Moenovel teases localization of a new title

[Fred the Barber]

49 minutes ago, Zenophilious said:

No, they all like WW2 chuuni and are going to propel the Dies Irae Kickstarter to MuvLuv levels of success.  12-year-old girls are going to save the visual novel genre in the west 

Nothing can save us now. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

[Decay]

7 hours ago, yorikbad said:

Females tend to like romantic stories where they can self-insert themselves in a female protagonist. How can 12 years french girl self insert in this guy:

I believe there's a million otome games this poor 12 years romance flick can choose from. But who am I to take away the right to play any game you like.

 

 

I think you should stop trying to theorize on what "females" like because this is a very cringeworthy conversation right now. I know plenty of women who like VNs with dude leads and I can see how Moenovel thinks they can market these kinds of games to younger girls. 

[Chuee]

1 hour ago, Decay said:

I think you should stop trying to theorize on what "females" like because this is a very cringeworthy conversation right now. I know plenty of women who like VNs with dude leads and I can see how Moenovel thinks they can market these kinds of games to younger girls. 

Well when you talk about marketing it's kind of important to focus on the bigger picture, which means trends among demographics. Sure plenty of guys like otome, and plenty of girls like galge, but each genre is still specifically designed for that one target gender. Even if you remove the sexual elements of a galge (though technically it's impossible to fully remove things like sexual tension), the game is still designed assuming a male player, with the ultimate goal of having that player fall in love with the heroines. Frankly, I think western romance stories are too different from that formula for you to infer that people who like sappy western romance stories (your young girls in this instance) would have a similar interest in galge romance stories. At least in the sense that doing things that would upset male players (removing sexual elements) wouldn't garner you enough people from different demographics to be worth it.  

Edited November 19, 2016 by Chuee

[Decay]

Sure, but Moenovel was aiming for an audience that may not be fully familiar with what bishoujo VNs are like. They saw an opportunity to tap into a market that none of the other VN publishers were ever able to do and I think they were actually very successful at that. Whether or not they'll be willing to go for a round 2 is another thing entirely, though.

[WinterfuryZX]

I own a few shoujo manga with male leads myself. It doesn't matter that much, I insist that a simple moege can be marketed to females( even more if it is a nakige like clannad).

[Dergonu]

3 minutes ago, Decay said:

Sure, but Moenovel was aiming for an audience that may not be fully familiar with what bishoujo VNs are like. They saw an opportunity to tap into a market that none of the other VN publishers were ever able to do and I think they were actually very successful at that. Whether or not they'll be willing to go for a round 2 is another thing entirely, though.

Uhh, actually, loads of VN localizations have both 18+ releases and steam releases, hitting both audiences. (Mangagamer and steam, Denpasoft and Sekai project, etc.) The only thing Moenovel did was release the all-ages version only, and not the 18+ one as well. 

It wasn't really a tactical move, it was a weird move. That's kind of the point.

Though, thanks to the fan-patched version, a good amount of people still buy this censored monstrosity, as they can at least patch back the original scenes. This has nothing to do with Moenovel's brilliant ideas though.

[Decay]

5 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

Uhh, actually, loads of VN localizations have both 18+ releases and steam releases, hitting both audiences. (Mangagamer and steam, Denpasoft and Sekai project, etc.) The only thing Moenovel did was release the all-ages version only, and not the 18+ one as well. 

It wasn't really a tactical move, it was a weird move. That's kind of the point.

Though, thanks to the fan-patched version, a good amount of people still buy this censored monstrosity, as they can at least patch back the original scenes. This has nothing to do with Moenovel's brilliant ideas though.

Moenovel did this before Steam hit and was hugely successful at it, according to them. They were specifically marketing those alternative audiences and were rewarded with more sales than anything any other company was able to manage at the time.

Edited November 19, 2016 by Decay

[Dergonu]

Just now, Decay said:

Moenovel did this before Steam hit and was hugely successful at it, according to them. They were specifically marketing those alternative audiences and were rewarded with more sales than anything any other company was able to manage at the time.

There really is no way to pull out the numbers and show how many people bought the game simply because the existence of the fan patch, but I'd bet it is the primary bulk of them. Even on steam, they are highly discredited, and talks about the restoration patch is 90% of the discussions there. All other communities, like Fuwanovel for instance, does the same.

It wasn't Moenovel's success, it was the fact that fans were able to somehow salvage their release that made it a hit.

[Decay]

5 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

There really is no way to pull out the numbers and show how many people bought the game simply because the existence of the fan patch, but I'd bet it is the primary bulk of them. Even on steam, they are highly discredited, and talks about the restoration patch is 90% of the discussions there. All other communities, like Fuwanovel for instance, does the same.

It wasn't Moenovel's success, it was the fact that fans were able to somehow salvage their release that made it a hit.

Eh, I just sort of doubt that. You'd be surprised at how few people are clued into that kind of stuff or simply don't care. And like I said, this was all before they released on Steam, when they sold supposedly over ten thousand copies without Steam's help.

I'm willing to bet most of the people who played with the restoration patch did not buy the game.

[Nier]

I bought the game from Play-Asia and never opened it because I am still waiting on the patch from Pabloc and that patch is going to be compatible with the japanese version afterall, nobody wants to touch MoeNovel's crap.

Edited November 19, 2016 by Nier

[Dergonu]

6 minutes ago, Decay said:

Eh, I just sort of doubt that. You'd be surprised at how few people are clued into that kind of stuff or simply don't care. And like I said, this was all before they released on Steam, when they sold supposedly over ten thousand copies without Steam's help.

I'm willing to bet most of the people who played with the restoration patch did not buy the game.

I'm sure there was a small amount of time there, before people actually knew how insanely this game was butchered where it sold, yeah.

I still don't think any of the real sucess this game has seen has anything at all to do with Moenovel's "brilliant sale's tactics." (AKA marketing eroge for 12 year olds.)

(Hell, I'm personally responsible for 3 steam sales of this monster.) 1 for myself (to play with the restoration patch of course,) and 2 as gifts for my friends, (with a link to the patch attatched.)

2 minutes ago, Nier said:

I bought the game from Play-Asia and never opened it because I am still waiting on the patch from Pabloc and that patch is going to be compatible with the japanese version afterall, nobody wants to touch MoeNovel's crap.

Exactly.

I bet there is plenty of people who quite honestly either didn't know the game was butchered beyond belief when they bought it, or who simply bought the Japanese version to wait it out for the patch, as they know it's coming.

[littleshogun]

I'd just using Japanese version and patched it using available translation patch out there (Also add H scenes ie came from restoration patch) ie not buying original Moenovel version. I still thankful to them though, if only for their messy translation lol.

Anyway, if some user said that is there a hame with Akihabara and shrine, I said Steins Gate was qualified (There's a shrine for short time) which of course not. Though with silhouettes of three girls and lotus (Or maybe water lilies) it's quite hard to see. It could be one of the VN at VNDB, but with almost 20,000 entry let's just said it'll be very hard to search. Or maybe it could be new title and seeing that crowfunding and chapter release based becaming trend, maybe MoeNovel will do the same although I'm not sure though.

[Decay]

14 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

I'm sure there was a small amount of time there, before people actually knew how insanely this game was butchered where it sold, yeah.

I still don't think any of the real sucess this game has seen has anything at all to do with Moenovel's "brilliant sale's tactics." (AKA marketing eroge for 12 year olds.)

(Hell, I'm personally responsible for 3 steam sales of this monster.) 1 for myself (to play with the restoration patch of course,) and 2 as gifts for my friends, (with a link to the patch attatched.)

Exactly.

I bet there is plenty of people who quite honestly either didn't know the game was butchered beyond belief when they bought it, or who simply bought it to wait it out for the patch, as they know it's coming.

I really don't think you can use your experiences with this community considering we weren't the community they were targeting. The actions members here and on similar sites take are irrelevant. But neither side here has actual evidence to back their claims so this is going nowhere fast. We should probably just drop this entirely.

[Dergonu]

3 minutes ago, Decay said:

But neither side here has actual evidence to back their claims so this is going nowhere fast. We should probably just drop this entirely.

True, we should probably just leave it there

 

Now, let's just hope this new game is handled better than the old one, with a better TL and no censorship. (Though, I have a bad feeling it won't be. )

[Decay]

Yeah, this seems to be a new game in the LoveKami "franchise" (I guess it's a franchise now?). They seem to be abandoning all pretenses of releasing games for all possible audiences with this one and are very overtly targeting the horny steam user demographic. Except they still aren't comfortable with 18+ content and perhaps they're leery of censoring eroge after IMHHW backlash, so they decided to just make a new VN that has enormous amounts of ecchi but no porn?

[WinterfuryZX]

Man... this looks like... pure garbage... It ssems they decided to declare war to the sakura series.

[Shota_Victory]

When will artists get over their hyper-breast fetish?

6 minutes ago, WinterfuryZX said:

It ssems they decided to declare war to the sakura series.

At least Sakura has 18+ patches. 

[Basileus777]

And Moenovel outed themselves as being the people responsible for localizing Shuffle by forgetting to edit their template.

[Decay]

26 minutes ago, Basileus777 said:

And Moenovel outed themselves as being the people responsible for localizing Shuffle by forgetting to edit their template.

Don't jump to conclusions. MoeNovel and YumeHaven are two different companies with different ownership. AGM owns YumeHaven, Pulltop owns Moenovel, this isn't disputable. AGM has done web design and promotional work for MoeNovel and possibly left that in by accident despite not being directly involved in the production or translation here.

edit: If there is any shared staff between translations, it would never be that MoeNovel are responsible for Shuffle's localization. AGM is a huge localization firm who would have been the ones contracted to work on MoeNovel stuff, not the other way around. And they're big enough with enough staff that you can never tell what you're going to get from them. It is exceedingly unlikely that the same exact people responsible for IMHHW would be working on these new projects.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Decay

[Decay]

Yeah, this is a topic we discussed in the Shuffle thread when it was noticed that the Shuffle page had striking similarities to the If My Heart Had Wings page. AGM does not admit to having worked on IMHHW itself, but said they did web design and promotional work for it.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Decay

[sanahtlig]

To summarize Decay's message: AGM is likely doing the promotion/marketing/web design for both YumeHaven and MoeNovel.

As for the new game, definitely looks like a Sakura Spirit clone.  They appear to be trying to beat Winged Cloud at their own game, though we'll see if they price it to reflect that.

Edited November 22, 2016 by sanahtlig

[RedK]

I would say it looks more like a Lovekami clone xd

[littleshogun]

So, anyone else looking forward to the VN which had kyonyuu goddess idol group and apparently didn't had sex content here? If so just said it here, although my response here would be okay whatever. Just saying.

Anyway, I'd think that this VN was had the same idea as Time Leap Paradise, which also had same element (Idol) and created by Frontwing. Other than that, no comment for MoeNovel attempt there to made another release. 

[Decay]

16 minutes ago, RedK said:

I would say it looks more like a Lovekami clone xd

Well, duh. But I definitely get the Sakura vibes from this one. Just the way it's being presented and its whole general aesthetic feels directly targeted at the Steam crowd that regularly buys Sakura games. Pulltop is at least a year late on this, though. The Sakura series has been in decline lately.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Decay

[sanahtlig]

11 minutes ago, RedK said:

I would say it looks more like a Lovekami clone xd

To quote the two synopses:
 

Quote

In the future of a slightly different Japan, people are worried about the declining birth rate. To solve this problem, many gods come to the human world to help. 

Quote

It was a time when people had forgotten their dreams and lost faith. The silhouettes of goddesses revealed themselves to the people who then could only believe in what they saw right in front of them.
The confusion surrounding the countless goddesses appearing in Japan could be explained due to Amaterasu Okami wanting to teach the goddesses about the human world. 
All of this brought about the implementation of the Divine Education Act. A year passed and the numerous goddesses and humans got to learn about each other, got to know one another, and came to a mutual understanding.
The subculture holy land and heart of Divine Idol culture, known as Akihabara, housed the seven lucky goddesses that dominated as idols in L☆SEVEN.

The premises are fundamentally different.  One sounds like the stereotypical setup for a nukige.  The other sounds like Ah my Goddess and idols shoehorned together.  The latter seems to be trying to distance itself from the former, not imitate it.