Koihime From MangaGamer to be Delayed, Shipped w/out Voices

[Rezznik]

http://www.gamezone.com/news/item/798717/

Thoughts?

[machinist]

well... its like 50 bucks without the voices...
i will have to try out the demo for my decision

edit: just tried the demo, and i don't think it's for me due to the battle sytem..

[IceD]

In overall, the game is really nice but the prices are absurd from my point of view. With such statements, it won't make them all any good. I also think that there are plenty of better titles that MangaGamer could try to get. Honestly, even if visual novels are a nieche on western market the are plenty of people interested which means they have at least much of an audience to pay the costs and earn a little; with so many underscored japanese developers that produce beautiful vn's it's a bit hillarious, to see only so few titles shipped. The language is propably the biggest barrier in negotiations and agreements, but if that's the case why they went into translating VN's in the first place?

I don't have anything against MG - they've been the most sucesfull with shipping japanese visual novels to our western market and it's a good stuff, but I think they should change their policies a bit and try to work a bit more with finding more studios interested in a parthership with them; it should be their main job after all.

[papillon]

Honestly, even if visual novels are a nieche on western market the are plenty of people interested which means they have at least much of an audience to pay the costs and earn a little

The whole point of the no-voices flap is that apparently they DON'T have enough of an audience and are not confident of selling enough to pay their costs and earn a little.

If they spend more money on games, and charge less for them (since you claim their prices to be absurd) how long do you think they'll stay in business?

Disclaimer: I don't know their actual sales figures and neither do 99.9% of the people speculating on the decision and the meaning behind it. But they've been, indeed, TRYING to make connections with more companies and bring out newer, better games and it doesn't seem like they're having huge success at it.

The language is clearly not their biggest barrier in negotiations, they've got no trouble talking to companies. Money is the barrier.

Almost every company that's tried to get into VN porting has crashed and burned.

[IceD]

The whole point of the no-voices flap is that apparently they DON'T have enough of an audience and are not confident of selling enough to pay their costs and earn a little.

For this title, yes. People aren't interesting in paying so much for such game and have only a vague possibility there will be a voice patch later. I think that right now they're trying to aim a bit to high - Koihime is a preety darn long visual novel, so it kinda reasons the price tag behind it (you get plenty of story and a nice gameplay time), but still it isn't a resonable title to choose right now.

If they spend more money on games, and charge less for them (since you claim their prices to be absurd) how long do you think they'll stay in business?

It's apparent that they won't earn much (if nothing at all), by playing with this business. I thought they're doing it rather to bring those vn's to western audience, but it's obvious they also would like to earn some cash; everyone has to make a living somehow. It's normal that such business won't get you supplied with a proper, steady income, at least now, in such general situation. As an additional side business - it would be great, but it isn't good to depend solely on it. MangaGamer is still alive and kicking only because of few clever moves they made - they already have a big, wide ammount of various titles ranging from slutty hentai eroge to nice visual novels and some of them have also a family friendly versions. Their prices are, despite being quite a lot (not for everyone, of course - I'm talking mainly from my POV, being from Poland), quite reasonable and they make good marketing moves. I'm not sure what the future will bring, it depends havily on everything... They might stay afloat, or go down, I don't know but one thing is certain - they have to make clever decisions; there's no field for mistakes here and once they will trip, it propably will be their end.

[gekiganwing]

After many delays, it's finally available. There is a free demo... would you pay for the full version? Are you interested in Koihime Musou?

[PinkMawile]

I never liked voices anyways, but I guess a lot of people find them vital >.>