2015 Licensing Survey Results

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First of all, we’d like to offer our thanks to all who participated in the survey. We managed to collect information and requests from over 8,000 different people, but now the results are in, so it’s time to share some of the information from our survey!

Well, first of all, it probably comes as no surprise to anyone that the primary market for visual novels is men in the college age-range. 73% of respondents were male, while 23.5% were female, and overall 86% were between the ages of 18-30, with 62.5% being 18-24. Interestingly enough, however, female fans skewed towards slightly younger, with 13% of female respondents being between 13 and 17 years old compared to 3.8% of male respondents.

In terms of consumer habits, there’s also a noticeable trend of greater purchases corresponding to older customers. Those in the ages of 13-17 are more likely to buy one or fewer titles per year, while the primary 18-24 bracket is most likely to buy two per year, though several buy 3-5 titles in a year. This trend continues as customers age, and those over 30 are significantly more likely to buy six or more titles every year.

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When asked about barriers to purchasing titles from our company, website issues, poor opinion, and DRM all received negligible responses. The primary barrier for the ~500 people who responded to this question was that they hadn’t known about us before the survey! The secondary barrier was lack of appealing titles, though this was more of an issue for the women surveyed rather than the men. Hopefully our release of No Thank You!! and our upcoming release of Ozmafia can help change that! Among men, one other issue was preference for purchasing on Steam. We certainly hope putting more titles on Steam and providing Steam Keys for all applicable games helps alleviate this barrier.

In our survey we also asked fans where they found their news about visual novels from, and while the results were mostly as we expected, there were a few surprises. Namely, it was interesting to learn that more women get their news from Tumblr than any other site, medium, or forum. In contrast, men showed a slight preference for 4chan and a disdain for Tumblr.

It also came as no surprise that an overwhelming majority of respondents prefer to game on Windows PC, but it was interesting to see that more women preferred using Mac, and made up a significant portion of Mac gamers.

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When surveyed about what respondents considered most important when deciding to purchase a visual novel, “story” and “art” were significantly the two most important factors, though art held more sway with women than men. Following on the tails of those two factors, what fans find important is greatly divided by gender. For men, the third most significant factor was erotic content, while for women it was the characters and relationship options (IE male/male, female/male, etc.) Next down for women is genre, voice actors, and erotic content, but for men it’s characters, gameplay, and length. Having an anime was barely listed as a factor by respondents. In terms of age, it came as no surprise that the teenage bracket was more concerned with lower prices, but it was surprising to see that erotic content became more important to both as they aged.

Given the above, it was no surprise that women greatly preferred the otome and BL genres, while men more strongly preferred nukige and slice-of-life genres (though nukige gains importance with age). It also came as no surprise that romance games were the most strongly preferred across all ages and genders. What did come as a surprise was that yuri was liked equally well by all groups, even though it was one of the less favored genres.

Another interesting, yet surprising result of this survey was seeing respondents debunk a lot of running theories about the market. For example, over 63% of respondents prefer digital downloads over hardcopies, and that trends more strongly with the younger crowd while older fans are more likely to prefer hardcopies. Though 78% also said the format of release isn’t a significant deciding factor. Also, surprisingly enough 88% don’t care whether DRM is present or not. So the people who strongly oppose DRM on games only makes up 12% of fans.

We also see a lot of debate over version options for games (adult, all-ages, etc.), but 44% of fans prefer the adult version over all-ages options, and 30% just want whichever version is the original, unedited edition. The people who actually prefer all-ages options above others only makes up 4% of the market. Though the strength of these preferences by fans is fairly evenly split between highly important, completely unimportant, and just wanting the option to choose.

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Next up is something our readers might be more interested in–What are the current top 10 brands at MangaGamer according to fans?

  1. 07th Expansion
  2. OVERDRIVE
  3. Innocent Grey
  4. minori
  5. Navel
  6. Liarsoft
  7. Lilith
  8. MOONSTONE
  9. Circus
  10. ClockUp

While those are the overall results, it’s pretty interesting to see that OVERDRIVE and Navel gain more popularity as fans grow older, taking first and second place respectively among our oldest fans. In contrast, 07th Expansion actually loses support among older fans, and amongst our teen audience, the most popular brand is Ponipachet. Also, this came as little surprise, but Ponipatchet and pa-rade are the first and second most popular brands among our female audience, while the male audience still follows the overall trend. Though it’s also interesting to note that softhouse seal claims 15% of the male audience compared to 2% of the female audience. Unsurprisingly, all of our current nukige brands are more popular with men than women… with the exception of PSYCHO. For some reason, women like PSYCHO more than men. Also, while BaseSon claimed 11th place in our overall rankings, only 1% of women favored that brand.

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And last, but not least, what everyone’s been waiting for—the top ten requested titles!

  1. Fate/Stay Night
  2. Majikoi series
  3. Baldr series
  4. Muv-Luv series
  5. Umineko no Naku Koro Ni
  6. Shin Koihime Musou
  7. Rance series
  8. Flowers
  9. White Album 2
  10. Little Busters

While very few titles at the top of this list came as a surprise, we were quite astonished to see titles already licensed by other publishers taking 19th and 26th place with a few hundred votes each. Maybe fans just trust us to do a quality job on the titles they love?

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94 Comments

  1. So… which ones of the ten top titles are actually conceivable?

    • I second this question! In particular I wanna know how feasible Rance is; Alicesoft blocks their site from anyone outside Japan so I’d kinda doubt they’d be interested. <-<

    • The license for Fate/Stay night is most likely too expensive, Majikoi and Shin Koihime would have issues to Seiyuu costs and Alicesoft simply hates Foreigners.

      Not idea about the rest and I’m not sure why people are suggesting titles that already have fan translations in the first place, seems like a waste of time and effort.

      • Thanks to the various anime (notably Fate/Zero), Fate/Stay Night is at the height of ifs popularity here. If a deal can’t get done now to bring it over, it’s never happening.

        Personally, what I want most is all the âge stuff, from Kiminozo / Rumbling Hearts through the various Muv-Luvs. I disagree with this attitude of “oh, it already has a fan translation, just play that”. For starters, I want to support the original creators, and getting patches to work can be a real pain in the ass. (I believe for Muv-Luv you still have to use XP and the patch won’t work for Win 7 and newer… as a Mac guy, it’s a world of difference between having to run illegal Muv-Luv in an XP VM, and my legit copy of ef, which works great with Wineskin)

        Anyways, back to âge’s stuff: I’m doing a panel on the history of their games (and spinoff anime, manga, LNs) at Anime Central, called “Rumbling Hearts to Total Eclipse”. It’s currently scheduled for Sunday morning. Hope to see you there. I’ll be cosplaying as either Sandek from Total Eclipse or Mitsuki from Rumbling Hearts / Kiminozo.

      • The overwhelming support that Sekai Project has been getting for licensing titles that already have fan translations indicates that there is very clear interest. And it only makes sense, if the titles were popular enough that fans went through the trouble of localizing them for free, chances are there’s enough interest to make this profitable.

    • FSN/Baldr is pretty much right out, and I believe there’s rumblings of JAST pursuing Majikoi. Little Busters is Sekai Project’s territory.

      Mangagamer’s said they might pursue a Umineko Steam Release if all goes well with Higurashi.

      I have a feeling we’ll see Flowers announced this con season due how maria/badend has commented on her interest in it, Gungnir(IG’s parent company) being one of the majority holders in the company that owns mangagamer now, and how she’ll likely be finished with free friends right around then coincidentally…

      Mangagamer’s been in talks with Age before, but unfortunately those fell apart(with a lot of drama). There’s 4chan rumors that they might be back on, but last time the result of that was that Age wanted mangagamer to translate kiminozo, not Muv-Luv.

      I’m sure everyone’s aware of the situation with Shin Koihime.

      Rance is kind of a longshot, but they are aware of foreign interest and quoth badend/maria “It could happen!”.

      White Album 2 is another longshot, but aquaplus is obviously willing to deal with the western market. Sadly, aquaplus already seems to have an agreement with atlus, which, while white album 2 isn’t something they’d bring over, might get in the way of dealing with another company. Also they’re Osaka-based, which means they’re outside of mangagamer’s “network”, meaning they’d likely be more difficult to approach.

      • If anything, Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien is must, I would definitely buy the title and it’s strong enough many other people would do so too. It’s great game. Not to mention, it still doesn’t have english translation to this day. Yes, it’s very leghty game but one that is old enough not to be too costly and also one with potential to sell well.
        All ages version on Steam would do wonders.

      • “Mangagamer’s been in talks with Age before, but unfortunately those fell apart(with a lot of drama).”

        I never knew about that. Do you know what happened?

        • tl;dr; Ixrec(Amaterasu Translations) wanted to do muv-luv through mangagamer. Mangagamer got in contact with age. Age wanted kiminozo done, not muv-luv. Ixrec decided things were taking too long and released his patch. Age got pissed and took their ball home.

          • Specifically, age wanted to start with Kimi Nozo since Muv Luv begins in the same universe. While contract negotiations were going on, Japan had that huge earthquake and tsunami, age’s office got trashed, it slowed everything down. Ixrec couldn’t wait so he released the Muv Luv patch and age “took their ball home,” as you put it.

      • Extra context: There was almost a full year of no visible progress whatsoever in the negotiations before Amaterasu released their translation, and Ixrec was dissatisfied by the lack of communication from MG. Also, the patch had already been leaked way before all this happened.

    • Flowers is probably the most realistic option simply because MG have very openly talked about how much their staff members want to see it translated and they’re already partnered with IG. I’d say that White Album 2 is reasonably likely, Leaf seems somewhat interested in the western market and White Album 2 has the popularity of the anime to ride the coattails of. That’s an interesting option, really, I wouldn’t mind at all if MangaGamer sought a partnership with Leaf.

  2. So people want art, erotic content and romance games and then vote 07th Expansion as favorite brand – okayyyyyy…

    And as expected, lots of requested titles with already existing fan translations. Surprised not to see one of the Akabei Soft 2 titles on the list though.

    It’s also obvious that brands with recent or upcoming releases got a bias.

    • Expected yet somewhat alien stats regarding women’s responses, as all but one are the very opposite of mine. Age group related stats were quite interesting to look at. I appreciate this very comprehensive post on the survey.

      None of my three pics made it to the top ten. Mostly interested in knowing how Aiyoku no Eustia and Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi did on the survey.

  3. Would it be possible to gain access to the actual numbers? I would be very interested and very grateful to have the exact data available.

    I had no idea women were prevalent on Tumblr. That means that in order to effectively market on Tumblr, appealing to the female demographic is an absolute necessity. I mean, that’s like THE most important revelation in this survey for me personally. X_X

    • You clearly don’t hang out with enough women. They’re all over that shit.

    • Dramatical Murder really picked up because of tumblr. A lot of women frequent tumblr especially to fangirl over stuff.

    • Obviously the hard numbers are for internal-use-only.

      But yeah, we somewhat expected it, but it was still a surprise to see just how much Tumblr was favored as a source of news for women.

      • Man’s place is 4chan
        Woman’s place is Tumblr

        Well, everyone has aware about it and that’s why both place is so hostile againts each others.

  4. Shin Koihime Musou needs to be higher on that demand list if people want to see it happen…

    • There are some pretty big (and equally impossible) names above it, the only real surprise for me is Umineko beating it as well. I’d say there’s enough interest shown here; it remains to be seen if it’s enough to make it seem viable, though.

  5. Interesting results, sorta surprised not to see the Ikusa Megami series in the top 10 list. Doubly surprised to see a ton of already translated titles in the list, goddamnit guys.

    Baldr and Rance would be amazing pick-ups if possible, but seeing as Alicesoft has the whole hatred of foreigners thing going, Rance is probably immediately off the table. How is GIGA in regards to foreigners?

    • Considering that GIGA C&D Baldr Force translation before, I highly doubt they would have much interest in the Western market. So their games are pretty much out of question.

      • Not necessarily. They, and others, might not like fan translations that often go hand in hand with piracy, but could still approve of an official release. See also: minori.

  6. Who’s Liarsoft? Only company I can think of is Alicesoft???

  7. Could have predicted this one –
    “The primary barrier for the ~500 people who responded to this question was that they hadn’t known about us before the survey!”

    No one I’ve ever mentioned MangaGamer to had ever heard about them before.

    I really hope this influences future decisions not just by MangaGamer but by the other localization companies, too –
    “44% of fans prefer the adult version over all-ages options, and 30% just want whichever version is the original, unedited edition. The people who actually prefer all-ages options above others only makes up 4% of the market.”

    It seems so many people get this confused with the preference to have things on Steam. Steam is so huge that it makes that 4% look like the dominant part of the market.

  8. 63% preferring digital downloads is depressing to me. I love my physical copies.

    I don’t even remember what companies I put for the top brands. I think I remember two, but I have no idea who I put for the third.

    I look forward to what you do with the results! I hope some good things come from it!

    • Well, for me personally, buying a hardcopy would involve $40 for the game itself, then $10-$20 for the shipping, then $20-30 in customs fees, in addition to having to wait 3-6 weeks for the game to arrive (assuming no incidents occur – when I bought a hardcopy of If My Heart Had Wings it took well over 2 months to arrive). In ideal circumstances I’d prefer a hardcopy too, but the ridiculous practical price increase (most of which does not go to the developer/localization company) and the long wait make digital clearly the better option for me.

      • I don’t even mind the additional costs that much myself, most of what I own are still hard copies. The only real exceptions are cheaper indie titles unlikely to ever see a hard copy. I always prefer to know that no matter what happens to the company or the platform it’s sold on (e.g. Steam), I still have my game. Physical extras of the limited editions are a nice bonus as well that often makes the hard copy the more appealing choice.

  9. I didn’t actually see this survey before so I didn’t take it but I’m not surprised about the fact that both genders enjoy Yuri equally. There’s geberally more of a negative stigma concerning homosexuality with men than there is with women. In part due to the feminization of gay men, I believe.

    All of my friends and I enjoy a good F// or can at least can fangirl/fanboy over good looking women–whereas one of us says something about a guy and our guy friends just glare at us.

    I did enjoy reading the statistics though even though I wish ClockUp had made it higher up on the list. I absolutely adored Shigeo Hamashima’s art in NTY!!! And although I wouldn’t have considered buying a Nukige before I’m definitely going to get Euphoria the second preorders come out and I’m even planning to pick up Erog! later in the year after I grab the three or so titles in translation I want, so I can use all of my stacked up MG Points on it.

    • I personally think that the equal representation of yuri fans among males and females simply has to do with how heterosexual females are more likely to be aroused by lesbian porn than heterosexual males are by gay porn. Though the fact that it is one of the less favored genre implies that the majority of both genders want at least one dick in a sex scene, which I find sorta amusing.

      • I think the underlying reason is that both girl and boy babies are attracted to breasts.

        Also, the fact that most of those women come from tumblr should skew the statistics. Tumblr is a heinous place where people with no personality get brainwashed to become the terrori… social fighters of tomorrow, and that sect adoctrinates its followers to embrace all sexuality options, including those that don’t exist, except the ones they don’t like, which in practice is any non-homo option.

  10. This results are pretty interesting, it doesn’t seem like there’s a huge stride for otome games or bl games yet though. Hopefully ozamafia and no thank you can change that a bit.

  11. I just hope these results don’t mean that MangaGamer is going to stop putting out DRM-free hard copies. Honestly, a title could be digital only and I’d be okay with buying it, as long as it doesn’t have DRM (though I still vastly prefer hard copies).

    Anyway, as long as Steam doesn’t become the primary platform for releasing games, I’m okay with more games being included on it.

    I’m not surprised a lot of people don’t know about MangaGamer, and that’s probably true for other VN publishers as well. That’s probably why some already licensed titles had significant rankings on the survey results.

    I can relate my life experiences to the survey data, as back when I was in college I’d buy a fair number of VNs in a year. Now that I’m employed I find myself being able to buy more of the titles I want. I know the college demographic doesn’t have a lot of money to throw around, but if those people get hooked on VNs then maybe eventually as they age they’ll become a significant portion of MangaGamer’s customer base.

  12. Seeing how the top 10 aren’t that surprising I would really appreciate knowing what the top 20-30 games are. Also some comment on how likely they are even just mentioning which ones are completely out of the question.

  13. While I’m not surprised about the DRM not being a problem for most, I think that has a lot more to do with people not knowing what DRM is. Even amongst the gaming community, many don’t really know what it is, though they still get annoyed with things like an always on internet connection required, or only limited installs allowed. I guess the DRM on Steam and on mangagamer’s site is pretty unobtrusive for most then.

    It would also be super interesting to see future surveys ask where people live! It would probably answer why so many favour digital over physical copies and would also be instrumental in showing where the core demographics for the games lie within the English speaking demographic.

    Also, I’m surprisingly unsurprised that more women seemed to have Mac computers – it’s actually a trend of noticed more often than not recently.

    Looking at titles to see licensed, I’m really hoping we see someone else besides Atlus release Aquaplus/Leaf titles, especially if it means someone would port the improved PS2 port of Utawarerumono (along side the original PC release), as well as the vastly improved PS3 ports of the Tears to Tiara games. I didn’t know about these titles at the time, but the 2009 version of Kizuato would also be cool to see licensed ^^

    Glad to see so many people responded to the survey and that there were many good take away’s for the MangaGamer. Honesly, I’m looking forward to a more diverse VN market, so hopefully there are more quality titles to look forward to in the future from MangaGamer!

  14. >Muv Luv
    >Fate
    The VN/eroge fan community is staler than the anime fan community. These are shits that have had translations since forever and barely have any good ero content as it is.

    Bah, whatever. At least the lack of translations helps in learning Japanese further.

  15. One of the few female customers who prefers eroge and yuri to otome/BL here…

    Kind of disappointing to see how many of the most-requested titles are unfeasible licenses (not to mention already translated). But I guess that’s to be expected. Not everyone spends their times looking up cool games they can’t actually read.

    Hopefully this guarantees a license for FLOWERS, right? And man, White Album 2 would be nice. I don’t expect it’ll happen, but it would still be nice.

  16. O great titles that have been already been translated since forever.

  17. So, if girls like yuri, and guys like yuri, then everybody likes yuri?! yay! It looks like MG will just have to keep it’s eyes open for a good yuri title to localize… because that’d be amazing 😀

  18. It’s a little mean to mention the 19th and 26th place titles but not say what they are. Also, I have to wonder if fans just weren’t aware those titles were actually licensed (I can think of a few JAST licenses people wouldn’t be aware of simply because of how slow JAST have been with getting them out there)

  19. It’s disappointing to see so few people who took the survey seem to care about DRM. MangaGamer’s implementation of DRM on its digital games is the primary reason I only own some of the company’s hardcopy releases.

    Even with the survey results, I hope MangaGamer will continue their efforts of providing physical, DRM-free games for those who prefer this manner of product.

    • Maybe now that people have had a taste they’ve come to realize that the arguments against DRM are ignorant at best and fallacious at worst?

      • My copy of Deardrops no longer activates. If I want to play it legally, I’d have to redownload the entire thing because the DRM is no longer supported by MangaGamer and I have to download and install new DRM.

      • I know your download is fast.
        It’s pain in Asia, especially on SEA whenever we need to redownload again whenever we want to reread something again.

      • One could just as easily suggest people who replied are unaware of DRM, or actually play cracked versions of the software.

        That said, people are welcome to not care about DRM. I find it to be a significant issue, and as such, hope MangaGamer will continue their efforts of releasing DRM-free hardcopies, so I can occasionally show support for some of their products.

  20. I knew it was going to happen but still, all of those requests for titles that are already translated. This is why I hate people.

    • Isn’t it actually a good thing that people are still interested in an official release for these despite the existing fan translations?

      • I’ve seen a lot of complaints that many of the requested titles are already fanTLed but some of us don’t want to pirate the japanese versions and have issues with importing hardcopies (cost/customs).

        I rely on official releases for pretty much all of my VNs (I’ve made an exception for Yu-No).

      • Indeed it is, talking of the official english release and the english readers of course, because the first official release is in Japan. Now, talking about the budget and translating something with more than ten years in the market? (F/SN) Not really plausible. Besides, let’s not forget that the market is primarily focused on the Japanese population, so we cannot always expect an official release.

        DongTuna: Certainly I understand how you feel,
        that chart seems based on people who recently started in this or can’t get over those titles and want to “support” the market. Couldn’t be more staler.

  21. Pretty happy to see Shin Koihime was as high up on the list as it was. I have to wonder if this will push MG to actually translate it at some point. Most of the titles that place above SKM are flat out not going to happen, they cost way too much.

    • You say they cost too much, and yet that is the exact reason why Shin Koihime hasn’t been translated yet, because of the massive cost of licencing THAT many voice actors.

      That said, I agree with you in that I hope this will push Mangagamer towards seriously considering investing in a translation for the game, as I would LOVE to be able to play that in English.

  22. It would be nice if Rance series make it, especially from Rance 7 and above

  23. I still don’t understand why people suggest titles like Little Busters, Mu-Luv and FSN. It is not like we have those titles already translated since forever right? The majority of people will not buy an official translation if they know that they can get a free, unofficial (good) one.

    Talking about good news, i was relieved in seeing White Album 2 and Baldr make the top 10 cut. Faith in umanity -> restored.

    The games that i see doable in the top 10 are few though: Flower seems the most likely, in my heart i would like to hope that WA2 is possibile but i just don’t know, umineko is also likely.
    The others (non translated) seem to be a long shot. And Baldr Sky is impossibile lol.

  24. I don’t mind to burn my money for White Album 2, Shin Koihime Musou, and Baldr series.

    Also, if you want to do Rance series, you have Maria on your team and she currently working on Rance Quest. MG can pick-it up as official project if interested.

  25. Why would you vote for a VN that is already translated fairly well? Most people have already read products like Little Busters!. I know that the lower end VN fans don’t really know many titles, but come on people. This is absurd. There are so many great titles out there.

  26. Nintendo Maniac 64

    As someone that helps out at times with the translation patch for the PC version Fate/stay night Realta Nua, I’d like to mention that said PC version isn’t even available in Japan as was the primary reason I even mentioned it – you literally HAVE to bootleg it unless you’re OK with the old 2004 version or reading it on a PS2 or Vita (even if you can read Japanese)

    • Nintendo Maniac 64

      To clarify, PC Realta Nua was available as an official and legal digital download for a period of about only 2 years before being taken down around a year ago.

  27. “Also, surprisingly enough 88% don’t care whether DRM is present or not. So the people who strongly oppose DRM on games only makes up 12% of fans.”

    I think this result is quite heavily skewed by the survey not distinguishing between Steam releases and other more draconian forms of DRM. I’m happy to get games from Steam and have several VNs on there already, but if MG were to start attaching SecuROM or the like to their games they’d quickly lose my business.

  28. I hope that just because Baseson came in 11th you won’t see that as inferior to the other brands. I mean, Shin Koihime Musou is in the requested list. That has to tell you you know what your customers want.

  29. I was hoping at least one of Eushully titles would make it to the top 10. I think Eushully could be a great addition to the list of mangagamer’s partners even though the localisation cost of any of their vns will probably be really high. How feasible do you think a partnership with Eushully would be?

    • Based on Aroduc’s posts regarding the translation work on Kamidori, Eushully’s code is a huge mess and it was such a huge pain to work on as a result that he never wants to touch another one of their games. They’re also apparently not too keen on the west either, like Alicesoft, so I wouldn’t think any partnership with them is likely.

  30. Thanks for sharing! I’d love to see what the top otome/bl game choices were, too.

  31. Quite intersting results, although it came as a surprise that no Eushully title came under the top 10 of most wanted games, would have at least expect Ikusa Megami Series get there.
    Especially after last year where the interest one Memoria looked far greater than Rance IX, but seems like the audience on Mangagamer and my most used forums differ considerable.

  32. White Album 2. Make it happen.

  33. Of the top 10 I would definitely like to see Shin Koihime Musou, Flowers and White Album 2 localized the most.
    Do hope to see more from Navel, Circus, Moonstone and Clockup, but could we see more from Caramel Box too? I’d heard Otoboku sold well enough so how about the sequel?

    Also please localize the Kyonyuu Fantasy series 🙂

  34. Surprised at the piracy advocates here.

    As a supporter of the industry, I’d prefer a legitimate translation so that people can legitimately enjoy classic games without having to go hunting through Yahoo auctions and other sites to purchase the game. Most of the fan translators I’d dealt with in the past insisted on people having original copies and attempted to put in coding to prevent people without the disks installing the translation patch or running it.

    Having it open the pathway for the more recent games as well would be nice if possible of course.

    Ah well, at least Shin Kohime got a lookin, even if my other two wishes didn’t. Having been collecting since the 90s, I have a stupid amount of wishes for official translations.

    • There is no “piracy advocacy” here. People just want new things, not the same old shit that’s been spammed since 2004.

  35. aww, there is no Eushully in the top 10, i was totally expecting for that one

  36. Wow, the lack of support for yuri makes me sad. Also come on guys, no votes for Type Moon’s other works? Like. You know. Witch on the Holy Night. Since that doesn’t even have a fan tranBslation. Also the other women disappoint me.

  37. I don’t mind DRM if it’s done right, but that obviously isn’t the case here. I refuse to support the intrusive DRM you use on your website. Limiting a purchase to 5 activations is just plain stupid.

    I will support (DRM-free) hardcopies and Steam releases. However, I will refrain from buying digital releases on MangaGamer.

  38. I was surprised to see Innocent Grey rated as the 3rd top brand. I didn’t get the impression that their games were as well received or as popular as I thought they should be overseas. But maybe they are closer to it than I imagined.

    Hopefully this means more interest in licensing more non-nukiges, and/or mystery titles.

  39. i’m a fan of the Koihime Musou series i hope it and the the other games they made like it come over here some day

  40. I’m pleased to see Lilith is on the top 10 companies list. Ever since Nephrinn (Sanity Ends) from many years ago translated Prison Battleship, Asagi 1 & 2, Miss Leet, etc. I feel he’s generated a huge awareness for the company. It’s a shame Nephrinn is no longer around.

    I personally requested nothing but Lilith games (Prison Battleship 2-3 and Asagi games). Kagami is the single greatest artist in the world, and I love his depiction of mature rude women, which is a stark contrast to the infestation of young innocent moe girls.

  41. Damn… I was kinda hoping 11eyes from Lass would be one of those titles, or at least in the top 20 or something, since the fan translation was dropped and I really want to see it translated. I remember there was a time in the past where Mangagamer mentioned it was one of the top 10 requests… or in that range, I honestly don’t remember. I just hope the anime didn’t deter people, because the anime was a sack of crap compared to the visual novel. (sigh) Anyways…

    Some interesting results here, and some rather expected results. Namely in the case of Yuri, I heard Demon Master Chris sold far better than they expected, so it wasn’t all that surprising to see yuri was equally favored by both genders. Of course that titles more on the raunchy side, so I’m not sure if they’re looking for something more pure or not. Also I can see both sides of the equation when it comes to wanting newer material translated, rather than older material that has already been fan translated. Though I agree more on the side of wanting newer material, simply because of a time factor. If a company spends more time on an official release for something that’s already been translated, than it takes away time to focus on material that hasn’t been translated yet. I mean, this period of time can be quickened if the fan translators and official release company work together, or the fan translation is used as a guide, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Yes there are people who are patient and will wait a long time for an official release or a hardcopy, but at the same time I feel there are more who would rather simply locate the patch and download because they don’t want to wait. Whether they actually buy and support the release is a different story. Though I’m sure when an offical release comes out for something that’s been fan translated years ago, many people won’t even bother with it because they’ve already played it. Heck, it might still be on their computer! Though that’s just my two cents on the matter.

  42. Damn… I was kinda hoping 11eyes from Lass would be one of those titles, or at least in the top 20 or something, since the fan translation was dropped and I really want to see it translated. I remember there was a time in the past where Mangagamer mentioned it was one of the top 10 requests… or in that range, I honestly don’t remember. I just hope the anime didn’t deter people, because the anime was a sack of crap compared to the visual novel. (sigh) Anyways…

    Some interesting results here, and some rather expected results. Namely in the case of Yuri, I heard Demon Master Chris sold far better than they expected, so it wasn’t all that surprising to see yuri was equally favored by both genders. Of course that titles more on the raunchy side, so I’m not sure if they’re looking for something more pure or not. Also I can see both sides of the equation when it comes to wanting newer material translated, rather than older material that has already been fan translated. Though I agree more on the side of wanting newer material, simply because of a time factor. If a company spends more time on an official release for something that’s already been translated, than it takes away time to focus on material that hasn’t been translated yet. I mean, this period of time can be quickened if the fan translators and official release company work together, or the fan translation is used as a guide, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Yes there are people who are patient and will wait a long time for an official release or a hardcopy, but at the same time I feel there are more who would rather simply locate the patch and download because they don’t want to wait. Whether they actually buy and support the release is a different story. Though I’m sure when an official release comes out for something that’s been fan translated years ago, many people won’t even bother with it because they’ve already played it. Heck, it might still be on their computer! Though that’s just my two cents on the matter.

  43. Sad to see there was no love for Amagami SS or KoiChoco.

    It’s pretty crazy to see so few people care about DRM. Surely I’m not the only one who’s bought games off Mangagamer only to just go and torrent a cracked version?
    At the end of the day companies get their money and I get unrestricted access to a game I bought.

  44. Would love to see little busters

  45. Baldr Sky when?!

    Too bad GIGA didn’t make into top 10, oh well for the good reasons I guess.

  46. I’m very disappointed by the survey results. It seems like I’m in the minority on almost all fronts.

    Besides, it looks like many participants confused “most requested titles” for a popularity contest and simply listed off their favourite titles rather than give answers reflecting potential future purchasing decisions. How many people among those who voted for Fate would seriously fork out cold hard cash for a localized release of a game that was fantranslated nearly a decade ago? I can’t help but be skeptical here.

    Incidentally, none of my three picks made the top 10, despite being some of the best-selling VNs of all time. Words fail me.

  47. I’m surprised that Lilith’s games are (relatively) low on the list. I’d figure that the community would be up in arms over getting their hands on Kangoku Senkan or Taimanin Asagi. Oh well.

    It’s cool to see women actually voicing their desire for different stuff. Here’s hoping this leads to more diverse releases!

  48. “While very few titles at the top of this list came as a surprise, we were quite astonished to see titles already licensed by other publishers taking 19th and 26th place with a few hundred votes each. Maybe fans just trust us to do a quality job on the titles they love?”
    I think it is completely another thing – possibly those people just DO NOT KNOW that those titles have already been licensed. It is typical among teen gamers to ask for translating their favourite titles that WERE ALREADY PUBLISHED. They just didn’t check. On the other hand, it is VERY difficult to find any information regarding the status of BL and GL games, and I realised that some titles I wanted to ask for were translated only after checking their encyclopedic pages. I personally dislike your choice of titles, as I am put off but erotic content, and this seems to be the driving factor for your choices while licencing titles.

  49. Cannot believe i missed such an important post. Then again I agree with those who are disappointed with the top ten list. There’s so much media coverage for fate (anime/manga/games) that there’s no point in using (wasting) the small amount of resources to get it officially licensed. Heavens feel will definitely get its anime and a good one just like the previous ones that you wont be missing anything from the visual novel. Heck maybe it’ll get a movie then a tv series to boot to in order to milk fans of another 50000 yen per 12eps.

    Muv Luv being there is just a joke. We had a chance with age then and blew it over a waiting game. Now people are back asking for another chance at negotiations? I remember people supported the release (or was it “leak”) of the fan patch, glorifying it to be exact.

    Lets see something new that hasn’t had a completed full unofficial patch released please people.

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