Narcosis Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Reddit isn't any sort of significant place in the net, when it comes to vn's. In fact, it's what happens everywhere on the net, as long as people want to simply discuss vn's. PS. Reddit a shit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ang3lKilar Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 Do the posts hurt KS read rates? I wonder... probably depends on if it's actually hated on in the comments as well. Regardless, you can't really stop any of this from happening, I suppose you could gather a downvote squad though... The pic you posted as an example is moderately funny (but especially in KS context...) and seems unlikely to make people dislike the VN too much. It was probably made by the KS fandom, for the KS fandom in the first place lol. I dont think that either of those posts could garner hate towards VN's rather i think it could cause some to feel disdainful to VN's as a whole if they just appear to be big jokes. If anything the posts increase the amount of VN readers and that should be a good thing, regardless of how they got in to VN's. If anything KS is the perfect way to bring new people in. Those posts make not paint it in the best light but that story is feeling driven and it will sweep you up in a heartbeat. I guess i just dont like thinking of others looking down on VN's because of some post that got taken out of context. I agree that the Lily picture is, to me, pretty hilarious. I also agree that in all likelihood it was made from KS fans for KS fans but it has gotten much bigger than that now. I'd hate to see it become potentially damaging to a community i love so much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanahtlig Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Dude. If this:- was my first VN, I would've likely given up on 'em moths ago... People don't usually fall in love with stuff like this from the first time, I've never heard of anyone who started his VN path with this. I mean, even I hardly finished it, and it was like my 10th VN or something... I'm baffled how someone could not fall in love with Saya at first sight. The grotesque surroundings just accent her devilish, cherubic charm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mephisto Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Katawa Shoujo was made by 4chan and is a lot closer to your typical VN than saya is, there really is no argument that makes saya a better entry vn. Most people I talk to who ask me about VNs occasionally aren't looking for some riveting story or anything (there's stuff like ME3/books), but for something with cute girls(or cute guys), and they learned about them due to learning some anime they watched was based on a VN. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InvertMouse Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 We all know that most of the general audience think of dating sims when they hear the word visual novels. I have also observed that most players seem to only give VNs a chance if they indeed have romantic elements in it. Unless, to be extremely frank, the game came from Japan. A large portion of players want VNs with cute girls goofing around, and so, naturally, those outside the community would perceive it to be so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ang3lKilar Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 We all know that most of the general audience think of dating sims when they hear the word visual novels. I have also observed that most players seem to only give VNs a chance if they indeed have romantic elements in it. Unless, to be extremely frank, the game came from Japan. A large portion of players want VNs with cute girls goofing around, and so, naturally, those outside the community would perceive it to be so. I dont know if that is entirely true. The first time i heard the term VN i had no idea what to think. I took it as a literal term, a book with visuals. A dating sim, to me, is a whole different category. I grew up playing dating sims on Newgrounds and various sites, years before my very first VN, and yet the term had no pre-conceived prejudices in my mind. There is nothing wrong with players only wanting VNs with nothing but moe characters in them. That is just another sub-group in the vast whole of VN readers. In my mind if moe can bring in more readers then that is fine. I have no doubt that once most anyone has gotten a taste for reading VNs (no matter how they started) it would quickly become a deeper and more personal connection then just the moe or romantic factor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcosis Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 There is nothing wrong with players only wanting VNs with nothing but moe characters in them. That is just another sub-group in the vast whole of VN readers. In my mind if moe can bring in more readers then that is fine. I have no doubt that once most anyone has gotten a taste for reading VNs (no matter how they started) it would quickly become a deeper and more personal connection then just the moe or romantic factor. That "sub-group" of yours is almost the whole entirety of the current japanese visual novel playerbase. Unfortunately, most of the works they read have no reedeming qualities, whatsoever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ang3lKilar Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 That "sub-group" of yours is almost the whole entirety of the current japanese visual novel playerbase. Unfortunately, most of the works they read have no reedeming qualities, whatsoever. Japanese, sure. I'm not too familiar with their market so i cant say anything about that. What i have been exposed to though it seems people do indeed want a compelling story. I believe the majority of players just on this site alone dont just play for the moe. Different cultures different audiences, of course. I prefer a good story over anything so i am sure i have my skewed views on the western VN audience as a whole. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mephisto Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 I'd say the majority of the community that actually talks about visual novels may fall under the umbrella of liking a story, but I think the sales for something like Sakura Spirit speaks for itself. I don't think anyone entertains fantasies that Grisaia will sell nearly as much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ang3lKilar Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 I'd say the majority of the community that actually talks about visual novels may fall under the umbrella of liking a story, but I think the sales for something like Sakura Spirit speaks for itself. I don't think anyone entertains fantasies that Grisaia will sell nearly as much. Are you kidding me? I think Grisaia could blow pretty much anything out of the water! How could it not?! I would honestly be surprised if it didnt sell a metric fuckton more than Sakura Spirit. For one there are three of them, meaning much more to buy, with an off-shoot for Michiru coming out soon (if it hasnt already), two it is 1000x better than that dribble, and three Sakura Spirit is only one language while Grisaia is in two giving it a much wider market to sell to. Even on VNDB Grisaia has an average score of twice the amount of Sakura spirit and more than 45x the votes. Grisaia is a game, Sakura Spirit is nothing but fan service. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcosis Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Are you kidding me? I think Grisaia could blow pretty much anything out of the water! How could it not?! I would honestly be surprised if it didnt sell a metric fuckton more than Sakura Spirit. For one there are three of them, meaning much more to buy, with an off-shoot for Michiru coming out soon (if it hasnt already), two it is 1000x better than that dribble, and three Sakura Spirit is only one language while Grisaia is in two giving it a much wider market to sell to. Even on VNDB Grisaia has an average score of twice the amount of Sakura spirit and more than 45x the votes. Grisaia is a game, Sakura Spirit is nothing but fan service.This is delusional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ang3lKilar Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 This is delusional. The part about VNDB is true... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mephisto Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Sakura Spirit was in the top 10 for sales on Steam on the day it released. Is it bad? Yes. Did it still sell a ton of copies? Yes. You can argue that Grisaia is in every way better than Sakura Spirit, but there are a few elements that Sakura Spirit has that Grisaia doesn't. 1. monster girls (plays to a fetish) 2. rampant fan service (please, we all know this sells, or anime and VN producers would've stopped doing it) 3. moe 4. is short 5. is cheap All things that will sell. What does bringing in VNDB have to do with anything? Nobody said this game was any good. Narcosis 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanahtlig Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 I'd say the majority of the community that actually talks about visual novels may fall under the umbrella of liking a story, but I think the sales for something like Sakura Spirit speaks for itself. I don't think anyone entertains fantasies that Grisaia will sell nearly as much. Sales and "playthroughs" are not necessarily proportional. The audience that reads VNs and the audience that buys VNs are different. The latter is a very small nonrepresentative subset of the former. But you're also right that the audience that talks about VNs is a nonrepresentative subset of the overall audience. Soul Link is an example of a title with poorer than expected sales. Boob Wars is a title that exceeded all expectations and almost certainly sold more copies. Yet look at their VNDB pages and you'll see that Soul Link has more votes. Are VNDB votes an accurate gauge of the overall playerbase? Maybe not. But I think it suggests that there's a considerable gap between what people play and what they actually buy. I see this is as one of the key problems afflicting the English VN market: people aren't willing to put their money where their heart is. As a result, nukige get more support, and naturally Mangagamer keeps churning them out because that's what their customers want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mephisto Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 I don't believe it suggests that at all, since there are way too many random variables in the "votes" to take them as any serious form of data. All your phenomenon shows is that more people who have played Soul Link have put in a vote on VNDB, while players who have played Boob Wars have not. There is no implication that more people have played Soul Link at all, only that more people have voted for it. If you want to argue that since it has more votes, more people have played it, you would be assuming that players in general have around the same percentage chance of voting no matter what game it is they played. I think it's obvious this is inherently flawed, the voting is not even anonymous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanahtlig Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 I checked out some pirate sites and indeed Boob Wars did have more likes and more downloads. So perhaps VNDB votes cannot be relied on to give an indication of relative popularity between nukige and non-nukige. I still wouldn't assume that Sakura Spirit will attract more players than Grisaia, regardless of how the sales numbers turn out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcosis Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Now imagine, if SS had well-written story and tasteful h-scenes... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.