Eroge industry is in trouble, we need stop torrenting

[Kanbe]

Hello. As some of you eroge fans are aware, on the 26th of June this year, popular eroge maker "sprite" has closed (indefinitely or temporarily no one knows). The main reason they left was because the eroge industry was in decline with sales going down 15% each year and it's getting harder to get funding for games. sprite as you may know is famous for "aokana" which has been a very critically acclaimed game that even got it's own TV anime followed by many goods. Before sprite closed down they released a fandisk for aokana and had two more games planned to be released. sprite closing down has shocked many fans as well as the eroge industry itself having a popular brand shutdown.

The reason why I'm writing this is because I want implore people to go buy eroge instead of torrenting them. You can even buy digitally and then torrent them if you feel like. But please, the situation with the eroge industry has now grown very dire to the point where we cannot play companies games for free now.

Thank you for reading this and please do consider in helping out the eroge industry.

 

[keycode17]

can you define better "Eroge industry" ? and what you mean with "industry"? what I see is a lot of very good 3d production, lot of trash VN, lot of trash "art" graphic porn… really banal, incredibly banal trash porn, trash beyond the limit of fantasy.

 

[ancer_nyaa]

I do not understand a lot about this kind of topic but Sprite might been in a decline because of the fact that their release of Visual Novels have been slow for a long time. The lackluster amount of ecchi scene is a bit disappointing that it is barely considered as a eroge. Maybe they should have stopped making a billion amount of ports. (Maybe that is why there are not much ecchi scenes, it's because it's easier to port to non-NSFW platforms).

It was hard to believe that it took them a long time to make a Visual Novel (Unless they start from scratch) since they already have a foundation to start on. Akabeisoft has similar assets to its sister makers (sound effects and stuff) to reduce budget spent on a game.

Plus, they did not need to have a mediocre anime for it. Having an anime created and having redundant ports needs some funding as well right?

It's just my opinion, which is base in not a lot of knowledge so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[EcchiOujisama]

There are several flaws in this premise.

1. As long as a Japanese company refuses to take foreign orders for physical copies of games and goods related to those games, fuck them. I would buy a lot more if I didn't have to go through the hassle and expense of paying a proxy buyer to buy things for me because the eroge company doesn't want my money.
2. DRM on downloads when you decide that you'll even take my dirty foreigner money? Fuck that.
3. Supply a hard fact to support the claim of consistent 15% annual decline. It doesn't take too many years of that for the market cap to be more trouble than it's worth. VN sales figures are published on Fuwanovel and don't support this.
4. The porn market is different than it was 5 years ago. There are tons of outfits cranking out shit 3D porn. There is more AV than there has ever been before. Doujin markets are filled with quality gems and shit tier RPG Maker cash grabs from the Chinese. As every eroge company has splintered into a new eroge company several times over for 15+ years more vn eroge are being cranked out than ever before. Simultaneously, higher resolutions, longer stories, etc. etc. have driven up costs without sales growth to compensate. With new eroge sometimes hitting 14,000+ yen something eventually has to give.
5. The Metallica fallacy that someone willing to pirate something for free would have paid full price without the option to pirate has been proven false several times over. I have one of the longer list of things completed on VNDB and there's no way I would have been willing to pay anything close to full price for most of them.

All of that said, physical copies of Japanese eroge are extremely nice and the regular editions surpass the coolest limited edition in the west. If you have the opportunity to pay full price for a physical copy of an eroge you like, you won't regret it.

 

[Yosef30]

Sprite made 2 games that barely had any sexual content about 5 years apart. I don't think taking their sales figures as proof of eroge decline is very accurate. VN devs know how well eroges do and that's why even if theres no real place for sexual content they will halfass a scene just so they can advertise it under eroge genre. Sex sells and they just didn't have enough of it to compete with both well written VNs while also selling to those who play for sexual content. They should have made shorter more erotic titles that would sell well to fund their larger more story focused games but took too many risks and couldn't grab a big enough audience. At least that's how I see it. Eroges are far from in a decline.

 

[Kanbe]

Even so if we continue to illegally play these games without supporting the developers, there will be soon no more games and nothing left to torrent

 

[Animaksiat]

Dream on, just because one company went down, doesn't mean the whole industy will colapse. i assume you only read news and never went to japan to study the industry well enough, then went like "we have to support them it will help the industry to survive".

Get Real. First of all.... japan refuse the game to be exported legally to foreign country. secondly, due to the coming olympics, the goverment started to make strict laws that made the industry kinda hard to release new games. thirdly it's a common for a company to went down. and many reasons for that, not just because of selling (i wont discuss this further because it'll be too long of an argument).

i bought some of games i really like, but like i said it before... this wont make a different because the whole point is not because of selling.... especially in the sprite case.

 

[Darkdecade]

I do agree with you, but there are lot of problem you must admit
For sprite let be real, the story is good, but as eroge it not since there 2 sex scene for each route in Aosora if I remeber correct and this company haven't make any new eroge for long time even though make announce Aosora Zwei, there no news about it at all.
I do understand the problem might be funds, but the try to fix it with DMM game which is super super boring and it actually hard to unlock second scene in that game too. I am not surprised they can't survive after all that.
For buying eroge case, it not easy to buy it in some country.
To buy online even in digital you need to do lot of thing and many ways required credit card (which some people still not have it or other thing out of normal way can reach)
buy physical also almost out of question because it need to be shipped or deliver to our own country which is very hard, it my country they even checked every package inside before sending and if it 18+ stuff, they will not send it to buyer, friend bring to me personally also out, the only way to ship is have personal connection to someone who can ship for you and sent to you personally after that.
In the end to buy it you have to live in Japan, and become full adult to buy this stuff is what I see

 

[frustratedbuffalo]

No.


included for arbitrary character length.

 

[dane2011]

Boss, please look at the point why "Sprite" Close down. There is no new product release after 2014 aokana. They have tend to sell PS4 PSV Nitento Switch aokana but failed and the finally decide stop the activities. What is the reason for the company remain well-known as long as no new game come out. There were a lot of people known "Sprite" failed on non-R18 game and after aokana success they create a aokana online android game, and failed. So there is PS4 PSV NS version coming along, so what? The consequences is sprite has reach their deadline and that's all.

 

[qwertyuiop111asd]

Now look, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume most of the people here, like me, on this site DO NOT live in Japan. This means that we simply can't buy most Eroges at all, simply because Eroges essentially are a Japan-only industry, in that most companies do not even sell it in other countries. So telling us, the gajins, to buy the Eroges is pointless, since WE CAN'T BUY THEM. Nutaku is essentially the only way to get any big name eroges in non-Japan markets, and even then we usually have to wait for Denpasoft to port them over. As for the case for Sprite, their last real release was in 2014, which means 4 years they have went without releasing an actual game. Also, I have actually tried the aokana android game, and what I saw there didn't impress me.

 

[Algester]

well you can buy eroges really you just need to find your willing smuggler <_< which makes it about 20-30% more expensive than just traveling to Japan and buying them and assuming that hentai isnt an actual contraband in your country... yep... so smuggling is the way to go legal or not you will still be committing a crime

 

[EcchiOujisama]

The expense with buying eroge outside of Japan is absurd. Some proxy buying companies will buy adult products for you, even if the website says they don't do that to keep the Japanese government off their dicks. I had SuToCorp buy 2 eroge for me I wanted for years and couldn't pirate anywhere (Comic Party Renewal and Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de Regular Edition, both uploaded here for the first time on the net) and 2 preorder only dakimakura covers. By the time everything was said and done it cost almost $100 more than full price to buy those 4 items. That is not reasonable or sustainable.

Two decades of attempting to pay full price for Japanese goods I want and being told no has left me a salty individual that will only grudgingly fork over money as a matter of principle. Full price for a download when physical copies sell for half price or less? GTFO with that. Rather than bitching at us for getting content the only way we can, you should be bitching at Japanese companies and the Japanese government for forcing our hands.

 

[pingtoryan]

The expense with buying eroge outside of Japan is absurd. Some proxy buying companies will buy adult products for you, even if the website says they don't do that to keep the Japanese government off their dicks. I had SuToCorp buy 2 eroge for me I wanted for years and couldn't pirate anywhere (Comic Party Renewal and Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de Regular Edition, both uploaded here for the first time on the net) and 2 preorder only dakimakura covers. By the time everything was said and done it cost almost $100 more than full price to buy those 4 items. That is not reasonable or sustainable.

Two decades of attempting to pay full price for Japanese goods I want and being told no has left me a salty individual that will only grudgingly fork over money as a matter of principle. Full price for a download when physical copies sell for half price or less? GTFO with that. Rather than bitching at us for getting content the only way we can, you should be bitching at Japanese companies and the Japanese government for forcing our hands.

More like bitching at the world and its morality as a whole...so long as the world is the way it is, eroge will never find acceptance out of its native land save for a select few places, and looking overseas is nearly impossible thus...unless they are willing to get their clean stuff on platform that is easy to distribute to allow overseas people to pitch in, and even then it's probably not worth it because it is even more niche than in the home front...If that's the case other regions would have a much wider selection of clean version of eroges on PSN already.

Personally, I wouldn't want eroge in English, either. I don't like the loss of transcript, but alas, not everybody understands Japanese well enough to find their way around.

 

[bluefarts]

Get Real. First of all.... japan refuse the game to be exported legally to foreign country. secondly, due to the coming olympics, the goverment started to make strict laws that made the industry kinda hard to release new games.

Yeah... blame Rapelay

1. As long as a Japanese company refuses to take foreign orders for physical copies of games and goods related to those games, fuck them. I would buy a lot more if I didn't have to go through the hassle and expense of paying a proxy buyer to buy things for me because the eroge company doesn't want my money..

A lot of Japanese eroge would want to if it wasn't for the laws in Japan and a certain incident that cause by a certain eroge.

All of that said, physical copies of Japanese eroge are extremely nice and the regular editions surpass the coolest limited edition in the west. If you have the opportunity to pay full price for a physical copy of an eroge you like, you won't regret it.

To be honest, I prefer download version. Those boxes and dvd are just a waste of money and space IMO. Every box that I get ended up in the garbage bin or use it as an extra storage for my stuff.

Personally, I wouldn't want eroge in English, either. I don't like the loss of transcript, but alas, not everybody understands Japanese well enough to find their way around.

If you make Japanese language lesson class for everyone, and everyone interested to learn, Japanese, sure....


TL;DR I do agree on one thing, if you love that game, just buy it. Period. Full stop.

Because buying = support to the game developer = they are able to make better games on their next project or improve the existing ones.

As of the Sprite case.... well, this is just business, no matter what kind of products and services they offer. Every company will be close down soon at one point, much like how people will face death at one point in their life time.

To be fair, they could just make a new eroge to keep up with their business needs but they just end up focusing on AoKana being available in every platform, so, pity them.

 

[Algester]

and remember the UN is still hell bent on convincing JP to stop releasing loli content and how broad definitions can be

 

[Veshurik]

By the way, Aokana get licensed in English. So, yeah. Soon we will buy that game officially, so, calm down, author of that thread :)

 

[vertutame]

If you're willing to pay for my patreon, maybe I will.
And time to time I use Mexashare and not bit torrent.

 

[Onegai]

The problem is that there is no way to buy it
without getting in serious trouble, so if I will
be anyway considered to be a criminal in my
evil country with an oppressive government and
a stupid society, then I would rather pirate
down everything as anonymously and secretly
as possible instead of stupidly revealing my identity,
giving out my hard earned money and going straight to prison.

If eroge producers need money, than they should
release their stuff worldwide online in such a way, that
everyone can buy it safely and anonymously.
They should just make an onion site and sell their games for
anonymous cryptocurrencies.

 

[fro0116]

I currently torrent VNs because torrents sites like anime-sharing are offering a superior product and delivery mechanism over any legitimate channel I can purchase VNs from. Official downloadable versions of VNs from Japanese sites generally come with intrusive DRM, and shipping physical copies of games from Japan means I have to deal with shipping costs and wait weeks after release before I can actually play. On the other hand, torrents are often available immediately after release, and come with cracks to get rid of anything limiting what I can do with the game (for instance, playing in a Virtual Machine).

Now that Steam has lifted restrictions on adult games, I'm hoping more Japanese VNs get released there so I can actually buy them and play them on release day without having to deal with overly restrictive DRM. And I hope that will become a good source of revenue for the companies making those VNs so we can have more and more high quality releases.

I already buy translated VNs when they come out on Steam & back translation projects on Kickstarter, etc, but I'd like to be able to support the companies that create the original games directly without any middlemen, and be able to play it on release date, without having to wade through layers of shitty DRM or pay for half the price of the game and wait weeks for physical copies to ship from across the globe, or worse, wait years for some translation company to pick them up and translate/repackage it for distribution on Steam.

 

[shigerhu]

There are several flaws in this premise.

1. As long as a Japanese company refuses to take foreign orders for physical copies of games and goods related to those games, fuck them. I would buy a lot more if I didn't have to go through the hassle and expense of paying a proxy buyer to buy things for me because the eroge company doesn't want my money.
2. DRM on downloads when you decide that you'll even take my dirty foreigner money? Fuck that.
3. Supply a hard fact to support the claim of consistent 15% annual decline. It doesn't take too many years of that for the market cap to be more trouble than it's worth. VN sales figures are published on Fuwanovel and don't support this.
4. The porn market is different than it was 5 years ago. There are tons of outfits cranking out shit 3D porn. There is more AV than there has ever been before. Doujin markets are filled with quality gems and shit tier RPG Maker cash grabs from the Chinese. As every eroge company has splintered into a new eroge company several times over for 15+ years more vn eroge are being cranked out than ever before. Simultaneously, higher resolutions, longer stories, etc. etc. have driven up costs without sales growth to compensate. With new eroge sometimes hitting 14,000+ yen something eventually has to give.
5. The Metallica fallacy that someone willing to pirate something for free would have paid full price without the option to pirate has been proven false several times over. I have one of the longer list of things completed on VNDB and there's no way I would have been willing to pay anything close to full price for most of them.

All of that said, physical copies of Japanese eroge are extremely nice and the regular editions surpass the coolest limited edition in the west. If you have the opportunity to pay full price for a physical copy of an eroge you like, you won't regret it.

Effectly!. Most of the guilty is from the japanese eroge industry with their dumb attitute of: "for japan sales only". So japanese editors, don't complaint if you going to brankrupcy:@.

 

[shigerhu]

and remember the UN is still hell bent on convincing JP to stop releasing loli content and how broad definitions can be

Fuck the UN!:@. They only are a buch of stupid morons!::@

Now look, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume most of the people here, like me, on this site DO NOT live in Japan. This means that we simply can't buy most Eroges at all, simply because Eroges essentially are a Japan-only industry, in that most companies do not even sell it in other countries. So telling us, the gajins, to buy the Eroges is pointless, since WE CAN'T BUY THEM. Nutaku is essentially the only way to get any big name eroges in non-Japan markets, and even then we usually have to wait for Denpasoft to port them over. As for the case for Sprite, their last real release was in 2014, which means 4 years they have went without releasing an actual game. Also, I have actually tried the aokana android game, and what I saw there didn't impress me.

Man, nutaku sucks!:@. They don't sell loli!:@

 

[ketsuma]

it is difficult to help them when Japanese companies do everything for us, from the West, not to buy from them! the proof is, after downloading and playing 2 Masterpiece from Astronaut Sirius: Demonium and Dungeons of Regalias, I thought "okay, it's time to return the favor to the company and buy a game!" so I bought Verethragna, but the game it crashed at the beginning, and then I contacted them, and when they contacted me they sent me that!

"your email was sent in English to the Japanese DLsite
support please note that; If you decide to shop in the
Japanese sections, we may not issue refunds for items
purchased on the Japanese site based on language-related
misunderstandings, and that our user will support, in principle,
not be available in English or Chinese for Japanese pages / items.

The Japanese website is designed by Japanese.
speakers living in Japan and can not perform support in other languages. "

seems like a joke, but it's not, the Japaneseare as usual, fucking themselves to the West. How can we help the market in this way?

 

[ketsuma]

about the industry of Eroges, this is normal, every year, dozens of companies of Eroges are closed, while at the same time, dozens are opened! they are not officially closed, EmpressGame, who has my favorite artist, Sei Shoujo, I believe it has closed long ago, because it has not released anything since 2015, but they have not yet declared bankruptcy, you are only worried because it was one you know, but this happens all the time!!

 

[yudonniku]

TBH, I didn't enjoy Sprite's games that much, but it's sad to see another eroge company going away.