Curious

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

Now, this question may have been asked before. So please bare with me. (EDIT: “Bear with me” I mean! Not even going to try and picture that one…)

After spending a good amount of time reading the past posts on these boards I have come up with a question.

1) The older Newsletters posted by Kumiko Kamiyama (Who was really a man who liked to wear a dress? Nevermind, don’t want to know.) talked about a few other titles that were temporarily suspended in production. Did PeaPri bite off more than it could chew? Or are these titles just “maybe” projects that we may never see?

[This message has been edited by Allarian (edited 01-15-2003).]

#2
quote:
Originally posted by Allarian:
Now, this question may have been asked before. So please bare with me. (EDIT: "Bear with me" I mean! Not even going to try and picture that one...)

But it's such an interesting picture... [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]

quote:

1) The older Newsletters posted by Kumiko Kamiyama (Who was really a man who liked to wear a dress? Nevermind, don't want to know.) talked about a few other titles that were temporarily suspended in production. Did PeaPri bite off more than it could chew? Or are these titles just "maybe" projects that we may never see?

Kumiko was the female BBS persona of the previous admin who was a man in real life. I think that's as far as it went. I can see some of the reasoning for it, but that's a different discussion.

*blinks* Boy it's been awhile since that newletter. Er, like it mentions, there were various reasons for the suspensions, and I'm guessing parts of it did have to do with resources. But it's not like this is the first time I've seen an aggressive projected release schedule fall apart do to resources allocation problems and other problems cropping up. As for if we'll see them, depends on things like sales and such. I believe there was the mention of Doushin (Synchronous Hearts) being projected to come out as well as X-Change 2. Can't remember what was last said about Newscaster Mariko or La Voyeur, there's the hints about Slave Bazaar's status (the others know about it better than I do) but given how long LMM has taken, LMM: Pandora's Box may be way far in the future if ever.

But that's my thoughts, Lamuness-san would be the person with actual inside information that would give a more solid response.

#3
quote:
Originally posted by Allarian:
Now, this question may have been asked before. So please bare with me. (EDIT: "Bear with me" I mean! Not even going to try and picture that one...)

[This message has been edited by Allarian (edited 01-15-2003).]

Looks like you just did.

#4
quote:
Originally posted by Allarian:
After spending a good amount of time reading the past posts on these boards I have come up with a question.

[This message has been edited by Allarian (edited 01-15-2003).]

You spent a good deal of time reading the past posts on the board, and you just have one question? What, no running away screaming? No eyes bleeding from the pain?

Come on guys, we can do better than that...

#5

no, no, Nande, he has proven himself WORTHY if you jump into boiling hot lava and come out unscathed, you are truly one of the chosen ones

#6
quote:
Originally posted by Allarian:
1) The older Newsletters posted by Kumiko Kamiyama (Who was really a man who liked to wear a dress? Nevermind, don't want to know.) talked about a few other titles that were temporarily suspended in production. Did PeaPri bite off more than it could chew? Or are these titles just "maybe" projects that we may never see?


[This message has been edited by Allarian (edited 01-15-2003).]

As someone with a bit more experience in the business end of making a video game...I can safely say that there is A BUTTLOAD of work involved there. It is an INSANE amount of work to get things working. While it is true that it would not be a great difficulty to get things to work...getting them to work well is many times harder.

Suffice to say, a quick summary is that these games are barely making money, and that Japanese releases sell several times as many units at twice the release price. And at that, many Japanese bishoujo game makers can barely afford to stay afloat. They are also not large companies, either.

Now factor in this: the original Japanese companies are intimately involved in creating the English versions. They have to redraw the artwork to uncensor it. They have to change the game code to accomodate English-language changes. It can NOT be done by US staff effectively; comments and documentation and the like are all in Japanese, and no one can make modifications to a program he cannot read.

So in sum, the Japanese game makers are small, budget-strapped companies which have a strong short-term incentive to do only Japanese-language versions, and only a nebulous "one day there will be a large market that can double your sales" incentive to be multiregion.

This has resulted in the current situation.

#7

I will add that my previous post’s calculus has been changed somewhat. The Japanese firms have seen that the market CAN be forced open now. I understand that Peach Princess’ sales, while low in the absolute scale of things, are higher than any previous companies’. And so some of the larger b-game companies have apparently pooled resources into G-collections.

This changes the “small company with no money” part of the equation. And indeed, g-collections has been prolific, putting out more (albeit lower quality) games total than Peach Princess has in half the time.

#8
quote:
This changes the "small company with no money" part of the equation. And indeed, g-collections has been prolific, putting out more (albeit lower quality) games total than Peach Princess has in half the time.

eh? I think G-Collections games might be higher quality than PeachPrincess

#9

Hmm, so G-collections is a new alliance? I think that makes sense in the equation, since Himeya was just one company, and Peach Princess’s resources is ultimately here in the states, with only Will and Crowd’s titles under her belt. Must be tough going when the company doesn’t have nearly as many resources, like, many heads are better than one or something like that, nante.

#10
quote:
Originally posted by exoarchaeologist:
eh? I think G-Collections games might be higher quality than PeachPrincess

Well... That might be true, and it might not. You amy be right about the quality thing in the case of Kana and some other Games from g-collections (like the games released by Zyx, for example), but I think that most of G-collections games, while they can be both nice and fun, pales in comparisation to most Will/Crowd titles. But it depends on what you're looking for.

[This message has been edited by Spectator Beholder (edited 01-16-2003).]

#11

Peach Princess or G-collections ?

Well in therm of quality it depend on whish game you talk.

If you compare DOR and Tokimeki Check in, everybody would say peach princess.

But if you compare X-change 1 and Kana, no doubt that everybody would say G-collection.

However personnely i am more interested in the next trabulance/D.O game that G-collection could release (pray! Crescendo ! Crescendo !) than the next WILL/CROWD game than Peach princess could release.

#12

It all depends on what you’re looking for.

-Right now, even though they’ve done an impressive volume of titles, G-Collections is still #2 on the list because of Brave Soul. They might take a co-#1 spot if they decide to localize Fortuna. Not a moment before, though.

#13

Well both companies have released good and bad games. I don’t really rate one company over the other at this point. I think both have released a good variety of games, giving people a taste of what’s out there and I think that’s the important thing at this stage of the game.

#14
quote:
Originally posted by exoarchaeologist:
eh? I think G-Collections games might be higher quality than PeachPrincess

Not once they got into G-collections hands they didn't. The translation for Chain, at least, was subpar. And aside from that, there are parts in Private Nurse where characters speak. In Japanese. Without subtitles of any kind. I assume this is because there was no text box in the original Japanese version, and it just didn't get added in.

I'm not talking about the overall quality of the game here; I'm talking about the quality of G-Collection's job translating them.

#15
quote:
Originally posted by bokmeow:
Hmm, so G-collections is a new alliance? I think that makes sense in the equation, since Himeya was just one company, and Peach Princess's resources is ultimately here in the states, with only Will and Crowd's titles under her belt. Must be tough going when the company doesn't have nearly as many resources, like, many heads are better than one or something like that, nante.

According to what I have heard it is. Of course, I have heard only hearsay from others on this board, so take with as much salt as you like.

#16
quote:
Originally posted by exoarchaeologist:
eh? I think G-Collections games might be higher quality than PeachPrincess

That all depends on what you consider higher quality. G-Collections (from what I can see) is releasing all Multi-path ADV games. While the two I own are quite good, neither of them are exactly earth shattering. (Don't get me wrong, I like G-Collections and will buy all their products to help support them.)

PeaPri on the other hand is bringing over an RPG(Brave Soul) and SIM-type(Little My Maid, Gibo) games. Those types of games will more likely appeal to the American audience.


#17
quote:
Originally posted by Allarian:
PeaPri on the other hand is bringing over an RPG(Brave Soul) and SIM-type(Little My Maid, Gibo) games. Those types of games will more likely appeal to the American audience.

Just a little something: Gibo is not a SIM-type game, but Little My Maid and, of course, Slave Bazaar is.

#18
quote:
Originally posted by Spectator Beholder:
Just a little something: Gibo is not a SIM-type game, but Little My Maid and, of course, Slave Bazaar is.

Let me correct myself then. Gibo has the Love/Trust system similar to Lttle My Maid. Which offers more depth to the game, rather than just being a Multi-end ADV.

#19
quote:
Originally posted by Spectator Beholder:
Well... That might be true, and it might not. You amy be right about the quality thing in the case of Kana and some other Games from g-collections (like the games released by Zyx, for example), but I think that most of G-collections games, while they can be both nice and fun, pales in comparisation to most Will/Crowd titles. But it depends on what you're looking for.
Sorry to burst your bubble, Spectator, but AFAI recall, Trabulance and ZyX are more popular/successful in Japan than Will or CROWD. I can check (for last year or so), but I don't remember ever seeing Will or CROWD's game in the top ten sold games, while I remember seeing ZyX or Trabulance. For instance, "Ecchina Bunny-san wa kirai?2" of ZyX was #3 in the last ranking (from 10.16 to 11.30)!
If people are interested, I can create a thread with selling scores in Japan, starting from... August last year, I think.
#20

overall i’m very impressed with G-Collections and there games. Most of there games have really good quality and animation, especially Trabulance and Zyx games. I think that G-C is probably doing a bit better than PP right now, selling games like Chain, Kango, Private Nurse and Tottemo. So far Chain is my favorite game from G-C, not only that it has a good plot, but it has animation in it. truthfully, the only PP game that i probably like better than any other G-C game, is Totimeki Check in. Other than that, i think G-C has better games than PP. Brave Soul on the other hand will be another hit from PP.