The Dating Sim / VN global survey!

[kinougames]

You switched from "Issue before" to "Issue with me". That added to the confusion a bit. Seems like you finally decided on one. That clears up the confusion thanks.

Just OI. OI.

[LordShiranai]

That was confusing. :D

Anyway, games are definitely more expensive in Japan than the US, and this has been the case for as long as I can remember.

Maybe Jack should have put something in his survey regarding how much people were willing to pay for a VN with full voice and at least 8 hours of game play? XD

[Topagae]

Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

[kinougames]

That was confusing.

Anyway, games are definitely more expensive in Japan than the US, and this has been the case for as long as I can remember.

Maybe Jack should have put something in his survey regarding how much people were willing to pay for a VN with full voice and at least 8 hours of game play? XD

I think that's a pretty good idea. I'd be totally interested in the results of that poll.

I think another huge thing is that, again, I've never played a JVN that took me less than about 15 hours to get all the endings, including mistakes. Meanwhile, the EVNs I've played were just a couple hours (or less) long.

I think that even indie VNs, with good art, fully voiced and with a great story could sell for more than 20 if it was a full length game of about 20-30 hours, as crazy expensive as that would be. (The best VN I ever played was about 40-50 hours long to get all 20+ endings, assuming you listened to all the voices the first time, and for every new scene, and skipped when you'd already seen a scene.)

[jack_norton]

There was a round of blog posts from me and other developers about #gamelength just yesterday: http://www.winterwolves.net/blog/2010/0 ... ong-is-it/

I think putting a question like that would be totally meaningless. People would say they want to pay $1 If you ask anyone who much wants to pay, you won't get what he effectively WILL pay, but most likely a very cheap price.

[IceD]

Refering to the previous few posts - don't get me straight, but it feels you've got the wrong image. The japanese model won't work in our countries, so stop talking about it and stop complaining; furthermore even if the japanese games are comperatively more expensive to us, don't forget that most of japanese earn a lot more cash than us, and they still can afford them. It is also one of the reasons why imported japanese VN's are so expensive. With porting, there are the costs to buy the rights, translation costs (which are really horrific) new dub expenses, marketing campaign (even more horrific), and even royality fees, as papillon pointed. That's why they are so expensive. Still there are people who want to bring them to the western market and people who are interested in them, so this whole bussiness somehow manages to float, but it needs sacrifices and distributors have often cut on costs and go for the less (That's why we won't see such titles as Clannad, Eden, or Inganock released; propably not in a short time, if ever).

I'd say, instead of talking about how japanese game market works, try to focus on your local ones - what could we do to increase eventual sales, what can be done to spread the word about visual novels, how we should encourage potential customers and people to raise their interest, what could be done so we might be producing visual novels and get on with it, instead trying, struggling and failing even though we put effort. Despite the problems, our western market has potential for visual novels - it's just a matter of a proper marketing. Don't talk about japanese novels, forget about them. Think of our equivalents instead.

I've seen enough, to tell that straight - there are two common problems in our western world. Visual novels aren't known well (it's a niche product, if it exits it is directed to certain groups of potential customers, which mainly are anime and manga fans), and the majority of normal people who had encountered them, somehow played them or just know they exist thinks of them as outright *pr0n*. It's the truth, and it doesn't rise the sales that much, nor helps to bring any more interest, at least not now. Every time when someone tries to bring the subject of visual novels, media and other various people (mainly right defenders and other faggots) begin a straight campaign to show, they're evil things that should be avoided at all costs, for the sake of "every" proper social being. If we wan't to create and sell them in our surroundings, we have to think about how we can change this attitude. This means, we can't directly refer to them as eqivalents of japanese visual novels, we can only relate that "they emerged from them".

That means, we should focus on what could interest our local market - subject matters, as they say; focus on a good story (think of our novels as "interactive" books), make our games highly polished. Omit erotic content, or show in a proper manner to "our local beliefs", make it subtle and tasty (haha). They don't have to be long, they have to be involving. It's a common thing western people grab comics, books or films because they want to take a rest from their (mostly) boring lives, they don't want to relive it within fiction. They want something fun, and something that isn't to long so they can give up at most few hours and go back to their normal lives; they don't have the time to play for 40-50 hours+ to see all the endings, art and stuff (it's for hardcore gamers, and while I don't think we can't get them involved, too they propably won't be our first potential buyers, excluding some groups). The thing, that manga and anime tend to be quite popular, is another plus because it's some kind of advertisment for our game, it is what can make them stand out from the rest and still attract attention. Don't forget about that. For example, as far as I went with my research, polish people are more interested in manga now, than US comics - they still have the impression of that "exotic" feel, and they already know that most of manga have far better stories than western comics, so they will propably be a better read. Theoritically, manga is also cheaper - you get even almost few times more for the equal price (which isn't the cheapest, but also the most expensive). All in all, it's a good buy. Take that as a good opportunity, and use it to your own advance.

I tell you what I'm planning to do. I've seen a certain comeback to traditional polish customs. It's kinda interesting, because people were mainly dropping from not so long ago and it's funny to see how some new tv series based on such motives became highly popular and raised positive acclaim and attention. I'll be making a highly polished mystery visual novel, with story set in poland that heavily relies on our folklore and traditional customs. It will be divided into two parts, one set in older days going back to 19th century (if someone read "Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Lithuanian Foray: A Nobleman's Tale from the Years of 1811 and 1812 in Twelve Books of Verse", he will have the overall feel), and the second one in modern poland, with coincidences and story connected to the first part (think of it as the story expansion). I could even brake this into two parts, which could be a good move, especially if the first one would have decent sales. I'm also confident this could become quite successul, or at least raise attention and in that way, give a good start for me and other developers in our contry who would like to go straight in a similiar way.

Find what interests you, and interests people around you, make something good of it.

[kinougames]

Real quick: I wanna say that I've really enjoyed the marketing strategy debate with everyone here.

Refering to the previous few posts - don't get me straight, but it feels you've got the wrong image. The japanese model won't work in our countries, so stop talking about it and stop complaining; furthermore even if the japanese games are comperatively more expensive to us, don't forget that most of japanese earn a lot more cash than us, and they still can afford them. It is also one of the reasons why imported japanese VN's are so expensive. With porting, there are the costs to buy the rights, translation costs (which are really horrific) new dub expenses, marketing campaign (even more horrific), and even royality fees, as papillon pointed. That's why they are so expensive. Still there are people who want to bring them to the western market and people who are interested in them, so this whole bussiness somehow manages to float, but it needs sacrifices and distributors have often cut on costs and go for the less (That's why we won't see such titles as Clannad, Eden, or Inganock released; propably not in a short time, if ever).

No one is saying that their cultural aspect of "company pride" will work in any other country. It was an explanation as to why indies there put out better games without running down their cash. Furthermore, "most Japanese" do not earn more cash than Americans. Maybe in your country, but not in America, which is the only other country I was referring to. I already mentioned royalty fees and agreed with that point, and yes, porting makes things expensive (but the Japanese know that they are the original, so they can rip off their own people for games and anime). No one disagreed with that. I'm not talking about porting games to other languages from Japan. That takes a stupid large amount of upfront payments.

I'd say, instead of talking about how japanese game market works, try to focus on your local ones - what could we do to increase eventual sales, what can be done to spread the word about visual novels, how we should encourage potential customers and people to raise their interest, what could be done so we might be producing visual novels and get on with it, instead trying, struggling and failing even though we put effort. Despite the problems, our western market has potential for visual novels - it's just a matter of a proper marketing. Don't talk about japanese novels, forget about them. Think of our equivalents instead.

I am going to focus on whatever sells. Selling means they are doing something right. Most customers won't try something new if they not only have to pay for it, but it's mediocre and short besides. The way to spread the word is to bring your A-game, in my opinion. If that involves A-money...well, yeah, it might. Quality costs money. That's just a fact. But if our only recompense is to completely avoid competing with the much better Japanese games, we're always going to remain an eensy weensy market, and if the market remains eensy weensy and doesn't branch out into what's out there, then the more people who try to make commercial games will be fighting for the few fans that have been managed for not only VNs, but EVNs specifically.

I DO think that half the problem with EVNs is that they're not being marketed well enough. I think the other half is that they're not as good, and I refuse to call the solution to the problem "just tell more people about them and they'll be fine."

I've seen enough, to tell that straight - there are two common problems in our western world. Visual novels aren't known well (it's a niche product, if it exits it is directed to certain groups of potential customers, which mainly are anime and manga fans), and the majority of normal people who had encountered them, somehow played them or just know they exist thinks of them as outright *pr0n*. It's the truth, and it doesn't rise the sales that much, nor helps to bring any more interest, at least not now. Every time when someone tries to bring the subject of visual novels, media and other various people (mainly right defenders and other faggots) begin a straight campaign to show, they're evil things that should be avoided at all costs, for the sake of "every" proper social being. If we wan't to create and sell them in our surroundings, we have to think about how we can change this attitude. This means, we can't directly refer to them as eqivalents of japanese visual novels, we can only relate that "they emerged from them".

The people most likely to buy a VN in the Western world are definitely anime/manga fans. This is a niche, but it is a huge niche. Anime has become common nowadays. Watching your basic cartoon channels in the afternoon will show you a plethora of anime. If you stay up past 10? A whole new plethora of anime just waiting for you to come along and have a looksee. Anime in America is no longer tiny. Squeenix games are primarily aimed at anime fans: they still sell craptons. Despite being able to able to get anime for free online if you know where to go, people still obviously buy DVDs and hence DVDs keep getting put out. Anime is becoming a huge market. Saturday morning cartoons where I live are now like 50+% anime. I don't even want to imagine what it'll be like in two, three, five years, but I know that when I graduated from high school, anime was still "huh? What's that thing?" On a visit back to my high school just two years later? The Anime club went from all of 10 people to having to take up the largest rooms because it included 10% of my high school's population.

Changing the idea of conservatives is a worthless venture. Just like most hardcore torrentors will never buy, hardcore right wingers will never suddenly think sex and sexuality is "totes cool". Buggering with them is a waste for video game creators, who have much more important things to work on.

Back to the Japanese thing: Most anime fans will automatically consider something better if you say it came out of Japan. Elitists, in my experience only, I have no studies on this, tend to have the most money to spend on their anime, or at the very least will go out of their way to spend more on anime that is better. They're also more likely to look for more anime-based ventures, and hence they'll come up on VNs before everyone else.

This doesn't mean that we should call our stuff Japanese. However, I think that we should clinch the anime market, the entire anime market, which isn't minute in America or Europe as far as I know, half of whom still have an attitude about VNs or don't know what VNs are (I've been an anime fan for 12 years and didn't know about VNs until 2 years ago, which is when Hirameki was going bankrupt due to lack of sales) before we bother with "average westerners" who will take considerably more work to snatch.

That means, we should focus on what could interest our local market - subject matters, as they say; focus on a good story (think of our novels as "interactive" books), make our games highly polished. Omit erotic content, or show in a proper manner to "our local beliefs", make it subtle and tasty (haha). They don't have to be long, they have to be involving. It's a common thing western people grab comics, books or films because they want to take a rest from their (mostly) boring lives, they don't want to relive it within fiction. They want something fun, and something that isn't to long so they can give up at most few hours and go back to their normal lives; they don't have the time to play for 40-50 hours+ to see all the endings, art and stuff (it's for hardcore gamers, and while I don't think we can't get them involved, too they propably won't be our first potential buyers, excluding some groups). The thing, that manga and anime tend to be quite popular, is another plus because it's some kind of advertisment for our game, it is what can make them stand out from the rest and still attract attention. Don't forget about that. For example, as far as I went with my research, polish people are more interested in manga now, than US comics - they still have the impression of that "exotic" feel, and they already know that most of manga have far better stories than western comics, so they will propably be a better read. Theoritically, manga is also cheaper - you get even almost few times more for the equal price (which isn't the cheapest, but also the most expensive). All in all, it's a good buy. Take that as a good opportunity, and use it to your own advance.

I disagree that games shouldn't be lengthened. How often do you see a 10 page novel selling in your local bookstores? Short stories are sold in anthologies. Books are considered minute when they are 100 pages long. People will not buy these sorts of items if it's not a certain length, or people will expect to pay far, far, far below a reasonable cost. Archie comics run you about 70 pages and they sell for $3-5. They can afford that because massive amounts of people still buy them for that and they make up costs. That won't work for this niche. The first and largest complaint about Jisei was that $15 was too much for a game only an hour long. The game didn't take an hour of time to make. It didn't take $15 to make. But because of the length, people complained about that price. If the game had been 10 hours long, no one would have complained, but then the $15 would've been business-breaking, because the game would now be 10 times the original cost. Furthermore, again, you have to look at the competition.

Would someone rather pay $15 for one hour, or save up $45 for 20 hours? I think most people would skip out on the cheaper game, wait a little longer, and pay for the expensive game that ends up being more worthwhile for them as far as content.

I wouldn't call most anime fans hardcore gamers either. And yet you do still see tons and tons of Westerners buying Squeenix games which are 30+ hours a piece on AVERAGE. I am in no way "hardcore" and I still played several hours through my favorite games and more, and I've put at least 30 hours into finishing Animamundi because each ending is so very delicious. Trust me, I will notice if a game is painfully short, and I would definitely feel shafted.

As far as omitting smut and making the games "relaxing", honestly? I hate games that play to fantasy, and they bore me to death. I like things that are well-written, not all flowers and roses. Therefore, I will never write that sort of game no matter what. Smut is here or there. I'll make up my own if the game story is good, but it's not evil to have or anything. Just make it optional.

As for the rest, I can't speak for Poland, since I know nothing about it and don't live there.

[Topagae]

Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

[Altsyph]

Art work depends on who watch more than who's making it.
Example: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. This thing IS about violence, but... It's more "childish" than Bleach IMHO. That's why it is more on who watch.

If you would look at anime, I'd suggest looking at Katanagatari. It was one of the best...before people watched it [I still watch because I like Yukari's voice x3]. Art work can kill your work.