New article on Hirameki

[Mockingbird]

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/04/25/hirameki/

Gotta give credit to Visual-novels.net for finding this article.

One thing I’d like to note about the article is that the reporter’s opening paragraph is wrong in the fact that Hirameki doesn’t publish visual novels in Japan; but they do have a Tokyo Office. Either way, glad that they are getting more press.

Here is a sort of mini-blog from myself, in response to the article and the above:

Oh, since it was revealed on Hirameki’s forums already, Hirameki tried to obtain Never 7 -The End of Infinity- last year but when they arrived at KID’s door, no one was home. The company had already gone bankrupt. The forums also reported that they had wanted to obtain Remember 11 -The Age of Infinity- too; but I was told a different title from a more popular series when I interviewed them back in February. Don’t know why there’s a difference unless Hirameki had actually planned on getting three titles from KID.

From what I recall, I don’t believe Ever 17 -The Out of Infinity- is actually a title that sold really well for Hirameki. Though it’s undoubtedly well-liked by practically everyone that has played through it from what I’ve observed. In fact, Ever 17 was actually the main driving force for the opening of a visual section to AMN Anime. The title has at least gotten a second pressing, however. Although I do not know if they do pressings by the thousand-like JLIST-or maybe more/less. Either way, I’m glad that Hirameki chose to pursue further entries in the Infinity Series to localize and were not too crestfallen for the underwhelming sales. Hourglass of Summer actually took a little more than two years for Hirameki to break-even. Don’t quote me on this but if memory serves, KID had expected the title to sell 30,000 copies; a huge difference with the sales target of at least 3,000 copies for Yume Miru Kusuri. This only futher proves that Japanese bishoujo companies don’t really understand the North American market. Even though Ever 17 was quite popular in Japan-selling 60,000 copies- it’s still a lofty expectation. I was also told the price Key was asking for Kanon was considered financial suicide. My response to that is see quote below.

[ 04-30-2007, 04:48 AM: Message edited by: Mockingbird ]

[phineaslucis]

I still remember the price for Kanon… 1 million Yen. Key must hate the thought of loclaization.

Other then that, I just hope that YMK succeeds where Ever 17 fails, and that Ever 17 at least gets some tretail even into the future.

[Baldo]

Originally posted by Phineas Lucis:
I still remember the price for Kanon… 1 million Yen. Key must hate the thought of localization.

I do know NOTHING of economics, but… That million Yen was for every copy localized (1000000 yen = 6139.66 EUR or 8360.85 U.S. Dollars, today)? Otherwise, it would seem cheap/unexpensive, am I sorely deluded?

[Anonymous]

Argh, another badly-designed website… It’s still a good read, though.

In 2006, the company began offering Mac-compatible titles as well, first with a gothic horror novel called gAnimamundi: Dark Alchemisth and more recently with gYo-Jin-Bo,h a story set in feudal Japan. Both titles leverage Adobe Flash to achieve cross-platform compatibility.

NOOOOO!

[Nargrakhan]

Originally posted by Baldo:
[b]

Originally posted by Phineas Lucis:
I still remember the price for Kanon… 1 million Yen. Key must hate the thought of localization.

I do know NOTHING of economics, but… That million Yen was for every copy localized (1000000 yen = 6139.66 EUR or 8360.85 U.S. Dollars, today)? Otherwise, it would seem cheap/unexpensive, am I sorely deluded? [/b]

Depends on your overall budget and how much profit you wanna make in the end, since the license is only one step. There’s also additional costs for programmers, voice actors, advertising (customer and carriers), CD pressing, shipping and distribution, etc. Some might apply… some might not… depends on the publisher’s goals, on-hand resources, and connections.

Plus just because you get a license, doesn’t mean the license giver doesn’t a “per copy sold” cut of the sales for each translated box. Depends on the contract and whatnot. Maybe that’s the real cash maker for them… which would be a factor in the final selling price of the game, since you wanna be in the target selling range between $40 to $60 per box and still turn a profit.

I’m just generalizing here.

[phineaslucis]

Originally posted by Baldo:
[b]

Originally posted by Phineas Lucis:
I still remember the price for Kanon… 1 million Yen. Key must hate the thought of localization.

I do know NOTHING of economics, but… That million Yen was for every copy localized (1000000 yen = 6139.66 EUR or 8360.85 U.S. Dollars, today)? Otherwise, it would seem cheap/unexpensive, am I sorely deluded? [/b]

I think the latter.

It’s the price of the franchise as a whole, and they weren’t asking for a million yen, they were asking for the equivalen of US$ 1million. Yes. (apologies, I meant US $, no yen) Either way, it was a ridiculously high price that no outsider company could afford.

Originally posted by Nargrakhan:
[b] Depends on your overall budget and how much profit you wanna make in the end, since the license is only one step. There’s also additional costs for programmers, voice actors, advertising (customer and carriers), CD pressing, shipping and distribution, etc. Some might apply… some might not… depends on the publisher’s goals, on-hand resources, and connections.

Plus just because you get a license, doesn’t mean the license giver doesn’t a “per copy sold” cut of the sales for each translated box. Depends on the contract and whatnot. Maybe that’s the real cash maker for them… which would be a factor in the final selling price of the game, since you wanna be in the target selling range between $40 to $60 per box and still turn a profit.

I’m just generalizing here. [/b]

You got that right, and the reason why there’s so much pressure on these games to succeed, and why we need them to succeed.

[ 05-02-2007, 05:14 AM: Message edited by: Phineas Lucis ]