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It's Official, Almost 1 Year After it's Release Subarashiki Hibi One of the Best VN Ever Made Didn't Sell


Nier

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14 minutes ago, Kiriririri said:

Where does the sale number even come from btw?

Depends which you are referring to. The usual numbers come from Steam Spy but since that is apparently very unreliable now, it has to be taken with care. But there was a Steam data list recently leaked with quite accurate sales data. And the sales data for Fata Morgana is even mentioned on Wikipedia.

Edited by ChaosRaven
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7 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

Depends which you are referring to. The usual numbers come from Steam Spy but since that is apparently very unreliable now, it has to be taken with care. But there was a Steam data list recently leaked with quite accurate sales data. And the sales data for Fata Morgana is even mentioned on Wikipedia.

Yeah except the leaked data doesn't have Subahibi because it doesn't use achievements.

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Personally, the game felt really pretentious so I had to drop it pretty early on. Couldn't really stomach the fact that I would have to go through another 30 hours of that stuff. Though, from all the things I've heard about it, it seems to have a little bit from every corner of the universe. 

I'll probably give it another chance in a couple years, but that time I'm definitely turning Zakuro's voice off.

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What's more puzzling is that developers think that good titles will just sell themselves.  That's not how it works.  You need to find the audience for your game and get them interested in it.  You need to reach out to sites that get a lot of traffic from your audience.  You need the right sales pitch.  You need to convince people that you're worth supporting.  You need a message that will resonate and will get people to chatter about your game.  If you can't be bothered to do any of these things, then you're literally just rolling the dice and hoping some combination of factors beyond your control will align to make your game a success.  Doesn't sound like a good business strategy to me.

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11 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

What's more puzzling is that developers think that good titles will just sell themselves.  That's not how it works.  You need to find the audience for your game and get them interested in it.  You need to reach out to sites that get a lot of traffic from your audience.  You need the right sales pitch.  You need to convince people that you're worth supporting.  You need a message that will resonate and will get people to chatter about your game.  If you can't be bothered to do any of these things, then you're literally just rolling the dice and hoping some combination of factors beyond your control will align to make your game a success.  Doesn't sound like a good business strategy to me.

But that's literally what most japanese companies always did :chaika: The modern successes behind certain titles in Japan are mostly because studios behind them actually learned good PR work, actively advertising their products to their respective, potential audiences.

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5 hours ago, Infernoplex said:

So plot-centric titles rarely sell well.

If I am to take a guess, then it's because of the amount of people in the target demographic. If it's a nukige, it targets anybody who likes the screenshots/characters and that's it (assume they are fine with nukige). If it's a story driven VN, you both have to like the characters, the settings and the story. Each step filters out some people. Also some people just want instant gratification, don't want to read and just want H scenes to pop up.

Take for instance Maitetsu. In addition to the love reading requirement, the target audience would have to not dislike loli characters and at the same time not be bored with talk about trains. This will naturally make a smaller target demographic than a nukige.

I suspect that (at least generally speaking), the more strict the target audience filters are, the more the readers will enjoy them if they match the filters. This could explain "why didn't title X sell better? It's awesome" kind of statements we see once in a while.

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7 hours ago, Nier said:

The worst thing is that when you release a game in english, you are basically releasing to a worldwide audience since english is (unlike japanese) an international language, imagine your work as a writter, director etc. being adulated when it releases in your own domestic market and then in contrast being basically ignored when it releases to everybody else a few years later, it's like sending the message saying "your work ain't worth paying for" or "your work ain't worth shit!".

In contrast Subarashiki Hibi just got released again in Japan a few days ago:

cQc9ewG.jpg

Localizing kamige like Subahibi and Dies Irae is probably the most pointless thing you could do in this scene. They'll always get low sales and have the original companies back out of the West, plus they were only localized because people constantly asked for such VNs only for the majority to torrent the VN anyway. 

I'm glad I started learning Japanese because the localization scene, while semi-thriving in certain VNs' sales, is only gonna get worse in terms of quality announcements since all the good VNs won't sell and companies won't invest their time and money into the West anymore.

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8 hours ago, Nier said:

The repercussions are more than just lost money though, it will definitly affects the decisions to release other VN titles, at 2k-3k sales per title, do you think they will even think about bothering for that anymore when they can get XXk sales from Japan alone?

This is not a big change.  For as long as VNs have been getting localized, sales have been this poor.  It is only in the last few years that are the exception.  Since the opening of Steam, and their success on Kickstarter, some of them have started finding more mainstream success.  In 2011, for example, MangaGamer projected that Koihime Musou wouldn't crack 2000 sales, so they couldn't afford to pay the VA licensing fee, so they had to strip it out.

Many years ago someone did a VN panel at ACen.  (This would have been more than 10 years ago; it was a one-off thing from the days when there was Jast, and that was it.)  The guy pulls up a copy of Tokimeki Checkin! and says "there isn't any voice in this game", to which I said 'That's funny.  There most definitely is voice in the game'.  The guy says "there, uh, isn't in the copy that I have".  (Meaning it was pirated; in those days h-game pirates cut out voice to make the game smaller.)  When I got on his case about it he was like 'yeah okay maybe I'll start buying them' and I said 'what about this one right here?  There are copies right across the street [in the dealer's room].'  And the guy tells me to my face "I already have it."

I guarantee way more than 2-3 thousand people have played Subahibi.

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3 hours ago, Nandemonai said:

I guarantee way more than 2-3 thousand people have played Subahibi.

Obviously from looking at the amount of votes on vndb and the fact that the game is readily available for uhm... "free" everywhere, though what's available for "free" is an older build from September 2017 and Subarashiki Hibi got a few patches since then. As Doddler mentioned on his twitter in October 2017 with the release of Saku Saku, usually people that play pirated copies are stuck with v1.00 versions since that's only what floating around on the net and patches/updates are not distributed stand-alone.

 

3 hours ago, Nandemonai said:

This is not a big change.

It's a big change as far as Makura/KeroQ are concerned at least, this was their first attempt at releasing one of their VNs outside of Japan and for that they chose one of their most acclaimed VN, only to have it sell 2-3k in about a year (that's with including Kickstarter backers who got their steam digital download copies from there).

 

5 hours ago, VirginSmasher said:

Localizing kamige like Subahibi and Dies Irae is probably the most pointless thing you could do in this scene. They'll always get low sales and have the original companies back out of the West, plus they were only localized because people constantly asked for such VNs only for the majority to torrent the VN anyway.

VN Fans: "Please Please, release Muramasa in english... What's that? No, I don't care that it's a 200 hours long title with no heroines, this game is EPIC and we'll definitly buy it if you release it!"

*few years later*

VN Publisher: "Okay we have released Muramasa in english now, please go ahead and buy it"

VN Fans: *torrents Muramasa away and uses money to buy NEKOPARA 11 and Funbag Fantasy 5 instead*

Edited by Nier
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Even if LB did bad too, comparing Subahibi to it just isn't fair... LB has accompanying anime to it (though a little old by now) and Key is somewhat known. The thing is, I guess the majority of the public are VN veterans to some degree; those people would have already read LB, and newbies would probably recoil at a novel that lasts so long, or maybe it didn't appeal to them in the first place.

Comparing Subahibi to DDLC is also unfair, because DDLC has spread like wildfire thanks to shock value (just take a look at Youtube, questionable things attract people's attention) and a phenomenon around that. Besides, DDLC is for free, it doesn't cost a substantial amount of money that some people will think, it could be better employed getting some other game.

Also it doesn't matter anymore how good the novel is... with a growing offer of VNs, it becomes harder to focus on a single title. Maybe some people are planning to buy it in the future, but have decided to clear some other games before.

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6 minutes ago, Okarin said:

Also it doesn't matter anymore how good the novel is... with a growing offer of VNs, it becomes harder to focus on a single title. Maybe some people are planning to buy it in the future, but have decided to clear some other games before.

I have a large backlog so I wait with buying digital versions of VNs while I buy physical versions of the VNs once they come out. I fit into the planning to buy in the future category since I didn't back it on kickstarter meaning I will not get the physical.

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22 minutes ago, Okarin said:

Maybe some people are planning to buy it in the future, but have decided to clear some other games before.

With hundreds/thousands of VN releasing per year in Japan, this and other VN titles still sell, this is why they just re-released it again because it was so sucessfull, so that's no excuse. Publishers and developers expect to sell their games and make some revenues at release or at the very least a few months after release, not in 10 years.

Edited by Nier
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10 minutes ago, Nier said:

With hundreds/thousands of VN releasing per year in Japan, this and other VN titles still sell, this is why they just re-released it again because it was so sucessfull, so that's no excuse. Publishers and developers expect to sell their games and make some revenues at release or at the very least a few months after release, not in 10 years.

Yeah, but this is the West we're talking about. Most people are years behind new releases.

I sometimes buy a VN right at launch, but most often I've got my hands full with older titles. I'm one of the people who would like to give Subahibi a try. I don't think we can raise sales significantly, but we're there.

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51 minutes ago, Hetzer123 said:

I think those with gameplay sold better than regular VNs. It is hard to convince people to buy expensive long VNs if there are AAA games with similar or lower price.

Subahibi might be sold better if there is Simplified Chinese translation. There are numerous Chinese users on steam asking for translation. Treasure Hunter Claire and previous Kagura Games have quality English and Chinese translation.

I specifically didn't want to include Chinese in the equation because we all know that they are buying these games like crazy. Basically anything with a Chinese TL is bound to sell much much muuuch better then if there were to be only an English release.

Edit:

Yeah, it might be a solution for poor sales, but I don't want to see localizers doing more Chinese TLs just because of that. We have SakuraGame doing that, and their answer for English releases is to just MTL it which is not acceptable.

Edited by Infernoplex
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I know being screwed over as a Kickstarter backer isn't exactly a new thing, but as a backer I'm getting fed up of Frontwing's handling of the Subahibi KS. At the end of May they told us reward production had started. The most recent update, on July 4th, said production would start once they are back from Anime Expo... HMMM. The rest of the update contained a bunch of ads for Frontwing properties like Grisaia Phantom Trigger and whatnot.

Now, I know the KS is over. But for the KS to so badly let down the people who wholeheartedly supported Subahibi from before release doesn't bode too well for any general support of Subahibi.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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2 hours ago, Sayaka said:

I know being screwed over as a Kickstarter backer isn't exactly a new thing, but as a backer I'm getting fed up of Frontwing's handling of the Subahibi KS. At the end of May they told us reward production had started. The most recent update, on July 4th, said production would start once they are back from Anime Expo... HMMM. The rest of the update contained a bunch of ads for Frontwing properties like Grisaia Phantom Trigger and whatnot.

Now, I know the KS is over. But for the KS to so badly let down the people who wholeheartedly supported Subahibi from before release doesn't bode too well for any general support of Subahibi.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is not new at all, it is standard fare for Kickstarters, this why I stopped backing Kickstarters since 2017, too much BS going on with these.

Subarashiki Hibi was released on August 30th 2017, I think they finished patching the game since November or something? So they basically had a final patched build since ~8 months ago or so and they still haven't manufactured the reward goods for whatever reason.

But like I said this is pretty standard, usually you need to wait years for the physical rewards.

Edited by Nier
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Man even without the censorship thing Subahibi wasnt gonna sell, its so obvious

Its good but you guys need to realize that just JOPs have this dumb kamige meme doesnt mean its going to appeal to a general audience, especially

If you guys wanted it to sell better, darker VNs like this with older art woulda needed better word of mouth and press and not just staying on a forum talking about what the best JOP visual novel is

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32 minutes ago, NowItsAngeTime said:

Man even without the censorship thing Subahibi wasnt gonna sell, its so obvious

Its good but you guys need to realize that just JOPs have this dumb kamige meme doesnt mean its going to appeal to a general audience, especially

If you guys wanted it to sell better, darker VNs like this with older art woulda needed better word of mouth and press and not just staying on a forum talking about what the best JOP visual novel is

Don't worry, Rewrite is still one of the best VN ever made, it's right up there together with Subarashiki Hibi:

5ChqKTI.png

And one day we will get Rewrite+... Around the same time when Sekai'll release the Vita versions of the Grisaia Trilogy, the EU PS Vita version of Root Double and the 18+ version of G-senjou no Maou.

Edited by Nier
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Not surprised this didn't sell well. I didn't buy it, the aspect ratio and resolution are way too out of date. Other things that keep me away from it are multiple protagonists, cut content, and the art doesn't look all that good. I put a lot of emphasis on the 'visual' part of visual novel. You can have the best story in the world, but if I don't like the art I find myself having very little motivation to play it.

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17 hours ago, Codesterz said:

Not surprised this didn't sell well. I didn't buy it, the aspect ratio and resolution are way too out of date. Other things that keep me away from it are multiple protagonists, cut content, and the art doesn't look all that good. I put a lot of emphasis on the 'visual' part of visual novel. You can have the best story in the world, but if I don't like the art I find myself having very little motivation to play it.

same, i know its famous but i read a 'not-so-legal' copy of it for a bit before deciding if i want it and it was kinda boring and didnt really click with me, maybe it gets better later on but There's so much other stuff to read so didnt want to waste time 

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29 minutes ago, Freestyle80 said:

same, i know its famous but i read a 'not-so-legal' copy of it for a bit before deciding if i want it and it was kinda boring and didnt really click with me, maybe it gets better later on but There's so much other stuff to read so didnt want to waste time 

The first chapter is pretty boring btw. If you feel like giving it another try, I recommend ctrl-skipping through the first chapter to see if the writing in the second chapter is more to your tastes. The first chapter is still somewhat important overall, but it not really crucial for enjoying the story.

Edit. Which can probably be seen as another reason why this didn't sell. :amane:

Edited by Dreamysyu
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Say what you want about the first chapter, but it ended up being one of my favorites after finishing SubaHibi. For me, the best parts of the VN are the first 3, 4 chapters. After that, the story kinda goes downhill for me and only comes back up a bit in the last chapter. Still a good VN, but I wouldn't label it a "kamige" (there were things I really didn't like about SubaHibi).

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8 hours ago, Infernoplex said:

Say what you want about the first chapter, but it ended up being one of my favorites after finishing SubaHibi.

To be clear, I don't think the first chapter is bad. It serves as a nice introduction to the themes of the story, and the atmosphere is great. On the other hand, the slice-of-life parts aren't written particularly well, and if the other parts don't appeal to you, it might be a challenging task to finish it. And considering that this chapter doesn't even matter much before the very end of the story, in some cases it actually might be a good idea to simply skip it.

8 hours ago, Infernoplex said:

Still a good VN, but I wouldn't label it a "kamige" (there were things I really didn't like about SubaHibi).

To be honest, the whole "kamige" term is so pretentious that it shouldn't be used at all.

I personally quite like Subahibi. If I decide to make a list of all VNs I ever played, this one will definitely be in my top 5. At the same time, I can't say I consider it an "enlightening experience" like some other people. It was simply an enjoyable read, and though there are some moments that I didn't like at all (like, some h-scenes were really, really pointlessly fetishistic), I'm still willing to forgive it for them.

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