Yeah, but a good number of pirates would either never be willing to buy (think paying for porn is beneath them?) or CAN’T buy. (No credit card, underage, etc.) And some people pirate stuff they’re not even terribly interested in, just because they can, it’s there, etc.
That’s not to say there’s NO loss of sales to piracy - there certainly is, especially if pirating is easy (or easier than playing legally!).
But it’s just not possible to convert ALL people who would pirate a game into paying customers.
That would be utopic, wouldn’t it? Turning all pirates into customers? (drolling thinking that if that’s true, there would be LOTS of more games in english languaje)
well i was just responding to papillon’s comment on:
Which really more implies that the problem is “the market is too small” (or at least, “the market willing to pay is too small”) rather than "We are losing sales to pirates!"
while both are problems, i strongly believe the latter is a bigger one…but that’s just me
the former more or less prevents us from getting popular titles from japan (since they will expect the equivalent amount of sales or will ask for insane amount of royalties or simply tell us to fuck off), but the latter kinda kills the market altogether
quote:Originally posted by papillon: [B] Which really more implies that the problem is "the market is too small" (or at least, "the market willing to pay is too small") rather than "We are losing sales to pirates!" [B]
I think you need to be careful in how you define "market". I define it as consumers of legal (18 or 21) age. a lot of these consumers grew up with the idea that because something (games, movies, music, etc.) is available on the internet, I shouldn't have to pay for it. Personally, I've receive a lot of questions from gamefaqs users who seem to have the impression that I downloaded games, rather than buy them legitimately. Once I correct them of that misconception (and throw in a word encouraging them to buy instead of download), I never hear from them again.
So if the market that is willing to pay is too small, that's a cultural issue, to a certain degree. And the way to combat that is: a) make it harder to pirate gaming products (VM was geared toward this), b) shut down pirate sites to the extent possible, c) educate consumers and encourage them to do the right thing (buy instead of download).
I’m not sure I should keep going because I’m not entirely sure I’m being understood at all.
1. If the “uncrackable” Vmate did not cause a huge upswing in sales, then clearly “preventing piracy” in and of itself is not sufficient.
2. Some people can NEVER be converted into paying customers. It is probably a lot more productive to spend your money trying to bring your product to people BEYOND those people than to spend it beating a dead horse.
Let me explain. I have a coworker. He’s ANNOYING. He downloads all kinds of things off the net and wouldn’t dream of paying for any of them, even when the argument is made about “who will keep making things if you never buy?” He also steals towels and bathrobes from hotels, pens from coworkers’ desks, writes fake letters of complaint to companies in order to get coupons, invents medical reasons to get out of work, comes in late, and shoots rubber bands at everyone all day.
This guy is not going to buy your game.
No amount of shutting down his download sites and educating him is going to make him buy your game. He’s a cheat to the core.
But there’s another reason he’s not going to buy your game - HE’S NEVER HEARD OF IT.
On the other hand, there are many people on this board, self included, who first got into this genre because we found a ‘free’ pirated copy of a game somewhere, became interested, and sought out more.
Now, that’s probably not the BEST method of advertising. But when I talk about the market being small, I’m also talking about awareness. We know that most people don’t know this stuff is out here, or know of it only in a vague “freaky anime porn!” way.
Enh, I’m probably talking too much and muddying the waters again. Let me repeat the key point.
If you spend lots of money preventing piracy and it doesn’t actually increase your sales, maybe it would have been better to spend that money on ADVERTISING in the first place.
I certainly am not planning to put any effort into piracy prevention on the things I’m working on, other than the standard legal threats to sites I actually catch doing it.* I’d rather spend my funds on getting some eyeballs on my products.
(* - And I am all about that. I have gleefully helped get certain sites to take down their downloads and screamed my head off at ebay about thieving bastards selling CDRs.)
Of course, I’m doing primarily non-adult stuff at the moment… which brings up the OTHER cultural problem these games face.
quote:Originally posted by papillon: Of course, I'm doing primarily non-adult stuff at the moment... which brings up the OTHER cultural problem these games face. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
Ah yes, I wonder how many times I've had to try and convince people on various forums that I'm not a child-rapist in the making just because I'm playing ero-games, or that I'm not casting lusting glances at small children whenever I walk outdoors.
quote:Originally posted by papillon: Enh, I'm probably talking too much and muddying the waters again. Let me repeat the key point.
If you spend lots of money preventing piracy and it doesn't actually increase your sales, maybe it would have been better to spend that money on ADVERTISING in the first place.
I certainly am not planning to put any effort into piracy prevention on the things I'm working on, other than the standard legal threats to sites I actually catch doing it.* I'd rather spend my funds on getting some eyeballs on my products.
(* - And I am all about that. I have gleefully helped get certain sites to take down their downloads and screamed my head off at ebay about thieving bastards selling CDRs.)
Of course, I'm doing primarily non-adult stuff at the moment... which brings up the OTHER cultural problem these games face. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
Granted, there will always be people who want a free lunch (economic theory) at the expense of others, like your coworker. For sales/marketing purposes, free lunchers are out of the equation. As far as advertising is concerned, Peter Payne has kept the ball rolling. Either him or his staff attends the various anime conventions that pop up annually, and he advertised in Newtype USA (despite the heavy cost of print advertising) plus various adspace online. The effort is there, even if you may not be aware of it.
The cultural issue you raise (adult gaming) is a far bigger challenge. The fact of the matter is that mainstream Americans lump Japanese games with adult entertainment, which has very little value (i.e. readily available online). So it's hard to convince them to pay $40 for a GC game when they could download porn for nothing (remember in their eyes it's the same thing).
For a while, the American anime licensing company ADV inserted "What is anime" openers into their anime dvd products. And I think something similar is needed to educate mainstream Americans on English bishojo gaming.
quote:Originally posted by Ecchifan: As far as advertising is concerned, Peter Payne has kept the ball rolling. Either him or his staff attends the various anime conventions that pop up annually, and he advertised in Newtype USA (despite the heavy cost of print advertising) plus various adspace online. The effort is there, even if you may not be aware of it.
This includes Italy, too, where Peter Payne is almost an honorary member of GX's staff and a frequent advertiser in the magazine (see http://www.hobbymedia.it/ ).
The cultural issue you raise (adult gaming) is a far bigger challenge. The fact of the matter is that mainstream Americans lump Japanese games with adult entertainment, which has very little value (i.e. readily available online). So it’s hard to convince them to pay $40 for a GC game when they could download porn for nothing (remember in their eyes it’s the same thing). --------------------------------------------
That’s not the problem at all. Most large cities have both pervasive internet access, and extremely sucessful adult video stores. If people were unwilling to pay for, or at least rent, these videos, those places would go out of business, and believe me they are THRIVING. In general the only reason they go out of business is action taken by city councils, or a terrible location and being underfunded to begin with.
The way they keep people coming back is by constant stock rotation. If a video has been on the shelf more than six months, its on the discount rack and out the door. If its been released more than two weeks ago and they didn’t get it they missed their window of opportunity.
These places were slow to stock hentai titles to begin with, but major players have taken note of the fact that there is money to be made there. Hustler is the latest entry into the business with the relase of several titles whose names escape me, but include the amusingly titled “Sex Warrior Pudding”.
There IS money to be made in the Bishoujo realm, but its going to require two things.
1> Penetration into the adult video store market. These games need to be on the rack beside Hustler’s latest releases. Unfortunately the business of porn distribution is deliberately opaque. That doesn’t mean that it cant be done though by somebody with the appropriate connections.
2> In order for that to occur, there needs to be enough money involved to release several of the games a month. Freshness is key. Get it before the internet does, and get something new on the shelf by the time its been pirated.
My suggestion is that somebody get together a couple of bad ass games, and show them to Larry Flint.
Whether or not it would, it’s mostly about market awareness. Millions of people subscribe to those magazines, so there’s a chance they might get 1000 new customers out of the 10 million people reading it. 1000 new customers would probably help the market a lot I think.
quote:Originally posted by woodelf: Not really ... they tend to go for RAW sex and NUDITY... Nice pin-ups of people you want to be with as compared to who you want to F*** , are long gone, so I don't think romantic B-games would market well there.
Heh, actually Playboy doesn't feature any actual sex, or so I hear. I'm sure many Playboy subscribers would be horrified by the some of the things featured in H-games. So it goes both ways, you see...
It would be even better if people who accept/enjoy violent movies and video games could get over their goddamned double standards and stop stigmatizing people who enjoy adult entertainment (the sexual kind), so these games could be sold in retail outlets and such.
My understanding is that the American adult entertainment industry has been approached regarding distribution of b-game products. And they refuse to do it for a number of reasons. First, a lot of the games involve young looking female characters, and the industry folks are worried about promoting child pornography or even the appearance of it. Second, the games are far too expensive for the industry. I don’t go to adult video stores personally so I don’t know what stuff sells for there, but at the smoke/newspaper shops I’ve been to (where adult videos are sold) the stuff sells for 10 bucks each or 3 for 20. So wholesale that’s like 4 or 5 bucks each, at most. I would assume that it cost a lot more than that to produce/localize an English b-game.
Also, the individual adult video stores generally buy exclusively from their distributors. PP wouldn’t be able to cut a side deal to put their games on the shelves. And since the American distributor refuse to offer these products, in effect PP and GC are locked out on the retail level.
As a sidenote, I think Hirameki offered non-adult dvd games partly to sidestep this marketing/distribution problem. Putting their games on dvd and making them non-adult would allow them a chance to stock their products at a Best Buy and other retailers.
It seems like this game is going to be released on Comiket weekend and ZXY is going to have a booth a Comiket. I picked up the Comiket catalog in Akiba yesterday. It seems that most of the ero bishoujo doujin is going to be sold on Sunday. The promotion for this new game will be there all weekend so I’ll probably just go on Sunday. It’s August 12-14 at Tokyo Big Sight. Is anyone else going?
Here’s one idea I’ve been talking about with some friends of mine to boost the market for Bishoujo games. More specifically though this could be best applied to RPG games. All they have to do is create two versions of the game. Just like how some movies have an Unrated version. In this case one version has all of the H-scenes in it while the other version has absolutely none.
In order to compete with the rest of the market though it would have to be on par with other games in the market. Therein lies the problem. It would take a lot of money to go about doing this. Maybe to start it should have a simple design like Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea: Hour of Darkness and then move up in complexity as more capitol is gained.
This is just an idea from your friend Uncle Crabs. Ok, so maybe I’m just interested in a Bishoujo game of epic proportions. A guy can dream can’t he?
