This MSG Board is boring

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

Why is everyone so frustrated? Everyone makes like 100 lines on piracy and all. I’m sure almost everyone here discovered bishoujo gaming by pirating. Heck, I’m sure even some staffers at PeaPri are old pirates. I know about lots of pirate sites, and PeaPri products are NOT distributed freely as the people realized themselves what Kumiko said like 30 thousands times. Bizarrely, the not-so-respected man and pirate site killer Peter Payne is prolly the initiator of those changes. The only places where you can find the games is private FTP or mIRC but still it’s pretty rare.

The lack of money and of private mailbox (i do not want my parents to know i’m into bishoujo gaming) prevents me from buying games. So I will not get them, till I’m in an appartment. I will not pirate PeaPri games either, but the others that are still in japanese I will probably.

Games are getting bigger (many CDs) and harder to get. Free Web Space is scarce since the tech economic crash. The sharing community does not have enough givers, and too much leechers. Resistance from the private companies such as yours is getting more and more effective with time.

There’s no reason to be so alarmed about it. The situation from the pirating point of view is not that bad. It’s marketing that’s the problem. Yesterday I was playing DOA3 in a display at the mall and an old pervert told something like “Whoa nice boobs. They should do porn with girls like that. That would be awesome.” He was really weird tho . One of my friends just said spontaneouly after seeing Tifa in FF7 that we should be able to screw her in the Inns! That’s the kind of guys PeaPri would like to get! Why don’t they get those consumers? Because they aren’t into Net Surfing, that is!

There IS a market for bishoujo gaming here, and it is not small budget companies like PeaPri who are going to reach it. Japanese companies need to put big money to start magazine and tv ads. Some big american game company could buy you too (that’s maybe one of your goals). Having other companies to translate more games would help to establish a small market with more competition and more things to offer. Also, it would make the market more substantial and not look like a “passing fad” for eventual investors.

And also, why not let people speak their opinions instead of just bashing them? Do you really think pirates will buy your products if you insult them? Do you really want to say to one of those rare, valuable and already acquired fan of bishoujo gaming that they are unworthy of your products? Do you really think money is more valuable than respect?

I hope this will be the last boring thread. I would love to see this board become something else than the weird ode to capitalism it became.

MMMm pretty bizarre for a first post no? This is long and I don’t remember what I wrote first. Ah well. Guess I’d better go to sleep. Long live to PeaPri! Good luck!

P.S. (i just read the rules, i hope this does not break rule number 3 if it does i’m really sorry)

#2

Okay, if anything this thread will end up very exciting…

First off, piracy is a major concern of many of those here. It’s one of the topics on the top of our minds. As such, it gets a lot of board time. And yes PeaPri aren’t distrbuted as freely as some other games but that is also a result of several of the BBS people here, not just of Peter Payne. (Who is respected in some circles, it just really depends on who you talk to.)

Marketing is a problem but if you’re aware of the pirating topics, I’m sure you’re also aware of the marketing ones we’ve discussed as well. We’d like to push the games here into the mainstream through publications and such but it’s a difficult thing to do. PeaPri can send and request ad space in as many magazines as they want but if all those magazines refuses to print those ads, where does the problem lie?

Having big Japanese companies push bishoujo games would make us very happy. But in the past, they’ve not seen the profit from those ventures and as such, were dropped. We can scream all we want that there is an audience and consumer market here but unless the companies see hard numbers to match what we’re claiming, it’s hard to justify the risks.

And oddly enough, many of the people here would actually be happy if pirates didn’t buy the products. Because then they wouldn’t be able to copy and ‘freely’ distribute them. I use the term ‘freely’ here loosely. A pirate usually invests maybe $100 in buying the game legitimately and in CD-Rs, then makes maybe just 200 copies of the game. But then they go and sell those 200 for about $10 each. They’re not doing it for the love of the game or the willingness to spread the genre or because they’re just ‘fans’, they’re doing it for profit. Profit that many of us would like to see go to PeaPri instead so that they can stick around and translate even more games into English. (After all, a game isn’t as much fun if you spend half the time looking up kanji characters from the text.)

So, we’ll let some of the others chime in now. (I’m sure they will unless this gets closed out.) You do bring up some interesting points, I don’t agree with all of them but as you say, people are entitled to their opinions.

#3

Also, BobSafari2000, I think you misunderstood this board’s people point. We do comdemn piracy, but not pirates per se. I think we all agree that we think that most pirates are doing so out of ignorance rather than malice, and usually act more to inform them of how much they’re hurting the market they pretend to be fans of than to flame them.
Mayhap we all found out about bishoujo games by pirating. IMHO, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we don’t do so anymore. I think we’d all agree that we think that people can learn and change their wrong ways. We’re mostly inflammatory to pirates who don’t want to to change and continue to pirate knowingly.

#4

Don’t forget that Princess Maker also had a lot of push behind it. Why would it fail if it had done all the right things? Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within spared no advertising dollars or budget, and that tanked badly.
If Bishoujo games don’t shake its hentai ‘pervert’ misconception and preconception then there is very little hope that it will pull a mainstream market. Then it will only be found in erotic shops far away from residential areas instead of on the shelves of Electronic Boutique or Best Buy or Gamestop.

#5

Okay I have nothing to say about all your opinions. The bishoujo gaming scene has always brought up intelligent and interesting people. I don’t really know why, but it’s really awesome

Kumiko, I understand your concern, but isn’t there a way to show that america IS interested in the genre?

I know that magazines like Gamepro are mostly read by young teens. So you cannot put ads there, because you’d get minor customers. This is a bad thing, because teens would totally DIG the stuff.

I guess you guys should make some partnership with PG13 rated dating sims. Could be more popular with girls tho, the america supporting the tough G.I.s a lot more than the sentimental, romantic dude.

Adult users may feel bishoujo gaming is not really porn. I don’t know really is this has a real place into the adult market. This is high class stuff. America isn’t used to that. MAYBE you guys should give out free demo CDs in Maxim or something like that if possible.

This industry is stuck between two genres. It’s not totally adult (like straight, hardcore, cheap porn) so many may not look at it (the mosaÔc sensor topic may be important too). But it’s too much adult to make it possible for advertising in game magazines.

I guess PeaPri shows the way. Hold on a little longer, the teens will get past the 18 years bar and the stuff will sell like hotcakes. They will start to understand that pretty girls in games is not only looking at Lara Croft’s breasts… There’s lots of more interesting options, if you know about it that is.

Funny isn’t it? We’re living in a world submerged by information everyday, and lots of people are still misinformed on many topics. Stupid media.

#6

Hey I just thought about something…

Wouldn’t it be nice to see one of the girls of PeaPri games or Kumiko or any game chick like Lara or Kasumi in bikinis on the front page of Maxim or Stuff instead of a hollywood starlet?

Why not an interview with her too?

And some info about PeaPri?

There is so much to say about the bishoujo gaming genre. Present them an article or something. Do you think that would be a good idea or you’re just going to say you can’t do it?

#7
quote:
Originally posted by BobSafari2000:
Hey I just thought about something...

Wouldn't it be nice to see one of the girls of PeaPri games or Kumiko or any game chick like Lara or Kasumi in bikinis on the front page of Maxim or Stuff instead of a hollywood starlet?

Why not an interview with her too?

And some info about PeaPri?

There is so much to say about the bishoujo gaming genre. Present them an article or something. Do you think that would be a good idea or you're just going to say you can't do it?

Well, it isn't all that easy to do so ^^;;;

For example, the question would be whenever they (Maxim or Stuff or any else) would be willing to do so... remember that many companies are kind of skeptical when it comes to bishoujo games (after all,if some people weren't that sceptic, we would have seen more reviews or articles on the Net about bishoujo games).

The idea isn't all that bad, through; If articles on bishoujo games appeared in some magazines like PC Gamer or other magazines and a CD filled with demos on bishoujo games like the rumored Demo-CD that Dave E created and sent to Ladyphoenix was provided together with that article, more people would know about the bishoujo game genre and more people would buy the game...

But it is the magazines themselves who decides what to write about and they write articles about things that they think that their readers wants to know about. So even if PeaPri asked some of these magazines to write about their products, they would likely refuse, because that they don't think that their readers wants to know about the bishoujo game genre...

So it isn't about "If Peach Princess wants to do such a thing", it's about if the MAGAZINES wants to do it. There is some magazines and/or websites who have done some such articles, like the Gamers Press article with Dave E, but it's not very many articles, sadly enough...

#8

I think there was a discussion in a separate thread on Maxim or Stuff doing an interview on Peach Princess. The idea had been entertained, but these magazines won’t do an interview because they think no one would be interested or something of the like. No one entertains a sexual fantasy of characters from Crowd or Will unless they are familiar with them. Jessical Biel did a spread for Maxim and people lapped that up.

#9

An intermediate solution may be a fanzine of sort… perhaps something about anime and games in general to catch the readers’ attention and a chapter about bishoujo games to start the readers’ interest? Pb. would be that it had to be informative/interesting enough for people to read it… and keep it or want to share it with others. Also, it’d be better if it was a paper fanzine, not an electronic fanzine… (the reason is that people would mostly only read the parts that interest them on an e-fanzine, while they would at least have a glance at the whole fanzine if on paper format). Perhaps, for a start, a tiny (free?) fanzine to be given at cons? :slight_smile:

#10

Just wanted to quickly say that there are a couple of on-line webzines that are interested in the bishoujo genre.

Anime News Network’s editor George Phillips is very interested in covering the bishoujo genre. I have been in contact with him several times, and have already submitted one essay that he said he’ll post momentarily.

Also, there is Freetype as well. Freetype tends to cover more the Japanese side of the market, but they do have a number of essays and reviews of the English market as well.

Just wanted to quickly post some positive news.

Mike

#11

Just asking myself…

Why compare the anime market to the bishoujo gaming market? Anime was a lot easier to introduce in America, because the cartoons already existed. TVs were always interested into playing japanese animes.

Another thing that may keep the good word about PeaPri to spread is the lack of “mouth to ear” publicity.

I am more than happy to state that I am a fan of bishoujo gaming when I am under an alias. I would not, for example, tell my friends: “Go see this, it’s great.” like I did when I started watching anime.

You uncensor the games, and America censors you.

Whew! I see only one exit, and it lies into more liberal magazines, or maybe banners on IGN or Gamespot, and if they’re not interested, maybe try more unofficial ones like Planet Gamecube?

If I try to brainstorm some ideas, it’s cuz I’m some poor student that wants to help by another way than buying .

#12