D.O. also made Pretty Soldier Wars, which is a terrible game. We don’t necessarily need more D.O. games. We need more good games. If I was going to pick a brand, I’d go with Nitro+ personally. Out of their entire lineup of games, around 80% have scores of 70+ on Erogamescape.
D.O. has foremost kichiku and ren’ai games, so mayhap you meant their ren’ai games rather than their whole catalogue?
Well, could anyone name some more of the good stuff from D.O. then that we have yet to see?
Here’s some resources to do so:
D.O. on Getchu (game synopses): http://www.getchu.com/php/search.phtml? … rand_id=74
D.O. on Erogamescape (user rankings): http://erogamescape.ddo.jp/~ap2/ero/tou … ?brand=190
The thing I hate about browsing games on Getchu is all the repeated editions of the same game. At least Erogamescape isn’t as bad about that.
The only really good renai game D.O. has left is Hoshizora Planet, which is pretty old. If you’re looking for feel-good, story driven games, the company you should ask for more games from is Pulltop.
Yeah, Hoshizora Planet is the only remaining D.O game I’d really recommend myself. It’s alright - a bit weaker than Tanaka’s other works and the art is pretty ordinary, but it’s alright.
I vote MORE PROPELLER. Or???any propeller.
I’m with everyone else… the D.O. well is tapped dry. Peach Princess should be drilling something else for new resources. Nitro+, Propeller/Pulltop most definitely… maybe revisiting if GIGA and BCyc can be brought back to the table… perhaps expanding into new territory like Atelier Kaguya and Alicesoft… etc…
More Nitro+ is obviously a big plus but looking beyond more of their titles I’d definitely recommend Alicesoft and Eushully. They’ve proven that actual gameplay in an eroge doesn’t have to suck (ala Pretty Soldier Wars). Heck I’ve had Sengoku Rance for over half the year and STILL haven’t stopped playing it, and Eushully is full of RPG goodness.
Agreed with Atelier Kaguya - from what I’ve gathered, JAST hasn’t actually translated any good eroero games. There’s good story-centric titles and there’s bad eroero games, but this corner seems rather empty at the moment. I think that sort of thing would do pretty well. Serina and Prima Stella especially.
Awww…
Oh, well, then keep all of “Sumeragi no Mikotachi” for myself! :twisted: 
:twisted:
Nah, Narg, those two alike-looking mikos are no twins, only two sisters with a few years of difference between their ages, so keep your hands off! :lol:
… may I add Mink, Eushully and Softhouse Chara?
Sure, not going to happen (most of them are too understaffed for a cooperation with JAST), but its such a niiiiice dream… 
It’s NEKO soft time ! :lol:
They have translated good eroero. It’s just all old good eroero. And (like I’m pretty sure I’ve said before) the thing with eroero is it’s made obsolete in a way that story games never are. Eroero with outdated graphics, or an h-scene count that used to be OK, but now is low, or that aren’t voiced age much more poorly than story-based games do.
After all, a good story is a good story, and for the most part, stories are unique. Eventually someone comes along and tells a better story than you did, that’s similar to your original tale. But that takes a lot longer than eroero; ero scenes are, for the most part, interchangeable parts. Got better h-scenes? Better graphics? Then your game is just better.
The eroero games that have been translated recently are still fairly old, by Japanese standards. And the good eroero games were translated a few years ago. Sagara Family, the first DYLHB, the first Come See Me Tonight, those were all good eroero. They’re just old.
The English market in general has had a persistent problem with localized titles being rather old. It’d be nice to see more recent titles that, at the time of release, are no more than 2 or 3 years old. I don’t see what the barrier to this happening has been so far.
I thought PP generally went after older titles, because they cost less to license. Newer is shinier and therefore more expensive.
MG on the other hand, appears to release older titles, so they can sell the newer versions (be it a renewal, deluxe version, or sequel) later on.
Are licensing fees charged up front or as a percentage of sales (or some combination thereof)? In the latter case, it’d be in both parties best interests to localize a game that sells best–in which case, the shinier the better. The only downside for the original developer would be the possibility of sales of the localized version (or pirated copies) supplanting their domestic sales–probably not too likely, since most sales occur within the first year anyway.
But really, the whole shinier = more costly argument (even if true) doesn’t make sense to me. Value dynamics are established by competition. But JAST doesn’t compete with any other localization companies over licenses (other localization companies have deals with different developers). A license is a license; it’s no harder for Nitro+ for example to give JAST Sumaga as opposed to Demonbane (random technical issues aside). Why Nitro+ might charge more for Sumaga than Demonbane is beyond me, if the costs on their end are the same. In short, the value of all Nitro+ titles should be approximately the same (i.e., fixed) to Nitro+; JAST might value them differently based on how well it thinks each title will sell, but this shouldn’t really factor into their negotiations with Nitro+. Nitro+ should either not care about JAST’s future sales (up front fee) or want to encourage JAST’s sales (% fee)–neither case justifies charging more for games that JAST values more highly.
As far as I know, cost is based on the Japanese company’s estimation of the quality of the product. Key, for example, reportedly wants a million dollars on the table just as a bare minimum. For that kind of fee, the game simply has to move six figures’ worth of units, at least, or it’s a huge boondoggle.
How do the Japanese figure the quality of the product? By gauging its popularity. But Japan has a well developed market for this stuff, and the Japanese public has different tastes than Westerners, even among fans. (For example, Ninja Gaiden (XBox) did pretty poorly in Japan, but sold huge numbers in the West.)
The situation is very similar to the Japanese anime import market in the 90’s. It was very much niche, so companies took what licenses they could find. Some real gems like Dragon Half were obtained cheaply this way (because it bombed in Japan) but much of the material was bargain bin OVA junk. Similarly, we have got a handful of really top-tier titles (Nocturnal Illusion, Knights of Xentar, Kana, Kazoku Keikaku, etc.) and a larger selection of mediocre-to-bad titles.
Some companies look at the situation and realize “America is not the same as Japan”, and see an opportunity to expand the market. If a viable market could be created in America (more than twice the population), it would have huge benefits for the Japanese makers. But a lot of what you have to do to succeed in the US market runs counter to the common sense that dictates how to survive in the Japanese market. (Keeping older titles in print, for example.) So a lot of other companies seem to have fallen back on “we’ll just go with what we know”.
The price of a top-tier game is thus affected by its Japanese sales figures. To let the property go for such a “low” price as would be feasible for a developing market to pay, would be “undervaluing” the product and “harming” its marketability. (Why, for example, would an anime production company be interested in paying much higher fees to license a game if the Americans pay a fraction what they’re paying?)
Since this topic has gone dormant, I thought I’d use it to ask those of you who know about ???. I spotted this game on dlsite and was curious if anyone knew much about it besides the fact that it is another D.O. game. Is it any good, or is it abysmal? On erogamescape it has a median of 65, and an mean average of 63. However, as I have heard here on the board on more than one instance, this may not mean a thing. Oh, the one other thing I noticed is that apparently the same “snow fairy” that was in Snow Sakura is in this game.
One of my frnds has the title, and he said that its decent stuff, not exactly comparable to Snow Sakura though. Maybe you can go for it if you cash to spare :roll:
Oh and i checked the D.O site and it seems they have not released a VN for some time (since 2006) :?:
Supposedly, ‘Age’ said a similar thing about KGNE. They wanted in the millions for it, but that wasn’t just for the game, the license was for everything KGNE related that Age had ownership of. Apparently Age didn’t own the license for KGNE anime which is why it got dubbed =/
darn I guess that means no more games from the 90’s. I love old school anime and games