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Was there a Golden Age of Visual Novels? Will there be a Golden Age?


Happiness+

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13 minutes ago, Hetzer123 said:

Not just west, small increase of production and consumption of VN worldwide outside Japan (as VN increase, quality VN will increase too). One Day in London by Owl Studio(Russian company) use different tropes than your regular moege (hope there are more variety).

I want those OELVN sex scene or nukige to increase quality (like artstyle). It seen like West merely adopted hentai while Japan was born by it, molded by it (virginvschad.jpg).

   

I was mainly referring to VN creativity and variety, not sales. Hopefully, VN variety increases with more sales over time, but right now, it seems like every company is stuck to releasing moege so they don't go under. 

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37 minutes ago, Hetzer123 said:

Is it Japan, West or both keep mass producing moege? I wonder what is so special about moege? It seen like a risky move for japanese companies to create VN like  Fata Morgana.

The West is not mass producing anything yet (unless you count shitty ecchi VNs made by Winged Cloud and Winged Cloud wannabes - they're not that numerous, but definitely properly schematic, dull and uninspired). OELVN market is actually pretty varied and creative, as it's dominated by indies that often either don't know what they're doing or have wacky, out-of-the-box ideas. JP eroge industry is in relative decline for years now and doesn't innovate much, but it's still huge, so it's not like it doesn't produce memorable titles. Just its sheer output suggests that there must be some gems appearing most of the time, they just drown in tons of easily marketable trash and as the Japanese society gets older and the natural demographic for VNs shrinks, it will probably only get worse. I think the OELVN scene and doujin circles are more likely to give us interesting, memorable titles in the future than the typical eroge companies are.

But that's the opinion of an uneducated EOP, so probably it's not worth much. :P

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52 minutes ago, Hetzer123 said:

Is it Japan, West or both keep mass producing moege? I wonder what is so special about moege? It seen like a risky move for japanese companies to create VN like  Fata Morgana.

There's nothing special, thought-provoking, or even memorable about moege. But, just like many popular things, people like to consume them despite their lack of originality. 

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I'm sorry, but we haven't yet reached a golden age of VNs. Everything currently released is bad. No exceptions. Visual Novels are far too young a medium to have reached the maturity required to produce something of actual quality. What we have now can be likened to amateurish cave paintings: probably impressive in their time, but ultimately of little consequence. Wait a hundred years or so and you might see the first good Visual Novel made; until then, we're stuck with garbage. Entertaining garbage, but garbage nonetheless.

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Just now, Zakamutt said:

I'm sorry, but we haven't yet reached a golden age of VNs. Everything currently released is bad. No exceptions. Visual Novels are far too young a medium to have reached the maturity required to produce something of actual quality. What we have now can be likened to amateurish cave paintings: probably impressive in their time, but ultimately of little consequence. Wait a hundred years or so and you might see the first good Visual Novel made; until then, we're stuck with garbage. Entertaining garbage, but garbage nonetheless.

Thank you for showing us the light, Zaka. 

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1 hour ago, Zakamutt said:

Wait a hundred years

I'm not sure there will be a human civilization around here in 100 years. 

1 hour ago, Zakamutt said:

Entertaining garbage

That's popculture in general IMO (not that high art is much better nowadays). 

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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1 hour ago, Zakamutt said:

Wait a hundred years or so and you might see the first good Visual Novel made; until then, we're stuck with garbage.

Exactly in a hundred years a group of Internet archeologists, who will analyze old websites to research history, are going to discover a snapshot of this this forum in the depths of archive.org, and they will be amazed at how wrong right this prediction will have turned out to be. :vanilla:

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I'd tend to say that the years 2004 - 2011 were the most impactful for the whole genre to qualify as a golden age.

2004 - Fate/Stay Night (Chuuni/Story), Clannad (Nakige), Shuffle (Moege)

2005 - Fate/Hollow Ataraxia (Chuuni/Story), Sharin no Kuni (Story), Otoboku (Trap-Protag Moege)

2006 - MuvLuv Alternative (Story), Da Capo 2 (Nakige), Sengoku Rance (Gameplay), ef - A Fairy Tale of the Two

2007 - Little Busters (Nakige), Koihime Musou (Ero-Story-Moege), Dies Irae (Chuuni)

2008 - G-Senjou no Maou (Story), Kara no Shoujo (Story), Shin Koihime Musou (Ero-Story-Moege), Fortune Arterial (Moege), Akatsuki no Goei (Story/Moege), Ikusa Megami Zero (Gameplay)

2009 - Baldr Sky Dive (Gameplay), Majikoi (Action Comedy), Eden (Utsuge), Hoshimem (Nakige), Mashiro Iro Symphony (Moege), Oretsuba (Slice of Life), Muramasa (Chuuni)

2010 - SubaHibi (Story), Ikusa Megami Verita (Gameplay), Stein's Gate (Story), Otoboku 2 (Trap-Protag Moege), White Album 2 (Nakige), Kiriya Roku Shimai (Ero-Story)

2011 - Aiyoku no Eustia (Story), Grisaia (Story-Moege), Kamidori Alchemy Meister (Gameplay), Walkure Romanze (Knight Girls), Lovely x Cation (Dating Sim), Rewrite (Story/Nakige), Euphoria (Story-Fetish-Nukige), Rance Quest (Gameplay)

The years after still had some good titles, but not in such a density. I guess the competition got stronger and there was a market saturation, because most improvements were made in the artistic area, while there was a definite decline in good story titles. Probably due to a tighter budget, coupled with the fact that the audience requests more H-scenes in better quality today.

I also want to emphasize that I'm not a fan of all the titles I've listed here!!! *cough* Rance *cough* Euphoria *cough* <_<

Edited by ChaosRaven
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I'm guessing the Golden Age of VNs that everyone is talking about is based in Japan because I have never heard of the Visual Novel genre until 2010.

 

In my opinion, the West is very far behind than in Japan.

I could be wrong but I don't think there was a Golden Age in the West yet. What I do know is that it's starting to gain traction these days and that's after 2010. I think streamers and youtubers are also helping it gain popularity too. I also don't think there were any popular VNs back in the West in the 2000s unless they were on consoles. Ace Attorney, Professor Layton (to an extent) and 999 are the ones that I can think of from the top of my head. There's also Story mode in Blazblue which was presented in a VN format but it's not that popular since it was a fighting game first. It's how I started to get into VNs too, lol.

 

To me, every year is a Golden Age because there are tons to VNs to read out there and I have a hard time keeping up with the ones I'm interested in.

 

TL:DR:

- Golden Age in Japan is in 2000s from what I've read.

- The West is gaining traction in VNs at the moment so I guess the Golden age is now since people are showing interest in them.

- Golden Age for yourself is when you get a ton of VNs to read but don't have time to finish them all.

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1 hour ago, Hetzer123 said:

That golden age was the dark age of localization. What about list of VN developed outside of Japan ones?

Considering VN's developed in the west, I'm eagerly awaiting their arrival in the Bronze Age first, since we're technically still dabbling in the Stone Age. :blink:

Edited by ChaosRaven
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For translated releases there has been no better time then now with multitudes of English releases every year, I started reading VNs myself like around 2011/2012 and even as recent as back then you'd be lucky to get one or two releases every year, moreover releases of stuff you'd like to read.

 

With stuff like Majikoi never fully translated, Grisaia's sequels were years behind completion (who knows how long it would've taken if it wasnt localized) and many more examples i cant think of atm, It was frustrating back then. Much better nowadays

 

dunno about Japan itself though

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On 5/24/2018 at 10:56 PM, Happiness+ said:

Damn

Just don't take his word literally if I may suggest here, otherwise you might never properly enjoying any VNs from now on.

As for Golden Age subject, it's dependent on the country. If according to what Clephas said is true (2000 to 2009), then perhaps that's what happen in Japan because the highest score of VNs back at VNDB is originally released in Japan around the mentioned time - see Muv Luv Alternative and Clannad. As for now, I think Japan can still have the golden year for VN, only that the competition nowadays is quite fierce.

For overseas people here, it's easy to answer that right now is can be treated as the Golden Age of VNs although it's only fron localization side though. The reason is that because recently we got many good VNs from Japanese that got officially localized, and some of those are the most famous VNs back in Japan (Subahibi and Dies Irae). As for the year, I think it was started back at 2015 with the rise of Sekai Project, and after that the number of English translated VNs keep increasing from the official companies. We even got two new localization company (Sol Press and NekoNyan).

tldr - Since I just talk about the golden age for the localized VNs, then I will say that the golden age for VNs in outside Japan would be 2015 to now.

Edited by littleshogun
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4 minutes ago, littleshogun said:

Just don't take his word literally if I may suggest here, otherwise you  might never properly enjoying any VNs from now on.

As for Golden Age subject, it's dependent on the country. If according to what Clephas said is true (2000 to 2009), then perhaps it's what happen in Japan because the highest score of VNs bact at VNDB is originally released in Japan around the mentioned time - see Muv Luv Alternative and Clannad. As for now, I think Japan can still have the golden year for VN, only that the competition nowadays is quite fierce.

For overseas people here, it's easy to answer that right now is can be treated as the Golden Age of VNs although it's only fron localization side though. The reason is that because recently we got many good VNs from Japanese that got officially localized, and some of those are the most famous VNs back in Japan (Subahibi and Dies Irae). As for the year, I think it was started back at 2015 with the rise of Sekai Project, and after that the number of English translated VNs keep increasing from the official companies. We even got two new localization company (Sol Press and NekoNyan).

tldr - Since I just talk about the golden age for the localized VNs, then I will say that the golden age for VNs in outside Japan would be 2015 to now.

I'd argue that the golden age of Western VNs is only gonna come when the comic book/cartoon industry start to get involved with the genre just like the manga/anime industry is.

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There's a pretty strong consensus that the English market is thriving, with an ever-increasing pace of quality titles of diverse genres (alongside a wave of shovelware).  The Japanese market faces strong headwinds, which explains why they're turning their attention to the English market.  I find it hard to pinpoint any particular timespan where the industry was at its so-called peak, at least in terms of producing the sorts of titles I like.  I feel that Elf will be keenly missed after their recent demise, as they made potent dramas that didn't rely on anime/eroge tropes--which sadly doesn't appear to be a recipe for success these days.  I also miss Overflow's experiments in choose-your-own-adventure interactive movies with the School Days series.

The problem with these sorts of reflections is that our tastes evolve over time.  We tend to become more picky and more jaded.  We fondly recall games that appealed to us at the time, yet these same games released now could very well fail to impress our current selves.

However, it's a fact that Japanese games these days are bringing in less revenue per title than in the past.  The market is tightening.  It's unlikely that this will produce a positive outcome (for the Japanese market at least).

Edited by sanahtlig
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Japanese sales have, I understand, been steadily declining for years.  Part of it is that there are more releases than ever chasing after a roughly fixed pool of money, but that pool of money has also been slowly shrinking.  The same thing happened to manga, too.

I suspect (but don't quote me on this) that a lot of the money that used to go into these things shifted into going to mobile devices - likely free-to-play gatcha - instead.  The population shrinking probably doesn't help either.  The demographics of people who buy VNs and video games skew young.  (I believe most VN customers are only customers for a few years before they stop buying?  I forget where I heard that.)  So the shrinking of those demographics really hurts.

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42 minutes ago, Hetzer123 said:

More VN companies use crowd funding like kickstarter than in the past. Decline in Japanese market pressure these companies to localize their works. These companies should also have quality Chinese translation (like Fallen Makina and the City of Ruins ) but it seems like they have difficulty in finding professional Chinese translator.

Teaming up with Chinese fan translation groups is an idea I've discussed with companies.  The Japanese especially seem to be reluctant to work with such groups, who often sell their translations directly to "customers".  It's true however that the Chinese market is a logical next step for expansion, particularly on Steam, though Chinese law makes selling eroge there a bit dodgy.  Another barrier is that selling to the Chinese requires a willingness to cut prices drastically.  While doujin developers may be willing to do this, professional companies are far more resistant.

Edited by sanahtlig
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