According to a statement on its official site, as of January 2nd, 2008 visual novel production house Hirameki has closed its doors. I never followed the company’s activities very closely, but this news is certainly a blow to the cause of visual novel fans and bishoujo game fans of all varieties, ero or otherwise. Those familiar with the history of English localization of visual novel-type games will see this as part of a pattern that has brought down every other company solely devoted to their production in the past; only on the margins have such games ever been profitable, and given the current environment it seems unlikely this will change. Still, I can’t help wondering what would happen if the right company came along… Despite the official closure of Hirameki’s doors many of their titles are still available for purchase, including the critically acclaimed Ever17 and Phantom of Inferno. (no more)
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Society is safer as long as the collective does the thinking for the masses. Those with deviant thoughts will conform if only by means of economic suffication of that which they find pleasing, or entertaining, or that which is outside the parameters set by the collective.
This is a good thing.
You will conform.
One way.
Not another…………
our marxist here apparently doesn’t know about dlsite
Hirameki was a poorly run company that made terrible decisions regarding title selections, game formats, editing, marketing, etc. These factors are at least as much to blame for their closure as is the difficult market that eroge faces in America.
I’m hoping that G-Collections fares better with their current eroge endeavors. For now, at least, they don’t seem to be making any of the blatant mistakes that Hirameki was guilty of. I’d love to see more quality stuff come over to these shores after Kaizoku Keikaku is released.
There’re only two companies releasing these things now – JAST USA and Media Blasters.
Remember that G-Collections merely exists (along with Peach Princess) as a brand of JAST USA now. They all fall under a single operation.
Dude, this isn’t about societal conformity. It’s about BitTorrent and rapidsearch. Shit, there’s an entire board of 4chan dedicated to pirating.
Right now the value of anime and eroge in the American market is $0. Someone’s gotta come up with something before the whole market just evaporates.
That’s one less English VN company…
So it seems that the burden of bringing translated VNs Westside is on the shoulders of the avid fantranslator groups. They’re there. Somewhere.
I doubt this is the place to ask, but I wonder if all the different branding serves a purpose for JAST…
>>Work_Ethic
I think it was the free market that killed Hirameki more than any sort of collectivist movement to suppress it, alas. :(
>>Kefit
The original G-Collections (the one run by CD-Bros.) already died once, for many of the same reasons Hirameki did. The reason it’s alive now is that its new incarnation operates on a fundamentally different business model than Hirameki (one that involves it not being an independent business). I wish I could say we’re alive by virtue of our smart licensing decisions and intimate rapport with fans, but in that respect it’s hard to say we’re any better than Hirameki was.
>>Bill
What you say is true; the playing field is now reduced to two, and I’m not convinced Media Blasters will be doing anything beyond Bible Black and Discipline unless they decide to actively go courting new properties (though that’s speculation for another post).
As you say, at present G-Collections and Peach Princess can best be viewed as sub-brands of JAST USA.
>>meganeshounen
I’ve been surprised to find over the past several months that nearly every major visual novel (by “major” I mean the ones too big in Japan to be profitably licensed abroad at the fees the copyright holders would demand) has a translation project in the works, though no doubt only a few will ever reach completion.
I hope their efforts lead to greater awareness of the medium in the same way that anime fansubs paved the way for the international commercial anime industry, though I think visual novels may be intrinsically doomed to very niche status regardless.
>>lostdog
Multiple brands serve various uses (Japanese makers frequently use them to distinguish between product lines based on theme or production staff); in our case they help, albeit slightly, to avoid the perception of monopoly in the “industry” such as it is.
In the interest of full disclosure I should note (again) that I am currently employed by JAST USA and doing game localization for them is my day job.
Most of the translated eroges/VNs that make it into western shores suffer from lack of marketing, if I remember correctly, and that’s only one of the many problems that such products face. Another one is that the market it’s aimed at is small (the market that’s really aware of eroges and VNs and would willingly play them), and that the wider market – those who do know anime and Japanese culture – don’t know what eroges are, or have rarely been exposed to those kinds of games, for the most part.
You’ve also got industry competition – most Westerners I know would rather choose a visually stunning game that actively engages them rather than sit and pay attention to the contents of a scrolling text box with pretty pictures. And since eroges, or visual novels as the West calls it, falls into the video game market, you can expect that people would rather pick up FPSs or sports games over an eroge any day. To them, eroges are just slideshows without any content, and the average Westerner would probably lack the attention span that VNs require. Entertain and titillate me with dynamic content! I’m a paying customer!
Sure, they’re being translated, but the profit margins and figures are not enough for the big companies in Japan to think that it’s a worthwhile investment for them to license their biggest titles. Especially when people think of rampant sex and debauchery whenever they hear the word “eroge”. You’ve got to think of sustainability for the most part, as well as availability, because even though you’ve got feasibility, it just won’t be enough.
Right now, the best options that people have in order for more eroge and VN titles to be available in English would be to either spread market awareness…or to support the groups who are doing fan translations of your favorite eroges/VNs.
It might be pessimistic of me to say it, but despite how much I enjoy eroges, I think that they’re doomed to a niche market when it comes to Western shores (excluding the Japanese market, of course, in which they have a huge following and industry).
Just my 2 cents worth:
Eroge is akin to reading a picture book, and unfortunately, book readers are a minority nowadays, especially with the computer and the internet.
e.g. In Singapore, the library is mainly used for students mugging for their exams. The main bulk of the real readers are actually older folks like me who grew up without PCs. (I had my first pc when I was seventeen. My less well-off peers never even touched a PC until they are working adults. Compare that to my pre-kindergarten nephew who is already using a pc now to learn his alphabet. I learnt mine watching Sesame Street on TV and reading picture books.) Primary school kids in Singapore (elementary school equivalent in USA) are required to buy a tablet PC to use for their lessons. 8/
>>Shingo
So you’re working for JAST USA. Keep up the good work. I’m looking forward to the translated version of Princess Waltz. 8) And I will continue to buy from JAST USA/G-collections/Media Blasters provided they continue to release uncensored versions. Still, I doubt we’ll see an official English Fate/Stay Night or Nitro+ stuff soon. (Too expensive to license I think.)
And what Hemisphere said is true – for the same price as a action video game, I think most people will choose the interactive action game over an eroge. (Heck, there are hardly any good turn-based strategy games released nowadays, compared to the never-ending real-time click fests we see…sigh…)
I think American macho culture is a major barrier. You can buy a game like, Mass Effect (yes..), Bloodrayne, or Tomb Raider. People at Gamestop will probably not look at you funny.
Buy Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball, however….
Remove most of the stigma that comes from buying porn and I bet certain genres would do better.
Of course then there’s God and politics…
In any case I love internet mail order.
A major impediment I see for eroge to ever make any real sort of progress in America is that, well, there’s sex in them. Big box stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy will never stock games featuring explicit sex, barring these games from a major market. Additionally, I can’t think of any other venue for them in actual physical retail. It’s hard to imagine a GameStop stocking the game, and that’s one of the few game devoted chains left. Outside of pure internet sales, I don’t see how the eroge market can grow in America.
Well at least Ever17 was done, a milestone to be proud of. I think the culture aspect is just stopping people from picking up a box with anime style girls on it (especially when it is 純愛 not sci-fi). This will need time to change.
I’m sorry to see Hirameki to go. They were struggling at it for a while. There are so many problems trying to promote these things outside of Japan. At least the anime/manga industries are growing (maybe too quickly) in the west, so it might just need some time…
The problem, I think, doesn’t even really come down to the porn content, I think it’s because these are largely Adventure games instead of Action games, and when was the last time you heard a lot about those? If the Anime & Manga crossover had happened 10 years earlier than it did, then I think there would be a lot more of these games officially translated into English, but as it is, I think the current lack of prominence in the genre that they fit into is actually the thing holding back VNs, eroge or otherwise.
I suspect that one reason why JAST USA seems to be doing relatively well is that it’s vertically integrated. Although I’ve seen JAST products sold elsewhere, I suspect that the bulk of sales are through J-List, online and at cons. Since they’re both part of Peter Payne’s Zaibatsu*, more of the money stays in the same place. For Hirameki, the money was split between them and a distributor, which might have something to do with why they pulled out of the market.
* Said in jest, of course…
I think it’s because these are largely Adventure games instead of Action games, and when was the last time you heard a lot about those?
Quite recently, actually. They’re a niche market, but they’re a niche market that has hung grimly on no matter how many times the mainstream tries to declare that adventure games are dead. Take a look at any decent PC games review/release list and count the number of adventure games that come out every year compared to, say, the number of PC platformers or turn-based strategy games. Not only that, but ‘casual adventure’ games are something of a budding genre in the casual market. There have been some fairly big hits.
Fatal Hearts, my revent visual novel adventure game (non-H of course) is *not* a huge hit, but it’s not a flop either. Control your budget tightly and manage your marketing and there’s not really a problem with selling visual novels. Unfortunately, adult content automatically removes a heck of a lot of marketing angles. As does focusing on the Japanese origin of your titles. The hardcore japanophile contingent isn’t as big as you might think (and a lot of them are used to warezing everything).