Due to a change in management with our partners at Navel, Soul Link (download) and Shuffle (download / hardcopy) will be discontinued as of March 31st. Those who have purchased either title prior to the cutoff will retain their copies of the games in their account. Owners will continue to be able to download, install, and uninstall their copies of both titles as usual, but sales will be discontinued until further notice.
We hope everyone will take this opportunity to check out both titles while the chance still lasts.
(Shuffle (download) links to Amber Breaker btw)
Whoops! Fixed. WordPress sneakily auto-completed the link.
The Shuffle download edition leads to Amber Breaker.
Well, at least things are clear now with Navel…
So two titles that have upgraded editions (one of which is highly requested) in Japan are being discontinued, hmm…
Correct me if I’m wrong but navel is the one of mangagamer’s parent companies who sold their stake to the other two right? I always wondered how that effected the companies relationship with mangagamer.
So does this bode well or ill for Oretachi’s chances?
Will you release the essence / ultimate edition of both games in the future or do you stop any collaboration with Navel ? And what about the other Navel titles currently sold on Mangagamer?
So a question then, does this also extend to Really Really/Tick Tack? I didn’t see the fandisks for Shuffle mentioned anywhere.
Does this mean Shuffle essence won’t happen no matter how long we wait?
Wait…why?
Excellent. I hope you focus the extra money on Rance games, Mangagamer!
Fu₢k y0u.
Own both as downloads from way back and just picked up a hardcopy of Shuffle today at AnimeBoston – just in case.
Once they’re discontinued, will we still be able to get activations for the DRM’ed download editions? Or will the DRM be removed?
Shuffle Essence has been getting more and more of a long shot ever since Really Really came out. Shuffle was a good early seller, but MG’s said each year sales are better than the year before. I imagine the more recent partners are happier with them than Navel is.
We got Tick Tack and Really Really back when MG was by and large still sticking with their initial partners. They’ve really diversified a lot since then.
Tick Tack came out in 2013, and Really Really in 2014. The only expansion left is Love Rainbow, and you can’t release it without releasing Essence. We’re approaching 2 years now without any new developments. It’s starting to look like it’s never happening. At least SKM has people doing a fan translation; it’s much more likely to get released.
As for what this announcement means, it is odd RR & TT aren’t included. I’d imagine those contracts aren’t up yet. In which case, it seems likely Navel has cut ties and is waiting for those two to roll off.
It’s possible the titles could return. But more likely is that new management isn’t interested anymore.
I guess I should give up on seeing a Really? Really! hardcopy. I’ve been holding out on buying it digitally since I was really hoping for one. I’ll have to settle for the digital copy then.
Do you have a shuffle hard copy or downloaded
Does this imply that all games may stop selling due to expired contracts? (Not just Navel, but the whole selection of games). Unless you negotiate a new contract for each title?
More or less, yeah. Publishing deals don’t run forever. On the one hand, it sucks for fans. On the other hand, look up the crazy messed up situation with Macross sometime. The same thing has happened on Steam a few times; games come down due to licensing issues. Sometimes they come back. Sometimes they don’t.
It’s pretty rare though. And there’s always a chance that it comes back. I don’t think that’s terribly likely, but never say never.
Man…the day before I could afford to get it it gets discontinued…that sucks…
I was holding my breath for a hardcopy of Really? Really! as well… Navel is one of my preferred publishers Mangagamer partnered up with; I’d hate to see Navel cut ties (especially since I wanted to purchase Soul Link physically as well, but if there’s just digitial versions, it seems to be so much of a waste towaste money on pure data that you could get for free by other means…).
Love Rainbow and Shuffle Essence+ are also titles I was and still am interested in purchasing, should it be considered to be localized.
That is, if Navel is still interested in allowing Mangagamer localisation of their works.
Now where it has been brught up, I really hope that Navel won’t abandon Mangagamer.
This would be quite a waste for english-speaking fans of Visual Novels, in my opinion.
YumeHaven removes the Playstation 2 version from Steam today, it means who yours gonna to rerelease all Shuffle VNs on Steam?
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