Question: Game Genres

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#41
quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:
I am starting to think that is the way many of these games we are hoping for will eventually end up coming over, in the packaged collections. Yes DOR flopped, but imagine if DOR had been the first two Princess Makers, non adult, but still older games by now and at the time they would have been released would that collection have flopped?

My personal opinion: They will suffer the same, if not worse, fate comapred to DOR. The screenshots alone would be enough to drive off most customers.

#42
quote:
Originally posted by Wolfson:
It may not be as bad as all that... there are still a few of the older games that are on the Memorial Collections, like Nocturnal Illusions and Season of the Sakura, that people still point to as good games and personal favorites, and how outdated are those? Think happy thoughts, my friend... [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]

Ah, but a Memorial Collection kind of thing is different. The games in a retro hits collection like that 1) are the hits already (you didn't see Paradise Heights in there, did you?) and 2) have already been translated and are therefore cheaper to repackage/rerelease. It's more expensive and more of an unknown to do a title that hasn't been done before, and therefore a bigger risk.

#43
quote:
Originally posted by NeMiSiS:
My personal opinion: They will suffer the same, if not worse, fate comapred to DOR. The screenshots alone would be enough to drive off most customers.

Sorry for the following rant but I am tired of these ideas of games are old being used as an excuse for not even trying with the old and pointing to maybe one or two failures as reasons why that point is right. Sure it those games failed and sure that might make people cautious, but once more those examples were from games back then which are still failures since they keep trying to push them forward without trying new, with new they might succeed because this is now, times changes.

I am still betting on the whole idea of nostalgia because it's working first of all for old Atari games they are now repacking and reselling so I say it will work here too, if not then we are far more fickle then those that will play the old Atari games no matter how 'dated' the 'screenshots' may look to them.

That is why I am frankly getting very tired of everyone saying "oh these games are 10 years old that is so very, very old we can never play them look at those old graphics 2-D and no voices oh that is horrible". I feel like decking those people and saying something like "look you little sh**s take this or there may be nothing new in the future because we cannot always demand new and only new things. Sometimes we have to accept the old first in order to open the market much wider to many more new".

We cannot always have new, new is flashy, and new is not always the best why is no one seeing this? Yes some of the old sucks, but it sucked when it was new too most likely, so why is no one else seeing that sometimes the old is better and by far more accessable then the new at better prices? Why does everyone always assume based on screenshots that the old will not work, will not sell? That is a very narrow and pessimistic view in my opinion.

Once again sorry for the rant but to me it seems so few people are willing to at least give or consider that others might give something older a chance in the current market and no DOR does not count as it is one example probably bad when it was new from what others have said so it stands to reason it be bad when it is old.

#44
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
Ah, but a Memorial Collection kind of thing is different. The games in a retro hits collection like that 1) are the hits already (you didn't see Paradise Heights in there, did you?) and 2) have already been translated and are therefore cheaper to repackage/rerelease. It's more expensive and more of an unknown to do a title that hasn't been done before, and therefore a bigger risk.

But I think it is a smaller risk to release a game that has some interest, even small interest then release a total unknown, yes it still costs perhaps a similar amount to translate new or old but if you have even a small ripple of interest in an older game is that not better to try a risk with that game then say a very dark game or slightly dark game as the three most recently released have been?

Tea Society of a Witch and Hourglass of Summer are slightly different but it is, in my mind, a better and yet more risky venture to release two DVD games with sex scenes edited out, yet they risk it, so why does no one else take a similar risk with older games? It could still work and despite what others say I still think it is a near even money risk between releasing a new game that might have dark tones, such as the trend now seems to be, or an older game without the latest CG images.

#45

In regard to the rant, rant on I say I say! I agree with you completely. Besides, just because something is old to some people does not mean it is old to all people. Sorta along the lines of the old proverb, what is your trash may be someone else’s treasure.

There are plenty of old games, not just B-Games, but games in general that I would be more than happy to buy and play, despite the fact they are old.

Example… I started with Sierra’s Quest for Glory series when it was at Quest for Glory Four… playing that prompted me to want to buy 1-3… I got part two at a garage sale for 14 dollars, and we are talking the old version of two when the 5 1/2 disks were included wit the 3.5 disks… and yet, that game became one of my favorite games and for me, the game was VERY new, despite the fact it wasn’t even in CD-Rom form. Further, I enjoyed every bit of it.

Likewise… I do not speak or read Japanese, yet… If I ever find somewhere where I can take classes I probably well. The point is though, when these games come over they ARE new to me. I don’t care if it was made in 1996, if I haven’t played it before I consider it new. This is just a personal me thing though.

So if, for example, Princess Maker 1 came over, I’d be happy as a kid who’s living in poverty and still gets a Christmas present that’s only a small bag of candy! Old does not mean bad… in fact old/new and good/bad are merely in the eye of the beholder.

Gosh darn it, now it seems like I’m ranting… grrrr not my intention, but it’s been a long time since someone’s said something that has inspired me to go on a small wittle romp… fun fun!

#46
quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:
I am still betting on the whole idea of nostalgia because it's working first of all for old Atari games they are now repacking and reselling so I say it will work here too, if not then we are far more fickle then those that will play the old Atari games no matter how 'dated' the 'screenshots' may look to them.

Well, you agree that the success of these remakes is based on pure nostalgia, right? The people who bought it did it mainly for the reason that they played the games on the older hardware and really felt that nostalgic feeling.
Now, if you apply this to b-games, you run into one problem with causality: Which people on the english market have already played those old b-games and thus would fell the nostangia for the games? And in which language may they have played it? And if they were able to understand that language, how interested may they be in an english remake, while they actually have a vast selection of new releases in that other language?


quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:
So why does no one else take a similar risk with older games? It could still work and despite what others say I still think it is a near even money risk between releasing a new game that might have dark tones, such as the trend now seems to be, or an older game without the latest CG images.

There may be the same cost for the translation of the text, probably even a slightly lesser cost for the demosaicing of the graphics because they are on a lesser resolution.
But you have to take into account that there are other difficulties: The artist may not be available for redrawing the graphics and the game's engine was developed for an older OS. Thus inthe worst case, you have to accept an inconsistent style of drawing in the graphics (Critical Point is IMHO a striking example), and you will have even more costs in developing and testing an engine that complies with the current OSes, drivers and hardware.

#47

Quest for Glory! Whoo! :clears throat: Sorry… But it’s not often you see someone who knows of the game.

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精神 の 神

#48

Yes, Quest for Glory… Ah, the old memories… Trivia: can somebody name the original name of the Quest for Glory series? If you played the original QfG1, this is a piece of cake!

#49
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
Ah, but a Memorial Collection kind of thing is different. The games in a retro hits collection like that 1) are the hits already (you didn't see Paradise Heights in there, did you?) and 2) have already been translated and are therefore cheaper to repackage/rerelease. It's more expensive and more of an unknown to do a title that hasn't been done before, and therefore a bigger risk.

Ah, but here's the thing... they weren't hits when they were originally produced (and probably cost a relatively big chunk o' cash to produce at the time). My point is that just because a game is old, doesn't mean that it is undesirable. Shoot, when I bought the JAST and Milky House collections, I had an idea that I was buying older games (and I knew it when I started playing them), but it didn't detract from my playing experience one bit. I still go back and play Nocturnal Illusions on occasion, and all three games in the JAST collection even more frequently. Ultimately, I'm just trying to say that, several years down the line, when (hopefully) the market is bigger, if they decided to go back and translate an older game, it wouldn't necessarily be a tragedy... those who knew the Japanese games would probably snap it up if it was a long-awaited game, and those that weren't familiar with the Japanese games would either learn something from those that did, or possibly be willing to take a leap of faith (like me) if the game looked interesting enough. If the market has expanded enough, the customer base should be big enough that older games would stand half a chance, I would think, especially in a genre where word of mouth counts for a lot...

#50
quote:
Originally posted by fxho:
Yes, Quest for Glory... Ah, the old memories... Trivia: can somebody name the original name of the Quest for Glory series? If you played the original QfG1, this is a piece of cake!

Hero's Quest! I'm a QFG freak, man. I'm one of those people who use QFG's unofficial "official" default name as created by strategy guide author Paula Spiese. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img] Kindof sad, actually... But, oh well. :shrugs: I've been semi-maintaining a QFG site since 1998. I say semi because there are periods, some as long as over a year, where I don't do anything to it. But lately, I've been updating a lot more than usual.

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精神 の 神

#51

Yeah, I had the original HQ as well.

Of course, I’m a big-time abandonware fan. Meaning- There are a million computer game companies SITTING on old games. Not only will they not sell them, they won’t offer tech support to anyone who DOES have a legal copy (Try asking Sierra to help you get your QFG running on a modern computer. Of course, Sierra’s been shut down now, but even several years ago with a copy of QFG5, all you got was the brushoff.)

Only with the help of fan-made patches and cracks can I run the game THAT I OWN.

Especially in the case of the older low-color games, the Japanese game companies are not going to sell the original version again. (They are, in the case of many old popular games, selling Refined versions with new graphics.) They are never going to give us a legitimate English release of the old game.

So… can someone convince them to give us the tools to make our own?

You all know I’d happily pay for an English copy of Princess Maker 1 with the original graphics. I’d pay just as much - actually, MORE - for a copy of the Japanese game with editing tools to allow me to translate the damn thing myself.

YES, I am bullheaded enough to plow through the job if it were at all feasible. I am an indie game developer, and a crackpot. Tell me how to get text out of these .pt1 files and I will be RIGHT ON THE JOB.

sigh

#52

sigh is right, I suppose.

I guess in the end all one can do is sit back and see what comes across the sea… I just haven’t been to happy with what I’ve seen lately, and I’m hoping that it isn’t the shape of things to come. I have no idea at all what the Japanese bishoujo market looks like right now–it would be a shame to think that it’s past its zenith and producing nothing of any real quality anymore. One can only hope that a few gems will slip their way into translation…

[This message has been edited by Wolfson (edited 07-22-2004).]

#53
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
Well, you agree that the success of these remakes is based on pure nostalgia, right? The people who bought it did it mainly for the reason that they played the games on the older hardware and really felt that nostalgic feeling.

I was thinking you play they, remember the good old days, card, and get people to buy it that way. If you believe trends reported in newspapers old is in, so even if it is something they have never seen you sell it to them using that idea, "it harkens back to the days when you were a kid, remember static instead of crowds cheering", that sort of thing, and that is the way you market it, but no I don't think the success of these remakes is based on pure nostalgia, I think nostaliga is the way you sell them at first.

Succees depends on, as all things, how much people like them. You can hand them every new game out there and all but one could end up in their reject pile, so there is no one way to ensure people are in love with it but there are ways to garner interest in a people to have them make the purchase, if that counts as success, them purchasing the item, then perhaps it is one way to gain success.

quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
But you have to take into account that there are other difficulties: The artist may not be available for redrawing the graphics and the game's engine was developed for an older OS. Thus inthe worst case, you have to accept an inconsistent style of drawing in the graphics (Critical Point is IMHO a striking example), and you will have even more costs in developing and testing an engine that complies with the current OSes, drivers and hardware.

Then if the artist is not there, get premission and hire those that can do it, if it is not the original artist so long as they can copy that style it's not a huge issue in my book.

As for the OS, you realize that in maybe five years or perhaps less, these "new" games will likely not work on the newest OS system and within 10 years we will either have to have two computers, one with an older OS or will have lots of nice cases with CD's that no longer work properly on our computers.

Everything changes so fast that yes it is a problem with the OS being different but then adapt it, if need be through a patch, yes it costs money but making a patch might be cheaper then redoing the whole game. Go for the cheapest routes to save money and it can still work. Don't cut corners, but save where you can, a patch instead of reprograming is just one example.

[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 07-22-2004).]

#54
quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:

I am still betting on the whole idea of nostalgia because it's working first of all for old Atari games they are now repacking and reselling so I say it will work here too, if not then we are far more fickle then those that will play the old Atari games no matter how 'dated' the 'screenshots' may look to them.

I disagree. The analogy is simply incorrect IMHO. Atari was a revolutionary console with an enormous fanbase made op of working people who are in their late 20s and early 30s now. If only 1% of the population buy the collection for their sentimental value, we have quite a good market in terms of numbers.

Can we say the same for bishoujo games? The current pool of b-game fans is already small enough only to sustain one comapny (G-C) actively doing translations. Banking on nostalgia expirienced by probably less than a fraction this small fan base is nothing short of commercial suicide.

quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:

I feel like decking those people and saying something like "look you little sh**s take this or there may be nothing new in the future because we cannot always demand new and only new things. Sometimes we have to accept the old first in order to open the market much wider to many more new".

I'm afraid I don't see the rationale behind this assertion. Why should we accept old DOS games in order to open up the market to new games made for WinXP?

quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:

Why does everyone always assume based on screenshots that the old will not work, will not sell? That is a very narrow and pessimistic view in my opinion.

You have admitted it yourself earlier on; these games sell based only on their nostalgic value i.e. not through other marketing appeal. "Everyone" who isn't nostalgic assumes the games will not sell based on screenshots because they know that they will not buy it if offered the same game with DOS style screenshots.

#55

Still… there are some older games (speaking in terms of bishoujo games) that if they said they’d do the translations right now, I’m sure there’s people who would buy them…

#56

sticks tongue out at woodelf I said some games

#57

I’m not thinking of any game in particular… I’ll confess to being pretty ignorant when it comes to the Japanese side of the bishoujo market (that’s why when all the old-timers start talking about this or that Japanese game, I pretty much fall silent… that’s the sound of cluelessness ). My general opinion, though, is that there are bound to be games–obviously Princess Maker, for one–that would be snapped up if they were translated, even though they are older… and I’m not just talking about a DOS platform–even just slightly older games that were made to run in a Windows environment.

#58
quote:
Originally posted by NeMiSiS:
You have admitted it yourself earlier on; these games sell based only on their nostalgic value i.e. not through other marketing appeal. "Everyone" who isn't nostalgic assumes the games will not sell based on screenshots because they know that they will not buy it if offered the same game with DOS style screenshots.

I said that is a way to sell them not the only way they sell, much like sunroofs can sell a car but they are not the only way people sell cars.


quote:
Originally posted by NeMiSiS:
I'm afraid I don't see the rationale behind this assertion. Why should we accept old DOS games in order to open up the market to new games made for WinXP?

Because if we are willing to buy the old from them, they just might be willing to sell us the new, why because we have proven to them we will buy from them. So far they are not as willing to send new games over for fear of losing money so let's try some of the older ones first and stop being so nitpicky about the format these games were made in at first that lead to the CG's they have as part of the game.


quote:
Originally posted by NeMiSiS:
I disagree. The analogy is simply incorrect IMHO. Atari was a revolutionary console with an enormous fanbase made op of working people who are in their late 20s and early 30s now. If only 1% of the population buy the collection for their sentimental value, we have quite a good market in terms of numbers.

Ah but it is not revolutionary at this point in time, in fact it is often joked about up there with Pong and fanbase or no, they are also trying to sell it to "newcomers" to these games and to the gamers that would never have had an Atari because they were not born in time. It is a good analogy, old=old, and how can you blindly say there is no fanbase, have we not truly tried these games, other then DOR to see if there is a fanbase or not that might arise to support them?

quote:
Originally posted by NeMiSiS:
Can we say the same for bishoujo games? The current pool of b-game fans is already small enough only to sustain one comapny (G-C) actively doing translations. Banking on nostalgia expirienced by probably less than a fraction this small fan base is nothing short of commercial suicide.

I think we can say the same about some games, just looking once again at Princess Maker there are numerous sites in English about the entire series with numerous apologies about poor translations due to the service used or something, so if that is a judge then there is a fanbase for some of them, if they are ever translated. I still don't agree truly if they fail, then it is little more then we expected of them and in truth little more then they might have expected of themselves so nothing is lost. Yet what if they don't fail, what if this brings new gamers in who don't give a damn about the revolutionary Atari system and just love the old style games and are dying to get "new" old style games, games that are truly old but new to them?

To assume failure is to ensure failure, if no one has tried this yet we cannot assume they will fail, nor can we assume total success but I still think we can assume some success since these games are old in style and age but new to this market. Being old in age still allows for selling in the way I mentioned.

[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 07-23-2004).]

#59
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
... Thus in the worst case, you have to accept an inconsistent style of drawing in the graphics (Critical Point is IMHO a striking example), ...

Really? Makes me glad I only ever played the limited edition. How did the uncensored graphics look? They couldn't have been THAT bad, the mosaics were small to begin with.

#60
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
Well, you agree that the success of these remakes is based on pure nostalgia, right? The people who bought it did it mainly for the reason that they played the games on the older hardware and really felt that nostalgic feeling.
Now, if you apply this to b-games, you run into one problem with causality: Which people on the english market have already played those old b-games and thus would fell the nostangia for the games? And in which language may they have played it? And if they were able to understand that language, how interested may they be in an english remake, while they actually have a vast selection of new releases in that other language?

Thank you very much, Unicorn. That is exactly what I wanted to say, but was too tired yesterday to put into words properly. This is exactly the reason why it's hard to do older titles that no one has ever seen before.

Think of it like this. People don't make new movies using '80's special effects. Even though there would arguably be cost savings involved in using such outdated technology. People wouldn't be interested in the movie because it would be judged by the standards of the here and now. Actual movies from the 80's are judged differently, both as a recognition of "different era, different standards" and also because of the nostalgia factor.

Even though you are talking about rereleasing existing games, with an English translation - your products will be received as new inventions. Even though they're not. To have ANY kind of chance at this you'd need to price the products so cheaply you'll have trouble turning a profit.