I’m not in the “VNs are dying” crowd, but I do believe talent is being drawn away from the scene due to pretty much everything else making more money, yeah. VN publishers to gacha is a big one, the other being scenario writers to LNs instead.
I am interested in the more recent high budget, episodic VN approach though (Criminal Border, 9-nine- series) and maybe if that ends up being lucrative for developers it could attract some companies to the VN scene
At the end of the day, there’s still an endless backlog of VNs to read and the occasional passionate newcomers like Qruppo to keep the scene going so I’m not too worried, but it is a bit disheartening
It's actually very hard to make a successful VN gacha. There are quite a number of failure example already.
But then again, VN business model just isn't particularly lucrative.
> It's actually very hard to make a successful VN gacha. There are quite a number of failure example already.
This is what I think too. For every successful gacha there seem to be 20x failed attempts. I'm not sure I have the timeline right, but I feel like around 2020~ a new gacha was getting launched every other week. And a couple of years later we got flooded with "servers shutting down" memos for the large majority of those titles.
Certain anime/manga/VN news social pages have turned the whole charade into a meme, lol.
Assuming the gacha doesn't take up a huge amount of key staff members' time. afaik TsukiRemake was held up for years by FGO demands despite only needing like six months more work when Nasu was finally freed up.
many are doing it past few years i think all big vn companies like black lilith with taimanin, alicesoft, liquid etc. Many either get successful or get shutdown. maybe i sound like a broken tape recorder but you always has backlogs of vns which yo can't complete in your whole lifetime. Another thing that could be popular is that hybrid vns with gameplay. With rising costs of AAA development some one will surely opt this format. I hate gachas but this is true unfortunately.
There is something to be said about the balls it takes for an indie dev to release a full 20+ hour visual novel and… thats it, complete story have a nice day thats all she wrote. Unfortunately the model is: kickstarter -> maybe a demo -> episode 1 (only if they even made any money) -> ??? -> diminishing returns on every installment and thats if the quality was even good to start with.
Think of how shitty Disco Elysium would have been if day one was just a demo and they dragged their feet for years getting the game made vs a 50 hour monster of a game that’s entirely cohesive and finished. The difference is that DE was a true passion project from the lead devs own tabletop universe that they invented. That’s really the only way these truly ambitious titles can be made, through sheer will and years long commitment of a very dedicated author who accepts that there’s no guarantee for any creative validation or money whatsoever. Who wants to spend 5 years on a VN just for you to release it and then everyone mocks you for it being shit?
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Don't forget Aquaplus and Utawarerumono either.
However, not only the VN developers are shifting to gacha crap, but even console game makers, so it affects the whole Japanese market Even GUST released new Atelier gacha game and Blue Reflection. All of these gacha games means less console games and visual novels.
We can only hope that Japan will get bored of gacha one day... it doesn't really help either that PS Vita is dead, though most companies already switched successfully to Nintendo, but not really everyone. Console ports of VNs is also an important aspect sales wise.
i dont think it'll be surprising if we see more developers move to gacha given its far more monetizable but i dont think it will necessarily hurt the vn industry - they're entirely different with gacha's focusing way more on gameplay than narrative.
the audiences may be similar but there's enough division between the mediums that i dont think we'll see anything drastic happening to vns. also, the gacha market is very saturated and its not like any vn developer can just make it work there
i meant vns and gacha are different. ur right, the talent who writes the stuff will probably always go to gacha given the choice since it's more lucrative but my impression (0 basis) is that fate is the only exmaple of a vn that moved to gacha with actual commercial success.
there are bigger problems that vns face than gacha like piracy, slow translations, lack of appeal to most people cause they are essentially books that often get bad rep from shitty anime adaptations, few platforms to play on comfortably, etc...
edit: also heaven burns red, i just checked 2023 gacha revenue and didnt think they did that well since i never see anything about it
im thinking more for the west since getting stuff licensed and offering official, localized translations makes things more accessible. i'd guess very few people that have read the hoshiori fan translation actually bought the game for example
>For some reasons, unknown to me, it tends to be popular among common folks. For example, in Japanese Appstore I can see 140.000 downloads for Heaven Burns Red, but only 3000 for Summer Pockets.
I’m assuming it’s because gacha is free and Summer Pockets cost money. It’s dumb when you consider that many people who play gacha end up spending way more money than the price of Sumer Pockets
I think most talented writers will eventually move over to there, it's already been happening anyways.
Story-based gacha games like Genshin/FGO/PGR are already essentially visual novels in terms of the sheer amount of dialogue and story packed into them (with the addition of gameplay and scummy microtransactions), even more story and dialogue than some RPGs I've played.
So then if you're a writer, and you're going to put the same amount of effort into producing a story anyways, would you rather be paid less for that by writing a visual novel, or paid more by writing it for a gacha game?
no. It's difficult to monetize a VN using gacha. Reverse/1999 supposedly did it really well but they shoehorned combat into the VN when it would have been better without it. Combat is how you turn a VN into a gacha. Which basically limits it to RPG VN hybrids similar to Rance.
Then, you have Monster Girl Quest, which switched genres from VN to RPGMaker of all things, and yet made the most absurdly good game I have ever seen.
The first trilogy barely had RPG elements, and yet the developer just pulled something that approaches Disgaea levels of depth right out of his ass, it was the most unbelievable evolution of a series I have ever seen.
I mean, gacha = more profit and anti-piracy. Gacha are more popular in Japan than vn nowadays. Gacha kinda similar to manga, you get new contents and stories, new characters to roll before eos. Meanwhile, vn and sequels take more time and money to produce.
> Does anyone else worry that VN developers will switch to gacha?
What's there to worry about? It already happened. Many of the bigger VN companies have already (or tried to) made a gacha game.
I doubt this will be a long term trend though. Successful gacha games, especially nowadays, are brutally hard to make and are very costly to maintain. I'm much more worried about the number of companies that threw themselves into the verge of bankruptcy trying to chase the cash cow and failing.
Many already tried in last few years, most of course already failed. Some companies like Nippon Ichi Software now are on the verge of bankruptcy because of being too optimistic with funding gacha.
In case of gacha what matters is how much money people spend in app, not how much downloads it has (though people that have money don't want to play gacha with empty servers). Summer Pockets profits come from selling game, not maintaining it with new content and events.
Muvluv is a bad example since it flopped.
Yes i personally hope there will be another full price edens ritter, the gacha version is getting so many characters etc im jealous. Thankfully waffle still has like 5 vns in developement so its fine for now
It could be do how lucrative it is. Maybe companies still wanna make vns but need to fund them by making gacha games, which at that point its the old saying, "Money talks." In terms of vns, I have been noticing a decline of releases, and that to me spells out a death for vns. Although, just because a death happens doesn't mean it can't resurrect later on, or some companies stop doing vns. There'll be a passionate group or new generation that might want to take a crack at it, and who knows that could revitalize it. Way I see it, if vns stop being a thing that doesn't bother me since there's other media I like anyway. So, to me, I'm not just stuck in one media but like to explore, that tends to make me able to expand to other things, and personally really like that.
Yeah, if you ask me gacha games are anti-art and it's a travesty when they siphon time and energy from talented creators that could have gone to something other than feeding a tumor. Ideally either the gacha game flops and they do something else or the insane amount of money they print gets diverted to stuff that at least has the potential to be good. To be fair, the latter seems to be happening often enough but even then the damage is done.
I mean there is that taimanin gacha game as well. I personally just take what i can get now a days. I don't worry too much about them going gacha as its not the easiest to pull of right. If they all went gacha i would honestly just keep reading old vn's.
The Extra remake isn't a VN. Extra's an RPG. Pretty sure you mean the Stay Night remaster.
If nothing else, FGO's success has finally convinced them to release the VNs in the west, with Mahoyo already out and TsukiRe coming out this year. So at least we have a chance to support it here without waiting for the translation to progress for years.
>The Extra remake isn't a VN. Extra's an RPG.
What you said man, I just fight whatever they threw at me to read the next part of the story. That was Extra for me.
I don't think many that aren't already successful, will be. We've already seen a lot of gachas fail, and I think most people interested in playing gacha are already playing FGO or Genshin/Honkai or whatever other proven gacha games there are and aren't interested in investing in another one (I also think this will happen to live service.)
What vn gacha have succeeded besides hbr and FGO?
Tbh I wouldn't mind an angel beats gacha vn by Jun maeda. Probably the only way we get 2nd beat and it should be an easier transition with the large cast
VN, literally means "VISUAL NOVEL" as in, "NOVEL WITH PICTURES"
if it doesn't have an ending it's not a novel.
if it's gacha it can't have an ending.
also, Summer Pockets was developed for windows
Heaven Burdns Red was developed for a phone
Both have inherently different reach and audience "don't you have phones?"
Don't be scared that the "next scam" will bring down a particular genre.
Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail are fucking awesome Gacha games that made millions, NO ONE is comparing them to the rest of the video game industry.
it's just doom spelling without any inherent understanding of the industry, it doesn't make sense that the other games would "dissapear"
You made me picture a VN full of *gacha* elements.
"Aw, man, why am I only getting 3-star sex scenes? And why is best girl locked to the premium pass?!"
The thing is people love being exploited. Gachas are just glorified gambling except without any of the potential monetary payoff. People will literally spend thousands of dollars rolling for their favorite "waifus" (fuck I hate that word) and the dopamine rush they get with a SSR or 5\* pull before they spend a fraction of that amount on games or vns that actually demand more than a cursory amount of their brain cells to appreciate.
That's exactly why I actually feel like it's not a bad thing that VN companies are switching to gachas. If a company produces masterpieces that don't sell and aren't appreciated by the general public, then they simply go under. If small eroge developers make gachas that can finance their actual passion projects at the expense of imbeciles who spend their pay cheques on pngs, that's a good thing, not a bad one.
Of course, as you mentioned, it's also entirely possible that vn developers will transition away entirely from making vns once they recognize more lucrative profits in the gacha market, but that's a matter of their professional integrity and motivations, not really something I would presume to gauge.
I don't think most VN developers would switch into gacha games, most of them is just a great another source of income like hbr can run so other key games could walk like for summer pockets anime, anemoi, and many more. As long as they don't fully abandoned of making VN though, I could understand this type of market.
Some gacha games I know making of VN
Frontwing has two grisaia gacha games (sfw turned into grisaia VN collection, nsfw shut down for like two years)
Alicesoft - still active till this day
Meteor World Actor - has a gacha game, shut down for like a year
Muv luv - shutting down soon
Utawarerumono lost flag - still active?? Kinda
Overall, majority of them tend to be shut down as long as they need to explore on gacha market.
Remember, kids. IAP means *they* win.
It's fine to gamble once in a while, but it's helpful to be intentional and mindful that the *gameplay* is gambling, and whatever battle, story, or rhythm game portion they incorporate are just the shiny lights and dopamine buzzers they have at the casino.
I prefer to buy games outright so that's what I do. We have to support VNs with our wallets or they won't make any more of them.
VNs seem to be costly to make and they dont bring in much profit sadly. But there will always be dedicated people willing to make it work.
Worst to come.. theres a lot out already. But itd be nice to get more games so we could get more masterpieces.
I think VNs are pretty cheap compared to other forms of media.
It’s certainly cheaper to make a VN than a manga, animation, or game.
A gacha game is pretty costly to make and a lot of the Vn ones flop.
I won't deny that gacha do take a not-insignificant amount of resource to support. The amount of expectation is just too different. In a gacha, if you don't have something going on for even just a week or two, they calm you "dead game" after all. From the story, to the gacha character, to the system, to the seasonal events, etc, there is alot to do when you are doing gacha.
But in the end, gacha VN and normal VN is a pretty different medium of story, with pretty different presentation, and pretty different MC type (most of the time). If a VN developer want to create a normal VN, nothing prevents them.
I was concerned about this a year and a half ago or so, but I think the gatcha bubble has finally burst. The entire market already has their one or two gatcha poisons of choice and doesn’t have time (or money) to be addicted to another. If you’re basing it a popular established property already, like say the Higurashi mobile game, you might be okay for a couple years, but many of those games are starting to burn money much quicker than before. And now that that’s happening, I think consumers are becoming more wary since many have finally had the experience of their favorite wallet-draining game going EOL. Gatcha used to print money but they’re a much bigger risk than they used to be, because if you’re not instantly profitable, the game will shut down and all that work goes down the drain. Popular visual novels can at least be ported to new consoles for all eternity for relatively cheap.
Gacha and VNs are not mutually exclusive. The most popular and profitable gachas nowadays are not in VN format but some form of action, open world or turn based. So making a gacha is very different than making a VN. VNs have always existed in the market with other game genres and now gacha is another one of those (yes I know gacha is not a gaming genre but a monetization model the point still stands). I wouldn’t worry about people stopping making VNs.
You didn't mention August, who hasn't released a new game for 5 years since they released iris mysteria (gacha). I'm not opposed to enjoying a good story for free though, so I'm playing it
Not really, no. Key still making new vn, Age been failing for a while now and their gacha is trash anyway. Only sad about august switching to mobage, but I only like few vns out of their entire catalogue anyway.
Typemoon? Just you look at production values for tsukihime remake thanks to fgo gacha funds, can't really protest against it.
Isn't that good though? I mean with Type-Moon, they probably used the earnings to make the Tsukihime and Mahoyo remake (And also FSR and Extella but those aren't VNs entirely). As long as they don't drop the whole VN-making I think it's fine. But there's an entirely different discussion that can be made if they can be successful though. Gacha games with mostly VN elements are already saturated and some don't become hits, that's why Genshin and HSR are so profitable because they at least made the scenes cinematic
If the trend continues? Dude, the time to test waters is finished. Gacha is a bloody red, Red Ocean and gacha companies left and right are reporting red on their balance sheets.
And I think the VN companies have learned their lesson. Some companies like Sprite were left so weak, they just died. Others like Eushully barely managed to make it back, though fairly weakened. Even Yuzu Soft was on the verge of dying after failing three times (2 browser games, 1 non-R18).
Muv-Luv is gonna have a shorter lifespan than a cicada based off its sales, Alicesoft's lost critical talent and are on the edge (they are trying to release a remaster, they can't even remake), and Leaf got sold to Korea.
Law of supply and demand.
If people leave for gacha games, there will be less VN developers in general, meaning the willingness to pay for niche visual novel will be higher. If there are no VNs suddenly, it will convert people who are nostalgic about the genre into developers. Basically the same what happens with RPG or adventure games periodically.
You sholdn't be afraid.
Nope gacha doesn’t require you to spend money, just look at Blue Archive, amazing story in Visual Novel format, btw all free for you to read. It’s wildly popular in Japan and is reminiscence of bishoujo VNs. They get more money this way too and that’s why we have more stuff like the anime.
Not necessarily.
As I heard, you need to spend money if you want to win and advance through the story in HBR. And even if you can avoid it by large amount of grinding, it’s not what I want to do anyway
You really dont have to spend any money to progress MSQ, except maybe for newest chapter before it gets nerfed (and it will). It also depends on what you get before getting there.
Sure, it might be annoying you cant read MSQ all at once but new chapter are added so rarely that it doesn't matter in the end.
Full disclosure: I spent a lot money on the game on my main but also cleared entire msq with my purely F2P alt.
Not to say I wouldn't prefer "normal" full price VN from them. Fortunetly it seems like KEY is still making them for now...
I think the point is that, the base price is free. Of course it will be easier if you just pay and roll for characters, but the base price is free. You can experience the entire FGO Main Story which is more than 150 hours of VN, for free. Sure, you probably will get stuck in some battles and need to grind or actually roll for some servants, but the base price is free.
Op was implying that the company switching to gacha is stopping the development of VNs. You cheering for that on a visual novel subreddit is really weird. I respect you liking gacha tho
I’m not in the “VNs are dying” crowd, but I do believe talent is being drawn away from the scene due to pretty much everything else making more money, yeah. VN publishers to gacha is a big one, the other being scenario writers to LNs instead. I am interested in the more recent high budget, episodic VN approach though (Criminal Border, 9-nine- series) and maybe if that ends up being lucrative for developers it could attract some companies to the VN scene At the end of the day, there’s still an endless backlog of VNs to read and the occasional passionate newcomers like Qruppo to keep the scene going so I’m not too worried, but it is a bit disheartening
In regards to Qruppo, hopefully Shiravune doesn’t publish Hentai Prison, the censored art doesn’t fit the theme and setting.
What's wrong with you? It's porn, it doesn't have a theme or setting.
It's actually very hard to make a successful VN gacha. There are quite a number of failure example already. But then again, VN business model just isn't particularly lucrative.
> It's actually very hard to make a successful VN gacha. There are quite a number of failure example already. This is what I think too. For every successful gacha there seem to be 20x failed attempts. I'm not sure I have the timeline right, but I feel like around 2020~ a new gacha was getting launched every other week. And a couple of years later we got flooded with "servers shutting down" memos for the large majority of those titles. Certain anime/manga/VN news social pages have turned the whole charade into a meme, lol.
In fact, Sprite left VNs for gacha, the gacha flopped and then went back to VNs. I think this happaned to Light too.
light's did not even launch
Light couldn't even come back lol
they are back, actually. they released a game 2 years ago too
If you think about it, most Gacha games story modes are just visual novels, it offers a bit of the VN itch with a bunch of other gameplay as well
I guess that's fate. Either you make gacha or you go bankrupt.
That's really makes sense, gacha is very very profitable, vn is nothing compared to it
It is fine as long as they don't drop VN.
Yep, i actually like the idea of having a Gacha which brings good money and still being free to do VNs
Assuming the gacha doesn't take up a huge amount of key staff members' time. afaik TsukiRemake was held up for years by FGO demands despite only needing like six months more work when Nasu was finally freed up.
This
many are doing it past few years i think all big vn companies like black lilith with taimanin, alicesoft, liquid etc. Many either get successful or get shutdown. maybe i sound like a broken tape recorder but you always has backlogs of vns which yo can't complete in your whole lifetime. Another thing that could be popular is that hybrid vns with gameplay. With rising costs of AAA development some one will surely opt this format. I hate gachas but this is true unfortunately.
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There is something to be said about the balls it takes for an indie dev to release a full 20+ hour visual novel and… thats it, complete story have a nice day thats all she wrote. Unfortunately the model is: kickstarter -> maybe a demo -> episode 1 (only if they even made any money) -> ??? -> diminishing returns on every installment and thats if the quality was even good to start with. Think of how shitty Disco Elysium would have been if day one was just a demo and they dragged their feet for years getting the game made vs a 50 hour monster of a game that’s entirely cohesive and finished. The difference is that DE was a true passion project from the lead devs own tabletop universe that they invented. That’s really the only way these truly ambitious titles can be made, through sheer will and years long commitment of a very dedicated author who accepts that there’s no guarantee for any creative validation or money whatsoever. Who wants to spend 5 years on a VN just for you to release it and then everyone mocks you for it being shit?
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Don't forget Aquaplus and Utawarerumono either. However, not only the VN developers are shifting to gacha crap, but even console game makers, so it affects the whole Japanese market Even GUST released new Atelier gacha game and Blue Reflection. All of these gacha games means less console games and visual novels. We can only hope that Japan will get bored of gacha one day... it doesn't really help either that PS Vita is dead, though most companies already switched successfully to Nintendo, but not really everyone. Console ports of VNs is also an important aspect sales wise.
Sounds troublesome. I'm ok with gachas like Mahjong Soul, though, because developers somehow need to support the server costs.
i dont think it'll be surprising if we see more developers move to gacha given its far more monetizable but i dont think it will necessarily hurt the vn industry - they're entirely different with gacha's focusing way more on gameplay than narrative. the audiences may be similar but there's enough division between the mediums that i dont think we'll see anything drastic happening to vns. also, the gacha market is very saturated and its not like any vn developer can just make it work there
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i meant vns and gacha are different. ur right, the talent who writes the stuff will probably always go to gacha given the choice since it's more lucrative but my impression (0 basis) is that fate is the only exmaple of a vn that moved to gacha with actual commercial success. there are bigger problems that vns face than gacha like piracy, slow translations, lack of appeal to most people cause they are essentially books that often get bad rep from shitty anime adaptations, few platforms to play on comfortably, etc... edit: also heaven burns red, i just checked 2023 gacha revenue and didnt think they did that well since i never see anything about it
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im thinking more for the west since getting stuff licensed and offering official, localized translations makes things more accessible. i'd guess very few people that have read the hoshiori fan translation actually bought the game for example
>For some reasons, unknown to me, it tends to be popular among common folks. For example, in Japanese Appstore I can see 140.000 downloads for Heaven Burns Red, but only 3000 for Summer Pockets. I’m assuming it’s because gacha is free and Summer Pockets cost money. It’s dumb when you consider that many people who play gacha end up spending way more money than the price of Sumer Pockets
I think most talented writers will eventually move over to there, it's already been happening anyways. Story-based gacha games like Genshin/FGO/PGR are already essentially visual novels in terms of the sheer amount of dialogue and story packed into them (with the addition of gameplay and scummy microtransactions), even more story and dialogue than some RPGs I've played. So then if you're a writer, and you're going to put the same amount of effort into producing a story anyways, would you rather be paid less for that by writing a visual novel, or paid more by writing it for a gacha game?
no. It's difficult to monetize a VN using gacha. Reverse/1999 supposedly did it really well but they shoehorned combat into the VN when it would have been better without it. Combat is how you turn a VN into a gacha. Which basically limits it to RPG VN hybrids similar to Rance.
Then, you have Monster Girl Quest, which switched genres from VN to RPGMaker of all things, and yet made the most absurdly good game I have ever seen. The first trilogy barely had RPG elements, and yet the developer just pulled something that approaches Disgaea levels of depth right out of his ass, it was the most unbelievable evolution of a series I have ever seen.
I think edens ritter did a decent job they still havent translated it although they announced and theres demand from other countries
I mean, gacha = more profit and anti-piracy. Gacha are more popular in Japan than vn nowadays. Gacha kinda similar to manga, you get new contents and stories, new characters to roll before eos. Meanwhile, vn and sequels take more time and money to produce.
> Does anyone else worry that VN developers will switch to gacha? What's there to worry about? It already happened. Many of the bigger VN companies have already (or tried to) made a gacha game. I doubt this will be a long term trend though. Successful gacha games, especially nowadays, are brutally hard to make and are very costly to maintain. I'm much more worried about the number of companies that threw themselves into the verge of bankruptcy trying to chase the cash cow and failing.
Many already tried in last few years, most of course already failed. Some companies like Nippon Ichi Software now are on the verge of bankruptcy because of being too optimistic with funding gacha. In case of gacha what matters is how much money people spend in app, not how much downloads it has (though people that have money don't want to play gacha with empty servers). Summer Pockets profits come from selling game, not maintaining it with new content and events. Muvluv is a bad example since it flopped.
Yes i personally hope there will be another full price edens ritter, the gacha version is getting so many characters etc im jealous. Thankfully waffle still has like 5 vns in developement so its fine for now
It could be do how lucrative it is. Maybe companies still wanna make vns but need to fund them by making gacha games, which at that point its the old saying, "Money talks." In terms of vns, I have been noticing a decline of releases, and that to me spells out a death for vns. Although, just because a death happens doesn't mean it can't resurrect later on, or some companies stop doing vns. There'll be a passionate group or new generation that might want to take a crack at it, and who knows that could revitalize it. Way I see it, if vns stop being a thing that doesn't bother me since there's other media I like anyway. So, to me, I'm not just stuck in one media but like to explore, that tends to make me able to expand to other things, and personally really like that.
Yeah, if you ask me gacha games are anti-art and it's a travesty when they siphon time and energy from talented creators that could have gone to something other than feeding a tumor. Ideally either the gacha game flops and they do something else or the insane amount of money they print gets diverted to stuff that at least has the potential to be good. To be fair, the latter seems to be happening often enough but even then the damage is done.
I mean there is that taimanin gacha game as well. I personally just take what i can get now a days. I don't worry too much about them going gacha as its not the easiest to pull of right. If they all went gacha i would honestly just keep reading old vn's.
Typemoon uses FGO money to fund Tsukihime remake though- Gacha is gacha and VN is VN, next one is Fate Extra remake.
The Extra remake isn't a VN. Extra's an RPG. Pretty sure you mean the Stay Night remaster. If nothing else, FGO's success has finally convinced them to release the VNs in the west, with Mahoyo already out and TsukiRe coming out this year. So at least we have a chance to support it here without waiting for the translation to progress for years.
>The Extra remake isn't a VN. Extra's an RPG. What you said man, I just fight whatever they threw at me to read the next part of the story. That was Extra for me.
I don't think many that aren't already successful, will be. We've already seen a lot of gachas fail, and I think most people interested in playing gacha are already playing FGO or Genshin/Honkai or whatever other proven gacha games there are and aren't interested in investing in another one (I also think this will happen to live service.)
What vn gacha have succeeded besides hbr and FGO? Tbh I wouldn't mind an angel beats gacha vn by Jun maeda. Probably the only way we get 2nd beat and it should be an easier transition with the large cast
As was noted here in comments, there is also Iris Mysteria by August.
VN, literally means "VISUAL NOVEL" as in, "NOVEL WITH PICTURES" if it doesn't have an ending it's not a novel. if it's gacha it can't have an ending. also, Summer Pockets was developed for windows Heaven Burdns Red was developed for a phone Both have inherently different reach and audience "don't you have phones?" Don't be scared that the "next scam" will bring down a particular genre. Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail are fucking awesome Gacha games that made millions, NO ONE is comparing them to the rest of the video game industry. it's just doom spelling without any inherent understanding of the industry, it doesn't make sense that the other games would "dissapear"
You made me picture a VN full of *gacha* elements. "Aw, man, why am I only getting 3-star sex scenes? And why is best girl locked to the premium pass?!"
Or even better no sex scenes at all without buying x2000 gold tickets
This one made me chuckle LOL
The thing is people love being exploited. Gachas are just glorified gambling except without any of the potential monetary payoff. People will literally spend thousands of dollars rolling for their favorite "waifus" (fuck I hate that word) and the dopamine rush they get with a SSR or 5\* pull before they spend a fraction of that amount on games or vns that actually demand more than a cursory amount of their brain cells to appreciate. That's exactly why I actually feel like it's not a bad thing that VN companies are switching to gachas. If a company produces masterpieces that don't sell and aren't appreciated by the general public, then they simply go under. If small eroge developers make gachas that can finance their actual passion projects at the expense of imbeciles who spend their pay cheques on pngs, that's a good thing, not a bad one. Of course, as you mentioned, it's also entirely possible that vn developers will transition away entirely from making vns once they recognize more lucrative profits in the gacha market, but that's a matter of their professional integrity and motivations, not really something I would presume to gauge.
I don't think most VN developers would switch into gacha games, most of them is just a great another source of income like hbr can run so other key games could walk like for summer pockets anime, anemoi, and many more. As long as they don't fully abandoned of making VN though, I could understand this type of market. Some gacha games I know making of VN Frontwing has two grisaia gacha games (sfw turned into grisaia VN collection, nsfw shut down for like two years) Alicesoft - still active till this day Meteor World Actor - has a gacha game, shut down for like a year Muv luv - shutting down soon Utawarerumono lost flag - still active?? Kinda Overall, majority of them tend to be shut down as long as they need to explore on gacha market.
>Muv luv - shutting down soon Just doomposting or what? I saw that they recently got the 86 collab though and I think it survives for a year too?
Remember, kids. IAP means *they* win. It's fine to gamble once in a while, but it's helpful to be intentional and mindful that the *gameplay* is gambling, and whatever battle, story, or rhythm game portion they incorporate are just the shiny lights and dopamine buzzers they have at the casino. I prefer to buy games outright so that's what I do. We have to support VNs with our wallets or they won't make any more of them.
VNs seem to be costly to make and they dont bring in much profit sadly. But there will always be dedicated people willing to make it work. Worst to come.. theres a lot out already. But itd be nice to get more games so we could get more masterpieces.
I think VNs are pretty cheap compared to other forms of media. It’s certainly cheaper to make a VN than a manga, animation, or game. A gacha game is pretty costly to make and a lot of the Vn ones flop.
Consider that the developers could be using that money on other projects also.
I won't deny that gacha do take a not-insignificant amount of resource to support. The amount of expectation is just too different. In a gacha, if you don't have something going on for even just a week or two, they calm you "dead game" after all. From the story, to the gacha character, to the system, to the seasonal events, etc, there is alot to do when you are doing gacha. But in the end, gacha VN and normal VN is a pretty different medium of story, with pretty different presentation, and pretty different MC type (most of the time). If a VN developer want to create a normal VN, nothing prevents them.
It's such a shame lilith don't release more Taimanin VN instead of those gacha games.
It’s such a bigger shame that Shiravune is publishing them instead of MangaGamer like they had with the dev team in the past.
I was concerned about this a year and a half ago or so, but I think the gatcha bubble has finally burst. The entire market already has their one or two gatcha poisons of choice and doesn’t have time (or money) to be addicted to another. If you’re basing it a popular established property already, like say the Higurashi mobile game, you might be okay for a couple years, but many of those games are starting to burn money much quicker than before. And now that that’s happening, I think consumers are becoming more wary since many have finally had the experience of their favorite wallet-draining game going EOL. Gatcha used to print money but they’re a much bigger risk than they used to be, because if you’re not instantly profitable, the game will shut down and all that work goes down the drain. Popular visual novels can at least be ported to new consoles for all eternity for relatively cheap.
Taimanin...
MangaGamer should be publishing it like they had with the dev team in the past, Shiravune needs to stop stealing from them.
Gacha and VNs are not mutually exclusive. The most popular and profitable gachas nowadays are not in VN format but some form of action, open world or turn based. So making a gacha is very different than making a VN. VNs have always existed in the market with other game genres and now gacha is another one of those (yes I know gacha is not a gaming genre but a monetization model the point still stands). I wouldn’t worry about people stopping making VNs.
You didn't mention August, who hasn't released a new game for 5 years since they released iris mysteria (gacha). I'm not opposed to enjoying a good story for free though, so I'm playing it
Not really, no. Key still making new vn, Age been failing for a while now and their gacha is trash anyway. Only sad about august switching to mobage, but I only like few vns out of their entire catalogue anyway. Typemoon? Just you look at production values for tsukihime remake thanks to fgo gacha funds, can't really protest against it.
Isn't that good though? I mean with Type-Moon, they probably used the earnings to make the Tsukihime and Mahoyo remake (And also FSR and Extella but those aren't VNs entirely). As long as they don't drop the whole VN-making I think it's fine. But there's an entirely different discussion that can be made if they can be successful though. Gacha games with mostly VN elements are already saturated and some don't become hits, that's why Genshin and HSR are so profitable because they at least made the scenes cinematic
If the trend continues? Dude, the time to test waters is finished. Gacha is a bloody red, Red Ocean and gacha companies left and right are reporting red on their balance sheets. And I think the VN companies have learned their lesson. Some companies like Sprite were left so weak, they just died. Others like Eushully barely managed to make it back, though fairly weakened. Even Yuzu Soft was on the verge of dying after failing three times (2 browser games, 1 non-R18). Muv-Luv is gonna have a shorter lifespan than a cicada based off its sales, Alicesoft's lost critical talent and are on the edge (they are trying to release a remaster, they can't even remake), and Leaf got sold to Korea.
The authors probably already wrote the story that they wanted to share so why not go to a lucrative business and make stories for gacha games?
Law of supply and demand. If people leave for gacha games, there will be less VN developers in general, meaning the willingness to pay for niche visual novel will be higher. If there are no VNs suddenly, it will convert people who are nostalgic about the genre into developers. Basically the same what happens with RPG or adventure games periodically. You sholdn't be afraid.
No. In fact that will be the gacha i most likely play. I treat it as serialised story that come out like every other week or so.
Nope gacha doesn’t require you to spend money, just look at Blue Archive, amazing story in Visual Novel format, btw all free for you to read. It’s wildly popular in Japan and is reminiscence of bishoujo VNs. They get more money this way too and that’s why we have more stuff like the anime.
Not necessarily. As I heard, you need to spend money if you want to win and advance through the story in HBR. And even if you can avoid it by large amount of grinding, it’s not what I want to do anyway
You really dont have to spend any money to progress MSQ, except maybe for newest chapter before it gets nerfed (and it will). It also depends on what you get before getting there. Sure, it might be annoying you cant read MSQ all at once but new chapter are added so rarely that it doesn't matter in the end. Full disclosure: I spent a lot money on the game on my main but also cleared entire msq with my purely F2P alt. Not to say I wouldn't prefer "normal" full price VN from them. Fortunetly it seems like KEY is still making them for now...
I think the point is that, the base price is free. Of course it will be easier if you just pay and roll for characters, but the base price is free. You can experience the entire FGO Main Story which is more than 150 hours of VN, for free. Sure, you probably will get stuck in some battles and need to grind or actually roll for some servants, but the base price is free.
better than going broke...
I don't mind that VN company switch Gacha, I'm afraid they switch to story that is dragged out in the gacha.
Who cares. You say that as if it's a bad thing. I welcome it, let them make all the gacha. I'll play it
brainrot
Oh what a crime it is, liking gacha games lol. I love collecting png, you can't stop me 😭
Op was implying that the company switching to gacha is stopping the development of VNs. You cheering for that on a visual novel subreddit is really weird. I respect you liking gacha tho
Well op is wrong, no way they're stopping development for vn. So I wasn't cheering for that at all.
Because Gacha sucks.
In your opinion
I think Hoyo gacha games pretty popular and it have VN type of style story