It wouldn't be if you were as rich as a Koch brother.Jeneki wrote:A shmup getting three million via crowdfunding is absurdly hilarious. As much as I like CAVE, they are not Shenmue or Bloodstained legion of fanboy hype juggernaughts.
Aeon Zenith - My STG.RegalSin wrote:Japan an almost perfect society always threatened by outsiders....................
Instead I am stuck in the America's where women rule with an iron crotch, and a man could get arrested for sitting behind a computer too long.
Yeah, it's great that they're fighting on but at the same time it's kinda sad they still refuse to accept market realities. They seem to expect a quick success...which simply is unlikely to happen. My guess is Mushihimesama will be successful because it's a classic and a danmaku game with high production values. But just like Ikaruga, the sales will be coming in slowly. I really hope they're in it for the long run. If properly updated PC games can sell well for many years. If not...well, look at their android ports that are unplayable on newer handsets.Weak Boson wrote:So much negativity! I can understand not wanting to get your hopes up, but it's great that they're still fighting on, I thought we'd truly seen the last of CAVE. If their steam debut goes well there might be a chance! I for one would be excited to get behind a CAVEstarter if it comes to that.
Chain smoking and playing Mahjong pachinko games.copy-paster wrote:We didn't even know what he's doing nowadaysKAI wrote:$5M: new Yagawa game
Mister Midnight wrote:btw, cant trust them Koreans; remember Pearl Harbor
I doubt as a publically traded company Cave has the freedom to operate in this manner. Whoever green-lights a product that has (predictably) negative/no/slow return on investment is putting a bulls-eye on their own back for getting fired - unless they can creatively dress the whole thing up as a (one shot) public relations or brand imaging effort. A company like G.rev on the other hand can use other business activities to finance their game development habit - i.e. they work on contracts to build up enough of a reserve to work on their "professional addiction" of developing their own games (which really isn't that different from a doujin developer holding down a day job). But even G.rev is finding it more difficult with each passing year to justify operating in this manner as it takes more and more effort to build up the necessary reserves and as the returns from the niche audience for their gaming-products becomes increasingly meager.Necronom wrote: But just like Ikaruga, the sales will be coming in slowly. ... they should keep porting the good stuff to Steam. The profit from those ports could allow them to do a proto type that might find a publisher and result in a proper new game in the end.
In my personal opinion DoDonPachi Maximum (iOS/Windows Phone) is their best mobile effort (admittedly a matter of personal taste) but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the "perfect shmup to carry around". Unfortunately Deathsmiles is their only mobile game on iOS to receive MFi game controller support (probably the one that sold the greatest number of licenses).mastermx wrote:I purchased their android ports, and I could officially say they were very bad ports. I've always wanted the perfect shmup to carry around with me everywhere I go.
Nobody knows how their games sold in America/Europe, but I think everything besides Deathsmiles flopped. Here are their Japanese sales, though:Some-Mist wrote:what's the most one of their 360 ports has sold?
Mister Midnight wrote:btw, cant trust them Koreans; remember Pearl Harbor
From what I saw not many copies sold at the original price. At the time I wasn't into mail-order for "domestic" releases (still was buying most releases off the retail shelf) and some months after release I grabbed the last copy from a GameStop shelf across the border for us$ 29. Two years later copies of Deathsmiles appeared (repeatedly) in droves in Walmart's bargain bin for cdn$ 9.99. So from where I stand it looks like the majority of the North American print run was sold at a significant discount. Akai Katana followed the same pattern (this time in Staple's bargain bins) though in somewhat reduced numbers - almost suggesting that Aksys/Rising Star Games somehow got a reduced print run. Copies of Konami's Otomedius Excellent (@cdn$7.99) are still clogging Walmart's bargin bins everywhere (... big surprise).Some-Mist wrote:$300k copies for deathsmiles? which would probably net 15mil at a $50 price tag?
VGChartz claims otherwise but I don't know how reliable the numbers are.iconoclast wrote:Nobody knows how their games sold in America/Europe...
I also suspect the low difficulty comes into it too.trap15 wrote:Because rori
RegalSin wrote:Rape is very shakey subject. It falls into the catergory of Womens right, Homosexaul rights, and Black rights.
It sold much more in the west since we apparently actually owned 360s. (Can anyone explain WHY they chose the 360? Cheap licensing? Cheaper to port with the SDK? Was it some kind of oasis for Shooter titles?)Strikers1945guy wrote:Wow, I would have assumed Futari or Ketsui would have sold the best. Why do the Japanese 360 owner love the deathsmiles series so much?
There's also another interview that I can't find right now where they said Deathsmiles did ~50k in Japan and ~200k overseas. EDIT: here it isAsada (Cave): Because our specialty is danmaku shooters, we must have many different modes. Furthermore, we must produce sales for these arcade port and systems as well. So we must evolve and adapt these games to the home system and make them look really flashy. We must please veterans without alienating the beginners, and we must please beginners without betraying the veterans. All of this must be done with strict budgets since we are only producing the game for the XBOX360, a system that not many people have. We must sell at least 50,000 copies of a game. If we don’t, it is a failure. These are the hurdles we must clear.
In the context of crowdfunding, there's no sense concerning yourself with post-launch sales before they've even proposed a product--there are a zillion factors to consider when analysing sales data that become more or less relevant based on the platform, the delivery method, the price, the marketing, etc.—Right, so this is like a test case for a new model of Cave game.
Asada: That’s right. The idea for making a game like this goes all the way back to Deathsmiles. When I joined Cave and we started our X360 development, the first game I participated in was Deathsmiles. It turned out to be a big success. Our initial target for sales was only 10000, but in the end we ended up selling 40000 domestically (50000 if you add the platinum collection version), and another 200,000 units worldwide.
—Wow, I’m surprised to hear it was so popular overseas!
Asada: The world and setting of the game was really well received. It was especially popular in Europe.
This completely. What are they thinking?Jeneki wrote:A shmup getting three million via crowdfunding is absurdly hilarious.
ChurchOfSolipsism wrote: ALso, this is how SKykid usually posts
ChurchOfSolipsism wrote: ALso, this is how SKykid usually posts
making shmups is what put them out of businesspegboy wrote:Making games for the 360 instead of the Playstation is what put them out of business. Alienated their entire market in Japan and backed the wrong horse in the race. Xbox one is the biggest flop in the history of gaming in Japan.
Several of their 360 games sold better than their PS2 games. Every STG that was released on the PS3 sold worse than it did on the 360. It doesn't matter where these games go, the audience will follow. Nobody else is buying them.pegboy wrote:Making games for the 360 instead of the Playstation is what put them out of business. Alienated their entire market in Japan and backed the wrong horse in the race. Xbox one is the biggest flop in the history of gaming in Japan.
Guess instant brain 2 it is then.Bananamatic wrote:making shmups is what put them out of businesspegboy wrote:Making games for the 360 instead of the Playstation is what put them out of business. Alienated their entire market in Japan and backed the wrong horse in the race. Xbox one is the biggest flop in the history of gaming in Japan.
RegalSin wrote:Rape is very shakey subject. It falls into the catergory of Womens right, Homosexaul rights, and Black rights.
lol no.Muchi Muchi Spork wrote:All a kickstarter would "cost" is a few hours of crunching numbers and a couple of days for a marketing employee, that seems realistic to me. There's no risk, that's why they are talking about using it.
