Western Visual Novel Publishers Often Release Games at a Loss Due to Piracy (ft. words from CEO of Sol Press, Xeviax)

[solidbatman]

5 minutes ago, AnnoyingApple said:

Hearing VNs pirated is new to me. I initially thought VNs are much harder to find pirated copies due to their low popularity compared to other AAA games so I just buy them all if I like.

Funnily enough, I pirated almost all AAA titles, especially ones with DRMs like Denuvo-plagued titles; but my Steam library, in contrast, half of it are Visual Novel games.

Piracy is ingrained in the VN market due to the fact that originally, the only way to acquire virtually all VNs was to pirate them and apply a fan patch. Steam and Kickstarter really changed the market. Old habits die hard. 

[Nier]

18 hours ago, solidbatman said:

Piracy is ingrained in the VN market due to the fact that originally, the only way to acquire virtually all VNs was to pirate them and apply a fan patch.

Not it wasn't.

[solidbatman]

4 hours ago, Nier said:

Not it wasn't.

I mean yeah you could pay to import them, rely on some random ass JAST USA releases when they felt like doing something, and maybe Mangagamer for ef and random ass nukige. I kept an eye on things starting around 2010ish and there was very very little outside of crazy nukige being released officially in the west. For most people, piracy + fan patch was just about the only way to get anything. I'm not demonizing it, just pointing out my observation of the market starting around 2010. If there was some unknown to me VN renaissance before then, my mistake. I welcome any explanation showing otherwise, though, since like I said, I simply am unaware of releases happening anywhere close to the frequency and with the ease of purchase we have today. 

[Nandemonai]

Sorry, but you can't no-true-Scotsman your way around the fact that in the very early days there were no fan patches at all.  Back in 1996 Jast USA released Season of the Sakura.  In 1999 Otaku Publishing released True Love.  The first really successful fan patch (that I know of) was Tsukihime, and that didn't release until like 2004.

By the time fan patches were a thing, G-Collections had come and gone already.  They released a game a month for about 2 years before they imploded.  Between that, C's Ware, Jast USA / Peach Princess's output, and the half a dozen other companies (or so) that released one or two games then folded (including Megatech, the first company to translate an h-game - in 1992!) ... Fan patches have always been outnumbered by official releases.

Sure, most of the games released in those early days weren't all that great (and the translations weren't either).  But they were there.  In 2010, there were loads of legitimate releases to choose from (including Demonbane).  You can't ignore the giant pile of releases, then say "see, there isn't anything here"

[BaaldFraudSam]

VN fans are entitled af imho. People don't want to buy garbages from Sakura games but at the same time are not willing to pay for high quality translation in an already very niche industry. What sort of entitlement is this lmao? They want good translation without having to pay for it, no wonder the publishers make a loss. It seems the VNs fans are too used to pirating for stuff and don't have a habit of paying for the actual goods. It's sad really. 

[TexasDice]

1 pirated download doesn't equal = 1 lost sale.  Most (not all) pirate activity originates out of boredom and because it's free. If you took away the source for it, most of them would just find something else to pirate rather than begrudgingly pay for the thing. 

I hope SOL will have more success with their upcoming titles. I don't hate Newton as a first release, considering the company came out of nowhere and doesn't have free access to really big titles.

However, if we take a look at Sakura Sakura I'm mildly confused: Was this title chosen because someone a Sol Press wanted to do it or because they simply couldn't get their hands on anything else? Because it's really a niche title if you consider 1. Retro-like visuals but with modern day quality, 2. multiple protagonists and 3. a really bad script. Last point aside, the first two wouldn't be what I would consider to be "generally appealing".

Not that I'm opposed to taking chances, but betting on Sakura Sakura for the current audience was kind of like staying on a 5 during Black Jack like Austin Powers.

And Yotsunoha is old. Which is bad, because I believe you need to be a Fate or Yu-no to sell if you're old.

[BaaldFraudSam]

But it is pretty sad tho that many people would rather pirate it than pay for the stuff. A review on Saya no Uta on Steam actually said that he would rather pirate the game than pay for it while he can actually get the full uncut version from JAST themselves and a lot of people seem to agree with it. So yeah it seems people aren't willing to pay for quality content and want to receive it for free. 

[solidbatman]

Maybe it was covered in this thread (I'm lazy and don't feel like reading 4 pages), but I'd be very interested to see some sort of sales data on a steam release w/ uncut store release and compare that to downloads on nyaa or other pirating websites. I'd imagine steam releases proportionally sell better but I've no way of really looking at that sort of data unless a company wants to divulge it. 

[NowItsAngeTime]

15 hours ago, TexasDice said:

However, if we take a look at Sakura Sakura I'm mildly confused: Was this title chosen because someone a Sol Press wanted to do it or because they simply couldn't get their hands on anything else? 

Sakura Sakura was picked up around the same time Newton was apparently. It's just Sakura Sakura had many delays due to all the graphical upscaling they had to do or else it likely would have released around or even before Newton.

[littleshogun]

As for the comparison between sales and pirate download, from what I see I think there's nothing in this thread so the only one who know the comparison is Sol Press CEO himself (Xeviax) and Noisy Pixel writer. Also yeah Sol Press took very long time for upscaling Sakusakura graphic in that it's a very tiring job that caused a year delay, and even Doddler said that it was crazy of them to do it.

[Wildbreed]

While piracy may have had a part in it.. i believe Sol Press themselves are somewhat at fault here ...

Yotsunoha was supposed to be released after Newton ..if you had taken a look at Yotsunohas steam page before it got taken down there was a page full of comments about " Where's the release" on Yotsunoha's  steam discussion thread..around the time of its planned release..so there was indeed hype for it.. offcourse at that time no one knew that it would be delayed by over 1 and Half year..Following that Sakura Sakura was also Delayed..

If you see closely,  Newrin did okay...taking into account that it was an unheard of title ...had Sakura Sakura and Yotsunoha released as planned,  they too would  have performed similarly.. but that was not the case.. by the time both of these rolled out.. the hype surrounding them had all but died and drowned  out ...

 

Back to present.. Kimihime release date is just 1 day away,  still there is nothing from Sol Press side... all this with lack of marketing for the Said Release.. I mean Sol Press twitter Banner still shows Under one Wing.. ( come on Sol P at-least take a little effort to show people that your interested in the upcoming  release).... and to Top it off.. i dont wanna even touch the Forest Fire that is the Iro Sekai  Kickstarter  Campaign... 

So When you complain about piracy etc.. you should first stop and think whether your doing your Part Properly before blaming everything on Piracy....Infact from the looks of it.. your doing nothing but contributing to it..  

I dont wanna be Harsh on Sol P since i really respect the work some of the guys put into it like tbac, Bango,  roro  etc.. its the management that has issues..  its hightime that Sol P gets off its lazy ass and start doing something about it

Edited August 15, 2019 by Wildbreed

[Acrylic7]

I feel sad to hear this. Personally I don't mind people whom cannot afford it (due to their low income) to pirate it. But for people whom can afford it, I hope they will buy more VN to support the company.