se.kirara

It will be for free:

http://se-kirara.jp/index2.html

Special edition will cost 2800 yen. Educated guess is that the company expects to make profit off the merchandising?

An interesting experiment. Hoping it works.

PS: I call dibs on Nozomi. That is all. :stuck_out_tongue:

So this is the Gundam profit model applied to eroge?

Ignosco and I saw this and just assumed it was a mistake. How can a company release their first eroge for free?

What better way to advertise their brand? :stuck_out_tongue:

what better way to bankrupt their brand? =P

Yeah, unlike other companies/doujin circles that have done this (say Alicesoft), this looks completely insane. There’s some information about the content here. If this title is really as substantial as they suggest (seemingly above the usual amount of content in a full price eroge), added to the cost of top tier seiyuu, and some fairly well known writers, I can’t see how they’ll manage to flog off enough merchandise/fan disks etc. to recover even a fraction of the costs.

The biggest remaining question is how the free version will be distributed, or in other words, will their be any restrictions on gaijin acquiring/playing it?

Even if they do go bankrupt, there’s not much they can lose… I agree it’s a gamble, but if it works out, all the more power to them. I’m guessing their thinking is that it’s only the collectors who would buy the stuff and that most of the rest of the people would just pirate it anyway. Furthermore, it’s a lot harder to ā€œpirateā€ a figure.

Well, the alternate explanation is that they’ll post a delay announcement on 3/26 and then reveal that it was an April Fool’s joke on 4/1 :stuck_out_tongue:

Except their credit rating. :wink:

According to industry insiders, if it cost $500,000 to make an eroge, then 11,400 copies have to be sold at $88 (before taxes) before it starts to earn actual profit.

Do they really expect to sell thousands of special editions? It’s gotta be one hell of a good game for people to pay money, for something they can get for free.

I’m not saying it can’t be done… I’m sure it can… but is se.kirara that kind of game? I guess we’ll soon see.

Imagine the next generation of Pokemon being offered as a no strings attached free download, and then Nintendo asking if you really like it, please buy the store version for $30 bucks and get a ā€œfreeā€ figurine with it. Or if a car dealer gave away free cars, and asked if you really liked it, you’d only buy gas and make repairs at his dealership.

Would some people do it? Sure. Would everyone do it? Not a chance in Hell. :stuck_out_tongue:

Well, they’re figure creators. If they’re successful they’ve probably got a bit of money to burn on something like this. I suppose it’s just a really expensive promotion strategy =P

Native (the Dev Studio of Se.kirara) is a sub company of a big Figurine Company (MaxFactory) with a very well Know Brand (Figma).
se.kirara is a game wich the character design is based on a new incoming Figma Figurine Collection… in fact it’s a big ads for this new collection.

Anyway, for those who wonder if it will be good… You can still try the Trial Version.

And since it’s a full free game, i hope some people will do an English translation of it.

So that explains it. Thanks for the info.

http://blog.livedoor.jp/geek/archives/50996100.html

Eye opening, to say the least. Hope this works for them. Guess I’ll have to buy it with the figma, then. Never bought a figure before…

Good God… what a gamble they’re making. Three years of development? Full cost production with no short cuts?

Heh… he’s joking about the money sunk into this project, but it won’t be funny if this turns out to be a losing bet.

However I applaud the effort. I’ll buy a figurine of Nozomi then.

Well… at least piracy won’t be an issue, eh? Until cheaper Chinese knockoffs of the figures are made. :stuck_out_tongue:

Ignosco spotted it at erogeshop but it’s pretty pricey there.

that a custom order so that does not surprise me the least, can email see if they are gonna carry it.

Ask if they’re going to carry Subarashiki Hibi, too. I don’t see it on the preorder page.

Too late; preorders have closed. Although they might still carry it, but you won’t get the preorder.

Don’t care about tokuten, just want the game.

Could always give Jlist a shot. They still offer the game for preorder even though preorders have closed.