quote:
Originally posted by Kumiko Kamiyama:
Will has a demo for Critical Point... however, as we said, it's a visual novel adventure, so there's no point in spending time converting it rather than converting the actual game - it could be done, but it would only delay the game, and everyone knows what to expect from the game itself. It wouldn't help sales, and there's no need to demonstrate gameplay for a visual novel adventure, so we can't see where there'd be any "gain".Brave Soul is different, but the Japanese demo does work under English Windows, evidently. Again, the market is not big enough to see any sales increase to justify doing a genuine conversion, but people can certainly download their demo. Again, the movie gives the idea of the gameplay for an action-RPG (which many people know from Ys and other such games, of course) - the movie is smaller and easier, too.
Generally speaking, you don't see playable demos for any Japanese imported games - not even mainstream general market releases. It takes too long to make one - the game conversion itself is time-consuming. The reason that you see some playable demos for domestic action / violence titles is because the most common method of approaching a publisher to interest them in investing in your game development company is to have a demo. If the game begins development, you can easily embelish that a bit as a playable demo once a few stages or levels or whatever are completed or beta-stage. Games developed in Japan have a different set of standards.
On the other hand, bishoujo magazines have plenty of CDs with CG, vocal clips, movie demos, and (occasionally) playable demos (RPGs, puzzle games, etc are good for such a thing... or adventure games where you have some type of 3D environment or something, or shooters, or perhaps fighting games.)
Generally, people buy games based on art and visuals - you can't really get much of a story in a playable demo (assuming the game has a story... not a strong point for domestic titles, anyway [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img] ) Anime and movies work the same way - you have trailers, and that's why you go to see a film or buy an anime. Bishoujo games use the same premise - that is, it isn't complex gameplay or hardware specs that sell these games, but rather the story, music, voice acting, and specific fetishism content and such. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
Of course, who knows how the market will change in the future? Perhaps adult gaming will finally be accepted as it should be, right?
[This message has been edited by Kumiko Kamiyama (edited 11-23-2001).]
The recent order I received from Himeya had some nice bonus material with it. It included a CD with a Demo Movie of EVE : TFA and a playable demo of Mikan.
They also included a Luv-Wave mouse pad. The point is there are playable demos out there, just not for every game. Some Games (like Brave Soul) have playable demos so you can get an idea of the gameplay, and the creators can get feedback so they can either change some elements in the current game, or correct the problem in a sequel or a similar game.