their is at least 1 loli in almost every eroge, but why are they there? is it just to cover a fetish that some have or is it to met the requirement that many want? what I am wandering about is, are the loli fans really that many? or are they very vocal few? So if a title doesn’t have any lolis, will it suffer less sales because of this? or will it sale normally?
note, in the above I am not referring to the cute little sister character (who’s scene might be limited to nudity or bath scene)
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looks like Getchu is back up (without proxy or edited host file). It is much slower though. Not sure if this is because its being overloaded or they are prioritizing Japanese IPs or both.
Probably the same reason for why there’s almost always a kyonyuu heroine - no reason not to include one. That argument obviously wouldn’t cover the inclusion of any type of content, but as the 3 sizes and/or perceived age of the heroine generally have little to no bearing on the overall story itself, unless the game’s specifically fetish based, it’s not likely to do any harm by opting for variety (within reasonable limits).
I’d challenge the notion that loli heroines are that common though. I mean, yes, they’re certainly not rare, but on about the same frequency as the kyonyuu heroine, the imouto heroine, the megane heroine, the osananajimi heroine etc. I’d say there definitely isn’t ‘at least 1 in every eroge’ - for every eroge you can show me with a loli heroine I can show you one without.
As a notice relative to the topic at hand, said Western money won’t come from gateways such as getchu or any of the game companies anyway but from JAST, Mangagamers and the like. All in all, it goes back to what Lancer-X said: Western fans CANNOT read Japanese so Japanese companies IP-blocking them HAS NO CONSEQUENCE on them AT ALL. Them bitching is just that: BITCHING for nor reason at all. “Oh, minori is blocking me!” Well, it’s not as if you ever go on their site anyway, since you cannot read anything written there. As for those of us who don’t live in Japan, read Japanese and are erogee fans, we all know other ways to get the game information we need so such IP-blocking are merely small inconveniences if at all.
So, IP-blocking doesn’t get in the way of Western money flowing into the erogee market anyway.
Don’t pirate games just because the sites are blocking overseas viewers and keeping their material from getting licensed.
Instead, pay import fees after finding the title you want via a Japanese proxy server.
Oh wait, better import A TOTALLY LEGAL Japanese OS while you’re at it as well, since we wouldn’t want to pirate from Microsoft and since some of the games are rigged to detect the OS version.
Look, the simple matter is I’m concerned about localization efforts. I don’t read or speak Japanese. I’ve tried to learn it but I have a mental block when it comes to learning secondary classes, trust me, I’ve tried multiple methods.
If there’s a localized, uncensored version available, yes, I’ll purchase it. Even with mosaics.
My main concern is with Crowd, but so many companies are following this example now. You know what? It doesn’t matter anyway. The Rapelay thing was from a used copy on Amazon, not the media looking up Japanese sites. There’s no protection that the blocks provide other then to close the door on potential customers.
Speaking as someone who knows very little of eroge that isn’t in English, if the eroge industry wants to regulate themselves shouldn’t they make more meaningful reforms than simply blocking out foreigners? In theory, the IP-blocking is just “merely small inconveniences,” so if the loud/obnoxious people who are against it know the work around and the content is the same then what good does it? My opinions on things don’t change when I look away and I don’t think foreign protesters would change their opinion when they are forced to look away. I think we all know that they aren’t satisfied with simple IP blocks.
I say these things as someone that can’t read Japanese and I don’t feel a loss in sites that IP block. Don’t take what I am saying out of context, I respect artistic expression. I just don’t see IP blocking as productive.
Uh, what? From where comes the logical leap between your two propositions? If anything, a company has even more reasons to block overseas viewers if they want their material licensed overseas. In fact, the company that licensed or is wishing to license would even have reasons to ask the original company to block overseas viewers in order, you know, to prevent unwanted concurrence. It’s the very reason why DVDs or games are region-coded, for instance, or why some pages would kindly redirect you to the local seller of a given software.
It’s a bit extreme to IP-block, but not totally unfounded.
In 1986, Marvel Comics was sold to New World Entertainment for a mere $46 million dollars. In 1989 they bought the rest - Marvel Entertainment Group - for $82 million. In 2009, Marvel Entertainment (the whole thing; not bits and pieces) was sold to Walt Disney for over $4 billion dollars. In 1987 Marvel Entertainment earned revenue of $70 million in a growing economy. In 2007 Marvel Entertainment earned revenue of $125 million in a failing economy. The Iron Man movie released in 2008 (just the movie mind you; not marketing spinoffs) generated $445 million dollars in revenue. That’s more money that the entire intellectual property generated from 1963 to 2007.
The medium of comic [u]books[/u] is dying: but not the entirety of comic-dom. Things have evolved: technology has moved forward. Books and newspapers in general, are dying as a breed. That does not mean literature and reporting is dead. They have to evolve to the digital age. Just as the stone tablet and reed scrolls when out of fashion, so will the printing press. Any form of entertainment printed on paper, has been in danger of dying for the last 20 years, if it doesn’t go digital. Some predict the extinction of newspapers - the dead tree kind - within another generation or two. The smart ones have plans to move on those Kindles and iPads. Marvel has gone electronic: games, cartoons, movies - and that move has been profitable and gotten the attention of whole new generations. My neighbor’s kid knows who Wolverine is, but likely hasn’t read a single X-Man comic book. His exposure are the Cartoon Network shows and theater films. This is our Wolverine. This is their Wolverine. And to raving fan girls, it’s probably more like this.
There’s some research that proposes Batman is more popular than Superman with the newer generation, because Batman has a lot more cartoons and movies (i.e. his marketing agent is better than Supes).
Let me point out that the Japanese population demographic that buys rice is rapidly aging too. Japan’s aging population is a national problem that impacts ALL aspects of society. The only real market that benefits from this is health care. But that’s really besides the point…
Every time I go shopping in Akihabara, I don’t see an exclusive horde of 35 to 50 something males in the eroge stores. I see a large number of 20 to 30 year olds - with even a female on an odd day or two - in them. There is a sizable number of “fresh” blood that augments the “old” blood. What makes eroge harder to repopulate, is that the minimum age of entry is 18. It literally takes longer for a potential customer to have interest maturity. However eroge has the massive advantages of being digital - which is a media outlet that continues to grow - and is predominantly spread by a distinctively and strongly domestic online culture. And please¬Ö no one try to lie to themselves that blocking foreign IP’s is hurting the native sustainment of eroge for Japan.
Eroge is literature and porn. Literature and porn will never go out of fashion, so long as people can think and people get horny. Numbers will slide back and forth, but there will always be a niche for them. Until the computer is rendered obsolete as a delivery system for entertainment, I’m not going to sweat over prediction of its supposed inevitable death. Especially when there’s more eroge titles in the wild, than any console or handheld has in their library… sometimes combined even.
Speak for yourself, mister DOOOOOM 'N GLOOOOOM when it comes to legality of content the eroge market. You’ve been claiming from the very beginning that this or that will get banned and people will get arrested for playing eroge within the next few years, especially if foreigners got it, yet I haven’t seen a single instance of anyone getting America or Japan for playing an eroge title.
You don’t seem to get my point at all, for those who do read Japanese, why the hell do we have to be “inconvenienced” from viewing their site to begin with? Often times, English language sites are out of date and contain less information than their Japanese counterparts
On another note, in your other post, you said they’re not protecting themselves from us fans, but rather those who aren’t fans of their industry and that the blocking of IPs are targeted against such people who happen to be outside of Japan, like the feminists or UNICEF–I get that. Yet at the same time, you say that there’s no way anyone who doesn’t know a thing about Japanese or their industry would bother going to their sites? Real consistent argument there. If that was the case, I’d be urging them to lift the IP block because none of the foreigners who wish to intrude on their industry would bother going on their site to begin with, since they can’t gasp read Japanese! Not to mention, it certainly wouldn’t stop the Japanese people who oppose their industry from getting access to their sites and doing damage–How are they going to deal with them?
The whole Rapelay incident happened because someone sold a second-hand copy of the game on Amazon.com, not because some angry gaijin feminist happened to stumble upon Illusion’s website. If you’re going to support the assumption that some foreign prude who probably wouldn’t be a fan of eroge but knows no Japanese will go after them if they have access to their sites, then it’s only natural for me to consider the the opposite possibility in that someone who is interested in eroge without knowing Japanese might go to the sites as well. There’s no way someone who could be opposed to their industry would be any more interested in scanning their sites than someone who would support them, foreign or otherwise. In that case, the guy that might support the industry despite not knowing Japanese, but doesn’t know any other means/fans/sites than the Japanese ones, gets fucked over in the process. You think I like the idea that not everyone who may be interested is going to get the best access to information pertaining to their games, just because they live in a different country or speak a different language?
Well for one thing, if nobody sees it, then how will companies even bother considering localizing their titles? I’m not just talking about individual fans or just getchu here. I’m expressing concern with regards to the alarming trend of companies increasingly blocking off foreign access to their websites. It’s completely ludicrous to assume that companies like JAST or MG don’t bother to visit these sites when they’re shopping around for titles to translate. What if they were interested in working with Alicesoft, but were put off with their IP block? If companies all just block out foreign traffic to their sites and pass themselves off as potentially antagonistic to the western audience, how do you expect companies like JAST to want to work with them? How will R1 companies continue to publish new titles in a hostile environment? You really don’t think I want ~ef~ to have a chance of having an official release here?
“Totally ineffective”? Well, I’m really not the one to judge, but I’d say I did a pretty damn well job in sturring debate within the fandom, didn’t I? In both the censorship, the IP blocking and C&D issues, I see most of you guys having expressing identical opinions with regards to the issue, and I aggressively pursued an opposite stance, which pretty much lit the forums on fire. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be having debate like this, and Pete (or any other potential representative) would be listening, now would we? If you consider what’s been going on in this forum worthless or ineffectual, then stop talking altogether. You’re wasting your breath.
I can’t really tell if it really is xenophobia or not anymore. I might even be able to see their concerns, but their behavior is irrational, unprofessional, and absolutely unneccessary. It would certainly help things if they actually made press releases explaining things to us, or bring an official representative to talk in these message boards, as opposed to making blatant flamebait statements like “We prohibited the access from overseas to defend our culture” and repeatedly vandalizing the TLwiki. Instead of actually talking to the gaijin public, they just suddenly started shut down their websites, arbitrarily clamped down on fan translations, and made a huge public relations mess–That’s their responsibility, and I fail to see why they can’t be held accountable for it.
I’m all ears if they want to talk, and I probably could use such an opportunity ask them some questions in a more polite manner, but I’m not hearing anything from them! If they don’t make that first step or at least accept our requests to talk, then I see zero reason to give them respect or compromise with them. I did not engage in any activities that might’ve restricted or censored their industry–They did, and the onus is on them.
I’m not the one to tell you that you lose your professional courtesy when you’re talking to them and all, but you seem to underestimate your own potential as a fan, especially for someone like you, who actually claims to have contacts with the industry! Have you actually recently engaged in discussion with the companies with regards to this whole issue? Are they actually suggesting that they don’t want to talk because of people like me? Or are you just bluffing?
Lancer, Narg, ol, if you’re sick and tired of the “bitching”, then I suggest you listen to this guy here and tell the eroge companies what he said the next time you talk to them (if at all). You can’t just expect any good to come out of the industry if you don’t tell them not to close their eyes and think straight. Even if they did succeeded in blocking out all foreign opposition to their industry, they’ve done practically nothing to protect themselves from opposition coming from within their own country. Regardless of how loud the foreigners can be, it’s up to the Japanese themselves to change the laws that affect the legality of the content they can release in their products, so the Japanese opposition to the eroge industry is the biggest threat, especially the diet members.
Is that supposed to discredit everything I’ve posted in this topic? Because it doesn’t.
Yes, I’ll admit that I was wrong on the account that you specifically mention there. I’m man enough to admit when I’m wrong.
As I already outlined earlier: what the Japanese are currently doing, makes sense in Japan and effectively worked to preserve other markets in Japan. This is Japan, not the United States or France: their mentality towards correcting problems has differences. Why should they listen to you? Why should [u]I[/u] write to them, and tell them what you want? Why am I doing the work that you should be doing? I’m not effected by the IP bans: outside or inside of Japan. I’m not bothered whatsoever. Nor is my ability to not be bothered, anything special because I have so many Japanese contacts. 10 minutes on Google will get all the answers for other eroge fans. Is that selfish? No more selfish than you demanding that I perform all the leg work for your desires. Why don’t [b]you[/b] write to them, and convince [u]them[/u] that what they’re doing isn’t going to work. I don’t hate people bitching, I hate people bitching and do nothing - except more bitching - to change what they’re bitching about. I can actually respect EN on a non-personal level, because they bitch, start campaigns based on that bitching, and get things to actually happen (though not to the extent they always want it). Now you’re suffering because they didn’t just sit there and simply bitch about the situation.
Everywhere you post, it’s about someone else doing what you want to be beneficial to you, without any sweat from your part. I’m already running “charity efforts” in another areas of interest, pull some slack and do it yourself. You talk big, so let’s see you back it up with action, he who claims to want to save it for everyone. Do it. Save it for everyone. I won’t stop you.
Based on what evidence of how domestic Japanese politics functions? Please, fill me in. Where did you come to this conclusion? I’d love to know, because it would be fascinating. There’s only one “shutout the foreign campaign to stop it” subject matter that I can think of, in the course of the last 30 or so years, that ignoring the “inside Japan movement” was not enough… but that’s over a matter globally recognized as a criminal offense.
You are either completely stupid or completely joking. If people such as Lancer, Narg or I, and probably people such as zalas or Ignosco, who aren’t in the business have little trouble getting all information about what an erogee company released, is releasing or making, and plan to release, it’s “completely ludicrous to assume that companies like JAST or MG” aren’t able to do so either. Even more considering MG was created by the Japanese companies themselves.
JAST USA is primarily based in Japan, isn’t it? In fact, every significant player has either been directly established and/or managed by Japanese people (MangaGamer, G-Collections, Himeya Soft, Hirameki) or has an operation in Japan (JAST USA).
Aye. Last I heard, the JAST office is in Isesaki. I think they have the other in San Diego (don’t quote me on that). Of those you’ve listed, JAST is the only one that appears to have an actual US warehouse: at least judging from the postal methods packages get sent to me stateside.
EDIT
lol… come to think of it, I’ve never been to their Japanese office, despite passing by the region frequently. Maybe I should drop by one day.
Essentially, if MangaGamer were interested in a game company, they’d simply have one of their people go invite a representative from that game company out to lunch or something. B173 M3 seems to think that these IP blocks are sufficient to create an atmosphere of hostility towards potential business partners. However, unless you talk to MangaGamer or JAST USA directly, you won’t know how they think about these IP blocks and whether they feel they’re antagonistic. Just within the last year, representatives from MangaGamer have met with representatives from companies who are currently blocking foreign IP addresses, so I don’t think these blocks are that harmful to new business ventures.
I am not ignoring their stupidity, but you are ignoring parts of what I wrote and then going on to erect a nice army of strawmen to tear down.
To summarize…
You claimed that eroge creators were never worthy of our respect.
I proposed situations where they would deserve our respect, conceding that bad behavior on their part can erode respect.
You now claim that I:
a) love their works (which is not necessarily true; I could have simply thought that they were well done in terms of technique)
b) and therefore I’m ignoring their business decisions (in fact, what you quoted directly contradicts this)
Thanks for disproving yourself in the same sentence.
I’m not talking about movies…I’m not even talking about trades. I’m talking about traditial comic market. The idea of a chapter serialization in the west is dying and outside the comic industry it never really had a big market. Even if they switch to e-comic format, the serialization model is a dying model. That is what I’m talking about and that is what most people talk about when they mention comics.
You are right that the comic industry is booming, but that is akin to an eroge being ported to an anime and manga and those mediums thriving while original dies.
On that note, Batman was always better.
I’m not saying there hasn’t been new blood, nor would I ever claim that there wasn’t. However rice unlike eroge, the Japanese would likely be seen as more willing to export if things went downhill as they don’t seem to be sticking their heads in the sand to the same degree.
It is easy to see a lot of people interested where there is a nexus of the industry such as Akihabara. Those type of places will be the last places to see a major dwindling in population because of their reputation. While it is an indicator that things aren’t completely bombing, its not a good indicator for the society at large because of the cultural magnet it is; ie technology has made it easier in the past 20 years for outlying areas of Japan to reach it more affordably and even those Japanese living abroad who are interested in the subculture know about the place and may visit. Finally I will note while Akihabara is well known for anime and manga products, it is also known for its computer and electronic sales there and both of those have more widespread appeal and can draw people who could care less about the former.
That’s not because of a lack of interest in the media, but because of obsolescence of the medium. “Book Subscriptions” are dying, for the same reason that VHS tapes died: technological progress. Iron Man is still popular; just not the flimsy stapled paper version. The reasons why comic books were so convenient and made a profit on the economic levels are outdated and disappearing. On that, there’s nothing anyone could have done: people don’t get comic books, because comic books are dinosaurs. That’s more of a vinyl records and 8 track tapes thing.
It honestly has nothing to do with an aging demographic: just technology. Console and computer games would have suffered the same, if they couldn’t upgrade their graphics and sound every half decade or so.
Unfortunately eroge studio don’t release their financial reports every 3 or 6 months, so we can’t make an accurate assessment if they’re profiting or dying. At least, not like the video game market. Our only indicator of eroge being profitable or not, is via the health of the market itself.
How many eroge titles are released each year. How many eroge studio are still in business at the end of each year. How many new eroge studio pop up by the end of each year. How is the “spin off” market doing (resin figure, doujin, body pillows). How many anime and manga (hentai or not) are being made at the end of each year.
Using those as measuring sticks, over the last two decades, the eroge market has exploded. Its way larger today, than it was ten years ago. For that reason, I can’t support an idea that eroge is going to simply die off. There’s no technological obsoleteness issue with eroge, like comic books, so new generations don’t feel like they’re dinosaurs - as the 3D attempt proved, the whole point was 2D… so things like higher resolution graphics and better sound quality, are the “progress” being made. Perhaps years down the future, moving lips/blinking eyes or full animation will be the standard. That beats what improvements comic books could honestly provide.
I do think that the bubble will pop: especially with a crashing economy. However the bubble will be like that for the Wii and DS ¬ñ all the shovelware things die out - and perhaps that will cause the unfortunate side effect of several second tier companies biting the dust. Nonetheless, the majority of first rate studios with the real quality stuff will endure… and just like the Wii and DS market, the cycle will repeat itself all over again.
Eroge is like Dragon Quest ¬ñ there’s an old generation, but there’s also a new generation. Is one larger than the other? No one really knows… but there’s enough replenishment to sustain it. In fact, a lot of clashing in the eroge fan groups I see on 2chan, are because of generational issues. New gamers might always expect to have yandere or yangire arc; while old gamers might always expect to have a winnable loli ¬ñ then get upset how one generation screws it up for the other.
Try telling AUGUST their model isn’t sustainable. I think if pretty much ANYONE knew the sort of costs they incur and the sort of profit they make, they’d be jealous.
