Sakura Beach

[Nimbus]

I've never played any of the Sakura games, should I play them just to see how bad they are? 

[Satsuki]

I've never played any of the Sakura games, should I play them just to see how bad they are?

Take your money, go get a burger. Much better.

[Nimbus]

Take your money, go get a burger. Much better.

now that's something we can all get behind!

[Funyarinpa]

What the actual fuck is this shit?

 

Has it even been six months since SS?

[Nosebleed]

What the actual fuck is this shit?

 

Has it even been six months since SS?

PLOT does not wait.

[TexasDice]

I've never played any of the Sakura games, should I play them just to see how bad they are? 

If you're a writer, writing student or critic, you will have a blast analyzing these masterpieces. 

[Nimbus]

If you're a writer, writing student or critic, you will have a blast analyzing these masterpieces. 

oh, tempting, very tempting 

[Bolverk]

Expected Sakura bitch. Got Yuri, oh well.   I am okay with this

[Nosebleed]

I'd actually probably buy this if it was legit yuri only (or yuri centered), but then I saw it had a male protagonist and lost all my hope.

[Pudding321]

I'd actually probably buy this if it was legit yuri only (or yuri centered), but then I saw it had a male protagonist and lost all my hope.

 

And here I am still waiting for a fate/ilya yuri visual novel

[Stray Cat]

[Yuri Hunter]

Why you guys say that these titles "sakura" are bad? do not spoil me, someone can give the VNDB of one of them? I want test it.

[Nosebleed]

Because they're super short, the writing quality is that of a 5 year old weeaboo, and the content is just, well, boobs.

There's literally no meaningful story, it's just poorly contextualized fanservice.

[Kosakyun]

What better way to appreciate the fanservice than to download the CGs only?

Assuming there's a way to.

[Zodai]

Thinking about it more, I've been wondering how the Sakura franchise as a whole relates to something like, say, this.

 

 

The words aren't flowing on my end, but is this actually a reason the franchise is doing well?  Even disregarding the uninformed purchases the VN community does actually get quite a lot of entertaining fury over these.

On the other hand, it could just be that they're just

bad, especially considering the Nanar status exemplified in the video is more likely to be with something like Fading Hearts, otherwise known as the most regrettable purchase of my life.

[Nosebleed]

At least Fading Hearts is stupid bad, and some might even go as far as saying it's so bad it's funny.

Also Fading Hearts actually has endings and a story, even if it's insane and nonsensical. It also is 5 times longer than a couple measly hours.

Sakura games don't have any meaningful story, but they try to push the games out as something somewhat serious when in reality it's literally just fanservice, there's nothing that's "so bad it's good" about it. You get the same enjoyment from just looking at the CGs, because playing the game doesn't provide any additional enjoyment.

Even as fanservice this fails though because everything is so ungodly one dimensional and the characters are so uninteresting and irrelevant that i struggle to even find it erotic.

I think most of the sales are really just from misinformed Steam users and 12 year olds who get turned on by this crap because they've never been exposed to anything else.

[Zodai]

Fair enough.  Part of me feels like there's more to it than just 'horny people being horny' and that there might be something more that we're missing here.  There are some fundamental questions that probably need some answering here.

 

If we assume that it's the sex appeal alone that causes the sales, is it possible to release an OELVN with 'similar' levels of fanservice that still has high-quality writing, thus achieving satisfaction both in the mass market sex game type and the base VN audience?  Is this path just a different way of going about the path 18+ VNs as a whole have ended up on?  In that instead of just sex scenes the fanservice is more spread out but never goes into nudity or 18+ territory, which may be the case in Sakura games.

 

If it is, in fact, not the sex appeal that causes Sakura games to be successful, then what is it?  If there's some fundamental concept that the rest of the OELVN devs haven't picked up on, something that very likely goes right over the heads of the core VN audience?  Is this something that can be implemented successfully into core VN development without sacrificing the aspects that made VNs strong to begin with, as opposed to just turning into what appears to be a pile of shit to those strong in the genre?

I mean, we spend so much time harping on how shit these games are, but is there anything we might be missing?  Is there anything we might be missing?  If we ask the people who buy them why they buy them, will we find something we hadn't picked up on before?

[Getsuya]

The message is as it has always been 'if you are willing to pander to the lowest common denominator you will have more success than a person who tries to aim higher'. VN fans are only outraged because there are much better games that people could be drooling over, but in the end Winged Cloud is making a bunch of financially sound decisions. Why waste a ton of money making really good games when you can make bank with thrown-together crap that you slap boobs on?

 

There's no mystery. If you want to be successful, sell your soul as an artist and pander. That's all there is to it. It's not like VNs in Japan don't also suffer from corporate execs telling the artists to dumb it down and add fanservice in so your average lonely otaku will shell out cash for it. As upset as it may make us, business is business and the boob business is always going to be good.

[Yuri Hunter]

 well, I haven't read it but seems like a anime with just fanservice `-`, I don't hate these type, but if the only thing good is the CG why they don't make it 18+?

[Nosebleed]

Indeed there's no secret formula to this, it's just shallow pandering.

well, I haven't read it but seems like a anime with just fanservice `-`, I don't hate these type, but if the only thing good is the CG why they don't make it 18+?

So they can sell on Steam and reach a wider audience of people who wouldn't go out of their way to buy a legitimate porn game otherwise.

[Yuri Hunter]

Indeed there's no secret formula to this, it's just shallow pandering.

So they can sell on Steam and reach a wider audience of people who wouldn't go out of their way to buy a legitimate porn game otherwise.

 Good plan '-'

[Pudding321]

Came back just to say that it has already been greenlit.   

[Soulless Watcher]

Came back just to say that it has already been greenlit.   

(sticks fingers in ears) AHANAHNAHNAHNAHA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!! 

[monkeysrumble]

Came back just to say that it has already been greenlit.   

 

Too absolutely no one's surprise.

 

The rate that they are pumping out these VN's is absolutely ridiculous. Once a year would still be too much.

[Darklord Rooke]

 

The rate that they are pumping out these VN's is absolutely ridiculous. Once a year would still be too much.

 

What I can deduce from their earlier works, they commission a dude to do the background art of which there aren't too many (though they're really good,) and some dude to do the sprites of which there aren't too many (though the artist would have spent a lot of time polishing those boobs.) This wouldn't take an entire year.

 

On the plot side, it looks like they get someone to chuck together some sentences using the method of least resistance to put together a story which has no style, has little plot, and has little characterisation.

 

If I was a cynical man, I would say they separated themselves from Sekai Project because SP wanted to implement actual standards for stories they publish, standards Winged Cloud were loathe to live up to. It'd probably get in the way of their goal to produce raunchy CG galleries.