From what I've read, the two, visual novels and video games, are sort of evolutionary sibling derived from the earliest text-based adventure games of the '70s.
Pretty much is a lack of interest I'm afraid. LNs don't sell well enough in the west to justify it, for TM or for outside companies. Then you have the added bonus of it being derivative works, so you need pre existing fans of a relatively niche area of the market to pick up interest on it. And of course, you need to constantly cross reference citations to other areas of the nasuverse and have good proof-readers lest your work turn into Type-Lumina tier translations or worse. It's a huge amount of work for people that aren't already knowledgeable. Sure FGO is popular but not that many people would bother buying 10+ volumes of Case Files or Strange Fake to justify the effort. Anime and short games are much safer so they tend to get the localization.
it all started when JP otaku stopped buying PC.
but nintendo switch kind of saved the day by porting retro and new VN.
They're not VNs, though? And the amount of scripts in LNs are about the same as VNs, so I don't see how that is easier.
- - - Updated - - -
For efficiency's sake, rather than a large, stationary PC, a small portable device like Switch makes it easier for reading lengthy wall of texts like VNs anywhere and anytime, akin to a book imo.
Being less popular makes the licensing easier and cheaper and at least worth the risk. Most Fate fans won't bother with anything that's not a cool game or an anime so why would you bother with the expensive licensing and extensive multiverse consistency research needed?
One day I will unwrap the chain of nepotism and blackmail responsible for why Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu would possibly have two seasons of anime.
- - - Updated - - -
And, more on topic, why local publishers chose to first localize noname manwha before any manga has been translated.
Given Type-Moon's (or more specifically Fate's) popularity boom in the last 7 or 8 years I do think it's a bit odd that so few of the LNs have been brought over officially. I understand the issues with VNs like Tsukihime - Comun laid them out last page. But something that's just text, for a huge media franchise with a proven western market, not getting TLd is odd for sure. Maybe it's a licensing fee issue, like no one wants to pay whatever the price to pick it up is.
A couple of the manga have been though. I don't think the Zero and SN ones were even finished in English though. Shimousa seems to be doing well, but it was the only one of the several GO manga brought over to my knowledge (probably because it's the one people praise the most so caught the publishers' eye).
With the partnership with Aniplex they've had for the past decade, even if we got translations I'd expect them to run $300 per game.
Binged All Of Gundam In 4 Years, 1 Week and All I Got Was This Stupid Mask
FF XIV: Walked to the End
Started Legend of the Galactic Heroes (14/07/23), pray for me.
You can go to VN sales ranking sites and notice that a lot of best selling VNs in the current days are either from a renown studio (usually couple with good stories and really nice art, especially if it is 18+) or nukige (VNs with little to no story you play just for the sex scenes). Other than those, Alicesoft and Eushully are the 2 giants specialized in JRPG-style 18+ VNs where the gameplay are big part of their game's appeal (Alicesoft with classic JRPG style and Eushully with Fire Emblem style). And while their games usually top sales charts, they are still not making enough profit to grow in a steady manner, sometimes even having to scale back their projects. Both tried gacha games and Eushully failed after 3 years (due to the game being bad tbh). Alicesoft now allowed global release of some of their titles through Steam, but Eushully is literally the same as TM - refusing to release their games in the west despite their games winning a lot of eroge/VN rewards in Japan. To make up for the sales, they rely on merchs such as figures, pillow sheets, mugs, shirts, keychains...etc...
Also the price of VNs are increasing a lot, to make up for dev cost and low sales. One Alicesoft's game can range from 8k-9k yen ($70 to $80) and one Eushully's VN is usually around 9.5k yen. And this is actually the average standard price for high end VNs, even those without RPG elements like Eushully's and Alicesoft's. Other shorter and lower budget VNs, such as Nukiges, can still reach half that price. That's higher than a AAA game in the west (not counting microtransactions if any). So you get the cycle of cost being high to produce -> higher price -> people buy them even less cuz too expensive -> VN dying even more.
It's actually the same for South East Asia side unfortunately. For example A publisher in Vietnam managed to get publishing rights on Fate/Zero, thinking that with the Vietnamese FGO community being quite sizable, and Fate has been popular here since DEEN FSN, they thought the LN would sell well. Wrong.
It flopped so hard they reduced the price for one volume from 90k VND (around $4) to like 24k VND (around $1) and it still could not sell. I heard the publisher even planned to buy Case Files but that's not gonna happen now lol.
Last edited by Lily Emilio; January 30th, 2022 at 02:20 PM.
Add ruby for hiraganas in each kanji and that's gonna help people who still learning moonrunes by a lot imo.
Happy 18th birthday F/SN
I give it a 8/10
Fate/stay Night is finally old enough to read Fate/stay Night.
I can't believe Mahoyo was the LAST PC game TM has ever released. I wonder when TM will even release a PC game lel.
Your not a TYPE MOON fan if you don't even own a TM Merch or haven't fapped to a TM character.