The death of eroge

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

Recently I ran into a blog outlining the “Death” of eroge as a growing industry in Japan.
Here is the link for those of you who understand Japanese:
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Lobotomy/20080509/p1

According to Okada Toshio, we (the Japanese eroge fans) are experiencing a situation similar to the death of sci-fi. The amount of contextual information has grown to a point that it becomes impossible for individuals to maintain it. As a result, Japan is giving up the ways of eroge and is going in the direction of light novels. The prime example of this is the “Pinnacle of Japanese Modern Literature” – Fate/Stay Night, it is over 60 hours long for one play. While I personally welcome this, Okada’s arguement is that people will be unable to maintain their information intake. With new games constantly coming out by the dozen, new fans will be put off by the endless cross-referencing in the genre. For example, a lot of people commented negatively on KyoAni’s Clannad and the old timers criticized them asking them if they “ever played One -to a glorious season- before?”

Personally I think the article is a bit sensationalist, as an otaku perhaps you feel a duty to play every eroge in existence, but for the rest of us, we have all found our niche. For instance when I started with eroge I played as many as I could find, every single one looked better than the next. But eventually I developed tastes, I now limit myself to mostly ren’ai games and stuff from Type-Moon. I’ve also got certain favorite companies like Purple Software, Key, CandySoft (not so much anymore) and Minato Soft, so I am very specific about what kinds of games I want. With sites like EGS, I see no reason why the eroge industry should die. But I do see how it might consolidate itself into a group of heavyweight companies as is the case with the Western mainstream PC Gaming industry. These days the only games we ever even hear about in mainstream pc-gaming are stuff that comes from EA, Blizzard,Ubisoft, THQ etc. We get maybe 4 major PC games worth playing per year with a few minor ones coming out on steam every few months. But perhaps the “death” of eroge in Japan is good news because it means it may have a revival here in the west as the licenses get cheaper and cheaper due to the slowing successes it has in Japan. If that’s true, even though newer titles won’t be coming out, there’s still a treasure trove of unexplored licenses available to us.

#2

yeah hopefully good will come of this not bad

#3

Well PC gaming market isn’t so one-sided as you think. There are a few heavy-hitters, but with the exception of there genre they don’t really control the market so much. EA does pretty much control the sports game market through contracts, but that’s about it. Ubisoft’s continues to shed customers beyond it’s really diehard fans because of poor quality games, Bethsada continues to increase it’s market share for non-Japanese RPGs and has made some other non-RPGs as well, etc. Microsoft still has its RoN franchise that goes strong, etc. The only other really market domination beyond EA’s sports lineup is Blizzard’s WoW franchise in the MMORPG area. Beyond that, except for South Korea, blizzard sales aren’t that awe inspiring compared to others.

True, it’s not as diverse as Japanese eroge market by any stretch, but there’s not so few heavy-hitters as you think.

#4

Personally, I don’t think it’s really a matter of death as opposed to scaling back a little. I mean, the eroge market has been saturated, so naturally it’ll get smaller and more scaled back, but I highly doubt it will be destroyed outright. Either way, this might not necessarily be a bad thing due to licensing costs getting cheaper for localization companies. Hell, it might even give these companies an incentive to try releasing titles outside of Japan themselves…

#5

Well … this might be why they’re trying to break into the US market in earnest. Pursuing a strategy of market expansion is always good.

But this is just hardcore -vs- casual, writ histrionic. Are the casual players going to be turned off to some games because of complexity? Sure. Does that mean the industry is doomed? No! Does that mean it’s impossible to attract new customers because of impenetrably-many layers of cross-referencing? The possibility exists, but it’s remote.

Shifts in media happen all the time. It’s very common for groundbreakingly innovative works to be made, lost, then rediscovered much later; look at H. P. Lovecraft, for example. The reverse happens too; look at Fist of the North Star. At one time it was considered groundbreaking, and innovative! But it’s awful. I had to sit thru some of it as part of my duties as ACen staff one year; I refer to the experience as getting Fisted.

No, something being “complicated” doesn’t really mean squat about the survival of the medium. I mean, books are still around, even though Joyce published Finnegann’s Wake. Anime is still around, even though Gainax made a name for themselves with Evangelion.

#6

the current japanese eroge market seems like the 70’s -early 80’s USA video game market

#7

If this is true, then I wonder what the “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” of eroge will be? (That is, if it doesn’t already exist…)

#8

There were a couple of games that could have been somewhat like that released in 2007… but I don’t think any single product like that would be able to affect the market. Even if Rewrite turns out to be a huge bomb, it won’t kill off eroge (or even knock it senseless for a year, like happened in the atari crash)

#9

I don’t think the author has any clue what is going on in the world in general with all entertainment. Aside from movies, mainstream has been shattered into much smaller niche markets. Thanks to cable, independent publishing, and the internet, people can now find far more options than even a decade previously. Instead of brick stores that tend to stock themselves predominantly with popular/mainstream product, people can now shop online and easily purchase the lesser know material. And it will be because of this easier access that many genres now thrive instead of merely survive (all I know is that anime is far easier to come by now then it was in the US before amazon).

Complexity of eroges have little to do with a decline of interest, just that the increase of options has allowed the audience to spread out over a multitude of titles instead of the one or two mega hits. And with a far more worldwide audience coming into play more every year, things should only get better for eroge.

#10

i would rather have a few game with good stories than lots with crappy stories

#11

The eroge market ¬ñ much like pen and paper the RPG in the West ¬ñ is insanely oversaturated. Because it takes relatively low income to publish an eroge title, anyone with enough drive can make it happen. That does not mean said person and their idea should be released. Proof of this can be seen in the literal hundreds of garbage titles that aren’t even worth the plastic CD they’re burned on.

Thus its like Nature. When the population of an animal explodes into a number that the environment can’t support, millions die until it stabilizes. Same goes for the eroge market and book RPG’s. There’s gonna be a HUGE downfall before those worthy of survival survive. Sooner or later its gonna happen. Unfortunately that also means studios we like are as likely do die off, as studios we dislike will continue to live on. It all comes down to sales, how a company handles their earnings/losses, and adaption. Generally the fittest (and thus the best) will survive… although even the strongest lion gets a sudden cramp and loses the battle.

#12

Well i think in the future, like other gaming companies, they will have to look on a more global scale. Unfortuanlty for English-speakers this probably means Mandarin Chinese speakers first and English second.

#13

What makes you think that? From what I’ve heard, Chinese porn laws are stricter than that of the US. “Unpatriotic sites” weren’t the only thing their government was trying to block when they erected the Great Firewall, you know.

#14

The PRC does have very strict laws and probably only censored versions could be sold there. However Mandarin is becoming the predominant Chinese language and many of the other countries have less strict laws or they don’t enforce their strict laws.

In addition, because of the sheer number of people in the PRC, making and selling edited Mandarin versions could still be far more profitable than English versions, especially due to the slightly higher acceptance rate of visual novel format.

#15

Is there even much of a market for VN’s in China to begin with, though?

I mean, I don’t recall hearing it having any more of an acceptance over in China than it has over here in the US…

#16

unfortunately, yes there is. i just never bothered to talk about them.
lets just say that some of the titles that some of you guys wanted, got through into the chinese market. there are LEGAL chinese eroges on sale, and there are chinese people who work on japanese eroges too (i know at least 2 individuals who do so; one of whom very famous and always gets a kabe space at comic market).

i’d be honest and say that from personal experience and observations the market over in asia (in taiwan in particular) is bigger than here. why else did gc had plans of doing a couple of chinese vmate titles before they went under? and please dont ask whatever happened to them because honestly i have no idea

i dont want to be resentful towards the market here, but at least the people on the other side of the globe dont call these stuff hentai

ADD:
and like jinnai said, mosaic versions will do over there. and what jinnai said about china first us second can be potentially true. not only does their population exceeds here, but also the culture/language difference is relatively more similar between china/japan than us/japan. not to mention that on a relative chronological scale, the chinese people got a more earlier exposure to japanese anime than here. in here, it’s much a slower start, thus a slower rate of acceptance level

now back to the original topic. yes the eroge industry is getting more and more saturated, if not too saturated, but i dont think its going to burst anytime soon. does any of you guy see that the gaming industry will just simply stall one day because of oversaturation? its sorta like movies, its a form of entertainment with a distinct type of appeal. anyhow just my 2 pennies

#17

While the console market won’t stall per se, it suffers from its own kind of oversaturation. Take the Wii for example. There are far more craptastic titles than good ones, and some have even joked that the only good titles come from Nintendo themselves ¬ñ- that all third party games are trash. While this isn’t absolutely true, it has tarnished the Wii brand name. Nintendo has therefore begun to take steps and damn the flood of waste before it causes people to look towards XBOX for quality releases. DS was like this at first ¬ñ with crappy titles outnumbering the good ones… now it’s pretty much stabilized 50/50. Sony and Nintendo have both proven in the past, that they will take rather draconian steps to ensure oversaturation is stopped before it gets out of hand. However there isn’t anything like a “console license overlord” in eroge.

The thing about the eroge market, is that it takes so little capital to get yourself started in it (relatively speaking). Thus for every company that dies, two more take its place. However big name companies keep whining that sales are falling. Of course since they rarely release financial earning reports, we can’t tell how badly these loses are. If they are telling the truth however, and fewer and fewer people are buying eroge across the board, then it’s only logical to assume the market will take a big tumble. In any case, the “hydra effect” of how eroge companies keep coming and coming, has to end at some point. Otaku customers aren’t infinite (or are they?) ¬ñ there has to be a breaking point sooner or later. I always thought that the more enterprising eroge companies seeking to grow in the US, were at least somewhat motivated by this – like the 'ole restaurant franchise effect of the 1980’s, when American fast food bred like rabbits overseas, but had pretty much drawn to a crawl in the domestic US.

Only of course, eroge isn’t breeding like rabbits in the US and Europe… unless we’re talking sterile rabbits here. :stuck_out_tongue:

#18

We have seen segments, huge segments of the industry begin to stall. EA’s sports likeup has begun to see some slowdown, less to do with the economy and more to do with people slowly realizing they’re making the same product every year with different stats and a bit more bling. Not a devastating hit though.

In the past RPGs & adventure games (remember those Lucas and Sierra titles?) stalled and the latter virtually wiped off the map. Other genres such as simplistic arcade or sidescrollers are vanishing as well, even before 3D came.

As for market saturation, that has been relatively achieved and more innovatitve types of games are required.

The only place left that is anything like eroge market is MMOs. Every week several new MMOs appear, all trying to take the crown from WoW. Almost all of them will fail within a few months. Some of them, like LotRO will get a comfortable place way back, but not achieve the market share they were looking for. This is because, like eroge market, it takes almost no money to develope an MMO. Storyline is much simpler, world structure isn’t so complex as you’re making it for the lowest common denominator, not for highest, and revenues are continuous.

On a side note, I think dating-sims might have a broader appeal here if they weren’t in a VN style. Many people don’t like reading a game, but playing it. I think that is where the real cash-cow lies for English market.

#19

… there are still plenty of adventure games, sidescrollers and fighting games are far more endangered… :slight_smile:

#20

2D fighters aren’t so common, but 3D ones are quite so. Almost every Shonen anime has one. 2D fighters and sidescrollers have come back on some of the handhelds, but
adventure games aren’t so common. They’re still around, but you have to look for them.