Question about May Club from the Milky House Memorial Co

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#21
quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:
But what a better way to build up the market then to get your name known? For example when I say soda people most likely think a particular brand name rather then a carbonated beverage often colored with a type of syrup. What these companies ideally want and what would be best for them is if you say, and this is my opinion, but more artsy style with a quasi-French movie ending type of games, think at once of say AngelSmile, or games involving many girls often in a sort of 'harem' with 'harem' option think Trabulance.

If they release packages of the older games even at a loss it is possible to have such thinking go along which becomes priceless, granted it does sort of type-cast their role in the market, but it also gets them well known for types that people can traget rather people getting one from them which might be a bomb and not being willing to spend 50 bucks on another possible bomb.

Not sure if that came across as clear as I hope.

[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 03-22-2004).]

I never said I disagreed with the whole philosophy. It seems like a bad idea to me for entirely pragmatic reasons.

There is very little money in it today, as it is. The Japanese companies have only got lukewarm interest as things are. And the collection-of-older-titles idea is very much less profitable than a more traditional release. Companies would in practice find such a strategy difficult to pursue and would probably go under.

#22
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
I never said I disagreed with the whole philosophy. It seems like a bad idea to me for entirely pragmatic reasons.

There is very little money in it today, as it is. The Japanese companies have only got lukewarm interest as things are. And the collection-of-older-titles idea is very much less profitable than a more traditional release. Companies would in practice find such a strategy difficult to pursue and would probably go under. .

Yeah but there is always a reason not to do 'something', be it pragmatic or some other reason, and be that 'something' anything from releasing games to taking a risk in a same day Japanese-English release of a game. Some are valid, others are valid only if you don't want to take risks. Sometimes you got to go with your gut and ignore all reasons not to do something thereby just doing it. I think the first company to do that here will be the smartest one in the long run.

I don't think they would go under, people gawk at the price of a game that is 50.00 dollars but if you say 5 games for 70.00 dollars, they just might spend that much because it sounds like a deal to them, and it just might be enough to at least breakeven. Profits are wonderful, but work for just a break-even point at present and you get the name out there, which as you admit is a good philosophy, and I think also can be done if you just follow your gut and ignore reasons not to do something. Yes now it might seem like such a thing is impossible to make money, but as was said on a Star Trek 'things are only impossible until they're not'. I don't think they would go under, I think they would or could be what breaks this market open.

People will spend a lot for what they think is a deal, and let's face it 5 for 70 is not cheap but it sounds like a lot better deal then 1 for 50 even if that '1' is newer and has better bells and whistles. I really think they would at least break-even.

#23
quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:
People will spend a lot for what they think is a deal, and let's face it 5 for 70 is not cheap but it sounds like a lot better deal then 1 for 50 even if that '1' is newer and has better bells and whistles. I really think they would at least break-even.

Err, I may be mistaken, but I think that's what G-Collections already tried when they put DOR into their first line-up.

Seeing how they never again thought about an older title, I think this experiment wasn't too successful...

#24

People keep saying DOR this, DOR that, but did anyone want DOR to start with??? If no then there is your problem. People seem to want more old Trabulance games, then anything not to mention other collections.

Please stop using a faliure of games that people as far as I can tell seemed to show no interest in to begin with as a reason why this will not work, I don’t mean to be angry but people keep using the same one reason. That is one time, does that prove continual failure? No, and I sitll say it was with a collection that people showed little interest in to begin with which would ebe the difference.

#25

Of course where is the ground swelling of people wanting old trabulance games? Unfortunately a couple of posters in a bishoujo BBS does not make for a large market potential I think g-coll is using sound business practices right now in releasing new games and sequels that have done well in the past for them, like kango and horny bunny. While I wouldn’t mind older games I think it would be a turn off for some people.

#26

Yes but you also cannot say that those that post here are the only ones that will buy it. My point is find out what the people want and release that in bundles. Yet that is also why they do it as a bundle, so maybe they put one in say to test the waters with one of their newer games, see what the responses is, or they continue to release do but also release one bundle of old. Also as most of us know no matter what you do some people will be turned off and ticked off, so you can’t really worry about that to a large extent.

Actually how many do you know that would not leap at a chance to get some of the older games from companies that are liked around here? Seriously that is an open question to all, and to those too that say they will buy games like Virgin Roster to support the industry. Yes that still might be a large amount, but I think it is larger then anyone things because of the idea of getting the deal, the 5 for 60 or something.

[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 03-24-2004).]

#27
quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:
I don't think they would go under, people gawk at the price of a game that is 50.00 dollars but if you say 5 games for 70.00 dollars, they just might spend that much because it sounds like a deal to them, and it just might be enough to at least breakeven.

...

People will spend a lot for what they think is a deal, and let's face it 5 for 70 is not cheap but it sounds like a lot better deal then 1 for 50 even if that '1' is newer and has better bells and whistles. I really think they would at least break-even.

Here is the problem. Releasing 5 games means you have to do five times the work. This means your expenses are going to be MUCH higher and it is going to take MUCH longer. And you are not selling the end result for 5 times the price - that would be market suicide. The profit-to-work ratio is much lower, and companies can only do so much work. At some point they will have to release SOMEthing.

Also the only titles that they would be interested in releasing under this plan would be very good and/or successful games. This will tend to increase the difficulty/workload/licensing price.

But for another pragmatic example: look at the anime market. The anime market was full of cheap-but-mediocre licensing decisions in its early days, but almost no examples of the kind that you're talking about here. Fast forward, and you're seeing companies take risks along the lines of .hack, Azumanga Daioh, and Saint Tail.

In general - it is not always best to optimize for long-term viability. If you are in danger of never seeing the long term, it makes more sense to focus on short-term survivability. The market cannot right now afford to do much, if any, risk taking. Put another way, each release is ALREADY a significant risk in and of itself. Picking a particularly RISKY release simply compounds this. I have no doubt that, eventually, we will see licensing along the lines of this proposal. I do not expect it to be sooner rather than later.

#28

Are we forgetting that there are collections of older games available for a discounted price? The collection that the topic starter referred to, Milky House, is one such offering. May Club and Nocturnal Illusions, two well-regarded titles from J-list for $19.95. The JAST USA Memorial Collection is an even better price per game at three for $24.95. Together there are your five older, but respectable titles for under $50. You could order the two collections plus Fairy Nights and Legend of Fairies [linear novels, but good stories and artwork] and qualify for the 20% discount for a grand total of $51.88 for seven games. Of course the newer releases are attractive, but for an introduction to B-gaming, the older releases sound like a deal to me.

#29

A lot of older titles haveto be redone for winXP and even then there isn’t 100% compatability all the time (mayclub and nocturnal illusions for me has its colors inverted if i use it in 640x480 (i’m talking the milky house collection ones).

That said, they don’t haveto as much work as making a new game. They don’t haveto reapply for copyright, they don’t haveto redo the storyboard, they don’t haveto (nessarily) hire new artists, composers, etc. So there is a lot of cost cut there. If they chose to enhance it, that’s optional expense. It might be nessary from their standpoint to sell it, but even so you a remake never costs as much as an original. Of course it doesn’t always sell as much as an original, but then again it can. Take Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete FE (as a non-b example).

#30
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
In general - it is not always best to optimize for long-term viability. If you are in danger of never seeing the long term, it makes more sense to focus on short-term survivability. The market cannot right now afford to do much, if any, risk taking. Put another way, each release is ALREADY a significant risk in and of itself. Picking a particularly RISKY release simply compounds this. I have no doubt that, eventually, we will see licensing along the lines of this proposal. I do not expect it to be sooner rather than later..

Yes but then I have to ask if you are in danger of never seeing the long term because you never take a risk which might allow you to see the long term? Then again if you only focus on short-term you probably won't make it, 'living' day to day is great, but if there is a sudden drop in the market you are done, risking something that might give you long term survivability allows you to overcome that slight drop with fewer problems.

Oh yes life is a risk, but there are small and large risks. I do think this is a smaller risk because, as has been said by Jinnai, there is less risk in releasing a game you already have a copyright too and that already exists even if you must translate it, then a new one you are still paying off those that worked on it which might flop overhere, that I think is more costly.

Also as perigee pointed out some collections do exist and some of those colletions do seem to be doing pretty good, they always come up in topic here from time to time. Yes this is not a representative sample of the entire population, but it just might be one of avid Bishoujo game players in general, remember we aren't excatly numbering in the hundreds of thousands let alone millions or billions at the moment or the industry might be larger, so a handful of people might just be enough of a sample to show how well these 'collections' would do when released.

Once again too remember there is always a reason to not release something not to do something, fear of not surving the long term, fear of alienating people, etc. The key is not to find out a reason not to do something even in the short term with the excuse that it might work in the future but not now, but it is instead important to find a reason a why to do that something now in the present.

[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 03-25-2004).]

#31

Scdawg I think your missing our point. Right now this industry is still in it’s infancy companies cannot afford to go out on a limb and take larger risks. Like the anime example posted earlier, before we had the big boon most of the stuff released by the companies were genres that they knew would sell a certain amount. They could not afford to risk money on genres that were unproven, because if they bombed it would wipe out the entire company. Hence you see so many mecha anime and violent shows being release here early on.
It’s good business practice to go for the sure thing rather than take a risk when you have limited resources.

#32
quote:
Originally posted by perigee:
Are we forgetting that there are collections of older games available for a discounted price? The collection that the topic starter referred to, Milky House, is one such offering. May Club and Nocturnal Illusions, two well-regarded titles from J-list for $19.95. The JAST USA Memorial Collection is an even better price per game at three for $24.95. Together there are your five older, but respectable titles for under $50. You could order the two collections plus Fairy Nights and Legend of Fairies [linear novels, but good stories and artwork] and qualify for the 20% discount for a grand total of $51.88 for seven games. Of course the newer releases are attractive, but for an introduction to B-gaming, the older releases sound like a deal to me.

First of all, I hesitate to call the Fairy Nights games "good" by any yardstick, but that's not quite relevant.

We're not talking about rereleasing collections of old US releases. We are talking about acquiring the rights to a bunch of never-before-translated old titles, localizing them all, and releasing them in low-priced anthologies. I am saying I think this model is doomed to failure when the market is this immature.

#33
quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:
Oh yes life is a risk, but there are small and large risks. I do think this is a smaller risk ...
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 03-25-2004).]

I do not think this is a smaller risk. I think this is a much much larger risk than releasing a standard title.

Why do you say releasing an anthology of newly licensed but old games would be less of a risk?

[This message has been edited by Nandemonai (edited 03-25-2004).]

#34
quote:
Originally posted by wanfu2k1:
Scdawg I think your missing our point. Right now this industry is still in it's infancy companies cannot afford to go out on a limb and take larger risks.

I think you are missing mine, that is an excuse, when you have nothing to lose, and they really don't because if they lose money then they know the industry won't work for them on a large scale, it is the best time to take a risk in which you might lose. Let's face it they can wait 20 years doing what they are and the industry might not grow. Unlike anime they cannot 'buy' time and quietly wait for the industry to grow and then target and sell to people under a certain age so they always have that restriction on them. Yes if you wait 10 years it might grow, but it might be stagant if you do nothing to shake things up to force a change. Keeping pace does nothing but sustain in the long run, especially when something is in it's infancy and they don't want to sustain because it is not as profitable as they would even partly like right now for them.

It's a smaller risk because I truly believe they will get more people buying and anthology of games because it is more for less, so to speak, then they would getting people even outside of those that want to support the industry at all costs, i.e. buying each of the newly licensed games that are released so they can support the industry. Always give people more for less and you will sell to more people and that holds true with few expections.

You cannot always sell the people on the new, expect to those you already have as fans and if they are diehard as I said they would buy from you anyway, when you are new you want to take risks so you can get even more people because this is the time you don't have a postion in the industry to guard and to lose from taking such risks. How many companies have gone the play it as safe as possible route that have already vanished? There could be many reasons but one is that they played it as safe as possible in my opinion.

[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 03-25-2004).]

#35
quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:
I think you are missing mine, that is an excuse, when you have nothing to lose,

We have everything to lose. If a company does what you are suggesting, they run a very real risk of going under - of having to close up shop. If they close permanently the market will actually SHRINK.

Many markets die because of overexpansion. My mom worked for a place that went under basically for that reason.


quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:
It's a smaller risk because I truly believe they will get more people buying and anthology of games because it is more for less, so to speak, then they would getting people even outside of those that want to support the industry at all costs, i.e. buying each of the newly licensed games that are released so they can support the industry. Always give people more for less and you will sell to more people and that holds true with few expections.

You are not correct. You stand a significant chance of being correct, but are not necessarily correct. There could be any number of reasons that a collection would do MORE poorly - DOR comes to mind, as does Fruits Basket's domestic release, as do Graduation and Princess Maker. Any number of practical considerations mean that the titles in an anthology will get less individual attention - this could manifest in "they're all buggy" or "the translations are stiff, wooden, and error-ridden and make the game unplayably bad" or god knows what.

But you are also missing my point entirely. I'm saying the sales of such an anthology are, at this [edit: point] in time, irrelevant. You must get a product to market before you can make money off of it, and producing an anthology such as this would take forever. And then some. See Working Designs. The b-game companies don't have a certain enough market to take this risk - and if they did, they don't have a big enough market to support them while they work on their magnum opuses.

I'm sorry, but the market is just too much in its infancy for such a thing to work right now.

[edited for spelling]

[This message has been edited by Nandemonai (edited 03-25-2004).]

#36
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
You are not correct. You stand a signiWe have everything to lose. If a company does what you are suggesting, they run a very real risk of going under - of having to close up shop. If they close permanently the market will actually SHRINK.

On the contrary, they have nothing to lose, we might lose, but they have nothing since this is small profit as it is, and to be honest as most businesses look to their costumers I think they only care about us so long as there is a profit margin that says we buy their stuff or might buy it if they push harder. Also if they don't do a risk like this I honestly think they will still go under, others have following this let's play it safe plan, and others will, the industry might crumble and fall or be forced to take it even safer adn edit out all h-scenes in order to get the games to the mass public to sell enough to be profitable. What is the bigger risk doing nothing knowing you still might fail, or taking a chance in which you might fail? At first one might say taking the chance, but either way you might fail, so I say it is even money so you take the chance and if worse comes to worse we know this market was not agressively enough sought or would not have worked either way, but at least they tried to expand the market rather then waiting for something that might never happen because 'things take time'.


Yes collections might do more poorly but when were those released when the industry was newer then now or when it was as established as it is now and they know people will buy things to support the industry?

I understand that you think it is irrelevant at this time but do you understand that I think that is an excuse, anything can be irrelevant at any time people don't want to do it not when it is not the right time to do it. Not being the right time could also be an excuse, because there is always a reason for it not to be the right time, expect when you as a company have nothing to lose, which once more they do not even if we as the consumer have something to lose.

Now is the time to release collections to get people interested, and I refuse to believe otherwise until people point to a collection (other then the only one they point to which is DOR) that has failed with the industry existing at it's current level of popularity. DOR I still am given to understand was even earlier in this industries childhood, and probably would have done a lot better if it had been a different collection, they choose wrong time and wrong collection to release it. I think now is the time when they are still young enough and when they have nothing to lose, even if we do, to release such collections.

Magum Opuses to me would be the top five best sellers over the past five years being put together or the entire collection of a series volumes 1-5 not randomly chosen games.

[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 03-25-2004).]

#37

Also rerleases and collections add numbers…and numbers count in industry. You can then tout “Over X sold!” “Seller of the popular X game/seires” (because they could if the wanted add those numbers here)

Also the PM series (as i seen the interview whats-his-name gave (i can get it, i’m just lazy right now)) was left with a dos version in an era of transition from dos on a game type that the US didn’t have a market type for…he said several companies would have taken the risk it had it been win 3.x compatable.

[This message has been edited by Jinnai (edited 03-25-2004).]

#38

Scdawg sorry but I would never want you to run my company You say they have nothing to lose but money, that’s exactly what NO company want’s to lose. I You lose money you go under, you go under no more nothing period. Your assumption is that the companies have an endles supply of money and that the company can not go bankrupt, which is very very far from the case. Unless I’m mistaken g-coll and PP are not very big companies with large warchests like MS.

#39