Why do Visual Novels cost so much?

[br4zil]

Well folks, my question (that might have been answered before, but i couldnt find any relevant topic) is:

Why do they cost so much?

Visual Novels are relatively simple to program, dont (usually) require even 3d rendering and are mostly reliant on text.

Indie games with smaller teams have made more (technically) sophisticated games for way less (and with the same amount of effort in visuals and writing department).

Book writers & publishers have books out with incredible artwork and writing for way less.

So, why do VNs such as Princess Evangile cost as much as twice or triple the usual amount those games go for? Shouldnt what is basically a text adventure with still-images (most of the time) be very cheap?

 

Is the high price basically the translation work cost?

 

That is all taking out my regional problems, where i can buy almost 3 copies of full priced GTA 5 (or insert your AAA game here) for the price of one 50ish USD VN, since thats beside the point.

[ChaosRaven]

Very simple, because the customer base is much smaller. No million sales like Call of Duty & Co.

[KuroganeHomura]

http://blog.fuwanovel.net/2013/02/the-unstoppable-downfall-of-the-bishoujo-ge-industry-interview-with-nbkz-producer-at-minori/

Plus what ChaosRaven said. Even if the production costs of two games are the same, if you expect to sell 50k copies of one and 10k of the other, the latter will need to be priced much higher to make any profit.

[br4zil]

4 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

Very simple, because the customer base is much smaller. No million sales like Call of Duty & Co.

Not comparing them to high profile games, but stuff like:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/262940/

or

http://store.steampowered.com/app/261510/

or (for a non-story focused game)

http://store.steampowered.com/app/316430/

 

They didint sell billions of copies and yet retained very good profits (at least the studios behind them said so). And sold their games for a reasonable price.

Isnt the Sakura Games one of the highest selling VNs on steam? i dont think its because the it appeals to the lowest common denominator, but because it is rather fairly priced.

 

Meanwhile, we have Da Capo costings as much as a new release, even tho the game is not only a re-release, but also not really worth that price for its worth (technically speaking).

[Nosebleed]

It's the market size. Visual novels are a niche within a niche and they can't afford to be priced too lowly or they won't return the investment at all.

And you actually pay less for them here in the West. A new visual novel in Japan that's a considerable size will usually retail for more than 60 dollars, something that the Western market does not accept at all for any game but in Japan is a regular thing.

There's also localization fees involved. The biggest expenses when making a visual novel in Japan are the voice acting (Probably the most expensive part) and the art, and when you localize them you need to pay certain fees and royalties to be able to use them outside of Japan. Things can add up and then the final retail price needs to cover the royalties, the license and still return a profit to the localization company.

[Scorp]

3 minutes ago, br4zil said:

Not comparing them to high profile games, but stuff like:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/262940/

or

http://store.steampowered.com/app/261510/

Why you compare to KS-funded projects? They already got their money for development, of course they could put low prices. That's actually why I do not undestand Sekai marketing, putting ridiculous prices for VNs they already fully funded on KS.

[br4zil]

11 minutes ago, KuroganeHomura said:

http://blog.fuwanovel.net/2013/02/the-unstoppable-downfall-of-the-bishoujo-ge-industry-interview-with-nbkz-producer-at-minori/

Plus what ChaosRaven said. Even if the production costs of two games are the same, if you expect to sell 50k copies of one and 10k of the other, the latter will need to be priced much higher to make any profit.

Interesting read.

I think the most important thing i read there, besides the rather shocking costs was:

Quote

Questioner: What will happen to the bishoujo-ge industry in the future?
nbkz: not just the bishoujo-ge industry, I think the whole entertainment industry is going to end eventually. The concept of the professional entertainer is dying. On Niconico douga, amateurs create almost pro-like quality and is nevertheless entertaining without the added cost of hiring professionals. As time goes by, the gap between professional and amateur will decrease, until there is not much of a gap at all.

Wouldnt that cheapen the effective cost of hiring artists & writers? I have seen thousands of fanfic writers (of really good quality) that would perfectly be able to write for VNs, same with devianart artists and such.

Is the VN industry really that desperate for actual professional workers that it makes them such a high valued employees? 

[AaronIsCrunchy]

I'd say the Sakura series on Steam does well because it provides tits on a well-established platform for not a lot of money. No localisation needed, and if we're honest they're not the most complex things either. That with the funding of Sekai means they can sell them for peanuts and still do kinda alright.

[Black Sands Entertainment]

5 minutes ago, Scorp said:

Why you compare to KS-funded projects? They already got their money for development, of course they could put low prices. That's actually why I do not undestand Sekai marketing, putting ridiculous prices for VNs they already fully funded on KS.

my game will be 30 bucks! But it does have a ridiculous amount of quality art and interesting gameplay mechanics.

Plus, we do free stuff like releasing novellas and webcomics for free. 

[br4zil]

4 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

It's the market size. Visual novels are a niche within a niche and they can't afford to be priced too lowly or they won't return the investment at all.

And you actually pay less for them here in the West. A new visual novel in Japan that's a considerable size will usually retail for more than 60 dollars, something that the Western market does not accept at all for any game but in Japan is a regular thing.

There's also localization fees involved. The biggest expenses when making a visual novel in Japan are the voice acting (Probably the most expensive part) and the art, and when you localize them you need to pay certain fees and royalties to be able to use them outside of Japan. Things can add up and then the final retail price needs to cover the royalties, the license and still return a profit to the localization company.

Yeah, maybe i overerestimate the market for them, is there a link with any studies for it? like some actual figures... are they that small outside of japan? Until now i would put them in the same boat as Adventure games, not really hugely popular, but still not THAT small.

I still cant get why do the CG work cost so much, maybe its a japanese thing, but artists like that are dime and a dozen here in brazil and most would kill for a income like the one mentioned in the article. Maybe its a trade union thing? Not sure.

As for the localization fees + royalties, yeah, i can totally see that adding up alot of cost. But i thought production costs would be low for the initial japanese release, i guess i was wrong, it seems that initial cost is what racks up the final price more then localization, at least thats what it seems.

 

9 minutes ago, Scorp said:

Why you compare to KS-funded projects? They already got their money for development, of course they could put low prices. That's actually why I do not undestand Sekai marketing, putting ridiculous prices for VNs they already fully funded on KS.

Exactly because of Sekai, they did kickstarters, so i was comparing those games to them

[Nosebleed]

11 minutes ago, br4zil said:

Interesting read.

I think the most important thing i read there, besides the rather shocking costs was:

Wouldnt that cheapen the effective cost of hiring artists & writers? I have seen thousands of fanfic writers (of really good quality) that would perfectly be able to write for VNs, same with devianart artists and such.

Is the VN industry really that desperate for actual professional workers that it makes them such a high valued employees? 

Not really, a lot of VN artists and writers in Japan are freelancers from Pixiv and stuff. Unless you're a big company like Key, you'll mostly be hiring staff per game.

The difference is that Japanese artists will charge you an arm and a leg. And can you really blame them?

[OriginalRen]

It is interesting to note that because people are becoming so good at video editing and using programs such as MMD, the professional gap is almost none existent. It's like those guys that did the protein folding project. People are just insane.

[babiker]

This is actually a legit problem. I can't get a friend of mine- Who has shown quite a bit of interest in VNs, playing the free steam ones and also a few Sekai Project stuff- to try the real VNs like GSNM, Clannad or Grisaia because they're so God damn expensive.

I can't really demand the prices get lower, it's just rather sad

[br4zil]

7 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

Not really, a lot of VN artists and writers in Japan are freelancers from Pixiv and stuff. Unless you're a big company like Key, you'll mostly be hiring staff per game.

The difference is that Japanese artists will charge you an arm and a leg. And can you really blame them?

But if they say that the diference between amateur work and professional one is becoming one and the same, why do japanese artists still charge alot?

I would imagine those "amateurs" would start to ask less and the whole cost would come down. I mean, from what i am seeing is that the competitiveness is increasing but isnt driving costs down.

Is he saying that free VNs are simply killing the industry?

[Scorp]

11 minutes ago, br4zil said:

Exactly because of Sekai, they did kickstarters, so i was comparing those games to them

I am Sekai-hater, so cannot tell more. Greedy dovac do not care about anything, he will milk all money from fans and will even squeeze for more (maybe you still did not gave him each penny you had?). Nothing to discuss, Sekai stuff is absolutely overpriced. I will never buy anything from him (but not because of the price).

[Fred the Barber]

9 minutes ago, br4zil said:

Interesting read.

I think the most important thing i read there, besides the rather shocking costs was:

Wouldnt that cheapen the effective cost of hiring artists & writers? I have seen thousands of fanfic writers (of really good quality) that would perfectly be able to write for VNs, same with devianart artists and such.

Is the VN industry really that desperate for actual professional workers that it makes them such a high valued employees? 

Well, there are a few reasons why you use known professionals that charge moderate fees, rather than an up-and-coming amateur with a DeviantArt portfolio who would work for less, but the biggest is probably that professionals can provide consistent quality on a somewhat predictable schedule. Hobbyists or enthusiasts don't have experience with this.

- Hobbyists/enthusiasts/inexperienced people will always provide incredibly unrealistic estimates. Estimating how long it will take you to do certain work, assuming that work takes more than a couple weeks, is a ludicrously hard problem, by the way, even for experienced professionals in many fields.

- Hobbyists/enthusiasts/inexperienced people rarely have worked on a project of similar scope to a professional VN, and will likely struggle with keeping quality consistent across the large amount of work. They may be used to producing a single drawing in a given style and theme, or even several, but for instance producing dozens of CGs in a consistent style all with similarly high quality, is vastly more difficult. Writing, music, etc., have analogous problems.

 

You can observe these phenomena in English translations of visual novels, comparing fan translations and professional ones. There are an exceptionally large number of attempted fan translations. Of those, a tiny percentage are actually able to complete a project, and as far as a schedule, usually they won't even try to provide one, let alone hold to it. Of the ones that succeed, by and large they take a very long time to complete, and many of them are of very poor quality. The exceptions are the ones provided by people who are already, or will likely soon become, professionals. There's a reason those same well-liked fan translators are frequently hired by publishers like MG - they are the rare ones who demonstrate that they're able to actually deliver consistent quality on a large project.

[KuroganeHomura]

13 minutes ago, br4zil said:

I still cant get why do the CG work cost so much, maybe its a japanese thing, but artists like that are dime and a dozen here in brazil and most would kill for a income like the one mentioned in the article. Maybe its a trade union thing? Not sure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage

Average wage in Japan: $2,522

Average wage in Brazil: $778

So even if Japanese artists were charging the same on average compared to the average wage in their country as Brazilian artists, they'd already be charging roughly thrice the amount for the same work.

[DarkZedge]

51 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

Very simple, because the customer base is much smaller. No million sales like Call of Duty & Co.

 

48 minutes ago, KuroganeHomura said:

http://blog.fuwanovel.net/2013/02/the-unstoppable-downfall-of-the-bishoujo-ge-industry-interview-with-nbkz-producer-at-minori/

Plus what ChaosRaven said. Even if the production costs of two games are the same, if you expect to sell 50k copies of one and 10k of the other, the latter will need to be priced much higher to make any profit.

These two are most likely the reasons for it, in order to be profitable with a much lower number of sales the price has to be higher though it sometimes results in less sales exactly because of the high price..some people would rather not pay as much for a vn as they would for any AAA title out there or close to it anyways

[solidbatman]

6 hours ago, Scorp said:

I am Sekai-hater, so cannot tell more. Greedy dovac do not care about anything, he will milk all money from fans and will even squeeze for more (maybe you still did not gave him each penny you had?). Nothing to discuss, Sekai stuff is absolutely overpriced. I will never buy anything from him (but not because of the price).

That greedy son of a bitch literally broke into my house, stole my VNs and resold them on Steam! HE CONTROLS BIG EROGE SHEEPLE!!!!

 

 

oh wait, the companies he licenses the games from, the original developers/publishers, set the prices. But its all good, keep being ignorant Scorp. Its enjoyable. 

[sanahtlig]

Professional Japanese voice acting and graphics design for the CG is expensive.  That's most of the cost right there.  The Sakura series games are super short and designed by amateurs.  By comparison many of the top eroge feature hundreds of detailed CG and 50+ hours of writing by talented professional writers--longer than entire book series like Lord of the Rings.  You get what you pay for.

[br4zil]

1 hour ago, Fred the Barber said:

Well, there are a few reasons why you use known professionals that charge moderate fees, rather than an up-and-coming amateur with a DeviantArt portfolio who would work for less, but the biggest is probably that professionals can provide consistent quality on a somewhat predictable schedule. Hobbyists or enthusiasts don't have experience with this.

- Hobbyists/enthusiasts/inexperienced people will always provide incredibly unrealistic estimates. Estimating how long it will take you to do certain work, assuming that work takes more than a couple weeks, is a ludicrously hard problem, by the way, even for experienced professionals in many fields.

- Hobbyists/enthusiasts/inexperienced people rarely have worked on a project of similar scope to a professional VN, and will likely struggle with keeping quality consistent across the large amount of work. They may be used to producing a single drawing in a given style and theme, or even several, but for instance producing dozens of CGs in a consistent style all with similarly high quality, is vastly more difficult. Writing, music, etc., have analogous problems.

 

You can observe these phenomena in English translations of visual novels, comparing fan translations and professional ones. There are an exceptionally large number of attempted fan translations. Of those, a tiny percentage are actually able to complete a project, and as far as a schedule, usually they won't even try to provide one, let alone hold to it. Of the ones that succeed, by and large they take a very long time to complete, and many of them are of very poor quality. The exceptions are the ones provided by people who are already, or will likely soon become, professionals. There's a reason those same well-liked fan translators are frequently hired by publishers like MG - they are the rare ones who demonstrate that they're able to actually deliver consistent quality on a large project.

 

As someone whos rather enthusiastic about knowing HQ/Comic scene, i find it weird that there are so (seemly) few artists in japan that can keep such schedule and art quality to warrant such a high pay rate. The situation sure is diferent in west...

1 hour ago, KuroganeHomura said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage

Average wage in Japan: $2,522

Average wage in Brazil: $778

So even if Japanese artists were charging the same on average compared to the average wage in their country as Brazilian artists, they'd already be charging roughly thrice the amount for the same work.

It not really about the average pay that i am refering to. Its about job/work appreciation. The Average wage doesnt really work when our living costs are also way lower than japan's.

Here in brazil, someone whose a HQ/Manga/Comic ilustrator would work hard (and i mean more than 12h/a day) hard to get a decent pay rate solely from that line of work, most do it as a side-job, not their primary source of income.

By "decent pay rate" i mean one that would make you afford a good living situation.

In the US/Europe, from what i know its still not a profession that warrants high pay rates (exceptions being celebrities of course, such as from the Italian scene of comics or major ones such as DC/Marvel/etc).

Of course it is a better situation than brazil, but still, its not a profession that would make you live a luxury life (since living expenses are higher than brazil's).

But from what i am seeing, it seems that professionals enjoy a pretty good wage in japan.

I wonder why that is so, i wouldnt think there would be so few people to the point where it would drive CG/Artwork wages up... but well... i suppose i cant deny the blatant fact that this seems to be true.

[Orcka]

Cause capitalism wont allow it to be free 

[Eclipsed]

The only VNs I ever bought ??? were 999, Zero Escape: VLR, and Danganronpa 1&2, all on sale for < $10~$20 ea.

When I saw Steam Clannad 50 bucks I lol'ed

[Fred the Barber]

Cost of living is vastly higher in Japan than Brazil - you really can't compare the two directly without applying that consideration. Compare that income vs. the mean and median, and then consider that against the mean and median standard of living in Japan (which is probably slightly higher than your comparison point of Brazil, but probably not vastly so), and you'll get a clearer picture.

There are some weird inconsistencies in the article (perhaps translation errors, perhaps errors in the original), but if you fuss with the numbers the minimum necessary to make them consistent, it looks like the wage these hypothetical people were getting in that year would be approximately very close to the mean income in Japan (in an unknown year, but it probably hasn't changed much anyway given Japan's economy), according to that Wikipedia page cited earlier: somewhere around $2,500 USD per month, or $30,000 USD per year (plus or minus, say, 15% for fluctuating strength of currencies, etc.). According to the same article, "the wage distribution is right-skewed; the majority of people earn less than the average wage", so the fact that these people are making the mean income means they're actually above the median. But probably not by much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income (somewhat sketchy comparison, since this charts household income rather than individual, and I have no idea how common it is for multiple people in a household to work in Japan).

So, baseline that against Japanese standard of living, and you have an answer: they're getting by fine, probably living comfortably as you said, but they're hardly raking in the dough. Yes, this is almost certainly their only job, but I also expect people working in this industry, just like the more mainstream video game industry, are working much longer hours than a typical full-time job to begin with... which is another complicated factor to consider and baseline against, and a whole topic unto itself (which I went off on for a few lines here, but deleted when I decided to spare you all. Read this for a good chuckle, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Hunter-gatherer).

[Darklord Rooke]

3 hours ago, Nosebleed said:

It's the market size. Visual novels are a niche within a niche and they can't afford to be priced too lowly or they won't return the investment at all.

I wonder if the high price contributes to the super-niche status of these games.

Anyway, this is one of the reasons why voice acting spoils games. They greatly increase the development cost of the game (more in Japan than in the West,) which therefore requires the studios to move more units, it can also increase the price, the studio needs to play it safer to appeal to a wider audience, it can limit the amount of writing in a game, it limits the flexibility of the writing (because now if you want to add a line it must be recorded) - all in all I'd prefer games WITHOUT voice acting.

But yeah, VNs are definitely VERY expensive, and if they ever want to succeed as a storytelling medium then that price will need to come down. Some people try to rationalise away the niche status of the industry by saying 'people don't read anymore' but that's actually not true - the amount of readers isn't decreasing. The price of VNs, however, lands it well outside the typical reader's market and so VNs end up appealing to ... other audiences.