GOG picks up visual novels in the wake of the waifu holocaust

[matrix07012]

GOG picks up visual novels in the wake of the waifu holocaust

 

 

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We’re excited to announce that we will be working with our friends over at GOG to bring our growing catalog to their platform!

With the viability of Steam as a retail platform for visual novels thrown into question by recent threats from Valve, we have begun perusing other potential retail outlets for our products and we are pleased to join GOG’s growing catalog!

 

Our PR Director, John Pickett, had this to say: “This opportunity couldn’t have come at a better time. We had been speaking with GOG prior to recent events about adding visual novels as a genre to their retail platform, and with Valve now threatening the livelihoods of visual novel developers everywhere, it’s a huge relief to see GOG opening their doors to these games.”

 

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Though the initial launch titles are limited to the Higurashi When They Cry series and fan favorite, eden*, we are working closely with GOG on bringing nine other titles to their platform, including the recently threatened Kindred Spirits on the Roof, which will be receiving a recently announced full-voice expansion, as well as A Kiss for the Petals ~Maidens of Michael~, which Valve removed from the Steam storefront in March 2018 without any warning or notice.

 

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“We have yet to hear from Valve regarding the removal of Maidens of Michael despite repeated attempts at contact.” John Pickett continues. “Steam has now proven that it’s growing unreliable for small and independent developers, so we are very grateful to have the next biggest retailer in the PC market welcoming visual novels with open arms and an eye for quality. In the long run we hope to transition our full Steam catalog over to GOG, and we hope other developers will consider reaching out to them too. We want fans everywhere to always have a means of enjoy these great titles.”

As expected, Valve is taking their time to respond.

 

 

GOG also made a statement on the adult content of the games:

 

Other developers hit by the waifu holocaust started selling games on other marketplaces.

 

While I love Valve and Steam and think this was a huge misstep on their part, Steam is getting too big and over bloated that diversification of the digital distribution market could be a great thing.

 

Source:

http://blog.mangagamer.org/2018/05/22/mangagamer-brings-their-titles-to-gog/

 

 

 

Thread about the waifu holocaust:

 

[samcool55]

There we go! This is the exact response i was waiting for.

Valve doesn't want the VN's, they'll go somewhere else, there are platforms enough out there that want to sell them.

 

Nice to see GOG stepping in and supporting the VN devs.

[WereCatf]

The more content GOG gets and the more people they draw to themselves, the better for everyone.

[Princess Luna]

Why are these visual novels so god damn popular all of sudden? every single where I go right now every one keeps talking on and on about these, it's almost annoying truth be told... there this one that become all super popular, the 2 discord serves I use the most got overflooded with people only talking about this.

[Bananasplit_00]

im laughing so much harder than i should oml  

[NelizMastr]

14 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Why are these visual novels so god damn popular all of sudden? every single where I go right now every one keeps talking on and on about these, it's almost annoying truth be told... there this one that become all super popular, the 2 discord serves I use the most got overflooded with people only talking about this.

It's the Weebpocalypse. All basement doors opened all of a sudden with neckbeards aggressively tipping their trillby. Oh no, Valve stopped selling porn in disguise. The world has ended! /s

[Taf the Ghost]

12 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Why are these visual novels so god damn popular all of sudden? every single where I go right now every one keeps talking on and on about these, it's almost annoying truth be told... there this one that become all super popular, the 2 discord serves I use the most got overflooded with people only talking about this.

"Anime titty holocaust" would be why it's being talked about a lot.

 

VNs have been popular in certain spaces for well over a decade, but we're starting to see English-primary ones now. Also, Doki Doki Literature Club happened.

[WelshDdraig]

16 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Why are these visual novels so god damn popular all of sudden? every single where I go right now every one keeps talking on and on about these, it's almost annoying truth be told... there this one that become all super popular, the 2 discord serves I use the most got overflooded with people only talking about this.

As someone who plays Visual Novels from time to time, I will admit, people talking about them all the time can get annoying. But from a personal standpoint, I believe they have their own right to be popular. Out of the VNs That I've played, I really like the stories of some of them, and others I like how they transition into other game mechanics, such as being RPGs. But yes - I can see why it gets really annoying when people talk about it all the time.

On-Topic:
This is a great move from GOG. The fact that its DRM free means no BS, and the fact that they "seemingly" are not actively blocking patches for the game - even though the user has paid for it (the base game and sometimes the patch) and is not being distributed through their platform - its a great move from a customer service standpoint. All I can say is Valve made a huge mistake. While not on the level of AAA games, VN's a certainly up there and are only gaining in popularity. They've shut the door on a possibly huge profit margin.

[matrix07012]

23 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Why are these visual novels so god damn popular all of sudden? every single where I go right now every one keeps talking on and on about these, it's almost annoying truth be told... there this one that become all super popular, the 2 discord serves I use the most got overflooded with people only talking about this.

They have been fairly popular in japan for quite a while now, but they are gaining more and more traction in the west alongside other Japanese games.

14 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

It's the Weebpocalypse. All basement doors opened all of a sudden with neckbeards aggressively tipping their trillby. Oh no, Valve stopped selling porn in disguise. The world has ended! /s

Take my waifu and I'll take your laifu.

[hobobobo]

Finally a holocaust to care about!

 

Picking up weebs is a good long-term move by gog, dunno if valve does not give a shit about jp titles or thinks it already has enough pull, but now gog got a nice line in their proposition for platform intergration - tons of weeb. Id bet an arm they will start selling more obscurish japanese games (as in non titty games) in a year or so! Perhaps they will even get bayonetta 3 pc ahed of steam if nintendo decides its time

[TetraSky]

Sad to see Valve caving like that, but great that others are picking them up.

A lot of visual novels on Steam have the Sexual Content tag, even though they are the All-Age editions, suitable for kids to read without any nudity or sexual content...

If they want pornographic content, they would have to go out of their way to find a link to a patch, off steam. If there's even one available mind you, you often see that tag pop up on newly release visual novels when it really doesn't have anything like that... that's the problem with User defined tags, idiots will tag anything that look like anime as being porn. Even the HyperDemension Neptunia game is being defined as having sexual content on Steam. I mean come on!

[Ryujin2003]

2 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Sad to see Valve caving like that, but great that others are picking them up.

A lot of visual novels on Steam have the Sexual Content tag, even though they are the All-Age editions, suitable for kids to read without any nudity or sexual content...

If they want pornographic content, they would have to go out of their way to find a link to a patch (if there's even one available, you often see that tag pop up on newly release visual novels, when it really doesn't have anything... that's the probably with User defined tags, idiots will tag anything that look like anime as being porn)

I wonder if this had anything to do with EU and GDPR? Also, Steams agree verification is total shit.

 

But yes, I agree with on the tagging thing. I really don't care if Steam keeps this content it not. I just find it annoying when trying to look through Steam sales, and nearly all of it falls into this category.

 

[samcool55]

1 minute ago, Ryujin2003 said:

I wonder if this had anything to do with EU and GDPR? Also, Steams agree verification is total shit.

 

But yes, I agree with on the tagging thing. I really don't care if Steam keeps this content it not. I just find it annoying when trying to look through Steam sales, and nearly all of it falls into this category.

 

I don't know everything about GDPR but afaik age restrictions isn't mentioned so there is probably no relation between this and GDPR. I know the UK has some special rules about it but the rest of the EU doesn't.

 

 

[TetraSky]

6 minutes ago, Ryujin2003 said:

I wonder if this had anything to do with EU and GDPR? Also, Steams agree verification is total shit.

 

But yes, I agree with on the tagging thing. I really don't care if Steam keeps this content it not. I just find it annoying when trying to look through Steam sales, and nearly all of it falls into this category.

 

I've seen speculations around saying it's because Paypal's terms of service that doesn't allow the sale of pornographic material... But again, these are ALL AGE versions. Just because a patch may exist that can add back the sexual content, doesn't make the product being sold itself as porn. It's like banning cucumbers because someone might use them for a different purpose.
So I'm assuming that valved caved in to Paypal without actually looking at a single visual novel and only looking at the tags to figure out what had porn in them and what didn't.

 

I'm just hoping they keep visual novels that are clearly not porn, like Clannad.

[Ryujin2003]

7 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

I've seen speculations around saying it's because Paypal's terms of service that doesn't allow the sale of pornographic material... But again, these are ALL AGE versions. Just because a patch may exist that can add back the sexual content, doesn't make the product being sold itself as porn. It's like banning cucumbers because someone might use them for a different purpose.
So I'm assuming that valved caved in to Paypal without actually looking at a single visual novel and only looking at the tags to figure out what had porn in them and what didn't.

 

I'm just hoping they keep visual novels that are clearly not porn, like Clannad.

They sell Tomb Raider, and I remember searching for hours to get the patches for nude Lara Croft for Tomb Raider 1 through 3 when I was but a wee lad.

 

So I don't get it. It's easier and cheaper to go to a free internet porn site....

 

Maybe it was Moms of America or some other horrible protesting and lobbyist group.

 

So... I don't really care about the impact to Steam, but what about about Humble Bundle? They used to do these as bundles. But they don't do GOG platform do they?

[matrix07012]

12 minutes ago, Ryujin2003 said:

They sell Tomb Raider, and I remember searching for hours to get the patches for nude Lara Croft for Tomb Raider 1 through 3 when I was but a wee lad.

 

So I don't get it. It's easier and cheaper to go to a free internet porn site....

 

Maybe it was Moms of America or some other horrible protesting and lobbyist group.

 

So... I don't really care about the impact to Steam, but what about about Humble Bundle? They used to do these as bundles. But they don't do GOG platform do they?

National Center on Sexual Exploitation took credit for it.

[samcool55]

2 minutes ago, matrix07012 said:

National Center on Sexual Exploitation took credit for it.

A national group causing a global impact. Well thanks for that! ffs...

If they are a national group, stick to national actions!

 

Build a f-ing wall around your nation if you have to, i don't care but seriously. Steam is active worldwide, a national group shouldn't be able to cause such an impact.

 

[Dabombinable]

Definitely good news-Steams been on the decline for a while, with the opening of the floodgates for shitty devs and their disregard for users on top of this debacle.

[hobobobo]

30 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

 

So, out of curiosity, what did anime fans ever do to you two?  Did they shoot your dog or something?  You seem very vocal about hating them.

Dunno where im hating anime fans, weeb has a set defenition and its not just anime fan, an still dont see where im hating on weebs. Although i find it hard to argue with my jp friend who calls hikis human trash, as weeb is an extension of hiki more or less.

 

Im actually watching lupin iii and darling in the franxx currently, and while i love everything about lupin, every single series and film more or less, franxx is killing me on the ecchi shit there, i really like trigger and their background worldbuilding (and its finally getting to the dark part, although it may never reach it, as they did with When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace)

 

 

[hobobobo]

1 minute ago, valdyrgramr said:

Maybe I missed the sarcasm.

No sarcasm there, borderline offensive joke first and more or less serious after. Weeb is indeed a great resource when in discussions with jp media and merch producers/distributors, gets you a predictable min level of sales if all else goes wrong.

[Misanthrope]

Does GOG takes paypal?

 

Will they care if they are made to stop taking paypal?

[Princess Luna]

1 hour ago, valdyrgramr said:

but it's for your "story" gamers.

I am all about story driven games... but you know... Life is Strange type of gameplay at very least.

[Princess Luna]

1 hour ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Also, Doki Doki Literature Club happened.

Yes this is the one I seen a shit ton of people talking about all of sudden.

 

1 hour ago, Alexp10v2 said:

As someone who plays Visual Novels from time to time, I will admit, people talking about them all the time can get annoying. But from a personal standpoint, I believe they have their own right to be popular. Out of the VNs That I've played, I really like the stories of some of them, and others I like how they transition into other game mechanics, such as being RPGs. But yes - I can see why it gets really annoying when people talk about it all the time.

Thank you, you get it this Doki Doki Literature Club one I get it that it's an original story that goes your usual harem seeking adventure nonetheless I go to places like derpibooru (my little pony art website) discord and nobody talks about pony any more just monika that yuri that and so on and on... Don't get me wrong I watch some animes and all, and my favourite games are story driven single player campaigns but it totally feels exaggerated lately.

[TacoSenpai]

Guess who's gonna start using GOG now?

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, TetraSky said:

I've seen speculations around saying it's because Paypal's terms of service that doesn't allow the sale of pornographic material... But again, these are ALL AGE versions. Just because a patch may exist that can add back the sexual content, doesn't make the product being sold itself as porn. It's like banning cucumbers because someone might use them for a different purpose.
So I'm assuming that valved caved in to Paypal without actually looking at a single visual novel and only looking at the tags to figure out what had porn in them and what didn't.

 

I'm just hoping they keep visual novels that are clearly not porn, like Clannad.

I mean if they want to ban any game that can be made to nudity in it they will have to ban basically all Bethesda rpgs that allow modding.