So you thought EVN's can't get any better?

[Narcosis]

[solidbatman]

There is a reason I no longer review Winged Cloud titles. They deserve zero free publicity. 

[Kurisu-Chan]

VN are a mistake. 

[Narcosis]

6 minutes ago, solidbatman said:

There is a reason I no longer review Winged Cloud titles. They deserve zero free publicity. 

"Free", you say?

I wouldn't review their games even if they'd paid me big bucks to do it

6 minutes ago, Kurisu-Chan said:

VN are a mistake. 

[DarkZedge]

Not really surprising though, it has Patreon plug ins everywhere.

[Soulless Watcher]

This is simply bizarre, I was under the impression that their business tactics were doing well enough. Has their sales been doing poorly as of late? It almost seems like a conscious effort to shoot themselves in the foot.  

[Kurisu-Chan]

8 minutes ago, Soulless Watcher said:

This is simply bizarre, I was under the impression that their business tactics were doing well enough. Has their sales been doing poorly as of late? It almost seems like a conscious effort to shoot themselves in the foot.  

according to steam, sakura is still selling well. 

[Darklord Rooke]

3 hours ago, Kurisu-Chan said:

according to steam, sakura is still selling well. 

They also get 12,000 a month on Patreon.

[Arcadeotic]

Just brilliant

I was wondering when they were going to add microtransactions to their games, and it definitely was just a matter of time

[Decay]

7 hours ago, Rooke said:

They also get 12,000 a month on Patreon.

They used to make over 20,000 a month on Patreon. Their Steam games also don't sell quite like they used to. They're still in a position any other EVN developer would kill for, but revenue is definitely down.

[sanahtlig]

The decision point in the OP doesn't make much sense, but I take it this in an attempt by Winged Cloud to gain more Patreon subscribers?  So the game is probably distributed for free with nag messages to subscribe for extra content (probably H-scenes)?

I'm not fundamentally opposed to this model if you can assess at a glance, before you download the game, how much you'll need to pay to get the experience you expect.  In this case, if that's a straight $30, that's much more than I'd be willing to pay for a short throwaway indie title from the likes of Winged Cloud.  But as long as I don't feel "entrapped" into sinking more money than I expected, the payment model doesn't particularly bother me.  If it encourages people to pay rather than freeload and doesn't disrupt the gameplay (e.g., by offering gameplay incentives), then have at it.

Edit 1: I checked Denpasoft's store page and while the game is distributed for free, they don't even mention that there's in-app purchases.  Sasuga Sekai Project.  Way to blindside your users.  Seriously?  Looks like they're taking pointers from Nutaku!

Edit 2: And here's what comes up when I click the 'download' link on the Denpasoft store page.

 

Seriously, Sekai Project?  Seriously?  You're really letting Winged Cloud do this to you?  Are you out of your minds?

[Darklord Rooke]

What's the point of even having the Denpasoft store page? :S

[sanahtlig]

18 minutes ago, Rooke said:

What's the point of even having the Denpasoft store page? :S

Clearly to embarrass Sekai Project.

I suppose they're being paid to advertise for Winged Cloud.  Or maybe they're paying Winged Cloud to host an ad for a popular title in their store?  Not sure anymore!

[Decay]

I'm sure MG is feeling pretty good about their decision to dump these guys right about now.

[Silver95280]

Thankfully I have a burner twitter account just for this purpose.

They beat Dharker Studio on the VN DLC front by about a month. That's good for Dharker; it means their DLC might receive less of a backlash because WC is soaking most of it up right now.

The DLC in this case is password protected, so all you need to do is find the passwords somewhere.

[sanahtlig]

Denpasoft responded to my Twitter rant.

Quote

It's a free game. Some content is for Patreon supporters only. Pay 30$ a month, and get the exclusive scene.
It was Winged Cloud's milestone project, made available for everyone with a limited access to some content for patrons.
We're offering a free game Winged Cloud made with their own marketing ideas, to allow people insight into their games.

I responded as follows:

 

[Nier]

49 minutes ago, Silver95280 said:

Thankfully I have a burner twitter account just for this purpose.

They beat Dharker Studio on the VN DLC front by about a month. That's good for Dharker; it means their DLC might receive less of a backlash because WC is soaking most of it up right now.

Has anyone ever played a Dharker Studio game before? Their reputation seem to be that they are the Uwe Boll of the OELVN "industry".

[Infernoplex]

4 hours ago, Nier said:

Has anyone ever played a Dharker Studio game before? Their reputation seem to be that they are the Uwe Boll of the OELVN "industry".

I did ... and I want to forget about it. I think they are called AJTilley now.

Edit: It's vice-versa, they were called AJTilley, now they are Dharker Studio, just checked now, I mixed it up in my mind.

Edited September 23, 2016 by Infernoplex
Mixed up info

[Silver95280]

2 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

I did ... and I want to forget about it. I think they are called AJTilley now.

They were AJTilley, now they're Dharker Studio.

4 hours ago, Nier said:

Has anyone ever played a Dharker Studio game before? Their reputation seem to be that they are the Uwe Boll of the OELVN "industry".

Highschool Romance was a bland "boy crossdresses to enter all-girls' school" plot with weird artwork.

Divine Slice of Life squandered its own premise, had too many routes and was way too short.

Beach Bounce had stupid plot, stupid characters, stupid "h-scenes", stupid artwork, stupid writing, stupid stupid, stupid everything!

[Infernoplex]

16 minutes ago, Silver95280 said:

They were AJTilley, now they're Dharker Studio.

I've edited the post once I realised the mistake xD

16 minutes ago, Silver95280 said:

Beach Bounce had stupid plot, stupid characters, stupid "h-scenes", stupid artwork, stupid writing, stupid stupid, stupid everything!

Yup, that's the one I've played ...

[Hayashi]

This might go against the Fuwa motto, but like. We were still protected before VN was brought to the west. Now it's just overflow weeb storm.

[Kurisu-Chan]

On 23/09/2016 at 7:36 AM, Decay said:

They used to make over 20,000 a month on Patreon. Their Steam games also don't sell quite like they used to. They're still in a position any other EVN developer would kill for, but revenue is definitely down.

They are making at least 300K per game, + their 12K $ monthly, this is still a super decent position. 

[Shota_Victory]

Well, it was bound to happen at some time, right? It's not that bad! 

In all seriousness, I can't see this meaning anything good for the industry. To put it quite simply, if you want to sell your game, then sell your game. It's not as hard as some people think it is.

The triple A games industry is still abhorrent for doing this, I feel, but they at least have reasoning. It's a sixty dollar game, you add a bit of DLC on after release, everything's peachy. On the other hand, on-release DLC is just plain stupid for paid games.

To be completely honest, I don't have any issue with free to play games having DLC, as long as it's not necessary and doesn't affect the game. DoTA 2, for example, has a lot of DLC, but it's all cosmetic.

Holding back ero scenes in your eroge is like selling a horse cart and making you pay for the wheels.