Adding to that, the game gives you a choice whether to overwrite previous choices, so you can do a perfect playthrough once and be fine.
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Quick question, Iâm trying to install the copy I got with my memorial box, is it the same English patch as the original edition or should I look for another version?
The current English patch is very inconsistent but, as far as I know, that was designed for the Full Voice version, which is supposedly a different release from the Memorial Edition. However⊠I donât really know what the difference between the full voice and memorial editions are, so, hey, it might just work
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anyone else get to see the clannad english anthology manga samples? They are looking good.
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Wow nice! Iâll have to share this around.
Sekai declared just a few minutes ago on Twitter that the CLANNAD visual novel will cost 50$/~46âŹ, which is about 10 dollars/euros higher than the average Kickstarter price to get a copy.
Iâm not sure what Visual Arts and Sekai are doing but this is bad for people who arenât initiated to novels at allâŠ
Itâs been a while since I did the whole video game thing, but isnât that price about standard?
Not for Visual Novels in the West.
It might be standard for AAA games but weâre talking about a different market where people, besides the enthusiasts such as ourselves, will not want to spend 50 dollars on whatâs technically a book with no guarantee theyâll like it. It might not sound expensive but considering the target audience is teenagers and young adults, that much can dictate how the rest of their month is going to go until allowance/paycheck rolls in and I doubt a whole lot will feel adventurous enough for something they might not even enjoy due to the type of game or its story/characters.
Visual Arts seems like theyâre basing their decision on CLANNADâs Japan popularity and the name it got for itself thanks to KyoAni which is a more than retarded way to go about it, and it goes to show they actually only understand the Japanese market for visual novels, not the Western one.
Grisaia and G-Senjou are about as long and are less expensive than this (39,99 dollars, which is more reasonable than 49,99 even if it seems like a small difference), and I can only feel bad for Sekai whoâs going to get the blunt of the unhappiness thatâll be expressed regarding this price.
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Not to be negative, but have there been any good VNs (or long VNs) released on Steam before thisâŠ? I say on Steam, because from what I remember about other English releases, this pricing is commonplace. 40-50 dollars is about right for a nice chunky VN⊠Even for the ones that arenât all that well received.
If itâs cheap, people buy it, never play it, and that shows up as a negative. If itâs expensive, less people buy it, but theyâll be more compelled to actually make their purchase worthwhile.
Well, that would be the case, but didnât Steam add a refund system recently? People who donât like reading are either gonna not buy it or refund it.
I think the only real audience is the people who already know about Clannad, or the people who watch people play VNs. Getting anything else should be more than expected.
Thereâs always sales anyway.
Grisaia is closer to G-Senjou than CLANNAD in length, and a large chunk of that is the unbearably long common route. I donât think Iâd understand anyone who is willing to buy that thing anyway thoughâŠ
G-Senjou is a loooot shorter than CLANNAD. Heck, CLANNAD will be double the length for a lot of readers.
The problem is not getting buyers to feel like they got their moneyâs worth. Iâd wager most people will probably feel that way in the end, if they actually go through with it.
The problem is getting people to make that first step and invest 50 freaking dollars and about 90 freaking hours in a game without any sort of gameplay to speak of on pure hope and faith that it will be worth all that time and money. For most people not even a great reputation will be enough to make this leap.
There really is a big difference between $40 and $50 in this regard.
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Hereâs the thing, the issue is precisely with the sales. Those sales will dictate what happens to the West releases of VNs for Visual Arts and theyâre being too greedy right now which will impact the sales negatively.
Yes, itâs very possible some novels have been infinitely better than CLANNAD at way cheaper; since thatâs a matter of opinion. 40 dollars is very different from 50 dollars in a personâs everyday life and CLANNAD wonât be a worthwhile purchase for most people even if they decide to buy it
As it stands, rather than target a teenage/young adult audience like it did back in 2004, right now CLANNADâs targeting only people who want to spend that much money on the name of CLANNAD alone and that will only include the people of Kazamatsuri (though some members on Discord voiced the fact that they will not be investing in CLANNAD after all) and passionate CLANNAD lovers.
No one in their sane mind will want to spend that much money (again, 50$ is no small price compared to literally all other novels on steam, and the general game prices for it, it almost reaches the price of a recently released triple A game for absolutely no reason as itâs not as popular in the West as we wish it to be) on a game theyâre not even sure theyâll enjoy. For a student, it means nearly all their allowance blown, for a young adult, it means blowing that much off what you can live off for the month. For both, it means blowing that money on something you hyped much more than CLANNAD.
If they do, they run the risk of spending absolutely useless money and if they refund, itâs another bullet shot at CLANNAD. A game isnât supposed to be released just to be refunded because it couldnât get a price appropriate to the target audience, and the fact that weâre even talking about the people who will definitely refund is already a glimpse at how bad their prices are.
No matter the cost, theyâre still gonna have to a few days worth of time into reading⊠Just reading.
No reason? o.o Itâs standard pricing for English Visual Novels, and thereâs a lot of money put into it. Popularity doesnât equal pricing. People may use popularity to increase pricing, but that isnât the case here.
Thereâs more to money than just dropping the price and getting profit.
I didnât bring that up in regard to pricing. I brought it up with enjoyment in mind. Most of the people on Steam just wonât want to read that much, so refunding it sounds like the normal thing to do.
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It doesnât matter if itâs reading or not, enjoyable or not, the issue is that people, myself included amongst many other forum members, wonât take kindly to spending 50 dollars for whatâs technically a book. Just like they wouldnât spend 80 dollars on a BD only containing two episodes of a 2-cour series or they wouldnât spend hundreds of dollars on a broom over a vacuum cleaner even if the broom is efficient with enough effort put in.
Maybe they can get refunded, but if they canât then thatâs the money wasted and I wouldnât spend that much on a game Iâm not sure and canât even ascertain Iâll enjoy thanks to Visual Arts forbidding Letâs Plays of the game in the first place.
So when we look at the image with everything we all said, considering this price chases off teenagers who want to feel the worth of their money being spent (no guarantee people will want to go through the common route and the lesser-liked routes), young adults who seek for entertainment to relax after a hard day (no guarantee theyâll enjoy CLANNAD even if they like VNs), people who like VNs but canât afford a novel that expensive, or some just donât feel like spending the money, whoâs the target audience?
People who just want to buy because itâs CLANNAD. And theyâre somewhat rare compared to the rest, so therefore, GJ Visual Arts on blowing the sales of your first big game on Steam. Visual Arts needs to stop thinking this is Japanâs market precisely because making money isnât as simple as setting prices lower for more sells, you need to analyse the market and the target audience of said country youâre releasing the material in.
And if weâre going by the logic of âhow long and enjoyable CLANNAD is justifies the priceâ then I fear to know what Little Busters!'s potential price will beâŠ
I have no problem spending $50, thatâs about ÂŁ30 for me which I think is just about reasonable, but I do think this will significantly impact sales. Sekai have pretty much blown any chance they had to attract those unfamiliar with Key who might want to give Clannad a try because theyâve heard such good things. By looking at the steam page there are a lot of people who are tentatively interested but canât understand what the game is about or how it plays, they are not going to buy this for $50, in fact Iâm sure a lot of long term fans arenât going to buy it for $50, itâs a lot of money. For many of households losing that much money on something trivial can be very hard to take.
Convincing the western market that visual novels are worth as much as regular video games is an uphill battle, and if we start at the top of the hill weâre going to fall.
And thatâs what Iâm saying. CLANNADâs price is what is the standard in the ENGLISH market. It may be a poorly managed market, but itâs nothing new.
LB would probably be around the same price bracket. Maybe 5-10 dollars more.
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I just wanna chime in to say that taka is right here. Trust me if it were sold on japan, itâd cost at least $70.
Now then, the price is definitely steep, no doubt about that. We can probably all agree that it is a fair price for the scale of the game but⊠The points raised are definitely good ones. How can VA and SP expect it to sell well when a huge chunk of its target audience arenât gonna be able to afford it?
I honestly believe that in this case, $40 isnât all that different from $50. This also brings up the problem of people who wonât be willing to buy it and will end up pirating it. Thatâs definitely gonna be a reality. We can only hope that it sells as much to get VAâs approval, at the least.
However⊠Despite that fact, they have already announced harmonia, LB and TA which means that they have high hopes. You do have to remember that people who backed the kickstarter are considered paying customers already. Heck, they might have already broke-even on the game, and thus donât care much anymore about the post-sales. So my biggest worry, personally, isnât that people donât buy it; itâs that people donât enjoy CLANNAD as a VN format⊠Because that in itself spells trouble for their future sales, which arenât gonna be kickstarted, I think.
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Well, uh, no, first of all, not at all. Your paying for the words like you would in a book, yes⊠and all the art drawn, and all the music composed and recorded⊠and all the computer programming, and all the voice actingâŠ
Also, I didnt hear any complaining from anyone here when we thought it was gonna be $40, so⊠what suddenly justifies all this hate not only for VisualArtâs and Sekai Project, but for visual novels and Clannad in general.
[quote=âPepe, post:81, topic:33â]
Trust me if it were sold on japan, itâd cost at least $70.
[/quote]And yeah this^
I mean, come on guys, this happens with EVERYTHING. If people want it theyâll buy it. If people think the price is too high, they wont buy it. An extra 10 bucks most certainly isnt gonna change that.
Its like this whole thing with the overpriced DLC for Destiny and Battlefront. If people want it, theyâll buy it. Anyone who doesnt buy it either didnt actually want it in the first place, or thinks the price is too high. And if people actually speak up and the latter of those two is the majority, then maybe we will end up seeing them change it.
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But it doesnât change the fact that it was advertised to be $40. We expected it to be $40 but now we have to pay more? I donât want this to show VA or sekai that we will tolerate this. $10 is a lot to some people. And also that twitter poll from sekai should say something. A MAJORITY has basically said, âI am not excited for this.â Even if it was just haters it would not be a majority. We the players are saying that this is not suitable. Itâs too expensive. I hope that they will see the mistake they made but if they donât then I wonât even buy the game.
One thing to keep in mind, Sekai Project (justified or not) gets a ton of hate. Many a flame wars on Fuwa have been locked arguing over Sekai Project, their trustworthiness, and they way they conduct their operations. Advertising the VN at $40, and then with no warning releasing at $50 is just more ammo for the haters unfortunately.
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