The Final Nail In A Dying Industrie´s Coffin Been Hit - Known As The Day "ELF" Has Perished From The World

[Funyarinpa]

This fucked my shit up 

[CeruleanGamer]

It wont be good in the long run if all we get is 99% all ages version and we have to dig far and wide for an 18+ or uncut version/patches.

true, but if we can get the japanese companies to see that there is a much wider market for VNs, that would somewhat give them more reason to keep making VNs right?

There are producers trying this way - too bad they are otome companies. Voltage Inc. publishes mobile VNs for girls in multiple languages and earns more than 10 billion yen a year.

 

Theres also some companies trying to monetize and milk the crap out vns in mobile devices by releasing the game at about 20-40% complete and making some routes, lines read, and features as in-app purchases. Terribly fucking disgusting where greed can take you. 

Edited October 16, 2015 by CeruleanGamer

[BookwormOtaku]

A shame, I can remember some of the H OVA adaptations of their games as being my first foray into hentai and thanks to that I remember the first of their games I played which I still have a soft spot for to this day: Words Worth and Shin Mikagura Shoujo Tanteidan.

Can't say I was a super fan like many here (though I understand how it feels to see a favorite studio die or become a shambling husk of it's former self), but I understand elf's importance in the history of eroge to post this as an appropriate send off music:

 

[CeruleanGamer]

A shame, I can remember some of the H OVA adaptations of their games as being my first foray into hentai and thanks to that I remember the first of their games I played which I still have a soft spot for to this day: Words Worth and Shin Mikagura Shoujo Tanteidan.

Can't say I was a super fan like many here (though I understand how it feels to see a favorite studio die or become a shambling husk of it's former self), but I understand elf's importance in the history of eroge to post this as an appropriate send off music:

 

Stop! I'm in a fetal position crying so much over here already! :(

[Mkilbride]

Besides YU-NO, what other works of note did they produce? I can't think of one off the top of my head.

[XReaper]

*cough cough, dyoukuusei, ashita no yukinojou, kawarazakike, tanteidan for example...

[Narcosis]

Besides YU-NO, what other works of note did they produce? I can't think of one off the top of my head.

Doukyuusei, Kakyuusei and Dragon Knight were their most popular games and made a huge impact on the eroge industry.

[ittaku]

Sorry, where do you guys see the industry as dying? Did I miss something? It certainly doesn't look that way to me. Just because some of the older companies are becoming less and less successful over time doesn't mean the industry is dying. Changing, yes, dying? No way.

[XReaper]

to me this kind of change is mostly equivalent to eroge, as i came to know them, dying, simply because of the recent increase of mainstreamity, resulting in neglecting genres that seem lesser profitable, or in need of more ressources poured into of making them so. of course "dying" as a term is abit missleading here in this case, but honestly, ever since i read my first novel i´ve been especially fascinated by the mediums wide variety as awhole, thus i´m simply unable to cope mentally with the current direction its heading developement-wise, with titles consisting of a more serious, disturbing and realistic plot getting less common than their comedic/idiotic counterparts ergo play!play!play! etc where the degeneration of ones own mind is not only noticeable, but literally graspable...

edit: big problem i´m having with most current eroge is, that they are primary created as ameans of escapism for the reader, only dealing with content he enjoys beeing shown, non thematising the kind of issues he prefers to supress, therefore having almost none educational value anymore, in terms of helping you grow as a person by reading them, btw. due to facing your inner demons.

[Mkilbride]

Besides YU-NO, what other works of note did they produce? I can't think of one off the top of my head.

Doukyuusei, Kakyuusei and Dragon Knight were their most popular games and made a huge impact on the eroge industry.

I've played Knights of Xentar, never heard of the others. I don't really think they had a huge impact on the eroge industry myself. Not as big as many other VNs over the years, which took it from simple porn to a real story.

[CeruleanGamer]

to me this kind of change is mostly equivalent to eroge, as i came to know them, dying, simply because of the recent increase of mainstreamity, resulting in neglecting genres that seem lesser profitable, or in need of more ressources poured into of making them so. of course "dying" as a term is abit missleading here in this case, but honestly, ever since i read my first novel i´ve been especially fascinated by the mediums wide variety as awhole, thus i´m simply unable to cope mentally with the current direction its heading developement-wise, with titles consisting of a more serious, disturbing and realistic plot getting less common than their comedic/idiotic counterparts ergo play!play!play! etc where the degeneration of ones own mind is not only noticeable, but literally graspable...

edit: big problem i´m having with most current eroge is, that they are primary created as ameans of escapism for the reader, only dealing with content he enjoys beeing shown, non thematising the kind of issues he prefers to supress, therefore having almost none educational value anymore, in terms of helping you grow as a person by reading them, btw. due to facing your inner demons.

Paste an anime girl with nice tits and looking like a skank and you can make your average westerner adolescent boy buy a VN nowadays.

[sanahtlig]

Sorry, where do you guys see the industry as dying? Did I miss something? It certainly doesn't look that way to me. Just because some of the older companies are becoming less and less successful over time doesn't mean the industry is dying. Changing, yes, dying? No way.

The eroge industry in Japan is in bad shape.  Sales are down all around.  Minori commented on this a few years ago, and more recently an AliceSoft staff member did as well.  The market is oversaturated and quite frankly Japan's demographics are shifting in an unfavorable way with the whole aging population issue and shrinking youth.  When highly successful companies are raising death flags, you know something's up.

Honestly the English eroge market isn't doing swell either.  While visual novels are seeing increasing interest, story-focused eroge are being squeezed out by cheap nukige on one side and better selling non-adult titles on the other.  JAST commented a few months ago that the Steam revolution is a double-edged sword for the eroge industry.  If developers decide the English eroge market isn't worth catering to and just go direct for Steam (like Debonosu), then there's not much eroge publishers can do.

[CeruleanGamer]

Sorry, where do you guys see the industry as dying? Did I miss something? It certainly doesn't look that way to me. Just because some of the older companies are becoming less and less successful over time doesn't mean the industry is dying. Changing, yes, dying? No way.

The eroge industry in Japan is in bad shape.  Sales are down all around.  Minori commented on this a few years ago, and more recently an AliceSoft staff member did as well.  The market is oversaturated and quite frankly Japan's demographics are shifting in an unfavorable way with the whole aging population issue and shrinking youth.  When highly successful companies are raising death flags, you know something's up.

Honestly the English eroge market isn't doing swell either.  While visual novels are seeing increasing interest, story-focused eroge are being squeezed out by cheap nukige on one side and better selling non-adult titles on the other.  JAST commented a few months ago that the Steam revolution is a double-edged sword for the eroge industry.  If developers decide the English eroge market isn't worth catering to and just go direct for Steam (like Debonosu), then there's not much eroge publishers can do.

The news you bring is scarier than playing Kara no Shoujo while the lights are out. 

[Tamaki Sakura]

Besides YU-NO, what other works of note did they produce? I can't think of one off the top of my head.

Doukyuusei, Kakyuusei and Dragon Knight were their most popular games and made a huge impact on the eroge industry.

I've played Knights of Xentar, never heard of the others. I don't really think they had a huge impact on the eroge industry myself. Not as big as many other VNs over the years, which took it from simple porn to a real story.

Elf's titles were very important to the development of eroge during the early 1990's, equal only to those of Alicesoft.

[Clephas]

It was inevitable that the industry would suffer, as all the otaku industries suffered after reaching saturation.  Just judging from my own experiences, base quality is going to fall more and more over the next few years, as companies desperate to make a few extra pennies cut corners where they shouldn't, thus driving more potential consumers away.  Unlike anime, since most VNs have ero-content, there is less strategic depth in terms of a fanbase to depend on if more and more fans are driven away by poor works by previously good companies. 

Manga and anime both suffered similar problems after reaching their saturation points, though they've now more or less settled down into a regular up and down 'bumpy road' kind of industry rather than the kind of cliff we might see with VNs.  Those of you who have been otakus long enough or who have a wider experience of more material will have noticed that while technology's advance has resulted in some base improvement in visual aspects, the basic quality of anime in general has actually fallen drastically in the last fifteen years or so, looking at it from a wider perspective. 

We are seeing a similar trend with VNs, with occasional truly good VNs interspersed with dozens of lower-quality works intended to make a quick buck by appealing to the 'wide and shallow' part of the fanbase (moe and nuki addicts) rather than entertain or stimulate (incidentally, truly good moege/charage still get produced... but they are proportionately lower in number). 

I'll be blunt, there hasn't been a significant work out of Elf since Biniku, which was critically acclaimed regardless of genre preferences, despite the difficulties a lot of people have with NTR.  It was inevitable that Elf would have gone under, even without the current saturation of the market.

Generally speaking, all of the 'otaku mediums' have had their golden ages, followed by an 'age of stagnation and saturation'.  I'm curious to see whether VNs will actually survive their own trials... especially considering the social trends in Japan (anyone who plays eroge will have noticed the significant drop in loli-content, unless they are blind as a bat... and that is just the tip of the iceberg, speaking from the perspective of someone who plays sixty or more a year). 

Anime is currently in one of its ages of stagnation (similar to the eighties and early nineties, when just about everything was either giant robo/sentai rangers or felt like it was written by someone in a drug-induced haze). It produces maybe two or three series a year worthy of note, with the rest falling somewhere between horrible and decent.

I honestly don't follow manga anymore, so I can't form a good opinion on it.

Though, speaking like a doomsayer gets old, fast.  I honestly think that VNs will survive... but the industry will probably be forced to alter radically in order to survive.  My personal prediction is that there will be at least some movement away from extreme ero, isolating a few companies and the doujin circles that will continue to produce it for their audiences.  Due to the current saturation of that genre, we are also likely to see a fall in the number of moe-moe releases (I'm already seeing this) with only the most visually polished selling well enough to keep their companies afloat.  Chuunige, whose care fanbase is pretty... fanatical (lol) probably won't change that much in terms of sales or profitability.  Some will leave, some will get interested, and the niche will remain more or less as it is... a high cost, potentially high return niche genre that will only turn a profit if people don't cut corners.  Extreme nukige companies will continue to turn a decent profit... and find themselves backed into a corner, legally and socially.  We'll probably see at least a small explosion of non-ero VNs that might or might not turn a profit (its about a 50-50 chance, depending on how they market them). 

The non-ero market over here will continue to grow due to Steam's influence.  In exchange, we'll probably see at least some of the 'great classics' stripped of their ero by various localization companies for Steam releases.  Companies that don't adapt well to changing times will probably go under (I honestly don't see JastUSA lasting more than another half-decade, unless they learn to actually market their stuff rather than just release it in an off-handed manner... they remind me of Working Designs, in a bad way). 

For OELVNs... I can't make a solid prediction, but since the current trends seem to still tend toward less than impressive imitations of Japanese themes and the occasional third-rate attempts at something unique, I can't see the market there standing fully on its own for some time. 

 

Edit: I'm going to say this outright.  No Japanese industry is ever going to be considered flexible.  They stagnate and lose momentum, as the natural preference of Japanese society is for stasis, rather than change.  Japanese businessmen don't want endless growth, they want stable revenues.  This is reflected in the way game companies tend to manage their development (think Konami and the revelations about its internal affairs recently).  Total collapses in any profit-generating industry in Japan are unheard of, but stagnation of profits is almost a given, as more people with the same ideas try to do the same thing.   Trends that would take a month here will frequently take two or three years there, simply because no one is interested in actively changing the status quo. 

Edit2: Ironically, people with tastes similar to mine are more likely to benefit from the ero-stripping than the moe-moe fans (proportionately anyway), since it is easier to strip a more story-focused VN of its ero without harming the story than to do so with any sort of moege.

 

Edited October 26, 2015 by Clephas

[Abyssal Monkey]

Predictions for the death of moege? Yes please.

As for the actual topic at hand, it doesn't surprise me at all.  Likening it to the manga and anime industry seems somewhat apt, yet I feel like it's only a pseudo comparison at best. I'm not entirely sure about the culture as I'm typically oblivious to these types of things, but anime and manga don't seem to have the social stigma that I can guess that eroge might have.  I feel like that sexual factor is a big difference and that it will cause a turn we might not expect.

Truly this might be a sign of the death of eroge, but what we refer to the medium/genre of visual novels I doubt.

[XReaper]

.... but anime and manga don't seem to have the social stigma that I can guess that eroge might have.....

anime and manga are similarily suffering from whats become commonly known as moefication of mind, as everyone can see based on its sales, with many great shows like paracyte and others, that decided on beeing non clichee, but unique having failed hard in reaching the magical manabi line, whereas generic garbage keeps on popping out and often selling like fuck, regardless of its actual quality, or such, furthermore encouraging those who believe creation of mediocrity, by going down the generic, non risky path, is the right thing of doing so, from which the whole industry will benefit at the end.

[Narcosis]

.... but anime and manga don't seem to have the social stigma that I can guess that eroge might have.....

anime and manga are similarily suffering from whats become commonly known as moefication of mind, as everyone can see based on its sales, with many great shows like paracyte and others, that decided on beeing non clichee, but unique having failed hard in reaching the magical manabi line, whereas generic garbage keeps on popping out and often selling like fuck, regardless of its actual quality, or such, furthermore encouraging those who believe creation of mediocrity, by going down the generic, non risky path, is the right thing of doing so, from which the whole industry will benefit at the end.

This trend will likely continue, as it's becoming increasingly difficult to end up being successful with truly original, non-standard content. It's much easier and more importantly - cheaper to churn out average, mid-length moege than produce a high quality game that doesn't cater to everyone's tastes.