Point-and-Click gamers not liking B-games?

Visual Novel Community Visual Novel Talk
#1

Something that’s been pestering me for quite awhile, but I always forget to bother talking about. There’s a relatively known niche market for “point-and-click” games in the West. They range from King’s Quest to Leisure Suit to Nancy Drew to Space Quest. I admit to not knowing a lot about these games, but recently bought one Age of Enigma. Some mechanical elements in this title has a faint b-game feel to them, though the major focus was on mini-games and not so much plot or character development.

My random pondering: What prevents more of the Western point-and-click fan base from getting into Japanese style b-games? Is it the porn? Is it the lack of mini-games? Purely the language barrier? Or are they already fans and it’s so niche a group, their numbers just aren’t enough to notice?

#2

I haven’t exactly heard of them flocking to play YU-NO or any of the other 3 eroges that could be considered true ‘point and click’ adventures, so I have no idea.

#3

I think in general the Western point and click adventure style is attractive to an audience old enough that the artwork in most visual-novel style games, as well as the emphasis on youthful protagonists, has no drawing power. Look at the most successful portal for Age of Enigma-style adventures in the US, Big Fish Games, and you’ll see a huge audience of 40, 50, 60 somethings play lots of these games (full disclosure: I buy four or five of them a month, mostly for my parents to DL; I’m probably very (too?) old for the B-game genre as it is). Point and click is actually a reasonably large genre of games, but the audience is almost completely separate from, say, the console gamer demographic. The other major impediment, as I see it, is that the conventions of B-games seem rooted in the languages of static art and prose, while the Western adventure tradition has always aspired to a cinematic feel. Even when a point and click adventure game uses comic strip style art, the effect comes across as a series of storyboards rather than a printed feel.

And the porn? Even a title as innocuous as Leisure Suit Larry has a difficult time getting full distribution. For that matter, even the soft-focus, genital-covering sex in Mass Effect and The Witcher got nationwide catcalls from moralist types in the US. B-style plot and visuals will always be underground in the West (save, perhaps, parts of Europe).

It is a good sign that Hanako and Winter Wolves have been able to get greenlit on Steam; in particular, the romance scenes in a game like Loren are an interesting ‘baby step’ towards the types of storytelling b-games are known for. Things take time.

#4

A lot of adventure gamers like puzzles more than story (there are adventures with only the barest excuse of a story and no characters at all!). Many would have no interest in a game that’s ‘just’ reading. Add enough interactivity to turn into Phoenix Wright or 999 and suddenly you get a different reaction.

What’s popularly known to be the adventure demographic skews a lot older and WAY more female than the known b-game audience. Many are indifferent to the appeal of pretty young girls. Others are put off by the hint of porn. Casual adventures these days often feature sensibly-dressed female protagonists, something almost unheard of in mainstream gaming. :wink: (There’s a distinction between the largely-hidden-object-oriented ‘casual adventure’ and the traditional, more difficult point-and-click, but there’s a lot of market crossover.)

Adventure game fans really like English voice acting.

Obviously I’m a big fan of adventure games as a form of story-oriented gaming and I’m not alone, but I would not expect to lure many of them even into something like Ever 17. Perfectly good setting and story to interest that market, but totally wrong presentation.

#5

Thank you to the both of you. :slight_smile: I was always curious about the situation, and why bridging a link between the two genre fan base was so difficult and/or impossible. Also helps me understand why the Phoenix Wright franchise has been so amazingly popular in the West, despite the pathetic marketing CAPCOM did for it (in comparison to Resident Evil or Street Fighter), and yet the trickle from the western Phoenix Wright community to western B-gaming was so minimal.

#6

Here’s a pretty good summary of the hidden object genre: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/overlooked

The genre being described there really doesn’t sound like the group of people appealed to by it would have much crossover to the typical b-game fare. If Ever 17 hadn’t been so badly translated that one might have worked. Demonbane might get some intersection with that audience (Lovecraft is timeless). Kara no Shoujo might as well. But something like Shuffle? Eh, probably not.

[Edit: I speak english, I swear!]

#7

maybe that’s because Shuffle! is terrible though. But yeah, no doubt some titles, while good, are going to be a really hard sell to an audience that’s not already onboard.

I think that’s fine, though. I’d definitely say ‘lure them in with YU-NO’, because even though the point and click aspects are simple it’s definitely close enough to stuff those players are already familiar with.