In short what I’m trying to say is that localizing Otome novels presents a greater financial risk than a normal game, and Japanese companies hate risk. You’re already limiting the install base to, let’s say, roughly half, and not all of them are going to pick up the game, either. In the case of Otome Novels, the crossover probably isn’t the same. As such, you can hit a large amount of that niche install base and the game has a better chance of being successful. While we can certainly argue that a game in the Senran Kagura or Hyperdimension Neptunia franchises are primarily aimed at males, I’m willing to bet it has a healthy fanbase of female fans as well. That means you need to hit as much of the available market as possible, and it’s here where I need to bring in that point regarding Otome novels being primarily aimed at a female demographic. The original Sakura Wars came out in 1996.Ĭompanies like Aksys Games and Idea Factory International need to sell a title to as many people as they possibly can in order for it to be financially successful. Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love was released in 2005 in Japan and is the only Sakura Wars game to get a release in the US in 2010. In the console marketplace, things have been slower to change for a very simple reason: economics. However, these are Visual Novel companies and many of them still publish exclusively for PC and Steam. In the last few years, we’ve seen a surge in Visual Novel popularity with publishers like Sekai Project reaching out to try and highlight certain titles, and other major VN companies like Frontwing and Visual Arts even starting to handle localizing and publishing themselves. In fact, the first major Visual Novel I remember even being localized for consoles was Sakura Wars: So Long My Love for the PlayStation 2 and Wii. However, these were all mostly 18+ Eroge titles and even then, barely any Otome titles outside of fan translations were seen. Currently, the company is getting ready to release Da Capo III which came out in Japan in 2012įor years, the Visual Novel market has been propped up by the likes of JAST USA, MangaGamer, and various small fan groups who would translate titles that weren’t picked up by those publishers. Released in Japan in 2002, MangaGamer published it in the west in 2009. Da Capo is a good example of what I mean.
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