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a way to make visual novels more popular in the west


Lumaria

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1 minute ago, CeruleanGamer said:

To add to your point Okarin,

What's great about VNs is you don't need 60 FPS/1080p nonsense that most gamers are crying and whining and bitching about with other kinds of games. They can run even with the shittiest, lowest end machines. That's what makes them a superior gaming genre for anime/Japanese animation lovers. If you can read and understand a little bit of Japanese culture (you're not a dumb ass fucktard calling people pedophiles on the internet for liking loli girls), you can play visual novels with ease and with no prior experience needed. 

Not Princess evangile though. Had some really big fps drops with it's effects, and it ran a bit slow. Not really slow, but just enough to notice that it isn't as it should be. Only had it in that one though.

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Just now, Stormwolf said:

Not Princess evangile though. Had some really big fps drops with it's effects, and it ran a bit slow. Not really slow, but just enough to notice that it isn't as it should be. Only had it in that one though.

I think I had it in Noble Works too especially when it played the ending credits because of the 3D animation on it, but it was solved when I turned off V-sync on it. 

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I think the problem is that not many people in the West knows about it and therefore I developed a great idea. Just yell "Visual Novel!" while attempting to assassinate President Obama. I am pretty sure the event would be spread everywhere and everyone in the West will know what a visual novel is. And everyone would jump in the VN train when they learn that such a beautiful thing where you can date cute anime girls exist.

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1 minute ago, Vongalaxy said:

I think the problem is that not many people in the West knows about it and therefore I developed a great idea. Just yell "Visual Novel!" while attempting to assassinate President Obama. I am pretty sure the event would be spread everywhere and everyone in the West will know what a visual novel is. And everyone would jump in the VN train when they learn that such a beautiful thing where you can date cute anime girls exist.

Since the meme age is still going on, we need to spread a visual novel meme. Maybe have OriginalRen sing something about visual novels. 

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@Pabloc  I already answered why we didn't have a crap ton of VNs and it's mostly by how the VN community treats the medium. If you can't accept that the problem is the VN community then oh well. But that's the answer. 

The west go with graphic adventures because that's the medium they are familiar with, any Westerner who runs into VNs will need a good first impression.

The problem is that what I gave was a basis of any VN audience. It actually is that easy and itbhas become easier and easier over the years not because of the way VNs are now butbbecause the increase in graphic addbenture games. 

and no, not a lot of devs are taking advantage of Google app store than on steam. steam is geared toward gamers, but app store is geared to a broader audience. Broader, more casual audience.

 

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As much as I want VNs to be in mobile devices, I would not like it because every game that goes in mobile phones/tablets become a nasty cesspool of microtransactions. I've seen VN games ruined because routes are locked until you pay $2.99-$4.99 or whatever the app developers price their microtransactions crap nowadays. 

Imagine if they released Muv Luv or Steins;Gate on mobile devices but you can only play a 15 min segment/chapter while you have to buy the others separately..... That's really fucking dumb. Might as well charge me the full price instead of me going out of my way to charge, charge, charge separately for these little things. 

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25 minutes ago, CeruleanGamer said:

As much as I want VNs to be in mobile devices, I would not like it because every game that goes in mobile phones/tablets become a nasty cesspool of microtransactions. I've seen VN games ruined because routes are locked until you pay $2.99-$4.99 or whatever the app developers price their microtransactions crap nowadays. 

Imagine if they released Muv Luv or Steins;Gate on mobile devices but you can only play a 15 min segment/chapter while you have to buy the others separately..... That's really fucking dumb. Might as well charge me the full price instead of me going out of my way to charge, charge, charge separately for these little things. 

Micro transaction is limited closer to social games. episodic games, are sometimes done, such as telltale, but each segment is worthy of a game of its own. 

But for a VN, Micro transaction wouldn't work. Whats actually more popular is having a demo and then selling the full version.

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1 hour ago, Lumaria said:

I already answered why we didn't have a crap ton of VNs and it's mostly by how the VN community treats the medium. If you can't accept that the problem is the VN community then oh well. But that's the answer.

At least TRY to understand what I'm saying. I was asking why we didn't develop the VN genre in the 80's or 90's, independently form Japanese developers. Are Japanese people the only ones capable of discovering the VN genre? Do we have to "run into them" and "get a good impression", because we are incapable of developing new genres by ourselves?
No - like I already said, we did attempt to make our own VNs. But they simply failed, so development of story-oriented games went in a completely different direction. Direction, that actually works on the West. That's why we are going with graphic adventure games, and that's why we became familiar with that medium, while the Japanese became familiar with VNs.

VN community isn't even remotely relevant to what I'm talking about here. Japanese VNs became somewhat visible only recently. Up until that point, there was no VN community to speak of, and absolutely no bias against that medium - pretty much nobody knew about it. Nothing was stopping Western developers from creating their own text-based, novel-style digital gamebooks with visuals. Nothing, except for the lack of market for such works.

Oh yeah, and what about VNs different from the typical otaku stuff that already exist? Those that don't have anime-style art, have different settings and/or more Western-style stroytelling? I mentioned 6 examples in this thread. For some mysterious reason, they aren't very popular outside of the VN community. Is this also only because of said community?

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@Pabloc  the story based genre has been around in the west but it wasn't the distinct style of a VN and just didn't evolve. Keep in mind VNs we'e even more niche back then even for Japan. So I find it pointless to ask why they didn't develop concurrently. I find it just arguing for arguings sake. Japan and the west were far different then they are now. So to expect a new genre to be born independently. 

I'm saying as of now, VNs are being controlled by the Japanese market almost exclusively  because they came up with it first and have an established market (that they know of). 

And there's not one person who is virtually interested in the medium who aren't aware of VNs. But as of now, there has been more room for it but with technology advancing graphic adventures seem the easier and safer approach. 

I understand what you are saying or trying to say. I just don't agree with it. Its pointless.

 

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3 hours ago, Lumaria said:

Micro transaction is limited closer to social games. episodic games, are sometimes done, such as telltale, but each segment is worthy of a game of its own. 

But for a VN, Micro transaction wouldn't work. Whats actually more popular is having a demo and then selling the full version.

I guess it's a marketing strategy of some sort. Nobody really wants to see anything higher than $9.99 price tag for an app, but converting them to microtransaction form for each chapter/segment gives it an even worse image imo. Microtransactions are mostly called pay2win nowadays and have a huge negative connotation that comes along with them

What they should do is maybe break each segment/chapter as a separate app. This could raise anticipation and buyer interest between each release while also preventing resorting to the microtransaction method. 

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17 minutes ago, CeruleanGamer said:

I guess it's a marketing strategy of some sort. Nobody really wants to see anything higher than $9.99 price tag for an app, but converting them to microtransaction form for each chapter/segment gives it an even worse image imo. Microtransactions are mostly called pay2win nowadays and have a huge negative connotation that comes along with them

What they should do is maybe break each segment/chapter as a separate app. This could raise anticipation and buyer interest between each release while also preventing resorting to the microtransaction method. 

social games NEED micro transactions. They are completely controlled by multiple servers and their value is with group of people. 

For VNs they could take an episodic approach but perhaps more on a DLC style where people get the full Game but can get additional chapters and G5 sort of does that by paying to unlock the secret chapter that hints the sequel. But there is a reason why lite or free trial versions exist. Because people can try it out and if it's promising, people can buy the game. 

For example: monument valley wasn't free but it also had an expansion that I had to pay. I mind the first time but not the second time because I enjoyed it. 

 

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Not going to lie @Lumaria, at first I had the impression that you were just going to be another stubborn person who would refuse to properly interpret other peoples reasoning and continue to talk in circles. But as the discussion continued, I realized that you aren't as stubborn as I expected. While there are still differing opinions between you and I, I am quite looking forward to engaging in future discussions with you. I apologize for labeling you as a stubborn circle walker, and not as the stubborn person who is willing and able to go places. Until our next encounter, goodbye.:sachi:

Edited by B0X0R
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On 1/22/2016 at 0:44 AM, maefdomn said:

I agree.

But the VN community likes them the way they currently are.

Fighting here for "making Vn's popular in the west" is a lost cause. A brave attempt though.

This is but another western VN community. Most people here don't want the genre becoming mainstream.

it can be done. I am doing it now. In fact, almost 90% of my marketing has been going to the black community to bring them into the genre in secret. They love my game and what I am doing. They have no clue what a visual novel is so I market it as an interactive graphic novel. It really is time we start making games tailored to the outside markets. I believe VNs could completely replace the graphic novel industry but only if they start becoming more unique like the graphic novel industry. Westerners love their historical fictions and scifi.

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