Forgive me for coming late to the V-Mate discussion. Based on what I’ve seen, the system looks like it will be a good way to stop the bane of piracy and do one thing – raise the number of copies of each game we can sell to a higher number, which will make it much easier for us to hire staff and bring out better games at a faster pace. From what I’m told, the system has served well to block piracy of games in Japan, while not impacting most users in an unacceptible way. It has not been cracked by hackers in Japan yet.
Consider for a moment how bas the issue of piracy is to us, the people who put huge amounts of money on the line in the hopes that we’ll make it back. There are Yahoo and MSN groups with thousands of users, and all they do is trade info on warez. For every dedicated fan who collects these games, there are maybe 100 who download them for free. 100 is probably being charitable. Given this situation, if a reasonable middle-point could be found that would help the situation, shouldn’t we avail ourselves of it?
Re: the response to the new system by the Italian gaming community, I have to say, we have no distribution in Italy at all, save for one shop in Cassano, and whatever business Diamond does there for us (negligible, I’m sure). There is no major distribution from GC to my knowledge. We personally ship about 25 orders to Italy a month, less than half of which are game orders. This means that there may well be a vibrant, teeming community of dedicated bishoujo gaming fans who do not buy games, or contribute to the development of new games, but who only curse when their ability to download games is threatened by something like V-Mate. This is an interesting thought, one that I will have to reflect on.
The bishoujo game market is a tiny, tiny niche market, many times smaller than the smallest software market you could name. You know those companies that create software just for dentist offices? I’m reasonably sure they sell more copies of their products than we do. Software to run a video rental store? They sell more than us too. Thanks to several factors, including shops not wanting to carry adult material due to “family values” and online trading, it’s been incredibly hard for us to grow this market into something respectable. If – if! – this system will help G-C improve the market, without hosing loyal customers, and if it will enable them to bring the games out more cheaply, I am for it, at this point.
Of course, I have not gotten my copy of the game yet (sniff sniff, I’m in Japan so it takes longer), and so I can’t say for sure what the system is like. I will be installing my copy and judging then what to think of it. But to the people who have voiced objections about the system, I have to ask…wouldn’t it be better if there were more sales of all of these games, more people to enjoy them, and less pressure on the loyal fans on this BBS to decide whether each game was a hit or not? The “what if’s” that are being thrown out here – what if I want to play the game in the bathtub, but I don’t have Internet in there – are probably not an issue for most people, so long as the system works as promised, doesn’t go down, and doesn’t cause frustration with fans.
For myself, as someone who is very passionate about these games and very appreciative of the support of all fans, I will guarantee that any V-Mate game will work to your satisfaction, or I’ll join you in banging on G-C’s door to fix the problem. So I ask that you have faith at this point and see how the system checks out.
(The game is posted on the PeaPri site now too, for those who were waiting.)