Darklord Rooke

In America, 28% of the adult population has said they had read 11 or more books in the past year, in 1978 that figure was 42%. Funnily enough, if you take into consideration population growth, the actual number is about the same - approx 63 million people. The market of readers for VNs to tap into is a large one, but there are many reasons as to why they don't. Firstly most readers are women and most Japanese VNs are aimed at men. Secondly, most Japanese VNs are romance stories aimed at men when the romance genre is dominated by women readers. Thirdly readers don't like reading on their computer. Fourthly not all readers are technologically savvy enough to fiddle with patches. And so on and so forth. EDIT: Oh, you were talking about young people. Well recent surveys in America show the young read more than adults, so once again still a large market to tap into.

I was told many years ago that the general rule of thumb concerning anime is the age of the protagonist reflects the age of the people the show is aimed at. Dragonball was aimed at kiddies, so the protagonist was 6ish, Dragonball Z was aimed at those a little older and so the protagonist was a little older. I tend to use the same rule of thumb for VNs. So many of the games are set in high-school reflects that the games are aimed mostly at college or high-school students. The same way most young-adult novels feature young-adult or teenage protagonists. Also no punching of Tay happened in this recollection, minus 5 Rooke points

I'm quite a bit more handsome. Also I have a hat. Emi's picture was closer.

A lot of people waiting for this game. I'd give it a whirl but I don't play VNs online, and it says it's only released on a web platform EDIT: Wait, does that mean you can play offline on a web browser, or you need to play online? EDIT2: Offline. Never mind, apparently I can't read properly so early in the morning.

You left out 'grumpy.'

Yes. The future of reading is interactivity, and I'm not just talking about choices in the text either. Things like being able to check the social media status of characters as you're reading the book, and stuff like this. Writers and publishers are running around at the moment trying to figure out what sorts of things they can do, and I envision Visual Novels to be just one example of many types of interactive type novels people will be reading in the future. The problem for VNs atm is the format (PC gaming, and fiddling with patches, are not things which appeal to the average reader of novels,) the pricepoint (too expensive for a novel, but as a game there's not enough gameplay to satisfy gamers,) the distribution channels, and the content. It's exciting to think about what the future of books will be. What type of formats they'd come in, how we'd go about reading them and that kind of thing.

I’d recommend listening to writers talk about this process rather than agents, writers are in the business of storytelling while agents are in the business of selling stories. A subtle difference which affects mindsets and procedure. 1- Storytelling is more about the audience. This tends to be an agent’s point of view, not a writer’s. That’s not to say that some writers don’t think about an audience’s reaction, I’m sure they do, but it’s hardly compulsory or the most necessary thing to write a story. I don’t think writers like Douglas Adams who wrote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy sat at his desk and thought “I need the audience to feel more fear.” Writer’s tend to talk about being faithful to characters, it’s AGENTS who need to try and think how an audience would feel to imagine if a book would sell. And this is part of the problem with the book industry at the moment, and what has led to the destruction of the mid-list author - the industry's endless search for a profit. Mid-list authors who have a faithful fanbase, are being pushed out of the industry and have their careers killed due to the habits of the giant publishers and retailers. One very successful author had his book rejected with a rejection letter saying something like this: “This is a very well written novel, and a terribly good story, but we just don’t think it will sell.” It’s almost time for a new way of doing things methinks. Jeff Kirvin, “What’s Wrong With Publishing,” http://www.salon.com/2004/03/22/midlist/ If you listen, he talks about the Hollywood and European film industries, the difference between the two and why Hollywood movies sell more. There’s a problem with this. As a writer if you go chasing the things which you think will mean your book sells more, instead of writing what you’re passionate about, then your stories may be not very good. “Quick, write romance they sell more than fantasy” well you can get away with that only if you like romance. Short scenes? Only if that’s your style (of course lengthening scenes with useless info-dumping tends to be frowned upon.) 2 - Storytelling can’t be taught. It can be, to an extent. I’ve seen it happen. I suppose he means the act of storytelling rather than writing. The art of writing tends to refer to the tools needed by the craft and developing your own style, this can very much be taught, I suppose the art of storytelling is more about the writers applying that to a story in an interesting way. If you have the tools though you're well on your way. 3 - Writers need to study human behaviour. Bang on. Writers tend to study how people behave, because characters and how they act is the pillar of your story. If you’re a writer a lot of the times you’re an amateur psychologist as well. Writers always talk about this, John Marsden used to jot down interesting things people say, and would recommend constantly listening to people’s conversations around you. 4 - Criticism. As a writer you will experience this all the time, any creative person gets heaped with criticism. If you don’t have a thick skin it’s really not the industry for you. TL;DR Listen to authors talk about how to write, agents are in the business of selling your stories.

Late 20th century, exactly how late depends upon your definition of the Millennium/Century. There's the standard definition, that the new century began in the year 2000, or the more technical definition, which states that because there was no year "0" the last year of the Century was the year "2000" with the new century beginning in the year "2001." EDIT: Also Kanon is 16 years old now, I'm sure you'd understand why people consider it an "old-style" VN

From what I understand, complaints were made and nothing was done until community outrage reached a certain point. I think Lewy's thread was a part of that community outrage. It would be awesome if the mods were pro-active enough so that incidents like this didn't happen, BUT there are new mod guidelines in place and people are still trying to find their feet etc etc. Unfortunately I think the public outrage was necessary to remind staff that people do view certain behaviours on the forum as problematic, and to be honest this had been building for a while now.

Agree with this. More pure VNs need to be easily available on tablet, and the ideal scenario would be if they were available from the same place you get digital books from (I dunno where people buy ebooks, I like my physical copies.) Then you'd just need to deal with the pricepoint.

I thought it was a mosquito

I'll bet on Emi

I voted cause I wanted too

It had very solid strategy gameplay, especially for a free game. It was pretty surprising. Yup.

True Love, for it's awesome sim gameplay. EDIT: I think it qualifies as a VN as well? I can't remember, haven't played it in ages.

Black Chicken Studios, for they're solid sim-based gameplay and writing ability.

You did nothing wrong/worth apologising for. I did warn people a few days ago that I injured my back and was sore and grumpy. Eh, this can be merry little present for Tay, I think I heard him mentioning the other day that he didn't have nearly enough clean-up work to do and would dearly like some more.

Lewy wants old Fuwa I don't. Tay asked Lewy to expand on a point he made, he expanded on that point through me. Others then butted into the conversation. To be perfectly frank HSM, it's all of you which have hijacked the thread. It was a post aimed at Tay, as Tay's was aimed at Lewy.

1 - Once again that's a strawman. I consider spammy posts trash, and yet I made a suggestion to Tay to create a lounge where people could get to know each other (I think... it was a long time ago,) and also suggested the posts in the Chatter forum be counted in people's post counts. This is me being considerate to other people's feelings. There are posts I decide go far, I label such things "retarded" not trash.

Gooooood. Because a community is run using a set of values sometimes imposed over your own. They’re called laws. If you live in a community you should be familiar with the concept. If you call your community a dictatorship, you’ll just be laughed at. By people like me. So kind of you, so kindly displaying your ignorance of sexual harassment law like that. And if you were actually half-way knowledgeable concerning sexual harassment laws, you'll know why this is an application of half the principle. Actually it's the very definition of a strawman fallacy seeing as you have attributed a false position to me. Keep protesting though, it's fairly amusing

Your point will probably be ignored, because it interferes with people's "fun"

You mean how I don't beat the shit out of my fellow "Fight Club" fan? Because Fight Club is obviously about violence and therefore acting out that violence is necessary, yes? You discuss the notion of sexism, you don't engage in the practice.