quote:
Originally posted by woodelf:
So are you planning to make a clean sweep on world takeover? Ha Ha Ha
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Originally thought by Il-Palazzo:
This World is corrupt!
Taking over the world is a concept that never works. Only a gradual approach can be successful, so you should start with taking over the city.
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Originally posted by Unicorn:
That depends on which sales they generate too.
After all, the companies have to plan their releases based on sales figures in order to stay in business. And if those porn-freaks made the easy and plotless games like Tsuki best-sellers, we can say goodbye to a-class-releases liek Kana and Crecendo in the close future.Instead, we'll see the release of:
Shukketsu Bo 2/3/4Now, do you see the point about Sad, but true?
First of all, I don't know if that was the point Ekylo was originally making because there was no reference in his post to the points you have made.
The most important factor in the bishojo game industry is sales - whoever buys them and for whatever reason, they are sales and support companies like Peach Princess and G-Collections. What would really be sad is if the sales didn't justify releasing anything at all, let alone the likes of Crescendo.
Speaking of which, if the industry this far down the line can accomodate the release of Casual Romance Club, Crescendo and Brave Soul in the same year I'd say the outlook is pretty decent. Kana and Private Nurse must be selling fairly well for G-Collections to even bother with something like Crescendo. Of course, parellels can be drawn with the anime and manga industry in that there are far more generic titles than those that offer true quality and innovation, but with growing popularity more choice becomes available.
I think it's shaping up to be a great year [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
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Originally posted by Interzone:
The most important factor in the bishojo game industry is sales - whoever buys them and for whatever reason, they are sales and support companies like Peach Princess and G-Collections. What would really be sad is if the sales didn't justify releasing anything at all, let alone the likes of Crescendo.
I agree about: "The most important factor in the bishojo game industry is sales".
And your last clause is the thing I fear most:
Of cause, I don't know how the read sales figures look, but when they the suddenly annouce Shukketsu Bo less than a year after Tsuki was released, it gives me a certain idea about them.
I mean: there are certainly a lot of other dark themed games available for releasing and some of them with really great plots. But they decided to take on another game whose story was made by the same author, so you can assume a similar quality. You wouldn't call that a coincidence, would you?
quote:
Originally posted by Interzone:
Speaking of which, if the industry this far down the line can accomodate the release of Casual Romance Club, Crescendo and Brave Soul in the same year I'd say the outlook is pretty decent.
In order to judge if the market can accomodate these releases, they should have been released (only CRC is right now) and been selling at least for half a year, if you have access to the sales figures.
If you don't have access to these informations (as I do), you only can watch closely which titles gets announce next and draw your conclusions.
I want to stress the point that my conclusions may be wrong, but I have told what made me draw this conclusion. Besides that, I have to admit that I hate Tsuki passionately, so of cause all is just my opinion.
Regarding Casual Romance Club:
If Kagami is right (usually he is), CRC never targeted the english market and just was meant as a gimmick for the faithful japanese customers of LIBIDO, so I wouldn't count it in here because it wasn't part of a strategy to develop the english market in the first place. We were just lucky that Kagami told us about it when it first seemed to be an april-fools joke.
quote:
Originally posted by Interzone:
Kana and Private Nurse must be selling fairly well for G-Collections to even bother with something like Crescendo. Of course, parellels can be drawn with the anime and manga industry in that there are far more generic titles than those that offer true quality and innovation, but with growing popularity more choice becomes available.
I hope so too. But the only thing I know for certain about the sales is that of all the games only Kango Shicyauzo sold out and Kana was released at the same time. While I love this game too, it isn't in the same league as Kana, Private Nurse and Crecendo.
Of cause, this conclusion may be again misled because we don't know if the same amount of copies of Kana and Kango Shicyauzo were printed.
quote:
Originally posted by Interzone:
I think it's shaping up to be a great year [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
This year for sure, and I also enjoy these releases, but I fear for the upcoming years, after the results of the sales figures have kicked in.
But perhaps, I am just a terrible pessimist...
So let's see how many a-class-products will be released after Crecendo or if it is the last test if such games sell here too.
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
I mean: there are certainly a lot of other dark themed games available for releasing and some of them with really great plots. But they decided to take on another game whose story was made by the same author, so you can assume a similar quality. You wouldn't call that a coincidence, would you?
Like which ones? Mind you, I don't know much about the games G-collections have access to, so... I know that Will and Crowd does for sure have a couple of dark games that would be more like the kind of dark games we want to see at the english market, but does the companies that currently release their games in English via G-collections?
But on the other hand, what you say makes much sense: If Tsuki was popular enough, in terms of sales figures, It's no surpise that they choose to release a dark game made by the same author...
I don’t think we need to worry about more and more dark themed releases.
From what I’ve seen so far it seems to be pretty mixed and it would be very unwise to specify even further in an already narrow market.
Personally I’d like to see only light games but that would be equally unhealthy for a company to do until the market opens up
But I think we’re getting a bit off topic here …
Hardly a topic goes by where we don’t veer off a little…
While Interzone-san’s right in that my posts focus weren’t on those particular points, some of what Unicorn-san said does factor into my “sad but true” comment about people who play these games for adult content. Just look back on our arguments on why X-Change was a top seller. Granted, X-Change 2 was light-years better than the original, but what if the X-Change games had developed more along the lines of Paradise Heights instead? When someone tells me that X-Change is better than Snow Drop because it’s easier to get the sex scenes, saddness is only one of the emotions I feel about the whole thing.
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Originally posted by ekylo:
When someone tells me that X-Change is better than Snow Drop because it's easier to get the sex scenes, saddness is only one of the emotions I feel about the whole thing.
Yeah, I can understand you feeling that way. Sorry, I was a little insensitive to your strength of feeling on this matter in one of my earlier posts. I suppose I don't let it bother me much at all, but then I wouldn't exactly call myself a "hardcore" bishojo gamer. I am a fan of them, but perhaps not to the extent of some people here [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
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Originally posted by Interzone:
Speaking of which, if the industry this far down the line can accomodate the release of Casual Romance Club, Crescendo and Brave Soul in the same year I'd say the outlook is pretty decent.*snip*
You are correct; G-collections has been putting out lots of titles. But really, Brave Soul has been in the pipeline for literally 3 years by now. Convenient market timing isn't something they're worrying too much about now.
As for Casual Romance Club, it was released around April Fools' as a gag to amuse the Japanese consumers. It was not aimed at the US market at all, which is why it was so expensive; we here in the States simply decided to import copies.
So really, the 2 of these games aren't strategically timed with the American market in mind, really at all...but you're right anyway :)
Funny, isn't it?
[This message has been edited by Nandemonai (edited 10-02-2003).]
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Originally posted by woodelf:
So are you planning to make a clean sweep on world takeover? Ha Ha Ha
Janitorial being the department responsible for cleaning up messes and making things run smoothly, I guess you could say that...
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
I agree about: "The most important factor in the bishojo game industry is sales".
And your last clause is the thing I fear most:
Of cause, I don't know how the read sales figures look, but when they the suddenly annouce Shukketsu Bo less than a year after Tsuki was released, it gives me a certain idea about them.
I mean: there are certainly a lot of other dark themed games available for releasing and some of them with really great plots. But they decided to take on another game whose story was made by the same author, so you can assume a similar quality. You wouldn't call that a coincidence, would you?
Of course it isn't a coincidence. If it's created by the same guy, then he'll already be familiar with working with G-collections. And given a choice between working with someone they know, who had a product that was reasonably popular for them in the past...and picking someone else with a similar product...guess which they will pick?
I mean, is it really a surprise that the Final Fantasy games go up to 10? No. Has the RPG market turned into all FF clones? ... to a distressing degree, yes -- but NOT completely so, by a long shot.
So I guess my point here is, it's probably premature to make any forewarnings of doom.
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
I hope so too. But the only thing I know for certain about the sales is that of all the games only Kango Shicyauzo sold out and Kana was released at the same time. While I love this game too, it isn't in the same league as Kana, Private Nurse and Crecendo.
Of cause, this conclusion may be again misled because we don't know if the same amount of copies of Kana and Kango Shicyauzo were printed.
I would say it is a fairly safe assumption that we have NO information about Kana. It seems to me the only reason Kango sold out was because they were deliberately moving the entire remainder of their stock, so when they released the voice+ version they wouldn't be left with the equivalent of Critical Point LE games. We don't know how well Kango sold, other than it went through at least one full print run.
There has been no reissued version of Kana, so no reason for them to allow stock to run out. Thus, there is no reason for them to announce "Kana is sold out! We are printing more discs, please wait ..." --they'd just print more silently and we'd never know.
Edit: Remember -- 'Kumiko' does NOT work for G-collections [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
[This message has been edited by Nandemonai (edited 10-02-2003).]
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
But perhaps, I am just a terrible pessimist...So let's see how many a-class-products will be released after Crecendo or if it is the last test if such games sell here too.
Well. We already know it won't be - see the upcoming release of Little My Maid and Doushin.
It is more or less a given that they won't be out before Crescendo.
quote:
Originally posted by Interzone:
I have a question. I find myself perpetually confused at the issue of mosaicing/redrawing/editing, etc. When you say thre removal of mosaics "edits the original picture", what do you mean?[This message has been edited by Interzone (edited 09-26-2003).]
Alright. Here you go! An actual on-topic reply! (Imagine that...)
Anyhow, here is, as I understand it, the deal. The original artwork, as done by the CG artist, may or may not be as detailed in the area that is going to be mosaiced - it's easy to say "hey, it's going to be BZZT-ed anyway - screw it" and like pencil it in. But even supposing the original had the detail - the image is censored and the resulting image is used in the game.
If they don't keep the originals then they have to recreate the image, by having the original artist go in and uncensor the work.
It is referred to as 'editing' for the same reason that censoring is. It's changing the work to conform to market pressures. The fact that it's originally censored ... has evolved beyond a legal requirement, into a cultural thing. Changing that is changing the work.
Personally, I feel the impact is minor - like flipping the pages in manga so we Americans can read left to right. But it is technically editing, and it is called such because the people here like to emphasise that it IS in fact editing.
Veering off topic again… 
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
There has been no reissued version of Kana, so no reason for them to allow stock to run out. Thus, there is no reason for them to announce “Kana is sold out! We are printing more discs, please wait …” --they’d just print more silently and we’d never know.
I have a question regarding this. Over at Jlist the product listing of Chain and Kana states the following:
"This game is now 100% uncensored, with no patch to install!"
Would this mean that the games have had a second pressing?
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
The fact that it's originally censored ... has evolved beyond a legal requirement, into a cultural thing. Changing that is changing the work.
The cultural argument is interesting, but let's imagine the law were to be scrapped in the near future; would artists/companies abandon the use of mosaics altogether? To me it seems purely logical to ditch them, ("freedom of expression - yay!") but if they are ingrained in the culture would it be that simple?
(No flippancy intended; this is a question borne out of geniune curiousity [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img] )
quote:
Originally posted by Interzone:
Veering off topic again... ;PI have a question regarding this. Over at Jlist the product listing of Chain and Kana states the following:
"This game is now 100% uncensored, with no patch to install!"
Would this mean that the games have had a second pressing?
I presume you would be correct.
Of course they could have simply abandoned the idea in the middle of the pressing run, and ditched a few already-pressed copied; but I really can't imagine they would.
I remember having a conversation about censorship laws with a Japanese Instructor.
He mentioned something about how they are slowly rolling back on those laws which means that eventually the censorship laws will probably be gone if they haven’t already.
So it’s no so much of a question of when or if they will get rid of such laws it’s more of a question of whether nor not the companies will have some wierd sense of tradition and stay true to the censorship formula. However based on the trends i’ve seen in the Japanese adult industry, it seems they can’t wait to start showing un altered porn.
What I expect to see when this law is finally removed, is sudden mixed surge of new releases. Some companies who are half way through their games will choose to have a consistant censorship all the way through. Others might choose to decensor it, while others might decide to stay true to the traditions and release censored games regardless.
As for my opinion on whether I like censored or uncensored games I’d have to say I don’t mind mosaics but I’d most definitely prefer an uncensored game if they could help it. Theres nothing I hate more than having a perfectly fine story turning into a great fantasy and then suddenly seeing this mosaic cloud badly mutilating the picture.
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
Edit: Remember -- 'Kumiko' does NOT work for G-collections [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
... but he just showed up there after staying about 18 months hidden somewhere else. Nice coincidence again, right? [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
... but he just showed up there after staying about 18 months hidden somewhere else. Nice coincidence again, right? [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
Speaking of him, someone please give me digest versions of his posts.
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
... but he just showed up there after staying about 18 months hidden somewhere else. Nice coincidence again, right? [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
Is he the guy posting long posts to the G-collections board now? I didn't realize...