Shuffle! is coming to Steam!

[Ariurotl]

4 hours ago, Decay said:

lol, people really hate Shuffle here, huh? Well, I think it's pretty crap, too. But it was one of MangaGamer's top performing non-nukiges for a while, and I've seen some fans of the anime as well. It's certainly not a VN I enjoyed much at all, but even then I think some people are being a wee bit hyperbolic here. Really its main crime is that it's just really freaking boring. It's not offensively bad or anything.

I can't speak for the other guy but personally, I hate things using the following equation: Hate = Shittiness x Popularity. That's why I'll whine about Clannad and Shuffle for absolute ages, whereas some obvious third-rate schlock is relatively safe from my fearsome wrath.

[ChaosRaven]

I somehow fail to see the point of this Steam release. They make an entire retranslation for a title which most people who were interested in it already played long ago, and I find it hard to believe that many people who already bought MangaGamer's adult version are willing to buy the title again, just to get two additional but butchered routes. Essence+ could have been interesting, but it's not even that. I hope Navel keep their sales expectations low, since it'll most likely hard to even finance the retranslation.

The only positive thing is that Navel seem to have an interest in the Western market again. Although they seem to prefer to go independent now, which is fine by me, but helloooooo we have 2016 and not 2004 anymore, could we maybe raise our mindset beyond Shuffle for a change?! Is it too much to ask for an Oretsuba or Tsuriotsu?! I mean, even Oretsuba is already about 10 years old, so maybe just maybe it would be about time for that instead of Shuffle release 1245, which isn't even the final and definite edition? 

[DarkZedge]

46 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

It was sadly removed from mangagamer, which means the 18+ version is no longer for sale in English legally.

No need to get heated. Yes, there is a lot of people who want 18+ versions of censored eroge, and they have every right to. (It is eroge after all.) If there was an English 18+ alternative, that would be a different story. 

Well rip then, I didn't know it had been removed from Mangagamer, that's a shame.

 

31 minutes ago, Kiriririri said:

It is not censored eroge. It is a PS2 game that is an alternative version where the porn just never happened. 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

What a sad alternative universe! 

[Ariurotl]

8 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

The only positive thing is that Navel seem to have an interest in the Western market again. Although they seem to prefer to go independent now, which is fine by me, but helloooooo we have 2016 and not 2004 anymore, could we maybe raise our mindset beyond Shuffle for a change?! Is it too much to ask for an Oretsuba or Tsuriotsu?! I mean, even Oretsuba is already about 10 years old, so maybe just maybe it would be about time for that instead of Shuffle release 1245, which isn't even the final and definite edition? 

It's probably best to wait and see how this retranslation pans out before thinking of any other Navel VNs. If they hired a shit translator a-la IMHHW, what chance does that person have of successfully navigating Oretsuba?

[Dergonu]

36 minutes ago, Kiriririri said:

It is not censored eroge. It is a PS2 game that is an alternative version where the porn just never happened. 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

An all ages version of an eroge is a censored eroge. Also, Shuffle in particular does have story elements in certain H-scenes, like I said before. Wonder how that was handled. 

[ChaosRaven]

8 minutes ago, Ariurotl said:

It's probably best to wait and see how this retranslation pans out before thinking of any other Navel VNs. If they hired a shit translator a-la IMHHW, what chance does that person have of successfully navigating Oretsuba?

I think Oretsuba is considered as rather difficult to translate because it has a lot of slang and other colorful language, so it should better be done by a more experienced translator.

But I'm not so sure if Navel would care about that and just assign some random translator of technical manuals for washing machines instead... 

[WinterfuryZX]

I have the original MG 18+ physical copy drm free to sell, in case anyone is interested.

[Chuee]

5 hours ago, Decay said:

Interesting side note: YumeHaven is a newly-formed sub-brand of Active Gaming Media, a pretty huge general localization house, which has handled localization for hundreds of games in the past. They're describing YumeHaven as their "first" VN brand. Implying there might be more? Maybe they'll do an eroge brand? It seems kind of unlikely to me, though, since this is a pretty well-established company who might not want to risk their reputation being tarnished by porn. Or maybe they'll be like Degica and not give a fuck.

Active Gaming Media generally does legit localizations with professionally paid staff. The fact that they actually are a large localization company with full-time staff means that their projects cost more money, which is typically why these kinds of companies don't do VNs in the first place. VNs bring in fuck all revenue. It'll be interesting to see if they stick around.

The reason I remain skeptical is because AGM did the translation for Harmonia, which turned out to be fairly mediocre. Shuffle probably wouldn't be ruined, but OreTsuba and Tsuriotsu contain things much more difficult to translate. OreTsuba has flowery passages (like below), and Harmonia's biggest problem was the narration. Tsuriotsu has puns, and jokes based on Japanese speech patterns, which average translators will always screw up on. I wouldn't really welcome a localization group that dishes out translation quality on the level of funimation. 

Also, the Shuffle essence+ version apparently contains all the added content in this release, plus more, and h-scenes. This whole thing seems kind of... pointless honestly (people whine about companies licensing titles that already have existing fan-tl patches, but here they literally licensed a title that's been released before in English... officially). I don't know what caused Navel and Mangagamer to split up, but it's like they're basically just going to rerelease all the stuff they've already released, which is... a very wonderful prospect, considering people have been wanting Navel's newer titles for years now.

 

[trickzzter]

56 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

I somehow fail to see the point of this Steam release. They make an entire retranslation for a title which most people who were interested in it already played long ago, and I find it hard to believe that many people who already bought MangaGamer's adult version are willing to buy the title again, just to get two additional but butchered routes.

As it was already stated by MangaGamer, Steam sells much more copies than MangaGamer website. Moreover it helps them to sell more copies directly from their website.

Steam has over 150 million active users. Some of them will buy the game, even if they aren't fans of VNs. Some of them will buy the game just because they liked the anime adaptation. Some of them will buy it just because it's an "anime game". And don't forget about the core Steam VN fan base, it's grown pretty big in the past few years. Just look at these numbers:

Sekai Project's Group (8,889 members)

Fans of visual novels (3,466 members)

Visual Novel Fans (2,262 members)

Visual Novels (2,211 members)

And I'm one of them. I haven't bought any game directly from MangaGamer website, but I have bought ALL of their Steam releases.

[Ningen]

20 minutes ago, trickzzter said:

Sekai Project's Group (8,889 members)

Fans of visual novels (3,466 members)

Why is this so funny

Spoiler

 

[Nier]

Are we sure this is a port of the PS2 version and not just the PC version with cut 18+ content? The rights of the PS2 version would at least in part belong to Kadokawa Shoten.

[trickzzter]

7 minutes ago, Nier said:

Are we sure this is a port of the PS2 version and not just the PC version with cut 18+ content? The rights of the PS2 version would at least in part belong to Kadokawa Shoten.

Community manager said that it's a PS2 port:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/537100/discussions/0/340412122408278439/#c340412122408292299

Quote

Yes it is

This is the ported version of the PS2 version which has 7 different routes rather than just 5.

 

[Nier]

2 hours ago, trickzzter said:

Community manager said that it's a PS2 port:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/537100/discussions/0/340412122408278439/#c340412122408292299

 

That's good, it's a better alternative than releasing a cut PC version like MoeNovel did for Konosora or what NextNinja did with Chusingura46+1. Too bad that Essence+ never received a console version as Essence+ is the definitive version of Shuffle with the most routes.

[ChaosRaven]

4 hours ago, trickzzter said:

As it was already stated by MangaGamer, Steam sells much more copies than MangaGamer website. Moreover it helps them to sell more copies directly from their website.

Steam has over 150 million active users. Some of them will buy the game, even if they aren't fans of VNs. Some of them will buy the game just because they liked the anime adaptation. Some of them will buy it just because it's an "anime game". And don't forget about the core Steam VN fan base, it's grown pretty big in the past few years. Just look at these numbers:

Sorry, but you aren't really up to date anymore, the VN boom on Steam is over. A Steam release simply isn't a guaranteed avalanche of dollares anymore.

You might check out Front Wing's whining thread about Corona Blossom's horrible sales. Or Conjueror's comments about Tokyo Babel's not exactly breath-taking sales, that might make future engagement's in further chuuni titles difficult. Similar thing for Fata Morgana and judging by Supipara's fund-raiser, even getting to chapter 2 might get an almost impossible challenge. And I'm not sure if the usually long tails of VN titles on Steam are still as long as they were used to be.

Steam users interested in VN's aren't blind, they already moved on directly to the sales sites of MangaGamer, Jast & Co. And competition is also higher.

[Decay]

1 hour ago, ChaosRaven said:

Sorry, but you aren't really up to date anymore, the VN boom on Steam is over. A Steam release simply isn't a guaranteed avalanche of dollares anymore.

You might check out Front Wing's whining thread about Corona Blossom's horrible sales. Or Conjueror's comments about Tokyo Babel's not exactly breath-taking sales, that might make future engagement's in further chuuni titles difficult. Similar thing for Fata Morgana and judging by Supipara's fund-raiser, even getting to chapter 2 might get an almost impossible challenge. And I'm not sure if the usually long tails of VN titles on Steam are still as long as they were used to be.

Steam users interested in VN's aren't blind, they already moved on directly to the sales sites of MangaGamer, Jast & Co. And competition is also higher.

One part of this post is correct, another part of this is pure supposition and likely bullshit. You cannot attribute fewer sales on Steam to people moving to MangaGamer's store, as simple as that. I can't even imagine how you arrived at that conclusion. VNs being in a mild decline on Steam compared to 18 months ago means fewer people are playing VNs overall compared to then, not that people are getting VNs elsewhere.

[Nier]

13 hours ago, Dergonu said:

Well, I guess a censored release on steam is better than it not being sold at all anymore... 

Though Shuffle is actually one of those eroges where the H contet plays into the story, which might make one particular route in this game hard to understand, unless they add in some extra filler content in this port. Hopefully they make an 18+ patch later on... 

It's not "censored" since there is no reason to add mosaic...

[Dergonu]

29 minutes ago, Nier said:

It's not "censored" since there is no reason to add mosaic...

I think you misunderstand what I mean by censored. I do not mean mosiac censorship, I mean the cutting of H content all together.

You are right when you say that the port itself doesn't have H-scenes. (If that is what you meant. Either way, that is what they are using as a reason not to add them.) That literally is the censorship I spoke of earlier. Muv-Luv and Grisaia also worked with ports, but they still made H-patches available, so people can play them both in censored form, and the original form.

If this port is put on steam with no H-patch, that will mean it will be impossible to legally obtain an 18+ version of Shuffle in English. (It will still be better than no release at all, of course, but I sincerely hope they do indeed make a patch, so that everyone are happy.)

[ChaosRaven]

13 hours ago, Decay said:

One part of this post is correct, another part of this is pure supposition and likely bullshit. You cannot attribute fewer sales on Steam to people moving to MangaGamer's store, as simple as that. I can't even imagine how you arrived at that conclusion. VNs being in a mild decline on Steam compared to 18 months ago means fewer people are playing VNs overall compared to then, not that people are getting VNs elsewhere.

General lesser sales on Steam of VN's is simply FACT that was mentioned and proved (via Steam Spy) countless times now. Each Sakura game selling less than the last one, same with other 'fan service' titles like Corona Blossom, MangaGamer complaining about bad sales of story titles released on Steam, etc.

Fact two is that MangaGamer got a strong increase of accounts from Steam which was CONFIRMED by MangaGamer. And tell me, why exactly should Steam users interested in VN's 'intentionally' keep their distance from MG's site?! Sure, certainly not 'every' Steam user went to MG or related publisher sites, but the ones who are really 'interested' and therefore willing to pay more than just 5 $ certainly had a good chance. Just have a look at the Steam forums with countless complaints why the Steam version has no H-scenes and countless answers sending them to the MG site to get their H.

And what I said was that it was a 'combination' of several factors, the MAIN one being the boom being over, and the REMAINING ones even more lowered by people moving to MangaGamer AND higher competition. I've no idea from where you got this absolute 'reduced only by Steam user moving to MG' conclusion from your second sentence.

[trickzzter]

4 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

MangaGamer complaining about bad sales of story titles released on Steam, etc.

And yet they sell much more copies on Steam than on their website. It was confirmed by MangaGamer.

By the way.. Have you seen the sales numbers of Steins;Gates? http://steamspy.com/app/412830

14,144 copies have been sold so far. It's a really old title, that was already released by Just USA. And yet it sells much better than most of new titles released in Japan:

4 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

And tell me, why exactly should Steam users interested in VN's 'intentionally' keep their distance from MG's site?! Do you think they are stupid or what?!

Several reasons:

1. Just as many other Steam users I don't buy the games that aren't on Steam.

2. Steam copy is cheaper (and I don't really care about adult content)

3. It's just much more easier and more convenient to buy games on Steam.

And tell me, why exactly should Steam users interested in VN's 'intentionally' buy from MG's site (instead of Steam)?! Do you think they are stupid or what?!

[Nandemonai]

As someone who liked Shuffle (despite its flaws), I'm definitely not interested in this.  I would be interested in the 2 new routes, but I want Essence+.  I want the Kikyo route and all the other stuff.

[Zenophilious]

45 minutes ago, trickzzter said:

And yet they sell much more copies on Steam than on their website. It was confirmed by MangaGamer.

Yeah, not so much for their more recent Steam titles, aside from Yurirei.  Check out which of their VNs got hardcopies (NSFW).  AFAIK, MangaGamer includes Steam with their own site's sales as an indication of whether or not they should make hardcopies.  Look which ones haven't gotten them yet.  Their all-ages VNs are selling worse than some of their nukige, with the added benefit of being on two platforms at once.  Admittedly, it's too soon to say that they won't get hardcopies, but they aren't exactly selling like hotcakes, like you're implying.

45 minutes ago, trickzzter said:

By the way.. Have you seen the sales numbers of Steins;Gates? http://steamspy.com/app/412830

14,144 copies have been sold so far. It's a really old title, that was already released by Just USA. And yet it sells much better than most of new titles released in Japan:

S;G has a successful, popular anime, was already known by a lot of VN fans thanks to JAST's release of it, and the Steam release was marketed as being superior to JAST's version.  That's a horrible example to use to disprove any claim about the Steam VN bubble having popped.  It didn't have to do anything to stand out, as it already had years ago.  Also, SteamSpy isn't that accurate.

[trickzzter]

Hard copies have nothing to do with sales numbers. For example the second most selling game of 2015 (excluding Steam and bundle sales) has no hard copy.

http://blog.mangagamer.org/2016/01/13/2015-in-review/

Btw, do you know why they're excluding Steam sales from their rankings? Because MangaGamer website can't compete with Steam.

[Zenophilious]

17 minutes ago, trickzzter said:

Hard copies have nothing to do with sales numbers.

That's funny, because I've heard the exact opposite for over a year.  Source, please? 

[trickzzter]

5 minutes ago, Zenophilious said:

That's funny, because I've heard the exact opposite for over a year.  Source, please? 

Source:

20 minutes ago, trickzzter said:

For example the second most selling game of 2015 (excluding Steam and bundle sales) has no hard copy.

http://blog.mangagamer.org/2016/01/13/2015-in-review/

I don't know what is YOUR source, but the fact is that eden* has no hard copy edition.

[Zenophilious]

That's not what I'm talking about, and I actually do have the ability to remember things I read less than ten minutes ago, believe it or not.  Give me a link to a MangaGamer employee stating that they do not base hardcopy production on how well the digital version does.

I'm not saying that it's literally just sales, obviously they have to get permission and the rights to do so and such.  I don't know why they haven't made a hardcopy of Eden yet, but that one outlier doesn't disprove that.

Doddler talking about why there won't be a Cartagra hardcopy