General Eroge Impressions & Discussion

[stray]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

Lol, I remember when they announced a non-18 visual novel around late 2021, and everything was just up in flames
People were like, Bruh, did you see what happened to Lose? Or those companies that try to go to non-18 visual novels only to come back? There is even less room these days for visual novels that aren't 18+. Don't waste Kobuichi on such trash. We're gonna go back to Sabbat of the Witch and enjoy Tanez... I mean, Tanezaki's twin sister.

The thing is - its not just gacha, some studios want that global presence on Steam - though AliceSoft kinda fucked that up where Evenicle II was concerned, and Laplacian couldn't have been more trolling about it with their all ages attempt.

[stray]

AliceSoft translating their Gatcha to English...

https://twitter.com/Alicesoft_en/sta...57926609276929

[Cosmic Eagle]

August still exists. It's just that they are now competing with KeroQ/Makura for most intermittent title release (Sakura no Toki is finally coming out.....AT LAST......)

[serenade_beta]

BTW, Key('s parent company) was sold to Tencent recently

You got the good companies like Minori and Giga dying proud, the pathetic companies like August selling their souls to gacha games or non-R18 games
And then you have Key. The (now ex-)president selling the company off. What a new low. I don't even know why Tencent would want them. China already does plenty fine making content revolving around non-R18 novel-like UIs in gacha games. Its not like Key's IPs are as strong as they used to be either. And I'm pretty sure the group that used to make R18 stuff are separate entities now.

I personally don't play non-R18 visual novels, so this doesn't affect me much, but I guess maybe this means Key will no longer release new non-R18 games like Summer Pocket anymore? China pretty much only makes gacha games, right?

BTW, I put this info in the Eroge thread, but Key technically hasn't made eroges for like, 10+ years, I think. Even Youkai-Everything-Is-Utawarerumono's, who was also recently absorbed into HIKE, last eroge is more recent

[Tactics]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

BTW, Key('s parent company) was sold to Tencent recently

You got the good companies like Minori and Giga dying proud, the pathetic companies like August selling their souls to gacha games or non-R18 games
And then you have Key. The (now ex-)president selling the company off. What a new low. I don't even know why Tencent would want them. China already does plenty fine making content revolving around non-R18 novel-like UIs in gacha games. Its not like Key's IPs are as strong as they used to be either. And I'm pretty sure the group that used to make R18 stuff are separate entities now.

I personally don't play non-R18 visual novels, so this doesn't affect me much, but I guess maybe this means Key will no longer release new non-R18 games like Summer Pocket anymore? China pretty much only makes gacha games, right?

What they wanted is the potent assets like Little Busters and Heavens Burn Red.
Especially HBR which managed to gain loyalist in VN-oriented gacha market that once believed to be "No way you can compete with Fate Grand Order" area.

Whether they continue to release new non-gacha games depends on the deal.

Personally I'm just glad Baba get out and hope that the deal can warrant Key longevity in future; after what he did to Tales franchise I don't want to see his name again.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by Tactics

Personally I'm just glad Baba get out and hope that the deal can warrant Key longevity in future; after what he did to Tales franchise I don't want to see his name again.

Key/Visual Arts CEO's name is Baba Takahiro (who actually romanized his name as "Vava"). Tales of ex-producer was Baba Hideo. They are completely unrelated, family and career wise.

[Tactics]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

Key/Visual Arts CEO's name is Baba Takahiro (who actually romanized his name as "Vava"). Tales of ex-producer was Baba Hideo. They are completely unrelated, family and career wise.

I see, I mistaken it, thank you for the correction.

[serenade_beta]

Originally Posted by Tactics

What they wanted is the potent assets like Little Busters and Heavens Burn Red.
Especially HBR which managed to gain loyalist in VN-oriented gacha market that once believed to be "No way you can compete with Fate Grand Order" area.

Whether they continue to release new non-gacha games depends on the deal.

Personally I'm just glad Baba get out and hope that the deal can warrant Key longevity in future; after what he did to Tales franchise I don't want to see his name again.

I mean, I can kinda see Heavens Burn, but not too sure about their other IPs. Definitely classics, but I don't see them making anything out of it these days, unless they plan to make gacha games separately for each game. Also, I heard Yurippe appeared in Heavens Burn recently, so they probably want to save the nostalgic goggles of Maeda stuff for Heavens Burn

As for Baba Hideo, I just want to note that he has been long ousted from Bandai Namco since 2016, when he moved to Square Enix, and was ousted again in 2019 and has not really appeared in public since then

[stray]

Wow I haven't thought about Hideo Baba for a while...

I dunno if gachas are really a smart investment anymore... China gives failing games a lot of runway but when it comes to Japanese IP I hear about more gachas shutting down than starting up anymore.

I kinda hate nakige so I don't have a lot of love for Key classics but I have enjoyed stuff from Visual Arts other imprints, some of which (like Saga Planets and tone works) broke off entirely from Visual Arts over the past few years. Hard to say whether the buyout will be good or bad but Tencent tends to be pretty hands off so we'll see.

[serenade_beta]

Another note, but for some reason (some suspect in-fighting as suspected with Alicesoft), Illusion as a brand is disbanding, but will reincarnate as ILLGAMES
https://www.illusion.jp/see-you-next-time
https://twitter.com/Projecti18/statu...97511101476864

Maybe they will only do anime-ish 3D now? Some people suspect it is to stop support of the older games and get people to buy the newer ones? Perhaps new rules on mods?

[Tactics]

It suspected as income issue within Illusion player communities; not enough support to maintain development cycle so they wanted a rebranding for more business line.

Looking at HoneyCome, I think they got their lesson from Steam, especially Koikatsu.

[stray]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

Perhaps new rules on mods?

Legally they seem to be covering their bases anyway...

Spoiler for ToS:

So far its okay I guess, a bit more Honey Select than Koikatsu. English is nice, I might get it if/when it comes to Steam.

[larethian]

Originally Posted by Tactics

What they wanted is the potent assets like Little Busters and Heavens Burn Red.
Especially HBR which managed to gain loyalist in VN-oriented gacha market that once believed to be "No way you can compete with Fate Grand Order" area.

Whether they continue to release new non-gacha games depends on the deal.

Personally I'm just glad Baba get out and hope that the deal can warrant Key longevity in future; after what he did to Tales franchise I don't want to see his name again.

Technically, Key, or rather, Visual Arts, did not 'release' any gacha games. HBR is said to be co-made by Key and WFS. But in reality, the entire developer team is from WFS which is made up of 120+ strong developers (for HBR only, not counting other games). The publishing and distribution rights also lie with WFS, which is the official 運営さん, and VA has no part in it. WFS fully handles development, publishing and marketing. The main 'resource affiliated' with Key is Maeda, who provides all scenarios and music. It's possible some of the background art or concept art is provided by Key artists, though all 51 characters are designed and drawn by Yuugen, who also handles all key visuals. Other than that, Key probably does make royalties from lending its brand name, as well as from IP cross-overs from Angel Beats, and most recently, music from Kanon and Air.

[serenade_beta]

https://twitter.com/ILLUSION_staff/s...86002550345785

Well, that's a strange thing to say as your last words

Definitely was in-fighting, and probably the people that decided to do their own stuff were critical for the continuation of the company, which is why Illusion so suddenly dissolved and also why the new ILLGAMES is able to bring out a game so fast

I hear Lose dissolving was due to Cura and the tops arguing, and you can't have Lose without Cura (though I don't know much on this). Eroge companies are generally small, so a bit of fighting probably is a relatively big thing.
I'm surprised Alicesoft hasn't given up, considering almost everyone important like TOMA are gone.

[serenade_beta]

On a related topic, ex-Alicesoft Ittenchiroku (who produced Dona Dona) is producing what is pretty much Dona Dona 2
https://twitter.com/famitsu/status/1705431850624446735

Except its not an Eroge, so big problem there for me. I guess Entergram didn't want to fund an R18 game

[serenade_beta]

Some other random (bad) news I was able to gather today on the eroge industry

Waffle -> Probably going to only do gacha games from now on
Windmill -> Ko-cha has left the company and it seems NEXTON picked up some, meaning technically Windmill is already dead (or absorbed by NEXTON) and just selling some goods or doing non-R18 versions of old games (the order of events is probably death -> employees leaving)
Clochette -> Moved the company from the office building to an apartment building, so also technically probably already dead
Lump of Sugar -> Started fanbox for extra cash, but they recently sold their newest game (released early this year) for 1000 yen on Fanza, which is similar to what Feng did before they died, so people are worried about here too

Other than that, I think we are good

[blitz1/2]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

Some other random (bad) news I was able to gather today on the eroge industry

Waffle -> Probably going to only do gacha games from now on
Windmill -> Ko-cha has left the company and it seems NEXTON picked up some, meaning technically Windmill is already dead (or absorbed by NEXTON) and just selling some goods or doing non-R18 versions of old games (the order of events is probably death -> employees leaving)
Clochette -> Moved the company from the office building to an apartment building, so also technically probably already dead
Lump of Sugar -> Started fanbox for extra cash, but they recently sold their newest game (released early this year) for 1000 yen on Fanza, which is similar to what Feng did before they died, so people are worried about here too

Other than that, I think we are good

Damn,,,,we are slowly dying....

[serenade_beta]

Originally Posted by blitz1/2

Damn,,,,we are slowly dying....

To be fair, I hear that we reached the bottom line a couple years back and with the makers adding DL options and getting translated versions overseas, it has gone up
Mado Soft made 113 million yen on crowdfunding a 1-cour, 5 min anime, so we old single men with nothing to do with our money are still out there
Also I said all of these companies, but Windmill has been technically dead in 2022 and Clochette... I think was 2021? Pretty spaced out. Just that the West Coast don't really keep up with these stuff, and I had to explore the 5ch Pink boards to learn these news.

Giga is "dead", but its really just Entergram deciding not to make R18 games anymore (staff are making non-R18 stuff in place). But they are still selling non-R18 games at R18 games prices... so... not sure what they are thinking. They're selling to the non-existent "People that play gyaru games without R18 content" audience

Don't forget that compared to its golden days, not even 90% of the normal game companies are alive. We just have what we have today, with very few if any new companies being born. Just Indies at best.

Also another good news is that traitor Leaf/Aquaplus is pretty much half-dead, being so unprofitable they were sold by their parent company Tora no Ana to some Korean company that just wants their IP

[blitz1/2]

Is Alcot making their last game? Some new Clover game? Someone verify?

[serenade_beta]

Originally Posted by blitz1/2

Is Alcot making their last game? Some new Clover game? Someone verify?

Yeah, that is correct. It'll actually be their first game in 5 or 6 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9pnJlSKWrU

Basically the Pres (Miyazou) is aging and health issues and stuff and at best might be able to do 10 years and frankly Alcot is not exactly a popular company, so instead of just fading into nothingness, he wanted to do one final game.
The company will continue to exist as a holder of the IP and such, and he might be helping other companies instead.

The cloudfounding is also kinda to make it one big final event. He is able to borrow money from the bank, so its not a "I don't have money, please give me to make" thing.


...And you know, I can support this. You got the bigger companies trying to survive for the sake of surviving and throwing away their roots (Alicesoft, Leaf, Nitroplus, etc) and companies like Harukaze and Windmill that just stop doing stuff without saying anything even though it is clearly obvious they are same as dead
And then you have companies like Overdrive and Alcot that have pride as creators (to a point)
(And then you have fuc***s like Sprite)