Look Back at 2014

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This past year has been pretty eventful here at MangaGamer, so let’s take a look!

In the past year we’ve managed to publish 15 new titles to the English market–something that most would have never believed to be possible before our company came around–and we’ve managed to maintain our standards of high quality translations for every one of those releases. A change few of us ever expected for Visual Novels in 2014 though, was Steam. After Higurashi and Go Go Nippon were Greenlit on Steam, the sudden and instant success of the latter allowed our company to pave the way for Visual Novels on Steam and set a precedent our fellow Visual Novel publishers have chosen to follow. Even now, our own all-ages release of Cho Dengeki Stryker still stands as the only full-length Visual Novel localized for English release on Steam, and we have a lot of plans to continue adding high-quality content with volume to our Steam store in the future. So on that note, let’s take a look at what topped our digital charts this year!

Paradise of Imoutos

  1. Imouto Paradise
  2. Ultimate Boob Wars!!
  3. Demon Master Chris
  4. Hypno-training My Mother and Sister 
  5. Eroge! ~Sex And Games Makes Sexy Games~
  6. Cho Dengeki Stryker
  7. Armored Warrior Iris
  8. Valkyrie Svia
  9. Really? Really!
  10. Cum on! Bukkake Ranch!

Well, the trend from last year continues, with the nukige pulling strongly across the board. Our hopes from last year were rewarded, and every single one of our releases from Lilith placed on the charts. Little sisters definitely took the crown this year, with Imouto Paradise performing on par with Eroge and Boob Wars from years before! Perhaps most notable in this year’s ranking is the fact that many of last year’s titles are refusing to give way, with Eroge, Bukkake Ranch, and Demon Master Chris all returning to claim another spot this year. Also, while it didn’t manage to make the top ten, Cartagra did manage to climb up to 11th place.

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Interestingly enough, however, has been the performance of our games on Steam. Go Go Nippon would clearly check in at #1, having sold several times more copies than Imouto Paradise. Meanwhile, Cho Dengeki Stryker, and eden*–despite its brief accidental launch–would both easily rank in at #2 on their Steam sales alone.

What about things on the hard copy front?

07

  1. Kara no Shojo
  2. Eroge! ~Sex and Games Makes Sexy Games~
  3. Boob Wars
  4. Tick! Tack!
  5. ef -a fairy tale of the two.
  6. Shuffle!
  7. Koihime Musou
  8. Go! Go! Nippon!
  9. Harem Party
  10. DEARDROPS

Wow! Most of these are returning titles, back to claim a spot again this year! It’s great to see that so many of them are still selling strong. Eroge, ef, Tick Tack, and Koihime are the only new claims on 2014’s top ten, though most of those were new to the year. It’s quite a pleasant surprise to see ef claiming such a high spot when it only had pre-orders to compete against the rest. Many of our other Limited Editions (such as Kara no Shojo) are now sold out, so if you’re interested in getting a Limited Edition of ef, you’ll want to act fast, because they’re selling quick! We’ve managed to sell out of quite a few other hard copies as well. Some we’ll be discontinuing, like Da Capo, and others we’ll be looking into potential reprinting for, like Kara no Shojo and Boob Wars; so be sure to grab your copy before it’s too late!

In other news, conventions have also continued doing well for us, and you can expect to see us coming back to all the usuals. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone again as Anime Boston and Sakuracon roll around!

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Here at home, our localization team has been growing too, in order to keep bringing new games into the mix! We’ve added three new translators including bad end and koestl, multiple new editors including ritobito and Nellie, and lastly blackdragonhunt, who’s serving as both programmer and translator. It’s been lots of fun for us, working with all these new people who bring a lot of talent and passion into the company. Everyone here at MangaGamer remains dedicated to the quality of our work, and we have a lot of things in store for 2015 as well, but that we’ll talk about in our next post!

In the meantime, don’t forget to fill out our licensing survey for a chance to win a free copy of eden*: 

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16 Comments

  1. Kinda weird to see Boob Wars 2 chart so well digitally but not hardcopy-wise. Any idea what’s up there? Just not been up for long enough?

    Also RIP d2bvsdeardrops.

  2. Always one of my favorite posts. Thank you!

    Purchased and enjoyed the top three. Happy to see them doing well.

    Honestly shocked to see a mosaic-ed title at number four. I didn’t think most of them sold very well.

    Also pleasantly surprised to see Cho Dengeki Stryker on the list. I hope that was an effect from having the game on Steam, like “lets get the full version” or “lets give more money to the localizer instead of Valve”.

    Pretty amazing sales results so far for eden* on Steam.

    One question – before you translated any of them, I remember that longer nukiges were considered a big risk. With the performance of Imouto Paradise and Ultimate Boob Wars, are they still considered a big risk?

    • I think the thing about Hypno-Training is that despite the mosaic, it caters to a niche or two that doesn’t have a lot of other options available to compete with it. Not very many MG titles have incest with mother and daughter, and not very many have mind control/hypnotism either. With live action porn there’s a phenomenon where fetish titles will, individually, sell much more on average than your average “vanilla” porn title, because people with that particular fetish simply have less options to go for and thus they all buy the same few titles.

      Considering mind control/hypnotism are fairly niche fetishes with devoted communities, I wouldn’t be surprised in Hypno-Training had some of those communities latching onto it and making it sell unusually well for a mosaiced nukige with like 2 hours’ worth of content. Plus, for the casual fans, it’s cheap and has good art, so there’s that too.

  3. Nice to know how your sales went last year. I bought quite a bit, though some weren’t on the top lists. It is also worth it to note that Cho Dengeki Stryker is NOT the ONLY full length VN on Steam as of last year. Steam also saw the release of If My Heart Had Wings, though many don’t really like the localized version. There are also a few indie VNs that are the length of full size VNs now.

  4. Thanks for the read! You guys really are pushing visual novels forward – though hopefully you can revisit your DRM policy in the future. Also, have you killed some of those typos in your translation for Valkyrie Svia, since you’re releasing it on hardcopy? I’d love to give that game a positive review.

    Much respect, Mangagamer. I’m gonna keep blogging about your stuff and tagging the posts like a madman! ;-P

  5. I’m interested in more hot stuff featuring delicious moms and sisters.

  6. Thanks for the list.
    Glad things are going well across all sales formats.

    Good the longer length games are topping the sales, which could pave to more getting the go ahead.
    Along with the continue success of the previous year titles getting positions on the chart.

    Also happy the first game I help test is at No.7 and my personal fav of the bunch, but no sign of Sara 🙁 The Lilith titles seem to be holding up a middle ground. Considering they aren’t the over acclimated Asagi tile’s or Kagami stuff this is still good news for the Lilith and MangaGamer collaboration. Can’t wait to see what you can bring next!!!!

    I picked up every hard copy on the list so I hope you continue the trend for this. Since Svia is getting a hard copy I expect Iris will too. ^.^

    I figure the sale on Svia at XXXmas might have pushed it up a few positions along with some of the other games listed, which means the sale deals on older stuff could bring in fresh blood for older titles.

    Kara no Shojo was also a great hard copy LE and it’s fantastic to see a game like that is No.1. Having everything back which negatively may have effected the DL version sales seems to have been cleared up by the hard copy release. o/

    Can’t wait to see what your staff is bringing in 2015!!!

    • Sara came out on Dec 26th so it didn’t have much time to make the top 10 for the year. I bet it will sell just as well as the other 2 (or hopefully better) in the long run. Glad the first 2 Lilith titles made top 10. That number 4 is a real shocker to me though. It beat the Lilith releases.

  7. Hope to see more story-centric visual novel in the future.

  8. Demon Master Chris was 2nd last year and 3rd this year. That’s really good. Compare to last year’s 1st place Eroge! fell to number 5.

  9. Good to hear that sales were good last year. The actual charts for digital sales are a bit shocking though, with very little actual quality in the list. Looks more like the charts from several years before top titles like Koihime Musou, Da Capo 2, Otoboku or KnS were released. And having several titles from the year before in the list isn’t exactly flattering either for last years releases.
    Cartagra would probably have sold better if people would have been aware that it has lots of high quality ero content.
    Well, at least the hard-copy sales look better. I hope Cartagra will also get its chance to show its potential in the hard-copy section.

  10. Cool to see that my favorite game, Imouto Paradise, is your top seller this year!

    Surely this increases the chances of you guys licencing Imouto Paradise 2, right?

    • Yes, please import Imouto Paradise 2!
      The first part is too loli for my taste, but looking at VNDB it seems that the sequel has turned down the “lolimeter”.

  11. A couple of thoughs from me:
    – I’m happy to see that Cho Dengeki Stryker and “Eroge!” are still doing well.
    – I’m torn about Imouto Paradise, because part of me wants to own it (because of the amazing art) and part of me is appalled, because two of its heroines look like they are still in primary school…
    – Seeing so many rape nukiges on the list makes me kinda sad. I want more vanilla eroges!
    – Unfortunately, I’m part of the reason why “Ultimate Boob Wars” is so high on the list. I’ve bought it and regret that decision in hindsight. It’s generic as all get out heroines, boring as fuck h scenes and annoying voice actresses makes it not worth spending money on in my book.

    Btw, I hope that the success of “Eroge!” urges MangaGamer to import “Ero Manga!” ^^

  12. So you sold out to steam. Who in turn, gave up to the moralfags. At least we still have the non-all ages version in your website so I forgive you.

  13. I’m glad to see longer nukige like Eroge and Imouto Paradise up there. I’m glad to see the Lilith titles are up there too. I’d like to see more of both. It is depressing that story based titles are still losing to nukige by so much though. I like nukige, but I’d like to see story titles do well too. Hopefully Steam fixes that. Just make sure you don’t stop releasing uncut games in addition to the all ages please.

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