JAST has to be cautious now...

Visual Novel Community Visual Novel Talk
#1

This is merely my own personal opinion.

I am sure that others have noticed that the quality of the titles that JAST is getting these days have been increasing, so why does JAST have to be cautious now? I only ask that because as you start doing better products, the expectations that people have about future titles will go up.

If you take a look at the games that are coming out by JAST (or MG), you’d have to be dumb to not notice the quality of the music/art/etc of the games being released is going up. The art quality is the most noticeable of all (and the game engines). All the games released in english so far, for the most part, have very similar art. It is almost as if they all used the same artist. However, with games like Princess Waltz, Koihime, and Demonbane (and maybe My gf is the pres…) that have recently or will be coming out the artwork is starting to diversify. Where am I going with this?

Well, what I am trying to get at is that people will start to expect more. For example, if JAST announced tomorrow they were gonna release Hitomi (lets assume it was never released), I would laugh it off and completely ignore the title. Because it looks like trash and low quality next to the upcoming titles. “Never judge a book by its cover” is a thought that may come to mind, but when you start spending more than 10 dollars (avg price of a book) the weight behind that expression starts to dwindle. I’m not saying that story doesn’t matter anymore, but rather finding games with good stories AND continues the trend of increasing the quality of the games will become more important, so that means people will start holding out longer for these titles to come along and releasing games like that used to be done should be expected to sell poorly now.

This means JAST will just have to continue grabbing titles of higher quality.

I will say that the uniqueness is a HUGE factor for me in determining a purchase. For example, say that you’re releasing a game that is setup in a school setting (like every other damn one out there) I will probably just sigh and read over the game summary with little vigor, and probably will pass on it. Give me a game with a unique setting and story and your chances of my purchase will go up significantly, even more so if the art style is different too. What will max your chances is if the game engine is awesome too.

If you really had to do a game around the school setting, which I already know will continue to come out since the setting is so popular, then the artwork better be unique and stand out from the other and the storyline interesting.

I’m sure there are others who feel the same way. I’m not asking to specially list titles you want to see licensed here, but what are some characteristics of games you value highly? Does art have a high priority for you, or is another title that looks just like every other one out there fine for you?

In summary, Story, Setting, Art, Music, etc are all starting to matter more now. You’re gonna have to start trying to get unique titles.

#2

Well, it’s obvious that having two contenders is better than having a monopoly for us customers. And as long as the market is big enough to support both these contenders, we’re gonna get a lot of good stuff as they try to outshine each other :slight_smile:

Anyway, as things are now, I don’t think JAST has anything to worry about. Between the two, I think it’s Mangagamer in the weakest position at the moment. They’re selling less (or at least I think so), and I find JAST’s upcoming lineup more interesting. I will continue to support both, obviously, since I want both of them to stay in business as long as possible.

#3

I agree with you, but it is hard to ignore the fact that MG has gotten quite a bit of support from bigger developers. MG has gained quickly in this respect where it took JAST years. I would honestly love to see ANOTHER publisher join the fray. This way we can put them all in a cage match. I will say that I get the impression that MG and JAST will each corner a certain portion of the market. However, I think if MG can get into Physical products full time the tables may turn around. MG takes more risks imo. We can’t forget the saying “Fortune favors the bold”.

To me it seems that JAST will probably dominate a certain portion of the market. For example, if JAST gets games that have unique settings and stories, they could corner that market. They could have games like mystery, psychological, murder, medieval, etc. Nitro+ I think is a great example of this and if JAST can continue that relationship with Nitro+, they could very well be on their way. Many of their (nitro+) games have unique settings that are not heavily dependent upon the over-saturated “school setting” market. JAST could eventually be the one that people look at for these kind of games, which are in my opinion generally the titles that get the highest ratings.

MG on the other hand, they could possibly corner a different market. They seem to like games that have a fair portion of comedy in it, and dark theme ones that have things like rape, tentacles, etc. They also have titles that had anime adaptions, so it is by no means “small fry” stuff they are dealing with. They could be the publisher people look at for those large successful games. (of course JAST seems to have gotten their first one with Demonbane, but sales are depending heavily on if it’ll continue I guess.)

#4

My impression of people that like these things is that they will buy whatever that is released and that is a bad thing. I prefer releases to be better in quality every time, so if that Girlfriend game becomes the new standard for JAST I’d want other modern games released. I wouldn’t even bother posting here if they simply sold “less crappy” games over and over especially if they take a back step now.

What I want is games with the more modern art styles. I can’t explain what I mean well, but I think we all can tell the difference of anime style drawings from ten years ago compared with today’s. The most important thing I want is dramatic stories, but if visuals of a visual novel are not appealing then I lose my interest. Basically, what the original post says is correct. This new standard should continue in my case.

If you’re hardcore you’ll play anything and I think the companies know that. Given the size of the market for these things their customers are likely hardcore.

*Cut down on the words

#5

Well, a lot of that has to do with the fact that until recently, Jast USA only had access to like three brands. If you go back in time and look at titles from when Jast USA was actually releasing games from Jast of Japan, you find a very different style. That is from 3 Sisters Story; but the other games in the Jast USA Memorial Collection all have similar art.

G-Collections in particular has a lot of samey art because they heavily used an artist with a distinct style. Crowd and Will also have fairly definitive styles.

Now that there are three new brands that Jast USA is drawing games from, you can expect a greater diversity in art style. I wouldn’t expect the things you’re concerned about to be much of an issue going forward; there is a huge variety of different art styles among the huge swathes of the hgame industry that aren’t yet affiliated with either MangaGamer or Jast USA. Jast has historically been looking through such a rarefied small sliver of the Japanese hgame market that they can’t help but get better titles to release as time goes on.

#6

As for competition between Jast and MangaGamer - right now, MangaGamer is much more of a potential competitor than a force to be reckoned with. They are not selling their games in large quantities at all. Jast USA has physical disks, which means they have access to a network of online stores willing to stock their products. Their products are usually in stock in several dealers in the dealers’ room at ACen.

But more than that, Jast is tied to J-List, and J-List is huge. Jast and J-List both also have a large marketing budget; for several years, J-List was the main advertiser keeping Something Awful afloat. That is a very high-profile audience seeing ads for your products. Even the SA h-game reviews were publicity generators. MangaGamer is not doing nearly as well with marketing. Of course, they’re a lot smaller, so it’s only natural that this is true: They can’t afford to spend what J-List spends on ads.

Koihime’s sales figures for MangaGamer are being lauded as a runaway success, far better than any previous title they’ve had. In truth, by any standard other than MangaGamer’s prior history, Koihime bombed. Selling a few hundred copies in its first day on sale? About 700 copies sold in the weeks following release? That’s really low. Until MangaGamer gets to the point where a game selling like Koihime is selling now is considered a failure, and not a huge success, they’re in trouble.

#7

Hmm why doesn’t JAST and MangaGamer try Eng Dlsite?

#8

… Have you actually looked at the sales figures on engdlsite? They’re insanely low.

#9

A sell a sell!
[size=50]but not worth they effort?![/size]

#10

Plus anything sold on DLsite (even the english side) has to abide by Japanese law so you wouldn’t get any uncensored material from there.