yirba: Is Dengeki Stryker confirmed as a MangaGamer release?
bamboo: Yes, we’ll be selling Dengeki Stryker on MangaGamer so please look forward to it!

bamboo: We won’t be able to make it for AX, but we are making this game for everyone overseas…
(At this point, showed off the cover art for Go Go Nippon.)
bamboo: Go Go Nippon!
bamboo: So choose 1 of the two heroines and visit all the places in japan
bamboo: A bit erotic ^^
bamboo: The game itself is complete so hopefully i can show it in action soon
bamboo: Iphone application is strict as (censored by JustinTV) so even if its a bit erotic, it gets rejected
bamboo: For those who have difficulty coming to Japan, we made this game to kind of experience what its like here

hamusumo: How much is the planned game time of Go Go Nippon?
bamboo: The game is kind of like a guidebook, so it’s not that long, but I’ll let you know when I actually play it throughly
bamboo: Maybe we can make patches that does this in that in the future =P
bamboo: Yes we’ll be selling it online at a cheap price

(Below are the front and back covers for Go Go Nippon, from screen captures taken from the stream)

drmchsr0: Say, are Kamen Rider questions valid now? :3c
bamboo: I dunno much about Kamen Rider but if its something i can answer. lol

(no question)
bamboo: Hoping well continue to make games for everyone who is interested in japan but can’t come here
bamboo: We’ll be holding a panel at AX to have sort of a meeting with everyone
bamboo: We’ll be answering question along with Tororo Dancho from Circus and tell you some updates from Japan

asceai: Will the Japanese text work for people without Japanese OS/locale in the release?
bamboo: We will be testing the Japanese part for Go Go Nippon but its not final yet

hikari_sc: has companies in japan recovered from the earthquake, how is the scheduling of games like ef coming along?
bamboo: There was a big impact from the earthquake and directly affected us
bamboo: You can say the recent slow release of MangaGamer is mostly because of the quake
bamboo: Sales in Japan has gone down too

drmchsr0: Oh wait, here’s a serious one. How is Bill 156 and Ishihara’s recent comments gonna affect the future of Overdrive and MangaGamer? D:
bamboo: Isihara’s comment and bill has little to do with MangaGamer

yirba: Will we possibly see the MangaGamer mascot (Comko) in games? :-P
bamboo: No plan to including our mascot in a game at the moment
bamboo: I did see the image on 4chan with our mascot being naked and was laughing with everyone

hikari_sc: When do you think Japanese developers will start making games with internationalization in mind (ie: writing it in such a way so it can easily be ported to other languages)
bamboo: There are some developers who are interested, but it all depends on the demand and what they consider a success in oversea sales
bamboo: We need to make a good basis for business for that, for us to succeed in such circumstance
bamboo: We actually have Dengeki Stryker and Go Go Nippon with the oversea fans in mind

furbysbadday: Might we see more Higurashi?
timpkmn89: Alongside Furbys comment, will we ever specifically see Higurashi Rei, the series epilogue?
bamboo: If there is a high demand for Higurashi Rei, yes

(no question)
bamboo: i would like to study English too, so someone show me a cute English speaking girl, btw

snowballer: How’s the progress with âge going?
bamboo: Negotiation with âge is going steadily

miragecg: Have you contact with “old” eroge maker (like Mink for example)
bamboo: Sorry I don’t have much connection with Mink
bamboo: I only know developers that started in the early 2000s

drmchsr0: How do you view 999’s success in the US? Are you planning to do something like that in the future?
bamboo: In relation to 999, since we are releasing Kara no Shoujo, we are looking forward to see how much that will sell

swiftnissity: Whats happening with the comics section of the website, its empty right now.
bamboo: The comic section of MangaGamer should be opening soon
bamboo: I’m personally not in charge of it, but we are planning that and the video(anime) section

hikari_sc: what motivated you to get into eroge development? Was it difficult to start a company? What do your friends and family think about your job?
bamboo: I was originally a creator for Playstation game, but I was tricked into joining a bishoujo game company!
bamboo: My friends and family are like, do what you like
bamboo: Since I sing songs and stuff as well as make games, I’m in a bit dif situation
bamboo: It takes a lot of work to make a company, but i was able to make a living for the past 10 years by doing so
bamboo: I was happy to see a fan who said he liked Kira Kira when i was about to get on a Taxi at AX btw

miragecg: Are you planning to coming to European Convention (like Japan expo in Paris France)
bamboo: We participated at the Japan Expo several years ago, but since it wasn’t truly an English speaking environment, I’m iffy about it
bamboo: So we are concentrating in the American market for now
bamboo: I personally love USA too

thedoddler: There are a few new guest companies coming to AX this year that do not currently have games in English (like Clochette). Is it possible that these guests may get English language versions of their games at some point in the future?
bamboo: There is a possibility that companies like Clochette will release game for us, but
bamboo: We are just taking guest companies to AX to show them how the American market is like
bamboo: So it’s like a future investment to show them around and get them interested

bearhunterx: A lot of unofficial translations are getting picked up for official releases lately(Demonbane, ef, School Days, Kara no Shojo). Does the threat of an unofficial release floating around make negotiations with companies easier?
bamboo: It depends on the companies. and since the translation quality varies, we have to check it thoroughly anyway
bamboo: and of course the Japanese companies are suspicious about the unofficial translations
bamboo: and since the priority for the Japanese releases come first, the oversea market become secondary
bamboo: reminder. MangaGamer is still in the red…
bamboo: so please purchase our games
bamboo: and if you can, try to help us by boycotting illegal download sites

swiftnissity: Are we able to know which is Mangagamer’s worst selling game? Since Koihime Musou was supposedly their best selling game.
bamboo: Koihime is our number 1 selling game with Shuffle coming close
bamboo: Worst selling game is a secret =P

hikari_sc: What plans do MangaGamer have against piracy?
bamboo: Kill them all j/k

hikari_sc: What is your most memorable moment in an eroge? Who is your favorite girl in all the games you have played so far?
bamboo: my favorite heroine in a bishoujo game is Multi from To Heart

omonomono: Totally random topic: I bought Good Smile Company’s B.G.M. Nendoroid Petit set volume 0. Is there going to be volume 1? I would love a GSC Kirarin figure that’s slightly bigger lol. Or other characters from the game.
bamboo: I would personally like to release vol.1 of the Petiet Nendoroids, but it depends on if GSC says yes

swiftnissity: Has MangaGamer considered releasing updated re-releases (D.C > D.C.P.C for example) or are they out of the question?
bamboo: If there is a high demand for D.C.P.C, we can… but at the moment not really
bamboo: It is costly for us to localize one title and if it fails, it hurts us bad…

miragecg: Are you planning to make overdrive titles goodies (like figure and such) available to sale for us westerner via MG Website?
bamboo: We don’t have any plans to sell overdrive goods overseas
bamboo: Because of customs, we have difficulty sending made in China merchandise to the US too

dave1278: Given the current sales count for Koihime Musou is there a chance of getting Shin Koihime Musou (with or without voice)? ie are Baseson happy with the current sales to continue?
bamboo: We don’t have a plan to release Shin Koihime Musou at the moment, but since the sales were good, I’m sure we’ll start talking about it sooner or later
bamboo: About the voice acting issue: since the voice actor agency are hard headed, they demand a lot and thus there are some games without voices

(no question)
bamboo: Evangelion’s Shinji (Ogata Megumi) is voice acting for Dengeki Stryker
bamboo: She’s a really awesome person so respect her!

swiftnissity: Any plans to work with Baseson~Spice~? (The bl branch of Baseson)
bamboo: We don’t have any plans for BL titles because i don’t really know how well it will sell…

zalas: Over here, when people think games, they think gameplay. What do you think about bringing out more games with gameplay?
bamboo: About games with gameplay, it is difficult because porting it is a lot of work, and the game company needs to be really interested and has to help us
bamboo: I personally would like to make a bishoujo game like Fallout 3… if i had such money

tdavis0079: Oh yeah, speaking of Nakano, Go! Go! Nippon 2 needs a trip to Nakano Broadway. Such an awesome place.
bamboo: Yeah, we would certainly add Nakano Broadway in the next version
bamboo: We are planning to update it with patches, maybe $5 a patch?
bamboo: Try to think of it as a DLC pack for X-box or the likes

drmchsr0: Are there any plans to negotiate with Illusion?
bamboo: Doesn’t Illusion have a English page of their own? Not really sure but…
(some discussion of Rapelay by the commenters at this point)

jjjlmx: Are there plans for more Overdrive music theme games?
bamboo: Yes OVERDRIVE is planning to make music related game in the future for sure
bamboo: As long as I’m still interested in playing music

bearhunterx: Do Overdrive games have a better profit margin, since you don’t have to negotiate with other companies?
bamboo: The profit margin for our game is still the same….
bamboo: OVERDRIVE is an experimental release, using a lot of our resource

drmchsr0: Is MangaGamer gonna sell VN OSTs?
bamboo: Is there a high demand for Soundtrack releases?
bamboo: We are worried about piracy
bamboo: Since it would probably be uploaded on an illegal site as soon as it goes up.
(At this point, a bunch of discussion on demand for OSTs by the chatters)
bamboo: Thanks for the comments though, really happy to know that American fans care about my songs.
bamboo: I’m really against piracy so i would appreciate if you tell your friends who download from those sites that it is hurting us btw

nuriohin: Are there any plans for Limited Editions of OVERDRIVE’s titles?
bamboo: We’ll see how Da Capo LE sells before releasing other Limited Editions for now

amorim: Are there any updates about ef?
bamboo: Minori told me we should have something to look at soon
bamboo: Sorry about the delay (although i have no control over it)
bamboo: Minori is taking everything seriously

y10nrdy: It’s the general consensus that the only thing MangaGamer is lacking is hard copy versions of the games. Are there any plans to release packaged editions of your upcoming releases?
bamboo: We are negotiating about future hard copies, but ideally would like to release all our games in package form
bamboo: The most difficult thing is though, is how we are going to sell it
bamboo: Since there isn’t really a concrete selling route other than conventions

bamboo: Ok, that is all for today
bamboo: We will be using this site again in the future, and hopefully you can visit us again
bamboo: We will try to make the announcement early next time
bamboo: Thanks for joining us at such a late time
bamboo: It is a small market right now, but i would love to expand it so please continue to support us
bamboo: See you at AX for those who are going to be there, and if not see you here again!
bamboo: Thank you~

We had a chance to chat with John Pickett from MangaGamer and Chris Ling from Hendane! about how this collaboration came about.

encubed: So how did MangaGamer and Hendane! meet up originally to form this collaboration?

Chris: We really came together last year when I inquired with John Pickett over using images from a few of the games MangaGamer had licensed in our annual April Fools joke on the website. After that, John approached me again a few months later in regards to actually making what was supposed to be a joke… a reality.

John: Yeah, given the frequent requests from our fans and those who haven’t bought our games yet, one other employee at MangaGamer and I had been mentioning to the staff that it was something we really needed to do. However, we had two big questions that needed dealing with if we were going to do it:

1. Would they sell?
2. How would we distribute them?

Our digital distribution has helped us keep costs down so that we can focus on the localization and release of games, but if we were going to sell hard copies, then we needed to address the various new issues that come up with physical distribution, either by ourselves or through another company. It was then that I recalled Hendane and our previous April’s fools joke and decided to see if they would be interested.

encubed: What benefits did you two see in starting such a collaboration?

Chris: Personally, I saw a lot of potential in MangaGamer especially given their access to major publishing companies of visual novel games. Having sold many of these games in the past few years, I know of their popularity and I was willing to believe with proper marketing and a nice package, we could see a major success happen. And frankly, it would allow fans to prove that they really will shell out the cash for what they claim they want.

John: Likewise, our motivation was to see the success of these titles. Our fans have been asking for hard copies for a long time, and as someone who often pre-orders Limited Editions myself, I can understand why. If we could get hard-copies out and moving, not only would we be satisfying our customers, but we would be expanding our audience, reaching new people, and helping to cultivate the western market for these games. If these hard-copies prove to be a success then that means additional income that we can immediately turn around and use to finance the localization of more games, more of the higher-name titles our customers want to see. Koihime Musou is not the only game with an expensive voice cast, and we would like to release many of these titles in the near future as well. So a success with these hard copies is crucial for us in offering some of the titles we would like to be able to see released.

encubed: How long ago did you guys start setting the gears into motion?

Chris: Initial negotiations began during Anime Expo last July and have been ongoing for most of the fall as well. Despite the appearance of major personnel at Anime Expo from the companies MangaGamer works with, the negotiation was strictly between myself, one of the higher ups at MangaGamer, and John Picket, Head Translator.

John: Yeah, that initial meeting and negotiation merely covered the feasibility of this venture, though. It took many more months for both sides to work out the terms and agreements that would be satisfactory to all parties involved and hopefully would ensure a success for all.

encubed: Could you describe to our readers an overview of the process and the effort required to bring this plan into fruition?

Chris: A lot of effort was put into how to package the games in order to make it an appealing purchase to customers. In my personal opinion, you have two camps:

1. Make it cheap,
2. Pack a lot of goodies without raising the price too high.

Given my experience with selling limited edition printings of software, John and I pushed for producing something along those lines. In sheer numbers, we sell more titles that are cheap rather than those of higher quality. However, there is the consideration that within our inventory, there just happens to be more access to cheaper titles. But on the other hand, given the number of people who will throw down $100 for Fate/stay night (First Press/LE naturally) or $250+ for Tsukibako, I am willing to believe that a high quality package will still sell well. It’s a matter of balancing value and price.

John: This, and the fact that I wanted to see our initial venture into hard copies make the most of the unique advantage we have available to us and in turn set us apart from others. This line of thinking led to the decision that we would make our first release a Limited Edition, i.e. the second option in that list.

Once that was decided, a lot of work went into getting this started. Since we were initially a digital download only provider, we had to get permissions from the makers before we could even consider printing their product. Our obvious first choice was to approach Navel on selling a Limited Edition of Shuffle! … We are still trying to arrange for this to happen. In the meantime, OVERDRIVE, Circus, and NEXTON responded quite quickly and put their titles on the table. Then we had to go through and figure out which title would be best for this venture.

Kira Kira already had a hard copy thanks to AX, so that was out for now. The only other OVERDRIVE title we had that wasn’t a fan-disk was Edelweiss, which we were scheduling a re-translation for so we knew that was out until the re-translation was finished.

None of our titles currently offered which come from NEXTON really had a limited edition, so those wouldn’t suit the purpose of this initial venture.

That left Circus’s catalog, which at the time consisted of Da Capo and Suika. One look at our sales figures made the choice obvious. From that point we had to then discuss with Circus what we could use as extras for the release.

Chris: It was also important that bonus items could be made with assets that could be easily accessed. While new content would be nice, we did not want to go overboard and lose sight of the main goal — releasing Da Capo on physical media.

John: After spending some time in discussions with Circus and letting them dig through their files, we arrived at the artbook and OST combo.

Chris: Then of course came the issue of printing them. Printing costs were a major issue and we went through a couple of designs before coming to the current version in which we could make a good looking package without breaking the bank for anyone involved.

encubed: Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions!

UPDATE: Added an interview with the two parties.

EDELWEISS BUNDLE PACK & SPRING SALE AT MANGAGAMER.COM
Limited Time Sale starting from April 1st

March 12, 2010 MangaGamer.com would like to announce the bundle pack of “Edelweiss” which includes both the original “Edelweiss” and its spin off releasing on March 20, “Edelweiss Eiden Fantasia”. While individually costing 24.95 Euros for “Edelweiss” and 19.95 Euros for “Edelweiss Eiden Fantasia”, totaling 44.90 Euros, this value set will be available for a special price of 34.95 Euros!

“Edelweiss” & “Edelweiss Eiden Fantasia” Bundle Pack
Manufacturer: OVERDRIVE
Genre: Adventure
Price: 34.95 Euros
OS: Windows XP(32bit), Windows Vista(32bit)
Text Language: English
Voice Language: Japanese
Age Rating: 18 and over

Additionally, MangaGamer.com will conduct a Spring Sale celebrating the Japanese school entry season!!
The following school related titles would be marked off accordingly from April 1st to April 7th.

Spring Sale Date & Time　
4/1　10:00（CET）～4/7　10:00（CET）

“Da Capo”
49.95 Euros -> 24.95 Euros

“SHUFFLE!”
36.95 Euros -> 24.95 Euros

“KIRAKIRA”
36.95 Euros -> 24.95 Euros

“KIRAKIRA All-Ages Version”
29.95 Euros -> 14.95 Euros

ABOUT MANGAGAMER.COM
MangaGamer.com is the world’s first online download site of English translated bishojo games that opened in July 2008. Since its launch, it has offered services where fans can download and enjoy popular bishojo games such as CIRCUS’s “Da Capo” and OVERDRIVE’s “Kira Kira” right from their home.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Digital Download Of Da Capo in English Available Worldwide Exclusively At MangaGamer
Renowned Bishoujo Game Available Today via Digital Download

January 23, 2009. MangaGamer.com is pleased to announce the digital release of Da Capo, the signature title of Circus. In this traditional adventure game, the player plays the role of Junichi Asakura, a 3rd year student at Kazami Academy on Hatsune Island where cherry blossoms are in bloom all year long. In such mystical island, Junichi spends his Spring school life with many girls such as his kind stepsister, Nemu Asakura, school idol Kotori Shirakawa, and his clingy childhood friend, Sakura Yoshino.

Da Capo will be available in English for the first time since its initial release in 2002.

ABOUT MANGAGAMER
MangaGamer is Manga International B.V.’s digital download store (http://www.mangagamer.com). Launched in July 2008, MangaGamer offers popular Bishoujo Games from Japan to consumers around the world, conveniently downloadable from their home. MangaGamer’s roster of leading Bishoujo Game publishers includes Circus and OVERDRIVE

ABOUT MANGA INTERNATIONAL B.V.
Headquartered in the Netherlands, Manga International B.V. operates the world’s first online Bishoujo Game download store.

ABOUT CIRCUS
Located in Saitama, Japan, Circus is a leading developer and publisher of Bishoujo Games for personal computers. Their signature titles include Da Capo and Suika. (More information about Circus’s games can be found at www.mangagamer.com.)

###

For further information contact:
MangaGamer
info@manga-corp.com

###
Da Capo
Manufacturer: Circus
Genre: Adventure
OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista
Rating: 18 and over
Text Language: English
Voice Language: Japanese
Price: 49.95 EUR

Required/Recommended Specification
Required CPU: Pentium II 300MHz
Recommended CPU: Pentium III 600MHz
Required Memory: 96MB
Recommended Memory: 128MB
Required Resolution: 800×600
Required Colors: 24bit colors
Required HDD Free Space: 600MB
Recommended HDD Free Space: 1.3GB