Whatever happened to Trample on "Schatten? It seems like its not on JAST USA radar anymore. They anounced the title in the summer of 2012 and stated they had started translating it but, after the anouncement post it seems to have disappeared. Its been 3 years now and based on how fast the other games are being translated it should be done by now. I hope that JASTUSA did not drop it because i was really looking forward to it. If they did drop it i wish they would have anounced it. It bad busniess to anounce a game and never go through with that comittment.
I was wondering about this too. I'd forgotten just how long ago it was announced.
There’s also Outlaw Django, Ryoko’s Bitch Life, Sumaga, and Sweet Home to account for.
JAST did release a lot of titles this year and there’s many still to come so hopefully its a sign that all of these games on the backlog will be out by the end of next year.
Also an explanation for what happened with Kikokugai would be nice.
Per this comment from Doddler’s ASK.fm, they’re still working on it. (Doddler is a programmer who does a lot of work in the VN community space.)
So they’re still working on it. I don’t know why it’s not up on their ‘upcoming’ page.
I assume they’re also still working on those other titles HyugaX mentioned, but there’s always the possibility Peter is stealth-cancelling them, and is going to start lying to us about how they were never announced officially (and keep doing it even after specifically called out on how it’s not true).
After all, if they really do release in the next couple months all the games they say they plan to, then they’d have nothing left they’re working on.
"After all, if they really do release in the next couple months all the games they say they plan to, then they'd have nothing left they're working on."
That's the easy part. Just looking at existing partners they can start out by focusing on more titles from Nitroplus, Empress, Anim, etc. Plenty of great titles to go around. If they want to continue to broaden their fanbase they could do an official release for DRAMAtical Murder (to match MG's NTY) and focus on bringing some past releases to steam.
If they release all 5 backlog titles next year that's still 7 slots left for either new titles or steam ports assuming they can keep up the pace.
For example you could have one more game from each Nitroplus, Empress, and Anim, two games from new partners and two older games released on steam. Not bad if you ask me.
yoah almost forgot about this title been announced what feels like ages ago, cause its definitely one should look forward to. hope it wont get suddenly stealth canceled for reasons.
I'm still puzzled that JAST added the AX 2015 announcements to their upcoming games section of their Tumblr page, yet there's so many previously announced titles that are missing. What's the deal here?
guess thats excactly what most of us are worrying about, if they hadnt said something just recently regarding sumaga, i definitely would have thought it got canceled, cause there has been like no information at all for a good amount of time.
"I'm still puzzled that JAST added the AX 2015 announcements to their upcoming games section of their Tumblr page, yet there's so many previously announced titles that are missing. What's the deal here?"
Not much of a puzzle; they list titles to be released within the next half year or so. I do wish they would list all of their titles like MG does. Not listing all titles with their history of stealth cancellations makes it seem like they're keeping their options open to not release these titles.
Hmm, perhaps what's going on is that they're transitioning to a project announcement scheme where they only announce games that are likely to be released in the next 6-12 months. Their other backlog projects aren't there because by this scheme they would not have been announced yet.
It looks like JAST is aiming to release games at a maximum rate of 1 game per month, and they tend to list projects in approximate order of when they'll be released. Thus the current 5 games are the ones they're aiming to release soon (TM), while the others are being deprioritized or simply delayed to keep a consistent pace of release. It seems the rumors that Sumaga would be released this year were greatly exaggerated.
"Hmm, perhaps what's going on is that they're transitioning to a project announcement scheme where they only announce games that are likely to be released in the next 6-12 months."
That appears to have been their MO since Steins;Gate unless I'm mistaken. It does make sense to prioritize more recent announcements and high profile titles as there's more hype surrounding those than the ones that were announced 4-5 years ago. It wouldn't make sense to announce Steins;Gate and move it to the back end of a 5 year backlog. The lost hype for the backlog titles is a sunk cost so they're not likely to prioritize past announcement over more recent ones.
"It looks like JAST is aiming to release games at a maximum rate of 1 game per month, and they tend to list projects in approximate order of when they'll be released."
Which is why I estimated a total of 12 slots for next year's releases, based on what's been promised for the rest of this year, which effectively puts them on equal footing with MG. Based on that math we should see the backlog get cleared by the end of next year (hopefully).
At least Django and Sumaga were "stealth confirmed" when Kikokugai was "stealth canceled", and Doddler spoke to Trample on Schatten, so the only titles we currently have no info on are Ryoko's Bitch Life and Sweet Home. Time shall tell.