Talking with Kumiko at the convention was interesting and we came up with some good ideas for things fans can do to actively promote these games to that they can become more mainstream and we can see a larger market in the future. We feel strongly that Peach Princess is the “last, best chance” for Bishoujo and we need to ask every one of you to do something to help us get our products out in large numbers so we can be successful and get great new products for you.
One good area that we’re trying to increase sales in is the adult enterainment market (e.g adult book stores). Our sense that most of the people on this list won’t be terribly interested in promoting this side of things, but what do you think?
Another option could be to inform “regular” stores who buys anime about your games, since they mostly also sells adult mangas… I’ve seen plenty of stores like that…stores which sells both non-adult and adult manga, but no adult games… or stores which sells some adult anime, but no adult bishoujo games. The problem is, just like you have pointed out many times, that most people, not even some of the distributors knows about the adult bishoujo game genre, but if they got some knowledge about it, they might want to buy or even distribute your games
Well in Downtown Toronto, there are adult stores everywhere! (atleast the area i hang out in). Bondage stores, video stores, whatever else… The video stores always have a video running. And get this… The anime/comic book store i ALWAYS goto is right beside an adult store. Anyway that anime store is where i shop at since all the rest of the stores pretty much don’t have a good selection, plus i get a discount there cause they know me now (probably consider me a vip now). They sell anime soundtracks there but… i haven’t seen one sold in a long time, i also once saw some games there, i think it was Hentai Poker or something… dunno if that’s still there.
Sure, Kumiko! Where I’m living, there’s lots of stores who’re offering adult anime or manga¬Ö let me name a few examples of this: There’s a chain stores (meaning that they have at least two stores in every bigger city) called “Tradition” where I’m living…they’re mainly selling PC-games, Warhammer figures, DVD’s and alot of other things… and among their DVD’s I’ve seen Twin angles and the La Blue Girl series (probably some more too, but I don’t remember which ones). Then there’s also a store called “The bookshop of Elfgleam”, where you can buy lots of American series (like Spawn and Witchblade), manga, DVD’s and a lot of other things. Don’t know if they have any adult mangas, but I’ve seen Urutsukidoji, the La Blue Girl and the Twin angel series there. Then there’s also the store called “Staffars comics”… This guy is mainly selling manga and American series and he has quite a lot of adult manga in his shop, like The Princess of Darkness series, the Countdown Sexbomb series, the bondage fairies series, and from what I’ve heard, he recently brought some of Kazan to his store too . And then there’s also the store called “The SF bookshop” where you mainly can buy a lot of fantasy & SF books… they have a very large amount of DVD’s there too, both anime and “normal” films and series… and among all of their DVD’s I’ve found some adult anime like La blue girl, Twin angles, Urutsukidoji and Rei Rei…
I’ve been thinking of suggesting to some of those I’ve named here to take in some bishoujo games in their stock to bring the light of those wonderful, lovely bishoujo angels to their customers . Don’t know if they’d like such a suggestion, through, but it might be worth a try
I seem to remember Kumiko saying that Peach Princess has tried asking for features in gaming publications? If that’s right, was it gaming publications in the US only or other countries too? I know that it’s probably a long-shot, but I could try contacting the gaming publications over here in the UK about doing a feature or something about Bishoujo games, after-all, many of them have already done reviews on adult games before and features on things such as the emulation, which shows that they are willing to look at some ‘smaller’ areas of gaming.
Anyway, I will write something to them if you think it could help.
Comic shops are twitchy about selling adult goods these days. There’ve been a few incidents of comic shop owners and workers getting arrested on “indececy” charges. Even in cases where the material was kept behind the counter and clearly marked as “adults only”. In fact, some guy got cuffed for selling Overfiend manga not to long ago.
I think that arrest was in Texas. Nobody in their right mind wants to get busted on a dececy charge in Texas. They’re got a real “To Kill a Mockingbird” attitude about stuff like that down there.
Hi, I know this is a shameless plug for my Bishoujo Gaming survey, but this is the best thing I can do right now aside from the gaming review website which I am working on for various Bishoujo Games. I don’t think I described the Bishoujo Gaming Survey enough in the thread ‘Surveys, Apply Within’, but I initiated the project with intention to learn more about the current gaming (Bishoujo and non-Bishoujo) audience. An inexhaustive listing of what I want to learn about are preferences (graphics, story, music), demographic data, purchasing habits. I believe the concerns of Bishoujo Gaming are currently underaddressed, and suffers from unjust misunderstanding. The goal of this study is to educate people about Bishoujo Gaming, because people don’t know about the genre, and I want to draw conclusions from empirical facts than from baseless assumptions. It’s a fan effort, but it is intended to be a scientific undertaking, with my education in Biological Sciences and Sociology as my guidance. Please, if you are interested in the project, you can ask me about it at: yeoushiu@eden.rutgers.edu with the subject: Bishoujo Gaming Survey The survey conducted shall be completely anonymous, and upon conclusion of the survey the results and conclusions will be available on a website for anyone’s inspection.
From what I understand manga seems to be going over better in Europe than anime. Especially in Italy. MTV Italy aired an Italian dub of Trigun and you can find lots of manga translated into Italian for sale in bookstores there. Of course, a lot of it is hentai, but you gotta get your foot in the door somehow. In fact, when I was at the San Diego Comic Con in July I saw guys selling Italian versions of some hentai manga.
Oh, and while I was in San Diego I met some of the PeaPri staff. That’s how I found out about this site, in fact. They’re all cool folks. I think I even talked with Peter a bit about how tough it is for dating sims to come to the US.
Peter, I doubt you remember me, but I was the guy in the blue happi coat with the white headband. Thanks for telling me about this site.
Heh, Spectator Beholder, I have something very similar where I live. There’s a store here (Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada) called Showcase Comics, and they carry american comics, and manga, but they also carry a fair assortment of Warhammer and anime VHS and DVD. I noticed one day while I was shopping around for anime (its the only damn store here that sells anime though, so it wasn’t really shopping around), I noticed that he had Cool Devices and Urotsukidoji box sets on sale. I was never really a fan of those shows, but thats how I first figured he’d be willing to carry adult material. Since its a real pain to get bishoujo game here in canada (The nasty exchange rate, then customs, shipping, etc., then the whole shipping to my parents address doesn’t help much), I talked to the owner about bishoujo games, and we had quite a lenghty discussion on the topic. It turns out that he sees a market for them at his store, since I’m probably not the first to mention it it seems, but his supplier doesn’t currently stock them. So what he’s going to do is have a chat with his supplier about getting some in the store, and having them available for special order for those not in stock. Hopefully that’ll go through, since I am looking forward to getting some of your titles. If it does, score one for the bishoujo game community. Oh well, thats my little rant.
quote:Originally posted by Kumiko Kamiyama: If they stock adult anime or manga, they should certainly be interested in stocking our products... especially if a customer comes in and explains to them that they would like to buy our products locally, except that no store is stocking them. Businesses normally rely on customer input and feedback - the customer pays their wages, after all. We would be very happy to supply any dealer or distributor, including European - it would be extremely helpful to our European customers if dealers there would carry our product rather than the customers being forced to order overseas directly from us.
Please contact them and show them some of our products - you might also give them a catalog. Mention that our products are officially rated by ESRB - that might also help them make a decision. We're quite willing to answer any further questions they may have - please have any interested dealers, etc contact us.
Well, I'll contact them and do my best to convice them to bring the loevly bishoujo angels to their stores, but I can't promise that they'll be all that interested. Hmm, but maybe I shold get some more of Peach Princess's games first - If I just shows them Tokimeki Check-In and X-change, I hardly think they'll be all that impressed ^^;;. And... by "catalog" do you mean that little catalog that follows with the package of your games? That little thing with the female version of Takuya?
quote:Originally posted by Doddler: Heh, Spectator Beholder, I have something very similar where I live. There's a store here (Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada) called Showcase Comics, and they carry american comics, and manga, but they also carry a fair assortment of Warhammer and anime VHS and DVD. I noticed one day while I was shopping around for anime (its the only damn store here that sells anime though, so it wasn't really shopping around), I noticed that he had Cool Devices and Urotsukidoji box sets on sale. I was never really a fan of those shows, but thats how I first figured he'd be willing to carry adult material. Since its a real pain to get bishoujo game here in canada (The nasty exchange rate, then customs, shipping, etc., then the whole shipping to my parents address doesn't help much), I talked to the owner about bishoujo games, and we had quite a lenghty discussion on the topic. It turns out that he sees a market for them at his store, since I'm probably not the first to mention it it seems, but his supplier doesn't currently stock them. So what he's going to do is have a chat with his supplier about getting some in the store, and having them available for special order for those not in stock. Hopefully that'll go through, since I am looking forward to getting some of your titles. If it does, score one for the bishoujo game community. Oh well, thats my little rant.
-Doddler
Well, I think that there's some shops like that everywhere in the world... I do find it a little hard to believe that it'd all THAT hard to find any adult anime in America, through...
Well, if that store you talked about wants to bring the lovely bishoujo angles to his shop, then it'd be good, both for him and his customers, I think [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img].
quote:Originally posted by Skyrocket: From what I understand manga seems to be going over better in Europe than anime. Especially in Italy. MTV Italy aired an Italian dub of Trigun and you can find lots of manga translated into Italian for sale in bookstores there. Of course, a lot of it is hentai, but you gotta get your foot in the door somehow. In fact, when I was at the San Diego Comic Con in July I saw guys selling Italian versions of some hentai manga.
I don't know about other European countries, but here in the UK, Manga is unheard of... people generally just don't read comics of any type at all here. If you were to say 'Manga' to someone, they would think that you are referring to anime since that is what most people call anime over here.
England seems to really have it bad in terms of anime. We had two English people in my campus anime club last semester and they complained mightly about how hard it was in get anime there.
Louise, one of the duo, went on a huge buying spree while she was here. She ended up going back with stuff like Trigun, Initial D, Hand Maid May, Slayers, El Hazard, Ruroni Kenshin and a ton of other stuff.
quote:Originally posted by Kumiko Kamiyama: Well, would you like to see if they'd be interested in our products? We cannot be responsible for customs problems they might have, but if they'd like to contact us, please let them know about us. We'd be very happy to have dealers of adult stores or comic shops in Canada offer our products. Maybe you could go in and show them some of our games, and our catalog - be sure they notice that our games are officially ESRB rated, too, since that might help them decide.
If they'd like additional information, we'd be very happy to talk with them. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
Hmm well it is my PLAN for tomorrow (Saturday) to go down in that area, and i also do plan to goto that store, so i'll talk to them about it. Their adult anime section has grown alot since when i first started going there, it's a family buissines which i wasn't sure of until a few days ago. Anyway i'll talk to them about it [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
Just a note about Canada. To us, Canada is largely a “lost continent” because of stupid border laws against any “bondage” which they think our games are filled with. Nevermind that this isn’t true, as long as there’s a chance shipments will be seized few companies will work with us. Can anyone recommend any kind of distributor who will help us break open the Canadian market? Preferably one that’s used to shipping in stuff by truck.
quote:Originally posted by Kumiko Kamiyama: Yes, that is our catalog.
As for being impressed... Tokimeki wouldn't impress them? Why not? It's far superior to simply manga, and superior to anime as far as entertainment value for the price. If this shop is stocking hobby material like other shops do, Kumiko isn't sure why he wouldn't be impressed...
Well, not everyone would be impressed with a bishoujo game, unfortunately enough ^^;;;. But I'll se what I can do to get him impressed with the lovely bishoujo angels [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img].
Ok well i talked to them and they said that they’d like to try again or something like that. It seems when they used to have games and music there, their distributor just stoped sending or something like that. I really don’t know the details but anyway, they said that you can contact them about it. Here is their page. http://www.onemillioncomix.com/
quote:Originally posted by Spectator Beholder: Well, not everyone would be impressed with a bishoujo game, unfortunately enough ^^;;;. But I'll se what I can do to get him impressed with the lovely bishoujo angels [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img].
If Tokimeki Check-In wouldn't impress someone, I don't think that any currently available translated bishoujo game would impress them either, as it's probably the best one yet, high among other games like Divi-Dead, Desire IMO.
