Quote:
Personally, I wouldn't buy a bankrupt company, but there goes my lack of business acumen...
|
They didn't. Cyberfront only bought KID's brand name and intellectual properties (as part of KID's liquidation process), so it isn't like they're absorbing the latter's liabilities. KID is dead, while another company has picked up what they once owned.
There may still be some market value in the Memories Off and Infinity franchises, provided that Cyberfront treats them with care.
Quote:
sadistically said, KID went down is precisely because of the common trend of people demand of galgames with a lot of ecchi in them, which is kinda pathetic IMO. KID was famous of making non 18+ adv games, MO series and Infinity series are the milestones and are at the peak of the industry.
|
The console galge market is somewhat distinct from the PC eroge industry Also, there're new publishers coming in all the time (and consider Cyberfront's quick move to acquire KID's IP), so profitability can't be
that bad. Last year alone, Prototype (ex-Interchannel), ARIA (August), and Sweets (Broccoli + Circus) were established, so investors are hardly fleeing the market.
From what's being said, KID went bankrupt through their own fault. Instead of concentrating on a few high quality games, they flooded the market with poorly received products (about one release per month) that consistently lost money. This bet-hedging strategy only intensified when they shifted publishing to the PS2 (i.e. with such a large PS2 userbase, they churned out even more product in the hopes that they might just stumble upon
the hit), leading up to their bankruptcy.
Memories Off was run to the ground. The first two games were very popular, but as the series continued, both critical opinion and sales plummeted. That's a deathblow when
a) your overhead is high relative to other galge publishers/developers
b) your success was mainly built on one major IP (Memories Off)
Over time, KID lost the core staff on both the MO and Infinity series, so I wouldn't be surprised if some developers got cold feet with regard to corporate strategy/ideals.
Quote:
E17 and Infinity is not about ecchi, obviously. It was a tragedy people could not accept a game like Remember 11... maybe not in the ero infested Japan... i guess if it's translated into english (and actually a good translation...), plus a different market strategy aiming not at those who looks for anime-style women with big boobs and horny CG's, but at those who enjoy detective/mystery/adventure novels and films etc, will it succeed? i entirely wish so.
|
In the console ADV/VN market, I don't think oversexualization is a requirement for success. However, it's true that romance and cute characters (it's the moé) are important. After all, the consumer demand is primarily for galge and not other types of stories (although there've been exceptions like Kamaitachi no Yoru and Snatcher).
Mainstream and hardcore gamers don't want such non-interactive experiences. However, hope may potentially lie in the new casual game market that's springing up (mostly DS-playing fans of Brain Training, Nintendogs, etc. I think Phoenix Wright may be a start).