Root letter apparently sold 200k copies

[ChaosRaven]

4 hours ago, TheUnknownMercenary said:

Who the fuck wants to play a VN on the TV?

Who the fuck wants to play a VN on a PS Vita if he has a TV available?! Why should I exchange my huge TV screen with HD resolution and dolby surround sound system with a tiny little potato screen, which isn't even able to support todays high res VN resolutions and some second rated stereo speakers? And not to mention that I have my hands free for drinking coffee and... other important tasks and don't have to hold up this little cookie box the whole time.

Vita might be nice as a mobile device so you can play your VN's if you're on the way, but at home?!? LOL!!!

Edited February 1, 2017 by ChaosRaven

[solidbatman]

3 hours ago, Funyarinpa said:

 

It still gets games, it's still played, it's still produced in Japan; it isn't dead and I'm just tired of seeing people say that the Vita is dead.

vita means life

[Narcosis]

6 minutes ago, solidbatman said:

vita means life

The irony.

[novurdim]

56 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

Who the fuck wants to play a VN on a PS Vita if he has a TV available?!

We have quite a few candidates on these two pages already.

I understand you're mimicking the guy but we are getting seriously off-topic here. Vita is surely nice, ps4 is nice too, let's move along already, I get enough silly console wars in literally any other place available.

So, to remind why I've said about it probably being huge in the asian territories (i.e. not Japan), let's remember how it sold in Japan.
[PSV+PS4] Root Letter (Kadokawa Games, 06/16/16) – 8 907
Yes, those are only the physical numbers for the first week but it never charted again and I am yet to see a single VN with digital numbers even around half of the physical ones so we can be more than sure that it's highly unlikely they sold more than 25-30k copies by now and I'm being extremely generous, thinking that it could have been in huge sales.

But at the same time we've seen this piece of news: http://www.ricedigital.co.uk/kadokawa-name-pqube-root-letter-english-publisher/
"More than 50k preorders and Japan and other Asia regions". Considering how it sold in Japan, they are either straight-up lying or the vast majority of the pre-orders are from those "other asian territories" which is a, well, humongous number for a vn.

Root Letter has never been among the psn top-sellers for neither ps4 nor vita, it wasn't even nearly a top-seller for the PQube's Rice Digital website (Bhikkuni, SG0 and Gal Gun easily destroyed it) and charted around the same so-so for both platforms on Amazon. Simply put, it's no danganronpa that has often been on top and always in spotlight but still managed to move 200k in the west only with both games combined (the numbers were released before the AE announcement). The grounds here are shaky, but I believe we can safely assume that there's no way it sold more in the West than in Japan and probably even 10-15k by now would be an overstatement.

And so we get theoretically optimistical 35-45k for the West+Japan. Did China, Korea etc seriously buy at the very least 150k copies of this pretty but void game? It sounds far-fetched but actually almost plausible if we believe their statement about pre-orders. Maybe Mina Taro's art and the theme are weirdly resonating with chinese, I don't know.

Edited February 1, 2017 by novurdim

[Darklord Rooke]

There's an unholy number of assumptions in that piece of analysis. 

34 minutes ago, novurdim said:

Yes, those are only the physical numbers for the first week but it never charted again and I am yet to see a single VN with digital numbers even around half of the physical ones 

Offset by the fact that 2 years ago half the games sold on the Vita were digital (apparently.) Also VNs on the Vita aim at a more casual audience, and casual audiences feel less of a need to buy physical anything.

[novurdim]

22 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

Offset by the fact that 2 years ago half the games sold on the Vita were digital (apparently.)

No, they weren't. Two years ago Japan was even bigger on physical than now.

22 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

Also VNs on the Vita aim at a more casual audience, and casual audiences feel less of a need to buy physical anything

Also completely untrue. Famitsu releases digital sales annually and they are never even near the physical, especially for VNs. I'm not sure what you expect from the japanese, but "casual audiences" in that sense don't buy VNs even there.

22 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

There's an unholy number of assumptions in that piece of analysis. 

It's the best you can ever get on the topic when we have such limited sources. I also have years of experience and pretty closely follow console game sales in Japan and West, most of the assumptions are fairly obvious things you catch onto with time so I'm completely sure it didn't suddenly sell 100k in Japan and West just because.

Edited February 1, 2017 by novurdim

[Darklord Rooke]

3 hours ago, novurdim said:

No, they weren't. Two years ago Japan was even bigger on physical than now.

Digital distribution is proving a popular option for PlayStation Vita owners. Sony representatives told IGN that 48 percent of games sold on the portable are downloaded.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-02-11-48-percent-of-vita-game-sales-are-digital

I'd also like to see where you get the idea that Japanese gamers as a whole (and not just Otaku) are big on physical formats. Considering Japanese digital sale figures are incredibly (some could say stubbornly) hard to come by.

3 hours ago, novurdim said:

Also completely untrue. Famitsu releases digital sales annually and they are never even near the physical, especially for VNs. I'm not sure what you expect from the japanese, but "casual audiences" in that sense don't buy VNs even there.

Digital sale figures, or digital sale estimates?

 

3 hours ago, novurdim said:

I'm not sure what you expect from the japanese, but "casual audiences" in that sense don't buy VNs even there.

Root Letter isn't strictly a VN, TBH. In fact the publisher has compared it with Ace Attorney, which is actually an adventure game (ignore everyone that says it isn't  )

[novurdim]

10 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

Digital distribution is proving a popular option for PlayStation Vita owners. Sony representatives told IGN that 48 percent of games sold on the portable are downloaded.

It doesn't indicate Japan, everybody knows that digital distribution is incomparably bigger in the West. Especially for vita, where it's often hard to even find a physical copy to buy when you want to but don't really enjoy ordering from other contries lol

10 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

Digital sale figures, or digital sale estimates?

Estimates, of course, but they aren't just randomly fantasizing them like VGChartz, as you can imagine. Ignoring them when you have no other sources is a fallacy used to hide the fact that you will never find a single console VN with higher digital sales in Japan.

Edited February 1, 2017 by novurdim

[Dreamysyu]

I don't know, is this information even reliable? Can this be a business trick to bust sales, or something like that?

[Darklord Rooke]

2 minutes ago, novurdim said:

It doesn't indicate Japan, everybody knows that digital distribution is incomparably bigger in the West. Especially for vita, where it's often hard to even find a physical copy to buy when you want to but don't really enjoy ordering from other contries lol

It includes Japan, it just doesn't solely represent Japan. Considering the Vita is much bigger in Japan than in the West, a large proportion of that statistic would be Japanese.

But like I said, what information do you have, other than Famitsu's guesswork (and we'll get to that in a second) that indicates Japan isn't big on digital gaming? I'm actually interested, I like information and I like knowledge, so what I'm saying is please present me with information that shows Japan is big on physical gaming and not digital gaming.

5 minutes ago, novurdim said:

Estimates, of course, but they aren't just randomly fantasizing them like VGChartz, as you can imagine. Ignoring them when you have no other sources is a fallacy used to hide the fact that you will never find a single console VN with higher digital sales in Japan.

And my next question would be 'what is their methodology'? Like I said above Root Letter isn't actually a VN, but rather an adventure game like Ace Attorney. It has gameplay, which the company in question is hyping up. 'A mature Phoenix Wright' they're billing it as.

Also when has questioning the validity of information, even in the absence of any other information, ever been a fallacy? Do I need to ring my local scientists and tell them they're doing it wrong?  

[Okarin]

12 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

Root Letter isn't strictly a VN, TBH. In fact the publisher has compared it with Ace Attorney, which is actually an adventure game (ignore everyone that says it isn't  )

VNs with gameplay are a thing.

By the same token Zero Escape wouldn't be VNs, that notwithstanding the fact that the game calls half of  itself "novel" sections.

Calling these adventure games is usually done by people who don't know about the existence of the VN genre.

Edited February 1, 2017 by Okarin

[novurdim]

6 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

But like I said, what information do you have, other than Famitsu's guesswork (and we'll get to that in a second) that indicates Japan isn't big on digital gaming? I'm actually interested, I like information and I like knowledge, so what I'm saying is please present me with information that shows Japan is big on physical gaming and not digital gaming.

To be honest, I'm apalled there's a person who still doubts a common knowledge like this, completely shocked, guess I'll have to dig old interviews soon. I obviously have no idea how Famitsu works but you do understand what Famitsu is and how they wouldn't really rely on guesswork, right? When you look at just how huge the gap usually is (for very casual games, mind you), I'm kinda surprised you can still argue with a straight face.

http://www.perfectly-nintendo.com/japan-famitsu-sales-april-2016-top-30-retail-digital/

Edited February 1, 2017 by novurdim

[Darklord Rooke]

2 hours ago, Okarin said:

VNs with gameplay are a thing.

By the same token Zero Escape wouldn't be VNs, that nonwithstanding the fact that the game calls half of  itself "novel" sections.

Calling these adventure games is usually done by people who don't know about the existence of the VN genre.

Sure, but they tend to have a different audience to strict VNs. So it's hard to use VN audience's buying habits to predict the behaviour of people buying hybrids like Zero Escape or Ace Attorney in part because they appeal to different people. So when people say 'I've never seen a VN where digital copies sold over 50% of physical copies', the first question that springs to mind is does that trend apply to adventure games? Or VN-adventure hybrids? Because the audience is different. If it's a trend that applies to all Japanese games, then that answers the question I guess  

 

2 hours ago, novurdim said:

To be honest, I'm apalled there's a person who still doubts a common knowledge like this, completely shocked, guess I'll have to dig old interviews soon. I obviously have no idea how Famitsu works but you do understand what Famitsu is and how they wouldn't really rely on guesswork, right? When you look at just how huge the gap usually is (for very casual games, mind you), I'm kinda surprised you can still argue with a straight face.

http://www.perfectly-nintendo.com/japan-famitsu-sales-april-2016-top-30-retail-digital/

TBH, I've sorta heard bad things about Famitsu. Mostly their reviews, but they're a fairly mainstream mag and the people I hear talk about it with disdain. 

While they wouldn't rely on guesswork, it's possible the methodology is dodgy. If you're dealing with estimates it's important to know how they came about those estimates. I believe they use surveys, and they have a fairly low sampling base. 

[Decay]

Famitsu isn't infallible. I think it's utterly foolish to just assume that Famitsu's estimates are somehow more accurate than other estimates we have available based on Famitsu's integrity alone. I've seen major, respected publications in the past rely on pure guesswork enough times to know better.

That said, Japan has been notorious for being very far behind in pretty much all areas of internet tech adoption. I wouldn't be surprised if physical outsells digital 10:1 there.

Anyway, Rooke's main point is perfectly valid. Games like Root Letter appeal to a very different audience than Da Capo or even Kara no Shoujo. The buying habits are going to be super different. Whatever knowledge of the VN market you may have does not apply to Root Letter, Dangan Ronpa, and other such games. Straight up. It's best to not even attempt to apply VN logic to such games, the same rules don't apply.

[novurdim]

2 hours ago, Darklord Rooke said:

TBH, I've sorta heard bad things about Famitsu. Mostly their reviews, but they're a fairly mainstream mag and the people I hear talk about it with disdain. 

While they wouldn't rely on guesswork, it's possible the methodology is dodgy. If you're dealing with estimates it's important to know how they came about those estimates. I believe they use surveys, and they have a fairly low sampling base. 

Famitsu is big enough (actually, the very biggest in Japan) to get their numbers directly from the publishers if they provide them at all, and some are pretty open about them, especially cases like Marvellous, Idea Factory and Bandai Namco. Yes, their reviews are horrible and mostly remind small paid ads but otherwise you simple have no other choice but to read it since they are usually the main and often the only source of all console news and announcements. They wouldn't fail THAT bad every month. If a game sells a third of its physical number, any game, the digital sales are considered very good. I talked about my years of experience and you surely wouldn't believe me but when japanese companies release numbers for the japanese sales, you can always see just how small digital portion is. Even for biggest vita games like SAO or Freedom Wars or God Eater or any other. They are the most casual things you can ever imagine, but their digital sales still usually but a tenth of an actual number. Things get iffy only when worldwide sales are concerned, like here. Of course, sometimes digital numbers are higher for a week, but only when there's a serious shortage on the physical copies and never overall.

 

2 hours ago, Decay said:

Whatever knowledge of the VN market you may have does not apply to Root Letter, Dangan Ronpa, and other such games. Straight up. It's best to not even attempt to apply VN logic to such games, the same rules don't apply.

That's exactly the point, I have literally no idea about Eroge market, I only use console logic here.

[Darklord Rooke]

11 minutes ago, novurdim said:

Famitsu is big enough (actually, the very biggest in Japan) to get their numbers directly from the publishers if they provide them at all, and some are pretty open about them, especially cases like Marvellous, Idea Factory and Bandai Namco. 

That's not what I've read[1], but I don't speak Japanese and can't research it. Which is why I asked you for their methodology (because I won't be able to find it) 

It'd be disappointing to see Japan still so far behind in this area of technology  

[1]The Famitsu digital sales are estimates based on surveys, and reseaches. The magazine says they use a website to do it, the poll is about 10.000 people for each system. They extrapolate and calculated the rest.
It's the sample big enough to be considered accurate?
Probably not, but it's the most official thing we have. 
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=845222&page=2

That's fairly representative of what I keep hearing/reading.

[novurdim]

That's more than enough to draw the lines with what we hear every day from the publishers, the gap is too big to call it a sample error or research failure. Plus I doubt it's so simple since the ratio isn't exactly the same within a system. Honestly, I've never even seen an article, opinion, newsflash, press release or any other indication about Japan being big on digital, never expected to get into this kind of an argument, everyone just... assumes the physical superiority in Japan by now like the most natural thing ever. Sure, they buy more on psn now than years ago but to pretend like it's possible for a console vn like Root Letter to suddenly sell several times more digitally than physically for no reason is a super unholy assumption if I have ever seen one. 

I also don't agree that preferring physical is a sign of falling behind in technology but that's not important here, I suppose. 

Edited February 1, 2017 by novurdim

[Darklord Rooke]

6 minutes ago, novurdim said:

everyone just... assumes the physical superiority in Japan by now like the most natural thing ever.  

They may do, but I don't like making too many assumptions. It's not only intellectually lazy (nothing wrong with that) but this intellectual laziness is often taken advantage of to get people to accept arguments which aren't true. Often using deceptive leaps of logic, and word trickery. 

6 minutes ago, novurdim said:

I also don't agree that preferring physical is a sign of falling behind in technology but that's not important here, I suppose. 

Preferring physical in a world which is increasingly running out of space is an old-fashioned virtue. I prefer physical, but had to give up when my book collection passed 300. No more room. I'm now in the middle of upgrading most things to digital and ... bliss!

[novurdim]

Well, I can only add this random analysis I just found, even if it's pretty weak and mostly about music. It seriously is a common knowledge that Japanese prefer physical and not only in games. Or that article about Japanese gaming overall. You can even google something like "do Japanese prefer physical games" and find a lot of relevant info and opinions.

 Simply because we don't have solid numbers for the title doesn't mean we should just  believe that it defies the established logic. I stand by my opinion that it couldn't ever sell more than around 30-40k in Japan, and most likely the real number is even considerably lower. We have no reason to think otherwise, if you don't count the maniacal desire to doubt everything. 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-01-07-japans-console-and-handheld-physical-game-sales-at-lowest-point-for-24-years

https://chikorita157.com/2016/01/19/physical-vs-digital-releases/

Edited February 1, 2017 by novurdim

[Darklord Rooke]

31 minutes ago, novurdim said:

Well, I can only add this random analysis I just found, even if it's pretty weak and mostly about music. It seriously is a common knowledge that Japanese prefer physical and not only in games. Or that article about Japanese gaming overall. You can even google something like "do Japanese prefer physical games" and find a lot of relevant info and opinions.

 Simply because we don't have solid numbers for the title doesn't mean we should just  believe that it defies the established logic. I stand by my opinion that it couldn't ever sell more than around 30-40k in Japan, and most likely the real number is even considerably lower. We have no reason to think otherwise, if you don't count the maniacal desire to doubt everything. 

I read the first article you posted, and yeah it is pretty weak. The DRM argument, the argument that physical copies last longer, the reasoning is very flawed. It actually adds very little to the argument other than it's yet one more person who believes the same thing. 

I don't believe anything with regard to this actually, there's really not enough information to say what on earth is going on. I just said that there are a lot of assumptions in your initial analysis and then I just picked one at random. That's all.

[novurdim]

The fact that Japanese don't buy nearly as many games digitally is no assumption though, it has enough ground to say that your guess about it selling times better on psn is basically impossible. Assumption is when I say I don't believe in huge sales in the west because I have never seen it on decent places in any charts ever (and I do follow them closely) and I know that even 20k seller is a pretty great hit that would have been widely heard for this kind of game. Hell, if a game could sell even 10k digitally on vita and never appear in a single best-selling list that you can always see on psn or psblog then vita would still be flourishing. Same with other places. When the PS4-version also rates about the same as the vita one and both combined easily lose to a Bhikkuni (vita-exclusive), you can guess with a 100% accuracy that the game is no danganronpa or SG. And when Japanese and West can't possibly reach even 100k together, you obviously only have asian territories to count on. Actually, the game was on the PS+ for Asia. Maybe Kadokawa went insane and counted some of those downloads towards the milestone, who knows, by now it's a mistery like no other how it got to 200k. Gal Gun was constantly ranking higher everywhere in Japan and West, got Steam release and then even appeared on the first place of the steam current top sellers for a while and Gal Gun still only sold 100k worldwide, which they recently announced. The only upper hand Root Letter even theoretically could have over GG is the extremely successful release in asian territories. 

My reasoning is based on the objective observation and accumulated experience. Overall it's obviously no fact, but you still can't provide an alternative or a straight counter-argument so there's not much point to this, whether you believe me or not, especially since you yourself have not much knowledge or interest in the field of console sales. 

Edited February 1, 2017 by novurdim

[Darklord Rooke]

1 hour ago, novurdim said:

The fact that Japanese don't buy nearly as many games digitally is no assumption though, it has enough ground to say that your guess about it selling times better on psn is basically impossible.

If it’s no assumption, then you’d have no trouble showing me the data you used to base your conclusion on. Keeping in mind that surveys is how both VGChartz and Famitsu arrive at their estimates. And we all know how accurate VGChartz is, yes?

I've just been asking for half a page and you've only been dodging for just as long, is all. 

1 hour ago, novurdim said:

 Assumption is when I say 

No, an assumption is any belief thought to be true without evidence to show it being true.

2 hours ago, novurdim said:

 Assumption is when I say I don't believe in huge sales in the west because I have never seen it on decent places in any charts ever (and I do follow them closely)

I'm glad you raised this point, because this brings up another problematic assumption. That because it didn't make the charts in the West, it means it couldn't do well enough to hit 200k copies. This is very, very wrong.

Let's take Pokemon Moon as an example. According to NPD, Pokemon Moon was the 10th bestselling game of the month of December. Also according to NPD, Pokemon Moon sold 4.5 million copies in the US alone from when it was released (mid Nov) to the end of Dec. Root Letter was released 8 days earlier than Pokemon Moon. If Root Letter had only sold 100k in the US in one and a half months, it wouldn't make any charts. It would have to sell far more than even the cumulative 200k to think about making any (credible) charts in the US, or the West, or Europe. 

So it's very possible that Root Letter sold most of its copies in the West (like 999?) and you wouldn't hear about it.

2 hours ago, novurdim said:

My reasoning is based on the objective observation and accumulated experience. Overall it's obviously no fact, but you still can't provide an alternative or a straight counter-argument so there's not much point to this, whether you believe me or not, especially since you yourself have not much knowledge or interest in the field of console sales. 

I really wish you'd stop saying it. I don't want this to be an e-penis pissing contest, but I've been arguing console wars and sale figures since well before 'Killzone' was a thing. I've also been around long enough to know that most gaming journalists aren't, and I've seen a few people on forums go on to become gaming journalists that don't know anything more than you or I. 

It's fine to believe what you want, but I'm not going to pretend they're facts or indisputable until people present facts or evidence.

[Nandemonai]

10 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

Who the fuck wants to play a VN on a PS Vita if he has a TV available?!

I chose to buy the Vita version of Steins;Gate 0 for two main reasons.  One, it was about twenty bucks cheaper (if I recall right).  And two, I can use the Vita at work.  Mostly that means when I'm in the lunchroom.  But it also means the, uh, restroom.

So I chose to get the technically inferior version even though I have a PS4.

[novurdim]

3 hours ago, Darklord Rooke said:

Let's take Pokemon Moon as an example. According to NPD, Pokemon Moon was the 10th bestselling game of the month of December.

Let's not, I clearly said what charts I looked into so I avoided this problem from the very beginning, you are pulling the wrong string here or taking me for an idiot. They give good comparison to other niche titles but no hard numbers hence why it's an assumption. But I can still say it looked very far from a hit when compared even to other niche games like Gal Gun. 

3 hours ago, Darklord Rooke said:

I really wish you'd stop saying it.

And I wish you really read what I say but we rarely get what we want. It's only important because I had a lot of chances to compare official numbers released by the publishers over the years while you clearly didn't. It's pretty much the only reason you are so stubborn about the physical:digital ratio, people have long calculated these things from the available albeit limited sources, just because you can't completely rely on famitsu, doesn't mean you can write everything off and pretend that games sell better digitally with zero basis.  

But obviously the whole point of my initial post is a somewhat silly far-fetched estimation as we will never get anything better, noone ever tried to present it as facts and it successfully accomplished its mission to derail the console wars. And even being extremely far-fetched, it's still better than your alternative of believing we know completely nothing just because there're  no official numbers for every region. The popularity of this range always shows in the west, just like we can safely assume it didn't sell 100k digitally in Japan. That is all but that is still enough to be baffled by the number. So yes, it's a more a matter of how stubborn you are, if  you don't believe anything but official numbers anyway them I'm not sure why we are having this conversation because my post was never meant to satisfy you. 

I'm more tired than anything now, to be honest, there is really no point to keep wasting our time like this. If they ever release am official number, I'll come back to compare how accurate or inaccurate my educated assumptions were. 

3 hours ago, Darklord Rooke said:

So it's very possible that Root Letter sold most of its copies in the West (like 999?) and you wouldn't hear about it.

Funny you mentioned that, now the popularity of 999 in the west was never a surprise, we wouldn't have this conversation if RL was the same and that would easily show lol

Edited February 2, 2017 by novurdim

[Darklord Rooke]

24 minutes ago, novurdim said:

If they ever release am official number, I'll come back to compare how accurate or inaccurate my educated assumptions were. 

I'll eagerly look forward to that day