Jump to content

.


Hetzer123

Recommended Posts

It is relatively rare for Japanese VN companies to pander to Western audiences.  I say 'relatively' because Pulltop has made a nice side business out of doing just that in the last four years or so, and Front Wing has been actively dual-releasing their games here in the form of the Grisaia Phantom Trigger series.

However, it pays to keep in mind that these cases are exceptions to the rule, rather than the standard.  To be blunt, for every company that is happy to have its games' localized, there are three that are either wary or outright terrified of the idea of exposing their material to Western audiences through legitimate means.  There are a number of reasons for this, but in a lot of cases it has something to do with the sexual content. 

For better or worse, most non-nukige Japanese VNs are based in a school setting, and this means that a lot of the content involved is questionable by western standards. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Hetzer123 said:

Oh, so it's unlikely to have Japanese developer to create an all-age non-school setting VNs. It's not like they can have "There are no censorship if there nothing to censor"*rollsafe* mindset.

All-ages VNs in Japan are primarily limited to otomege and the occasional console port.  Exceptions are games like Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate, where the games were primarily designed for console as nearly non-gendered plotge (most VNs are male-oriented, with otomege being oriented to brainwashed females and yurige/BL primarily being marketed to males and females respectively, due to the weird fascination the opposite sex seems to have in Japan with the same-sex relations of the other sex, lol) are very small in number and have big budgets behind them.  The financial risk of producing male-oriented non-ero VNs in Japan can be seen in the extremely slow release rate of Key's games since Little Busters, despite the company's long-lived popularity on both sides of the ocean (most VN companies produce something at least once every year and a half to two years, even if it is a short game or a fandisc), as well as Type-Moon's shift in focus from VNs to the console and mobile gaming market (not to mention anime, manga, and other media) after the release of Mahoyo. 

Also, there is a certain type of company that simply is suspicious of Westerners in general (Akabei Soft has become infamous for its suspicion of localization companies over the years and has gone to extreme lengths to IP block foreigners from even looking at their sites, though they are still allowing Hello, Lady to be localized). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Clephas said:

It is relatively rare for Japanese VN companies to pander to Western audiences.  I say 'relatively' because Pulltop has made a nice side business out of doing just that in the last four years or so, and Front Wing has been actively dual-releasing their games here in the form of the Grisaia Phantom Trigger series.

However, it pays to keep in mind that these cases are exceptions to the rule, rather than the standard.  To be blunt, for every company that is happy to have its games' localized, there are three that are either wary or outright terrified of the idea of exposing their material to Western audiences through legitimate means.  There are a number of reasons for this, but in a lot of cases it has something to do with the sexual content. 

For better or worse, most non-nukige Japanese VNs are based in a school setting, and this means that a lot of the content involved is questionable by western standards. 

Them being afraid is generally understandable. One thing i've always wondered though, does the original Japanese text in the regular visial novel say "High school" or "Academy" like the english versions usually have. I guess academy makes it ambiguous how old the characters are whereas high school and middle school makes it clear cut.

Edited by Stormwolf
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Even though sales of VNs in Japan are collapsing, and have been for years, they're still far greater than Western sales.  Remember Koihime struggling to sell two thousand copies?  How MangaGamer estimated that it wouldn't sell that many, so they couldn't afford the voices?  And then on top of that, the western market simply will not pay the ludicrous overcharging that is standard in Japan.

I very much doubt the US market affects their decisions.  It simply isn't worth it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Nandemonai said:

Even though sales of VNs in Japan are collapsing, and have been for years, they're still far greater than Western sales.  Remember Koihime struggling to sell two thousand copies?  How MangaGamer estimated that it wouldn't sell that many, so they couldn't afford the voices?  And then on top of that, the western market simply will not pay the ludicrous overcharging that is standard in Japan.

I very much doubt the US market affects their decisions.  It simply isn't worth it.

Outside Japan market is picking up steam as each year pass by. At some point VN developers & publishers will be forced to release more VNs outside Japan. If new versions of Koihime were released now, I am sure they would sell well if not great 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

Them being afraid is generally understandable. One thing i've always wondered though, does the original Japanese text in the regular visial novel say "High school" or "Academy" like the english versions usually have. I guess academy makes it ambiguous how old the characters are whereas high school and middle school makes it clear cut.

Almost always 'gakuen' (academy) rather than 'koukou' (high school). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Clephas said:

Almost always 'gakuen' (academy) rather than 'koukou' (high school). 

From a country which sells hard core child porn vn's, i do find that quite a bit puzzling. Unless there is some cultural thing which i dont know of. Doubt it though since its always high school in anime and such.

Edited by Stormwolf
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I actually have some firsthand knowledge about this!

It 100% depends on the company. Some actually try to structure their games towards a western audience (and are beginning to make changes to all future games to do this, including making them all-ages or story-based), while others still see the west as an after-thought.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Xeviax said:

I actually have some firsthand knowledge about this!

It 100% depends on the company. Some actually try to structure their games towards a western audience (and are beginning to make changes to all future games to do this, including making them all-ages or story-based), while others still see the west as an after-thought.

Kind of a shame though. I don't condone those hardcore childporn vn types i mentioned, but i don't like the dishonest style its going for now. 14 year old being played off as 18+. Its quite ridiculous tbh. I hope they stop adjusting to the west so the vn's appear more genuine and honest about what they are. If it says 18+ characters then i want characters aged 18 and above. Just my opinion though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Antera said:

Outside Japan market is picking up steam as each year pass by. At some point VN developers & publishers will be forced to release more VNs outside Japan. If new versions of Koihime were released now, I am sure they would sell well if not great 

No, it probably wouldn't. It would sell a lot better than it did back in 2011, that's for sure.  (Heck, I believe Nutaku and Fakku report it as selling very well for them.)  But the game sold so poorly that it could do several times what it sold before and still not even get close to what it probably sold in 2007 in Japan.  In 2007 the market was a lot bigger and it was the #3 game in the sales rankings that year.

There are a few VNs that have sold well: https://old.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/8wpse6/with_the_recent_leak_of_steam_sales_figures_heres/

But the vast majority sell a few thousand units.  Only a very few very successful titles have sold more.  By and large, people don't buy VNs, they steal them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

From a country which sells hard core child porn vn's, i do find that quite a bit puzzling. Unless there is some cultural thing which i dont know of. Doubt it though since its always high school in anime and such.

First, keep in mind that sales of underage (which was under sixteen for females until a recent change in the law) hardcore (actual sex acts) porn has been illegal over there for decades.  The issue was the loophole in the law that a lot of people exploited (again, until a more recent law banned it) involving pornography not involving sexual acts. 

Also, VN girls aren't people under the law, much less victims, so the law doesn't consider it a crime unless the fact they are underage is confirmed specifically in the text (something that just doesn't happen anymore).  The key point is pornography laws and ordinances in Japan require the existence of a victim (the person whose pictures are being taken) and Vn girls don't fall under that, at present. 

That said, the main reason the industry has traditionally (at least for the last sixteen years) mostly done its best to say they aren't under eighteen even though they are has to do with the Japanese concept of 'face'... as long as they put up some kind of facade, the authorities are less likely to smash them out of irritation.  This is also why I get pissed off whenever a dumbass localization company localizes a lolige...  foreign pressure is one of the few things that gets the authorities over there to make serious noises about regulating the eroge industry.  I don't want to lose my precious plotge just because the company that made it happened to be a subsidiary of one of the companies producing those toxic lolige and charage...

Edit: Incidentally, we are getting off-topic, so let's drop this issue for now.  I can just see the next few posts completely derailing the topic in my head...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would be interested to learn how much of an imprint popular genre-shifts in media have/had on visual novels in particular.

What I mean is stuff like the Skyrim craze, which actively contributed everything western-fantasy-like in Japan to sell better (Fire Emblem sales) and even got them to make their own skyrim games, like Dragons Dogma. 

Those things in the context of VNs would interest me.

Edited by TexasDice
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/10/2019 at 1:00 AM, Hetzer123 said:

I heard about some people complaining about VNs lack interactivity as if they are not the targeted demography.  If developers add more gameplay to VNs, do they have larger appeal for foreign audience?

I'd say, it will probably make the barrier of entry for regular gamers a bit lower, but people who don't like to read will still complain that they have too much text. To appeal to such people they will have to add so much gameplay that it will stop being a VN.

Edited by Dreamysyu
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...