Please read (and edit)

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

I am going to contact a few PC gaming magazines here in the UK and I have written an e-mail to attempt to pursuade them to write an article or feature about bishoujo games. I would like to ask for your opinions of this before I send it to them to give the highest chances of success; what should be edited, added, removed etc.? Anyway, here is what I have written so far:

quote:
I have just discovered something that I believe would be of great interest to mature gamers and anime-fans who read your magazine and I would like to ask that you perhaps consider publishing an article or feature in your magazine about it? What I talk about here is a little known genre of game from Japan known as “bishoujo games”. Bishoujo literally translates in Japanese as “pretty girl”, which is the main focus of these games. First of all, I would like to mention that while these games are more often than not aimed at adult audiences, they are not simply “porn games”. They are games that use a form of artwork that many fans of Japanese animation (or “Anime” as it is commonly referred to) or Manga will be familiar with. With the growing popularity of Anime and Manga outside of Japan, many of Japan’s bishoujo games are now being translated into English so that we can enjoy these games too. As the current market for bishoujo gaming stands outside of Japan, there are a small number of companies translating some of the simpler Japanese bishoujo games into English and selling these outside of Japan. Two of these can be found at http://www.peachprincess.com and http://www.jastusa.com, where you can also view the current products that they offer.

Bishoujo games outside of Japan mainly consist of adventure games / visual novels of all different themes such as horror, comedy, romance, mystery, life simulations etc, but there are also others such as RPG’s, puzzle games and even fighting games. From my own experience of this genre, many of the games have beautifully drawn artwork, excellent quality music soundtracks (often with singers) that enhance the mood and feel of the game tremendously and some of the most involving and moving storylines you’ll ever know. I strongly believe that the choice of PC games outside of Japan is being restricted to very few genres, simply because people are not aware that genres exist. I believe that it would be of great interest of mature gamers and amine and manga fans outside of Japan to be properly informed of the existence of the bishoujo genre so that they can make proper informed choices when purchasing games. By publishing an article or feature in your magazine on these games, I believe that you can help mature-gamers in the UK who would be interested in these games by making them aware of their existence and allowing them to make an informed choice, which may in the future lead to a broader choice of game genres in the PC gameing market, which will benefit everyone. Please don’t leave people without the awareness of bishoujo games, I believe that there are many who would immensly enjoy these games as I do simply by being able to akknowledge and understand their existence and value.

If you would like more information, you can contact me:
turrican@avalon-one.net

Or you can contact kumiko of Peach Princess who is much more knowledgable about the genre than I am (She will be happy to give you more information about bishoujo gaming):
kumiko@peachprincess.com

These are some related URL’s for information:
http://www.peachprincess.com
http://www.jastusa.com

I also would recommend the following PC bishoujo games:
Tokimeki Check-In!
Snow Drop
Divi Dead
Desire
EVE: Burst Error

Thanks,
TurricaN

#2

Who knows, the Brits might have another opinion…

BTW, it is odd that in these times, computer game magazines are more reluctant to review/put advertising of bishoujo games. Old timers will easily remember Megatech’s game advirtising printed on several magazines, and even reviewed. I sort-of recall one of the reviewers writting about the “sophomoric humor” of Knights of Xentar (otherwise known as Dragon Knight III).

TurricaN-san, you could consider posting Yoshi’s article about bishoujo gaming. I don’t have the URL at this moment, but I recall it was posted here, too (the URL, that is).

#3

My alter-ego on the Computer Gaming World Message Boards asked this question of the Editor in Chief of the Magazine, Jeff Green.

quote:

Jeff,

I’ve noticed that you guys don’t Preview / Review games rated above “M” using the ESRB rating Standards. I know that there are games rated above that out there but you guys don’t cover them. Is it company policy not to cover those games? Just curious as to what the Magazine’s stand is on this subject.

Thanks in advance for the reply.

He replied:

quote:

Yeah, we don’t really cover these games. It’s not “company policy” in that it’s some kind of official thing, just sort of our editorial stance, and gut feeling, that 99.9% of our readers don’t want to read about that stuff in CGW. Plus we have many younger readers, and we get in enough trouble already for the occasional profanity or 3D polygonal breast shot.

Jeff

This is the stance of Computer Gaming World on Review / Preview of Adult Games.

Just to let you know what were up against.

#4
quote:
Originally posted by Doug:
My alter-ego on the Computer Gaming World Message Boards asked this question of the Editor in Chief of the Magazine, Jeff Green.

This is the stance of Computer Gaming World on Review / Preview of Adult Games.

Just to let you know what were up against.

I would rather say the stance of Ziff-Davis, as the review mentioned above of Megatech games were done before their purchase of CGW. Miss the old times of Johnny Wilson and company...

(BTW, I wonder what his stance when they were bashing Canadians a couple of months ago.)

#5

TurricaN,

Maybe you should mention Himeya Soft too? They’re the one’s who translated Gloria.

Mike

#6

Thanks for your comments

I already did stop buying videogames publications as they are currently of no interest to me anymore… All they ever seem to do is review games that “You won’t be able to run until you spend ¬£2000 on a new PC”, and I don’t really like any of them anyway.

#7

Just a thinking on my part here: I think that most distributors out there chooses what to sell after their own personal perferences, not after what their customers think. After all, people likes to think like “If I think in this way, then everyone else must think in this way too!”, but when they think like that, they acts out of ignorance and they hurts their customers, too, since they don’t allow them (the customers) to make a decision for themselves.

#8