: ‘counts as what?’ I’m still confused about what this Princess Maker Braveness or whatever the heck it is has to count as. I wasn’t under the impression it was being suggested as a choice title for JAST to release - after all, there’s probably a hell of a lot of legal issues involved with releasing a doujin trademark-infringer of a well-known franchise. So what does it not count as? A game?”

It doesn’t count as an authentic Visual novel, and let’s face it, do you think a doujin game would outsell an official visual novel?
i mean granted, there are some doujin games that outsold official visual novels, but if you put an average doujin game with an average visual novel, the Visual novel will outsell the doujin one by a mile, that is a given fact.

It counts as a visual novel. Whether its authentic or not hasn’t ever been raised.

And thus far i’m starting the notice the opposite. Again going back to Hatoful boyfriend.
Mangagamers best selling game is Koihime Musou at 1250~ digital sales (to get the voices to make hard copies JAST bought the remaining 850~ copies to reach 2000)
Hatoful Boyfriend is at 1898 sales right now on DLsite english. In digital sales, Hatoful Boyfriend outsold Mangagamers best selling titles which in itself says something (especially for the Otome industry).
JAST doesn’t release sales numbers and generally doesn’t say if a title made a profit so we can’t compare how well its done compared to JASTs titles.

"In what context are we talking here? Doujin? BL? Bishoujo?

If were talking bisoujo as a general whole, there isn’t a single top tier 18+ that outsold the top tier all ages. Tokimeki Memorial was a massive record breaker in it’s glory days, and that was all ages. Depending on your parameters of what constitutes a b-game: all age series such as Sakura Taisen (an entirety of 4.5 million copies) and iDOLM@STER (Namco has frequently reported profit in the million of dollars for that franchise) have done more than anything the 18+ market can claim. They are not the only all ages to do this."

I’m talking about Visual novels, Bishoujo, yes, those. Visual novels is what they’re commonly called. and FYI, BL and Doujin games don’t sell (And by don’t sell, i don’t mean they DON’T SELL, i mean their sales are incredibly low to even consider mentioning them), so it’s only logical to know that i’m talking about Eroges, Bishoujo games, Galges, you know, the usual stuff that fills the markets.

has anyone ever before told you that Sakura Taisen is an SRPG? Not to mention it first came out in Sega saturn, then windows, then Dreamcast, then PS2, then PSP. if that didn’t sell, then i don’t know what will.
iDOLM@STER is a Raising simulation, you basically “make” idols. it’s also a rythm game, so it doesn’t count as a visual novel.

First up; if Doujin and BL games didn’t make a profit then they wouldn’t make them at all.
There’s been mutiple BL releases this year along with Doujin titles.

Oh, and here’s something for ya.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Busters!

Little busters ecstasy (The 18+ version of Little busters) sold over 100k units, untill this day, it outsold nearly every all-ages Visual novel out there.

Bottom line, Top tier 18+ Outsell Top tier all-ages by a mile. and of course, we’re talking about authentic visual novels, not some SRPG or Music raising simulation or some crap of that sort.

Tokimeki Memorial 1 is classified as a bishoujo game and to date is the best selling bishoujo game at 545,525~ sales.

Wikipedia isn’t classified as a valid source for numbers since anyone can edit it.

In terms of PC sales The all ages versions of Little Busters have sold more then the EX version: http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/201 … -on-earth/
(Sources are under the chart)
Little Busters current sales:
PC All Ages: 40,500
Console All Ages: 90,000
PC 18+: 36,836

This is the most recent list of total sales I can find, its from 2008 but it’ll do: http://dakuryu.at.webry.info/200807/article_7.html
The top 100 selling all ages visual novels. Those in purple have an 18+ version.
Compared to the 18+ at the time (listed near the bottom), the closest is Fate/Stay Night falling in between position 12 and 13.

Some of you guys have alot to learn, i’m not trying to be a jerk here, but before tries to make a point, you need to have something to back it up. not bragging, but i’ve been an otaku for years and i’m quite knowledgable when it comes down to this stuff. believe me.

You should try this yourself, not trying to be a jerk but having sources to backup what you say speaks louder then anything else.

@Nargrakhan

Has anyone ever before told you that Dengeki, Enterbrain, Famitsu and dozens of other major publications consider the Sakura Taisen (???) series a galge? Just look how they categorize them in a sales chart or financial report. However for the sake of argument, I’ll just exclude them for this purpose.

Just throwing in an article that mentions this: http://www.siliconera.com/2010/06/29/ni … velopment/

Uh-oh. What’s the fate of Sakura Wars in North America then? I see a lot of my readers are hoping for Sakura 1+2 for PSP.

Another publisher tried to get approval from Sony for Sakura Wars 1+2 for PSP, but it was rejected. Once a title is rejected by SCEA there is almost no chance to release the title.

What about as a digital download?

That’s Sony’s decision. Sony said this is not a game. They said it’s a text novel. They judged it as that, so it’s really difficult to get the license again. It’s also tough to localize Sakura Wars because of the huge amount of text. It took more than two years to complete the localization. That’s more than the development time of the Japanese version.

[YouStoopet]

@Nargrakhan

@YouStoopet

has anyone ever before told you that Sakura Taisen is an SRPG?

Has anyone ever before told you that Dengeki, Enterbrain, Famitsu and dozens of other major publications consider the Sakura Taisen (???) series a galge? Just look how they categorize them in a sales chart or financial report. However for the sake of argument, I’ll just exclude them for this purpose.

@YouStoopet

Oh, and here’s something for ya.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Busters!

Little busters ecstasy (The 18+ version of Little busters) sold over 100k units, untill this day, it outsold nearly every all-ages Visual novel out there.

Bottom line, Top tier 18+ Outsell Top tier all-ages by a mile.

Your argument is false. Tokimeki Memorial (???) is one of the foundation bishojo titles and entirely all ages. It sold more than 500,000 copies for a single edition, and remains unchallenged in that feat (even saving Konami from bankruptcy at the time). The franchise in it’s entirely has sold millions of copies. You could combine the sales of Kanon + Air + Clannad, all versions of them, and they STILL would have less numbers than TokiMemo.

As for Little Buster, go ahead and pretend it sold twice as much than it did: I bet all ages LovePlus (???) still wins (over 400,000 copies at last check; may beat the TokiMemo record by the end of 2012). Just for historic nostalgia: the original Sentimental Graffiti (???) even out sold it (over 225,000 copies).

The single best selling 18+ title off all time is Nonomura Byouin no Hitobito (???). It sold more than 300,000 copies. I believe Kakyuusei (???) is the single #2 best selling eroge of all time, with over 250,000 copies. Note this the first version of them: not renewals/ports/reboots/remakes/etc. Other 18+ may have outsold them in terms of sales when you count all their rehashes, but the original release of them will not (which is moot, because the total number of sale for these two would also increase in that case).

Japanese spelling of the titles were included, so others can confirm the numbers for themselves and see I’m not making them up. So yea… an all ages has outsold the best selling 18+. That is pretty much fact… and more so if you count Sakura Taisen as a galge, which as I pointed out, the industry watchers already do.

@YouStoopet

and of course, we’re talking about authentic visual novels, not some SRPG or Music raising simulation or some crap of that sort.

There’s some major bastardization of the wording of visual novel in this thread. Are we being purist with the terminology? Are we making a distinction between ADV and NVL? If that is the case, then yes, not a single all ages [u]NVL[/u] has ever outsold an 18+ [u]NVL[/u]. That is only in the case of a pure NVL. [u]ADV[/u]? All ages have curbed stomped the shit out of 18+ (and in that case, series like Sakura Taisen and Princess Maker would most definitely count in the argument).

Hooo
That’s alot of stuff i didn’t know before, looks like i’ll have to lay off unrealiable sources for the time being.
Thanks dude.

It’s just that it confuses me how the very top sellers are 90s VN’s where the genre wasn’t really popular at that time (or it was?) I mean, now we’ve got the moe and sht, better character designs, longer gameplay and decent stories, aren’t the modern ones supposed to sell better? I don’t know though, it seems a little bit weird to me ;p

Anyway, thanks again.
Just wanna confirm one thing though, since you’re knowledgable and all, can you tell me how much the BL game dramatical murder sold? i just want to confirm one thing and to get my shit straight, i’d prefer a reliable source of the sales number.

@Lipp

Just because it got spin-offs and manga adaptions doesn’t necessarily mean it’s popular.

Alot of Unpopular series get spin-offs and stuff to advertise them. or they just feel like making them.

Kore wa zombie desuka’s sales never even sold 3k units and it got 2 seasons, a Light novel, an OVA, a manga adaption and god knows what’s next.
The otome game Hiiro no Kakera’s sales were terrible and it’s got nearly 3 sequels, an anime adaption, crapload of fan-discs, etc.Another sold barely 2k units and it’s getting (or already got?) a live action movie adaption.

i could go on and make a large list of unpopular series that get adaptions and spin-offs. also, there are situations where Popular animes don’t get sh!t, take magica madoka for example, its the second best selling and there were no OVA’s, no second seasons, no movies, no sht. so it’s a bit of a complicated buisness here.

http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2 … in-profits
Kore wa zombie desuka has been profitable and is described a hit, furthermore a net profit of 6.3 billion yen is far more then 3k sales.

I’m sorry, but the score an anime, manga, or visual novel gets doesn’t mean crap, what matters is the sales numbers, if it sold good, it’s popular, if it didn’t, regardless of how many adaptions and spin-offs or scores on some random site it got, then it’s nowhere near popular.

False
Unless you wanna tell me that ‘Enter the Matrix’ or as Nandemonai mentioned ‘Jaws’ is popular due to it getting lots of sales. Both games despite being best sellers have some of the worst ratings ever in gaming. The score they receive means everything.

“Oh i know whats going on in the industry, and thus why people need to react according. We have what sells and Japan has what sells.
The very first higurashi is ranked 39th on VNDB with the second ranked 59th. The highest numbered VN i can find is #20964
39/20964100 = 0.186 = 0.19 = Higurashi is in the top 1%
59/20964100 = 0.281 = 0.28 = Higurashi Kai is in the top 1%
So when one goes by ranking alone, arguably you would assume that both are better than 99% of other titles”

Sir, you just proved you really don’t know a thing. VNDB is an english visual novel site, therefor the rankings and scores there have nothing to do with the actual ranking of a series.

I am referring here TO the English side of things. And yes they mean everything. As you yourself said, what sells in Japan wont necessarily sell here. However when the scores are calculated both to scale out 100 theirs a similarity as both fall under the deviation. Showing that in Higurashi’s case, both sides think of the game similarly and furthermore in English its deemed as one of the better titles.

“Now this is your personal opinion.
I’ve made it clear before to people that I dislike Muvluv despite the general fandom considering it one of the best titles released. Mecha has never been my thing (and KimiNozo interests me much more), does that mean its a bad title? Course not. The theme just isn’t my thing.”

Dude, i never said anything about Muv-Luv. so basically what’s happening here, you’re just mentioning the english-adapted eroges forgetting all the shit that’s getting realeased monthly and that is getting ten times better sales than both Muv-Luv and your precious higurashi.

I’m using an example here? What don’t you understand about that.
The fandom considers it to be grand, i don’t, its an example.

And i apperciate if you cut the “better than 99%” crap, Do you have any clue what you’re trying to say? Look here sir, each month there’s like, 30-50 Visual novel releases, and at least 10 of them stand out. higurashi is an old doujin game, and to tell me that it’s better than 99% of the visual novels is just plain absurd, while in reality it’s nowhere better than even 1% of the VN’s.

You do the math then, because Higurashi is currently in the top 1% of VNDB

“That’s not in dispute here. One can even see hard numbers for that over on DLsite. Its not always accurate however, one just needs to look at ‘Hatoful Boyfriend’ to see how the trend can be broken. But 9 out of 10 times, yes 18+ does sell better.”

DLsite is mostly Doujin titles, the numbers there don’t affect the actual visual novel industry.
“Hatoful boyfriend” is just some random fan-made furry otome game, i can’t even comperehend how you came to mention that title.

So what if they’re doujin titles? The numbers do affect the industry, some of the big names in the ‘official’ industry have started off as doujin companies. Look at Type-Moon, they began as doujin and through sales and recognition have become an official company.
And yeah so what if Hatoful Boyfriend is doujin? To date its sold 1898 copies on DLsite english, that’s more then most of Mangagamers titles (only 1 of which has ‘sort-of’ broken 2k sales). So the games done something right.

“I’d much rather get my rankings from erogamescape then Getchu”

Getchu has authentic rankings and is a reliable site, it’s unarguably one of the best, if not, the best Visual novel related site out there.
And currently, the top selling/ranked item there is a the black liquid box, a package with a good amount of 18+ and Nukiges collection into one box. (Recent ones)

As has already been stated, Getchu ranks on sales
Erogamescape ranks on user ratings/reviews.
They use different numbers/factors to calculate their ratings and as the above ‘Enter The Matrix’ and ‘Jaws’ show. It happens to movie games all the time, you hear about them outselling games that deserve the sales just because they’re based on a movie.
Sales =/= Good game
Scores as-well aren’t 100% accurate but are more accurate then sales.

“That said, YouStoopet never answered my question: ‘counts as what?’ I’m still confused about what this Princess Maker Braveness or whatever the heck it is has to count as. I wasn’t under the impression it was being suggested as a choice title for JAST to release - after all, there’s probably a hell of a lot of legal issues involved with releasing a doujin trademark-infringer of a well-known franchise. So what does it not count as? A game?”

It doesn’t count as an authentic Visual novel, and let’s face it, do you think a doujin game would outsell an official visual novel?
i mean granted, there are some doujin games that outsold official visual novels, but if you put an average doujin game with an average visual novel, the Visual novel will outsell the doujin one by a mile, that is a given fact.

It counts as a visual novel. Whether its authentic or not hasn’t ever been raised.

And thus far i’m starting the notice the opposite. Again going back to Hatoful boyfriend.
Mangagamers best selling game is Koihime Musou at 1250~ digital sales (to get the voices to make hard copies JAST bought the remaining 850~ copies to reach 2000)
Hatoful Boyfriend is at 1898 sales right now on DLsite english. In digital sales, Hatoful Boyfriend outsold Mangagamers best selling titles which in itself says something (especially for the Otome industry).
JAST doesn’t release sales numbers and generally doesn’t say if a title made a profit so we can’t compare how well its done compared to JASTs titles.

"In what context are we talking here? Doujin? BL? Bishoujo?

If were talking bisoujo as a general whole, there isn’t a single top tier 18+ that outsold the top tier all ages. Tokimeki Memorial was a massive record breaker in it’s glory days, and that was all ages. Depending on your parameters of what constitutes a b-game: all age series such as Sakura Taisen (an entirety of 4.5 million copies) and iDOLM@STER (Namco has frequently reported profit in the million of dollars for that franchise) have done more than anything the 18+ market can claim. They are not the only all ages to do this."

I’m talking about Visual novels, Bishoujo, yes, those. Visual novels is what they’re commonly called. and FYI, BL and Doujin games don’t sell (And by don’t sell, i don’t mean they DON’T SELL, i mean their sales are incredibly low to even consider mentioning them), so it’s only logical to know that i’m talking about Eroges, Bishoujo games, Galges, you know, the usual stuff that fills the markets.

has anyone ever before told you that Sakura Taisen is an SRPG? Not to mention it first came out in Sega saturn, then windows, then Dreamcast, then PS2, then PSP. if that didn’t sell, then i don’t know what will.
iDOLM@STER is a Raising simulation, you basically “make” idols. it’s also a rythm game, so it doesn’t count as a visual novel.

First up; if Doujin and BL games didn’t make a profit then they wouldn’t make them at all.
There’s been mutiple BL releases this year along with Doujin titles.

Oh, and here’s something for ya.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Busters!

Little busters ecstasy (The 18+ version of Little busters) sold over 100k units, untill this day, it outsold nearly every all-ages Visual novel out there.

Bottom line, Top tier 18+ Outsell Top tier all-ages by a mile. and of course, we’re talking about authentic visual novels, not some SRPG or Music raising simulation or some crap of that sort.

Tokimeki Memorial 1 is classified as a bishoujo game and to date is the best selling bishoujo game at 545,525~ sales.

Wikipedia isn’t classified as a valid source for numbers since anyone can edit it.

In terms of PC sales The all ages versions of Little Busters have sold more then the EX version: http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/201 … -on-earth/
(Sources are under the chart)
Little Busters current sales:
PC All Ages: 40,500
Console All Ages: 90,000
PC 18+: 36,836

This is the most recent list of total sales I can find, its from 2008 but it’ll do: http://dakuryu.at.webry.info/200807/article_7.html
The top 100 selling all ages visual novels. Those in purple have an 18+ version.
Compared to the 18+ at the time (listed near the bottom), the closest is Fate/Stay Night falling in between position 12 and 13.

Some of you guys have alot to learn, i’m not trying to be a jerk here, but before tries to make a point, you need to have something to back it up. not bragging, but i’ve been an otaku for years and i’m quite knowledgable when it comes down to this stuff. believe me.

You should try this yourself, not trying to be a jerk but having sources to backup what you say speaks louder then anything else.

@Nargrakhan

Has anyone ever before told you that Dengeki, Enterbrain, Famitsu and dozens of other major publications consider the Sakura Taisen (???) series a galge? Just look how they categorize them in a sales chart or financial report. However for the sake of argument, I’ll just exclude them for this purpose.

Just throwing in an article that mentions this: http://www.siliconera.com/2010/06/29/ni … velopment/

Uh-oh. What’s the fate of Sakura Wars in North America then? I see a lot of my readers are hoping for Sakura 1+2 for PSP.

Another publisher tried to get approval from Sony for Sakura Wars 1+2 for PSP, but it was rejected. Once a title is rejected by SCEA there is almost no chance to release the title.

What about as a digital download?

That’s Sony’s decision. Sony said this is not a game. They said it’s a text novel. They judged it as that, so it’s really difficult to get the license again. It’s also tough to localize Sakura Wars because of the huge amount of text. It took more than two years to complete the localization. That’s more than the development time of the Japanese version.

Alright, there goes Kore wa zombie desuka, what about the other titles? I confirmed Kore wa zombie desu ka even has the Light novel to boost the sales, but what about the other ones i mentioned?

“I am referring here TO the English side of things. And yes they mean everything. As you yourself said, what sells in Japan wont necessarily sell here. However when the scores are calculated both to scale out 100 theirs a similarity as both fall under the deviation. Showing that in Higurashi’s case, both sides think of the game similarly and furthermore in English its deemed as one of the better titles.”

Unfortunately, the ENGLISH side of things doesn’t affect how the otaku industry works,like i said what sells in the West doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily sell in Japan.

“I’m using an example here? What don’t you understand about that.
The fandom considers it to be grand, i don’t, its an example.”

But you keep using english adapted games as examples?

“You do the math then, because Higurashi is currently in the top 1% of VNDB”

DUDE, FFS, VNDB is an english site, the ones rating there are not japanese otakus, they’re foreigners, just because it’s in the top 1% of VNDB doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the same for the japanese, it’s not like Foreigners are the ones who make the darn VN’s.

“And thus far i’m starting the notice the opposite. Again going back to Hatoful boyfriend.
Mangagamers best selling game is Koihime Musou at 1250~ digital sales (to get the voices to make hard copies JAST bought the remaining 850~ copies to reach 2000)
Hatoful Boyfriend is at 1898 sales right now on DLsite english. In digital sales, Hatoful Boyfriend outsold Mangagamers best selling titles which in itself says something (especially for the Otome industry).
JAST doesn’t release sales numbers and generally doesn’t say if a title made a profit so we can’t compare how well its done compared to JASTs titles.”

._. Wow dude, what part of “what sells outside of japan doesn’t mean itsells inside japan” don’t you get? You make it seem like foreign countries are the ones who invented eroge. And what do you mean “especially for the Otome industry”? Otome games sell, heck, few of them outsold some Popular Visual novels. recently UtaPri sold over 60k copies in Japan, So yeah.
Oh and Hakuoki sold 3k outside of japan.

“First up; if Doujin and BL games didn’t make a profit then they wouldn’t make them at all.
There’s been mutiple BL releases this year along with Doujin titles.”

And if they did make profit, they’d make more of them, now just how often you see those? if you combine all the Doujin and BL games altogether, they wouldn’t make even 1% of the Visual novel’s current numbers.

And no, there haven’t been “multiple releases this year”, not sure about Doujin games, but there was only one BL release this year and it was Dramatical Murder, Not sure if it sold well or not, but there are no traces of it in the rankings of Getchu or any other visual novel site, can anyone at the very least provide numbers? give me a reliable source with the numbers of sales, prove me wrong, and i’ll shut up without a second thought.

“So what if they’re doujin titles? The numbers do affect the industry, some of the big names in the ‘official’ industry have started off as doujin companies. Look at Type-Moon, they began as doujin and through sales and recognition have become an official company.
And yeah so what if Hatoful Boyfriend is doujin? To date its sold 1898 copies on DLsite english, that’s more then most of Mangagamers titles (only 1 of which has ‘sort-of’ broken 2k sales). So the games done something right.”

Dude, how many times have i told you before? What sells OUTSIDE of japan has no effect in the industry whatsoever, shit that sells within the japanese otaku industry is what counts, you don’t need me to tell you that.

“As has already been stated, Getchu ranks on sales
Erogamescape ranks on user ratings/reviews.
They use different numbers/factors to calculate their ratings and as the above ‘Enter The Matrix’ and ‘Jaws’ show. It happens to movie games all the time, you hear about them outselling games that deserve the sales just because they’re based on a movie.
Sales =/= Good game
Scores as-well aren’t 100% accurate but are more accurate then sales.”

Heh, right back at you, first (“To date its sold 1898 copies on DLsite english, that’s more then most of Mangagamers titles (only 1 of which has ‘sort-of’ broken 2k sales). So the games done something right”) You say that the game has done something right because of the sales, and now you’re telling me that “Sales =/= Good game”? Are you serious? I don’t even…

Anyway, on topic now, i admit, there are somethings i didn’t know before and i apologize if i offended any of you, but i stand by my point and i say BL games don’t sell.
If you can prove me wrong, give me a source with the sales number units of a BL game (how about Dramatical murder?) and i’ll never consider posting on this thread ever again.

[Lipp]

Alright, there goes Kore wa zombie desuka, what about the other titles? I confirmed Kore wa zombie desu ka even has the Light novel to boost the sales, but what about the other ones i mentioned?

Sales for Hiiro no Kakera don’t seem to be that low: http://tokio-fujita.livejournal.com/23698.html
It links off to sources for information.
It looks to be IF’s 2nd best selling series after Hakuoki, the lowest selling title being ‘Shin Hisui no Shizuku: Hiiro no Kakera 2’ at 10,024 sales. The highest being ‘Hiiro no Kakera Portable’ at 28,165 sales.

“I am referring here TO the English side of things. And yes they mean everything. As you yourself said, what sells in Japan wont necessarily sell here. However when the scores are calculated both to scale out 100 theirs a similarity as both fall under the deviation. Showing that in Higurashi’s case, both sides think of the game similarly and furthermore in English its deemed as one of the better titles.”

Unfortunately, the ENGLISH side of things doesn’t affect how the otaku industry works,like i said what sells in the West doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily sell in Japan.

On the contrary they affect how the industry is over here.
The western industry is but one part of the Otaku industry, its a small part but it still plays a role.

“I’m using an example here? What don’t you understand about that.
The fandom considers it to be grand, i don’t, its an example.”

But you keep using english adapted games as examples?

Of course, what else do we judge by here in the west?
Games in Chinese?
Games in Russian?
Games in Japanese?
We have to judge by games that have been translated/adapted to the west as they are the only ones with figures you can really gauge on, which means VNDB becomes a key element.

“You do the math then, because Higurashi is currently in the top 1% of VNDB”

DUDE, FFS, VNDB is an english site, the ones rating there are not japanese otakus, they’re foreigners, just because it’s in the top 1% of VNDB doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the same for the japanese, it’s not like Foreigners are the ones who make the darn VN’s.

Japanese Otaku’s aren’t whats being referred to in that statistic.
Both Higurashi’s via rating on VNDB are ranked higher then 99% of other titles. Which speaks about the west and what sells/has an interest more so in the west.

“And thus far i’m starting the notice the opposite. Again going back to Hatoful boyfriend.
Mangagamers best selling game is Koihime Musou at 1250~ digital sales (to get the voices to make hard copies JAST bought the remaining 850~ copies to reach 2000)
Hatoful Boyfriend is at 1898 sales right now on DLsite english. In digital sales, Hatoful Boyfriend outsold Mangagamers best selling titles which in itself says something (especially for the Otome industry).
JAST doesn’t release sales numbers and generally doesn’t say if a title made a profit so we can’t compare how well its done compared to JASTs titles.”

._. Wow dude, what part of “what sells outside of japan doesn’t mean itsells inside japan” don’t you get? You make it seem like foreign countries are the ones who invented eroge. And what do you mean “especially for the Otome industry”? Otome games sell, heck, few of them outsold some Popular Visual novels. recently UtaPri sold over 60k copies in Japan, So yeah.
Oh and Hakuoki sold 3k outside of japan.

Where have I said that foreign countries invented eroge? Please elaborate cause I’m interested to see how you’ve gotten that from all these statistics.

“First up; if Doujin and BL games didn’t make a profit then they wouldn’t make them at all.
There’s been mutiple BL releases this year along with Doujin titles.”

And if they did make profit, they’d make more of them, now just how often you see those? if you combine all the Doujin and BL games altogether, they wouldn’t make even 1% of the Visual novel’s current numbers.

And no, there haven’t been “multiple releases this year”, not sure about Doujin games, but there was only one BL release this year and it was Dramatical Murder, Not sure if it sold well or not, but there are no traces of it in the rankings of Getchu or any other visual novel site, can anyone at the very least provide numbers? give me a reliable source with the numbers of sales, prove me wrong, and i’ll shut up without a second thought.

Sales numbers would be in ‘Cool-B’ (a BL game magazine), considering the game was released in april the sales numbers would be in the may issue. I’ll see if I can dig up a scanned copy.
I know currently the regular version is 2nd on Getchu in its category: http://www.getchu.com/all/rank_sales.html?genre=boys
Only beaten by the Hadaka Shitsuji soundtrack.
I do know the merchandise for it has been selling like hot cakes (the soundtrack even making #6 in the Oricon charts in its first day): http://hallyu8.com/topic/500-oricon-201 … ntry288773

As for games released this year, counting Doujin there’s been 11, with another 5 with confirmed released dates for this year:
http://vndb.org/g83?fil=tagspoil-0.tag_ … ;o=d;s=rel
If we take out the western produced titles there’s 9 that’ve been released this year. There’s a couple that are also planned for later on this year but aren’t on VNDB yet (MadaKobo has 2 games for release this year)

“So what if they’re doujin titles? The numbers do affect the industry, some of the big names in the ‘official’ industry have started off as doujin companies. Look at Type-Moon, they began as doujin and through sales and recognition have become an official company.
And yeah so what if Hatoful Boyfriend is doujin? To date its sold 1898 copies on DLsite english, that’s more then most of Mangagamers titles (only 1 of which has ‘sort-of’ broken 2k sales). So the games done something right.”

Dude, how many times have i told you before? What sells OUTSIDE of japan has no effect in the industry whatsoever, shit that sells within the japanese otaku industry is what counts, you don’t need me to tell you that.

What sells in the west does have an effect on the industry. As i said before, the western industry is but one part of the entire industry. Its smaller then the Japanese but it still plays a part.

“As has already been stated, Getchu ranks on sales
Erogamescape ranks on user ratings/reviews.
They use different numbers/factors to calculate their ratings and as the above ‘Enter The Matrix’ and ‘Jaws’ show. It happens to movie games all the time, you hear about them outselling games that deserve the sales just because they’re based on a movie.
Sales =/= Good game
Scores as-well aren’t 100% accurate but are more accurate then sales.”

Heh, right back at you, first (“To date its sold 1898 copies on DLsite english, that’s more then most of Mangagamers titles (only 1 of which has ‘sort-of’ broken 2k sales). So the games done something right”) You say that the game has done something right because of the sales, and now you’re telling me that “Sales =/= Good game”? Are you serious? I don’t even…

When did I say Hatoful Boyfriend was a good game?
Sales =/= good game, once again I go back to Jaws. High sales, Bad game.
I’ve played Hatoful Boyfriend, thought the game had a funny concept but that’s all it really had going for it. It’s not a good game, its OK but not good. (The only real reason to play it is the WTF DATING BIRDS?!?! appeal and the only reason for its sales is the fact that it’s been spread all over the internet with articles even from CRACKED drumming up sales for it).

Anyway, on topic now, i admit, there are somethings i didn’t know before and i apologize if i offended any of you, but i stand by my point and i say BL games don’t sell.
If you can prove me wrong, give me a source with the sales number units of a BL game (how about Dramatical murder?) and i’ll never consider posting on this thread ever again.

Hey, I don’t think you’ve offended anyone. Discussion and debates are what these forums are made for, if JAST didn’t want this kind of discussion they’d have done something about it already.

I haven’t found PC sales data but I have found sales data for the Togainu No Chi ports:
Togainu No Chi: TRUE BLOOD: 21005 - http://geimin.net/da/db/2008_ne_mc/index.php
Togainu No Chi: TRUE BLOOD Portable: 14397 - http://geimin.net/da/db/2011_ne_mc/index.php

In terms of the west and BL sales numbers/Interest:
A little while after their release they said this: http://anime.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=3418

3. What’s the status of JAST-USA’s yaoi line?

Peter Payne: We’ve been pleased with the response overall, although we hope that more yaoi fans – preferably all of them – will see the logic in supporting our efforts to bring out these BL games for fans. Currently response has been less than we would have liked to see, and possibly less than we might have seen if we’d brought out similar bishoujo games. We’ll work hard to promote the two titles (which are excellent – I love the subtlety of the stories and characters in both games) in the summer anime-con scene and see how we are in a few months.

Furthermore JAST has confirmed last year that they made a profit from every title they’ve released: http://www.japanator.com/interview-jast … 8229.phtml

We’ve definitely met all of our goals, which has been to make a profit (sometimes very small) off of every dating-sim game we published, and to always grow and do interesting new things.

So the Yaoi titles did pull in a profit.

Also a worthwhile mention; Mangagamer has also gone on record having a staff member post on Aarinfantasy to get information, ideas and all from fans along with suggesting some BL titles they could release in the future.

Edit:
According to aarinfantasy, Nitro+Chiral hasn’t ever released sales numbers but has referenced that none of their titles have flopped. So any numbers about their titles are independently gathered. That doesn’t count the Togainu ports though because they were handled by a different company.

[Makoto]

I like to see action on our forums, but let’s please refrain from insulting other posters’ intelligence (“you don’t know what you’re talking about”) or otherwise posting in a condescending or antagonistic tone. Thanks.

[YouStoopet]

@Lipp

Alright, there goes Kore wa zombie desuka, what about the other titles? I confirmed Kore wa zombie desu ka even has the Light novel to boost the sales, but what about the other ones i mentioned?

Sales for Hiiro no Kakera don’t seem to be that low: http://tokio-fujita.livejournal.com/23698.html
It links off to sources for information.
It looks to be IF’s 2nd best selling series after Hakuoki, the lowest selling title being ‘Shin Hisui no Shizuku: Hiiro no Kakera 2’ at 10,024 sales. The highest being ‘Hiiro no Kakera Portable’ at 28,165 sales.

“I am referring here TO the English side of things. And yes they mean everything. As you yourself said, what sells in Japan wont necessarily sell here. However when the scores are calculated both to scale out 100 theirs a similarity as both fall under the deviation. Showing that in Higurashi’s case, both sides think of the game similarly and furthermore in English its deemed as one of the better titles.”

Unfortunately, the ENGLISH side of things doesn’t affect how the otaku industry works,like i said what sells in the West doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily sell in Japan.

On the contrary they affect how the industry is over here.
The western industry is but one part of the Otaku industry, its a small part but it still plays a role.

“I’m using an example here? What don’t you understand about that.
The fandom considers it to be grand, i don’t, its an example.”

But you keep using english adapted games as examples?

Of course, what else do we judge by here in the west?
Games in Chinese?
Games in Russian?
Games in Japanese?
We have to judge by games that have been translated/adapted to the west as they are the only ones with figures you can really gauge on, which means VNDB becomes a key element.

“You do the math then, because Higurashi is currently in the top 1% of VNDB”

DUDE, FFS, VNDB is an english site, the ones rating there are not japanese otakus, they’re foreigners, just because it’s in the top 1% of VNDB doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the same for the japanese, it’s not like Foreigners are the ones who make the darn VN’s.

Japanese Otaku’s aren’t whats being referred to in that statistic.
Both Higurashi’s via rating on VNDB are ranked higher then 99% of other titles. Which speaks about the west and what sells/has an interest more so in the west.

“And thus far i’m starting the notice the opposite. Again going back to Hatoful boyfriend.
Mangagamers best selling game is Koihime Musou at 1250~ digital sales (to get the voices to make hard copies JAST bought the remaining 850~ copies to reach 2000)
Hatoful Boyfriend is at 1898 sales right now on DLsite english. In digital sales, Hatoful Boyfriend outsold Mangagamers best selling titles which in itself says something (especially for the Otome industry).
JAST doesn’t release sales numbers and generally doesn’t say if a title made a profit so we can’t compare how well its done compared to JASTs titles.”

._. Wow dude, what part of “what sells outside of japan doesn’t mean itsells inside japan” don’t you get? You make it seem like foreign countries are the ones who invented eroge. And what do you mean “especially for the Otome industry”? Otome games sell, heck, few of them outsold some Popular Visual novels. recently UtaPri sold over 60k copies in Japan, So yeah.
Oh and Hakuoki sold 3k outside of japan.

Where have I said that foreign countries invented eroge? Please elaborate cause I’m interested to see how you’ve gotten that from all these statistics.

“First up; if Doujin and BL games didn’t make a profit then they wouldn’t make them at all.
There’s been mutiple BL releases this year along with Doujin titles.”

And if they did make profit, they’d make more of them, now just how often you see those? if you combine all the Doujin and BL games altogether, they wouldn’t make even 1% of the Visual novel’s current numbers.

And no, there haven’t been “multiple releases this year”, not sure about Doujin games, but there was only one BL release this year and it was Dramatical Murder, Not sure if it sold well or not, but there are no traces of it in the rankings of Getchu or any other visual novel site, can anyone at the very least provide numbers? give me a reliable source with the numbers of sales, prove me wrong, and i’ll shut up without a second thought.

Sales numbers would be in ‘Cool-B’ (a BL game magazine), considering the game was released in april the sales numbers would be in the may issue. I’ll see if I can dig up a scanned copy.
I know currently the regular version is 2nd on Getchu in its category: http://www.getchu.com/all/rank_sales.html?genre=boys
Only beaten by the Hadaka Shitsuji soundtrack.
I do know the merchandise for it has been selling like hot cakes (the soundtrack even making #6 in the Oricon charts in its first day): http://hallyu8.com/topic/500-oricon-201 … ntry288773

As for games released this year, counting Doujin there’s been 11, with another 5 with confirmed released dates for this year:
http://vndb.org/g83?fil=tagspoil-0.tag_ … ;o=d;s=rel
If we take out the western produced titles there’s 9 that’ve been released this year. There’s a couple that are also planned for later on this year but aren’t on VNDB yet (MadaKobo has 2 games for release this year)

“So what if they’re doujin titles? The numbers do affect the industry, some of the big names in the ‘official’ industry have started off as doujin companies. Look at Type-Moon, they began as doujin and through sales and recognition have become an official company.
And yeah so what if Hatoful Boyfriend is doujin? To date its sold 1898 copies on DLsite english, that’s more then most of Mangagamers titles (only 1 of which has ‘sort-of’ broken 2k sales). So the games done something right.”

Dude, how many times have i told you before? What sells OUTSIDE of japan has no effect in the industry whatsoever, shit that sells within the japanese otaku industry is what counts, you don’t need me to tell you that.

What sells in the west does have an effect on the industry. As i said before, the western industry is but one part of the entire industry. Its smaller then the Japanese but it still plays a part.

“As has already been stated, Getchu ranks on sales
Erogamescape ranks on user ratings/reviews.
They use different numbers/factors to calculate their ratings and as the above ‘Enter The Matrix’ and ‘Jaws’ show. It happens to movie games all the time, you hear about them outselling games that deserve the sales just because they’re based on a movie.
Sales =/= Good game
Scores as-well aren’t 100% accurate but are more accurate then sales.”

Heh, right back at you, first (“To date its sold 1898 copies on DLsite english, that’s more then most of Mangagamers titles (only 1 of which has ‘sort-of’ broken 2k sales). So the games done something right”) You say that the game has done something right because of the sales, and now you’re telling me that “Sales =/= Good game”? Are you serious? I don’t even…

When did I say Hatoful Boyfriend was a good game?
Sales =/= good game, once again I go back to Jaws. High sales, Bad game.
I’ve played Hatoful Boyfriend, thought the game had a funny concept but that’s all it really had going for it. It’s not a good game, its OK but not good. (The only real reason to play it is the WTF DATING BIRDS?!?! appeal and the only reason for its sales is the fact that it’s been spread all over the internet with articles even from CRACKED drumming up sales for it).

Anyway, on topic now, i admit, there are somethings i didn’t know before and i apologize if i offended any of you, but i stand by my point and i say BL games don’t sell.
If you can prove me wrong, give me a source with the sales number units of a BL game (how about Dramatical murder?) and i’ll never consider posting on this thread ever again.

Hey, I don’t think you’ve offended anyone. Discussion and debates are what these forums are made for, if JAST didn’t want this kind of discussion they’d have done something about it already.

I haven’t found PC sales data but I have found sales data for the Togainu No Chi ports:
Togainu No Chi: TRUE BLOOD: 21005 - http://geimin.net/da/db/2008_ne_mc/index.php
Togainu No Chi: TRUE BLOOD Portable: 14397 - http://geimin.net/da/db/2011_ne_mc/index.php

In terms of the west and BL sales numbers/Interest:
A little while after their release they said this: http://anime.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=3418

3. What’s the status of JAST-USA’s yaoi line?

Peter Payne: We’ve been pleased with the response overall, although we hope that more yaoi fans – preferably all of them – will see the logic in supporting our efforts to bring out these BL games for fans. Currently response has been less than we would have liked to see, and possibly less than we might have seen if we’d brought out similar bishoujo games. We’ll work hard to promote the two titles (which are excellent – I love the subtlety of the stories and characters in both games) in the summer anime-con scene and see how we are in a few months.

Furthermore JAST has confirmed last year that they made a profit from every title they’ve released: http://www.japanator.com/interview-jast … 8229.phtml

We’ve definitely met all of our goals, which has been to make a profit (sometimes very small) off of every dating-sim game we published, and to always grow and do interesting new things.

So the Yaoi titles did pull in a profit.

Also a worthwhile mention; Mangagamer has also gone on record having a staff member post on Aarinfantasy to get information, ideas and all from fans along with suggesting some BL titles they could release in the future.

Yup, looks like Hiiro no kakera’s sales are decent alright. though the anime’s somehow stuck at the 1k mark:
http://www27392u.sakura.ne.jp/show.cgi?n=B007G0O8FU
That’s the first volume though, but usually the sales of the first volumes are always higher than the next ones. not sure though, things can change.

I know what you mean dude, The fact that the west’s otaku industry is but a small part coupled with the whole pirating thing is what makes the industry in japan unnaffected.

"Sales numbers would be in ‘Cool-B’ (a BL game magazine), considering the game was released in april the sales numbers would be in the may issue. I’ll see if I can dig up a scanned copy.
I know currently the regular version is 2nd on Getchu in its category: http://www.getchu.com/all/rank_sales.html?genre=boys
Only beaten by the Hadaka Shitsuji soundtrack.
I do know the merchandise for it has been selling like hot cakes (the soundtrack even making #6 in the Oricon charts in its first day): http://hallyu8.com/topic/500-oricon-201 … ntry288773

As for games released this year, counting Doujin there’s been 11, with another 5 with confirmed released dates for this year:
http://vndb.org/g83?fil=tagspoil-0.tag_ … ;o=d;s=rel
If we take out the western produced titles there’s 9 that’ve been released this year. There’s a couple that are also planned for later on this year but aren’t on VNDB yet (MadaKobo has 2 games for release this year)
"
I’d apperciate if you manage to get me the sales number of Dramatical murder, i’m kind of curious lol

Well, the sales of the Soundtrack and the game itself aren’t really the same (Although i’d apperciate if you dig up Hadaka shitsuji’s sales too, i’ve been hearing it did horrible due to extreme content lol, there’s also been rumours that it was made by a guy .-.), but yeah, the sountrack and the game itself aren’t the same, take for example this season’s Kuroko no basket, the BD/DVD sales are at 4K, while the Soundtrack’s already sold nearly 20K, same goes for alot of series of any format, Idolm@ster’s soundtracks are somehow selling twice as much as the anime volumes, so yeah.

As for that VNDB link, if you look through the 2012 ones, most of them are Trap hentai (Crossdressing Shotas), they’re intended for the male audience so they don’t count as “BL”.

"Hey, I don’t think you’ve offended anyone. Discussion and debates are what these forums are made for, if JAST didn’t want this kind of discussion they’d have done something about it already.

I haven’t found PC sales data but I have found sales data for the Togainu No Chi ports:
Togainu No Chi: TRUE BLOOD: 21005 - http://geimin.net/da/db/2008_ne_mc/index.php
Togainu No Chi: TRUE BLOOD Portable: 14397 - http://geimin.net/da/db/2011_ne_mc/index.php

In terms of the west and BL sales numbers/Interest:
A little while after their release they said this: http://anime.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=3418"

So those are the ports of PS2 and PSP?
By the way, I’ll have to take back what i said earlier about R-18 games selling better than All-ages, i looked through Siliconera’s weekly sales Record, i found out Ore no imouto sold around 57k on its first week and Uta no prince debut sold around 60K on its first week, it seems like Console VN’s (Since they’re always all ages) sell better than R-18 ones, since many people do not prefer the adult content. i can’t speak for all though.

Anyway, it seems Otome games are the way to go if they wanted to get some off the female market, I mean 60k on the first week is not easy to pull even for a regular VN, yet Uta pri managed to pull off a 60K.

Well, i’m off to sleep for now, i’d apperciate if you could dig out the sales of those two BL titles, i just want to confirm something.

[Nargrakhan]

@YouStoopet

It’s just that it confuses me how the very top sellers are 90s VN’s where the genre wasn’t really popular at that time (or it was?) I mean, now we’ve got the moe and sht, better character designs, longer gameplay and decent stories, aren’t the modern ones supposed to sell better? I don’t know though, it seems a little bit weird to me

Two factors are responsible for the 90’s being the money making era of galge: Tokimeki Memorial and the SEGA Saturn. Being very general here, as there were several other inputs, but this covers the basics.

Factor #1: Tokimeki Memorial
In 1994, Konami was in dire straights. It was going bankrupt and was ready to file the paperwork. The last big project Konami had on their plate was Tokimeki Memorial. Though the company did not expect TokiMemo to save them, they had nothing to lose, and undertook the largest advertising campaign they ever had done (up to that point), which in turn was the largest ad campaign for a galge (up to that point). Commercial blitz. Life size cardboard cut outs at every Akihabara outlet. Radio dramas. Massive magazine spreads. They had nothing to lose after all, and if they were going out, they figured it be with a bang. That level of exposure made TokiMemo known to people who never heard of a galge before. In short: it got the mainstream customer’s attention. Moreover, a lot of female gamer found appeal in a game that feature so many heroines in it and weren’t just sexual conquers. This would become more prominent when TokiMemo2 was sold, and eventually pioneer the creation of Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side… but that’s another tale…

TokiMemo was a great game, and made a major impact on the PC Engine. This gave Konami the funding and confidence to publish the improved Tokimeki Memorial: Forever With You on the PS1 and the Saturn. It printed it’s own damn money (500,000+ on PS1 and 350,000+ on Saturn). Konami was saved, Koji Igarashi was God (who was granted permission to work on and do whatever the hell he wanted with any Konami property… he picked Castlevania and gave us Symphony of the Night), and people who never played a galge were playing a galge… and now wanted to play more of them: nearly one million of them. We would not see a galge sucess of this magnitude until Sakura Taisen.

[u]Factor #2: SEGA Saturn[/u]
Generally speaking, as far as it goes for Japan, games released on a console will always outperform the ones released on PC. That’s just how the market has worked. SEGA was very open about allowing 18+ titles on the Saturn. They were officially approved – more so than even NEC did with the PC Engine (who also allowed them). The SEGA Saturn therefore had many 18+ games released on it, several becoming the best selling eroge of all time because of it. With literally hundreds of thousands of new TokiMemo lovers looking for more galge, some of the older gamers wanted to go “all the way” with their girls. It was the perfect storm… and when Sakura Taisen hit the streets in 1996, that storm became a freaking cataclysm. The combo of TokiMemo and Sakura Taisen was the golden age of galge. The console death of SEGA was a major loss, as Sony and Nintendo refused to allow ero content on their systems, and without a console to release new eroge titles… well… it was a massive loss of market access.

The glory of Sakura Taisen died with the Dreamcast failure (and ST4 was rushed before being completed, ruining the magic). The glory of TokiMemo died when Tokimeki Memorial 3 was released as a 3D nightmare and stupid game mechanics. It caused a major fallout, and the series was effectively retired. Years later, Tokimeki Memorial 4 opened to major acclaim, however it was released on that failure of a system we call the PSP. It could only sell 85,000+ copies, which is a high number as far as general galge go, but Konami was expecting at least 250,000+ sales. A pity… had TM4 waited until 3DS, and developed for it, things might have been different… proof of this is with LovePlus, the current reigning king of galge, which isn’t surprising to know that Konami made it.

On a sidenote: Konami won’t be making a TokiMemo4 on 3DS, because of porting difficulties and no reason to create a rival for LovePlus (since they fear gamers will only buy one or the other if presented with a choice).

Why didn’t LovePlus create the same effect as TokiMemo + Saturn back in the 90’s? TokiMemo got people who never played galge, to play more galge, many of them being of high school age. LovePlus only got people who were already galge fans, who stopped buying galge, to just buy LovePlus. Mostly only men (TokiMemo appealed to female gamers; LovePlus did not). Thus the demographic didn’t renew itself and spread around. The population of galge buyers has also gotten smaller since the 90’s (outgrown them, lost interest, no money due to poor economy, etc) - so sales of 500,000+ are unlikely to happen again for quite awhile… LovePlus being the sole exception.

[u]Personal Thoughts…[/u]
The future and salvation of 500,000+ sale galge are portables and mobile phones. The massive success of [b]LovePlus[/b] (portables) and [b]Tokimeki Memorial 4 Chu[/b] (mobile phone) are proof of this. Hopefully we’ll being seeing the industry make the shift slowly, but if they take too long, may lose the chance to make it. Naturally, Konami has figured it out, but I fear they cannot do it alone…

EDIT
Oh yes… one last item to mention: If you do searching on the sales of NEW LovePlus (the sequel to LovePlus), you’ll notice that many sales charts reveal the game only sold 100,000+ copies and completely dropped out of the top ten lists in only two weeks. The reason for this is because of a major game breaking bug and several annoying minor ones. Konami ordered the halting of sales and there was a major recall. This completely screwed NEW LovePlus on the market and caused issues with unit sold tracking. Therefore the official numbers for NEW LovePlus, is somewhat difficult to determine until Konami reveals something concrete. This is also why NEW LovePlus gets shitty customers reviews. Essentially, Konami shot themselves in the foot. I read that people in the development team lost their jobs cause of this, as the error happens during White Day, which should have been thoroughly tested during beta, but obviously was not. The other issue is that your loyalest customers tend to pre-order, especially in Japan, and 100% of them got the bugged version.