Selling english bishoujo games in Japan

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

Well, I’ve wondered if Peach Princess have been thinking about offering some of their games to the fans of the genre in Japan? They COULD sell games like Maid’s story and Critical Point LCE (both of them still has the mosaics) and eventually some other games where the mosaics couldn’t be removed for some reasons, like Dokusen…

They might not sell all that many copies there, but I’m sure of that there would be fans who’d buy them anyway just because thet they’re fans of the genre - and they might find it interesting to play through the games in english (for much the same reasons that people like me sometimes buys and reads the same book in both its original and translated version).

G-collections has a section for english bishoujo games, but they haven’t put anything there yet, even through there is a few games that they could sell in that section…

#2

If I’m not mistaken, this might generate more sales but probably would not help, in the long term. Japanese companies want to see more sales in the English market, not Japanese sales of English-version games.

Especially since to the Japanese, these games are several years old…

#3

Plus doesn’t it say on the boxes “Sale of this product in Japan is unlawful”?

They’d have to change the rules on that. :d

#4

I believe that they’re not allowed to sell it in Japan because the CG is uncensored. Like Kumiko said in the past, mosaics’ are required by law, in Japan. Besides, if they sold the English version of the games in Japan, they’d be competing with the very same companies that are supplying them with the games, I don’t think that’s a very good business tactic.

#5

XD That’s right. eehee… sleep deprivation helps one-track minds.

#6

They wouldn’t necressiary need to “competing” with the companies… They could just suggest to them that they let them offer their games as “english versions” of their games, and let them decide what the games would cost in Japan (which would be more than here in the west) and give them the main part of the income. Well, it’s not impossible that they might accept soemthing like that

#7

I find this to be highly unlikely. First of all, like many people said, the CGs are uncensored so that’s the primarily problem. Second, from the Japanese consumer’s perspective, why would they want to pay an english version of an exact same game they can buy in Japan when 1. many people don’t know English well enough to understand the text and 2. like, these games aren’t newly released games either which will not make the game attractive in the first place.

No offense, SB, but it really doesn’t make too much sense at all to sell english versions of the games back in Japan. This is from my experience and observations, but I find that many people will not buy the same title with different languages unless they are a fan of that specific title, not necessarily fans of the general genre. One thing that makes the difference is that these games are readily available in Japan (sort of like a take-for-granted thing), so the mindsets (and therefore the logic) of “fans” in Japan will definitely work differently than “fans” outside of Japan.

Crap…this is turning in to a K-style lecturing post, so I’d better shut up :stuck_out_tongue:

#8

Well, it was just a suggestion

#9

I hope you don’t find my post to be offensive, SB; it wasn’t intended to be. So don’t feel bad or offended.

It’s just that the idea is too unfavorable from the Japanese consumer’s perspective that’s all, and I can’t really blame you for that since you may not be familiar with how Japanese people thinks

#10

What’s K-style lecture? Is it an SNK reference to K’?

#11

err…Kumiko :stuck_out_tongue:

#12

Interesting comments. However, really, Japanese fans are in general probably not interested in English versions, at least not in any way way that would make a market. I don’t imagine we’d be able to sell English games to Japan for the same way we don’t sell Japanese games in the U.S. – the realities are hard, but there’s not enough people to make it worth doing on a large enough scale. Plus there are legal issues, since the games are actually “illegal” in Japan because they’re not censored.

#13

This is totally off the topic because I don’t want to start a thread that says ‘please don’t pirate’ because it usually is flamebait, and it is my hope that this won’t turn out that way just because there’s no invitation in the topic. I have no hope for the people who are posting on MegaTokyo, the thread is already 64 posts long and counting and I can’t convince them that IP misuse=stealing, plagiarizing=stealing, and they are exploiting the people who put their hard work into making these software products. Still using MP3 as their scoundrel excuse, and well I concede there isn’t a huge body of research done on this, and being north americans with their natural distrust of the body they call ‘capitalists’ they snub the information I provide, double deal in semantics and lexical context, and adamantly insist that plagiarism does not equal stealing. Sigh. I hate the human propensity to repeat his mistakes.

#14
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Payne:
Interesting comments. However, really, Japanese fans are in general probably not interested in English versions, at least not in any way way that would make a market. I don't imagine we'd be able to sell English games to Japan for the same way we don't sell Japanese games in the U.S. -- the realities are hard, but there's not enough people to make it worth doing on a large enough scale. Plus there are legal issues, since the games are actually "illegal" in Japan because they're not censored.

Even if the legal issue would not exists (for example in CPLE), there is still the fact, that english is considered a very difficult language in japan, making it quite an effort istead of a pleasure, to play a game in eglish that is already available in japanese.
The last 2 years,I am learning japanese and have noted, that (regarding the spoken language), it is quite the easiest language I have ever tried to learn, so this attitude of the japanese people is really understandable to me. (Of cause, the written japanese language, especially the kanji-system, is quite a different matter...)

#15
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
that english is considered a very difficult language in japan

English is my native language and even I consider it very difficult and confusing! [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/tongue.gif[/img]

#16
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Payne:
Interesting comments. However, really, Japanese fans are in general probably not interested in English versions, at least not in any way way that would make a market. [SNIP] Plus there are legal issues, since the games are actually "illegal" in Japan because they're not censored.

Legal issues? Hmm...correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that a recent court decision had said that it wasn't illegal any more.

My understanding of the entire thing has been that things which "offended average Japanese tastes" were illegal, and that never changed, but that the courts have been changing what was regarded as "offensive to the average Japanese", and that recently it was found that you could have as much explicit stuff as you wanted.

Of course, this is how you make your living (at least theoretically), which means you would know far more than I.

#17

I think games work differently, since all H-games are governed by a H-game regulating board (called computer software moral organization) so unless they change their rules on mosaics (which I find unlikely in the near future), I think H-games will stay censored as a regulation

#18