Soapbox Time

I'm going in circles in my current Nano project (me and my stubbornness at not willing to tackle another aspect once I hit a roadblock on one feature in development), so it's a good time to sit back and canvas the scene.

I've noticed several recent trends in the EVN scene (like, very recent, post KS):

4chan doesn't seem as harsh as it used to be.  Probably because of the cross-pollination of devs on LSF and 4ch, with lots of LSF people willing to throw their project there.  And surprisingly, we are starting to get more honest (still critical but not dismissively critical) feedback.  I'm starting to find the /evn/ thread very informative regarding the 'what's happenings'.  Also, I will say this now which I couldn't say this prior to KS...  Lemmasoft Forums now has a bigger population of superior artists.  I mean, I've been looking at many non-LSF projects and most of the art is still similar to early builds of KS, not bad, but not the professional grade art which I'm shocked to see creeping onto many of the (mostly otome) projects being announced on LSF nowadays.  Before, you see random artists posting stuff on 4ch (and hardly anyone on LSF), now it's almost the reverse situation.

In fact I'm seeing the Quality Speed Price (aka Affordability) Triangle being broken many times over, with top notch art being pumped out brazenly fast, and for a free project even.  It kinda breaks my worldview in a way.  For one, as a commissioner, I will never pay $250 (the highest I have ever paid) for a single picture ever again.  Granted that was more a concept art kind of thing, but I'm thinking... maybe if I had waited just a few more months for the next generation of artists -- raised digital from the very beginning -- to get on board, then the traditional artists who were able to command this price back before they even thought working as artists on indie games would be profitable.

So now the latest deviantart generation artists are practically awesome, it is no longer a pejorative to call something that it seems to be deviantart quality.  Maybe it's the 'Care Bears' pervasive culture, but I think almost all deviantart-originated VN projects eventually end up on LSF.  The ability of girls to network and bring in their friends and peers and keep a project engaging and rewarding is unparalleled.  And surprise, surprise, some of those peers are pros, working with established comics and games companies.

Also even the non-artists, I've seen some really creative people take public domain or creative commons and by sheer ingenuity, programming, adept photoshopping or storytelling acumen are able to create something immersive and unique.

Is there any loser to these turn of events?   Hmmm, I would presume the hypothetically lone (usually male) writer who wants to write 'animu' but can't interest a (usually female) artist, and he isn't motivated to keep on writing because the presentation standard for even a freeware title is now so high.  And if the subject matter is animu, it's usually trope-ridden, which makes one question the worth of pursuing such a project in the first place.

What we're seeing instead (if I were to unfairly exclude all the quality Otome games) are works from what I call 'Pro Indie People' such as

Errant Heart
http://errantheart.wordpress.com/

Icebound
http://www.fastermind.net/icebound/

That would not look out of place at all on a Steam listing (unlike the 'animu' attempts that failed to Greenlight).  Maybe it's because of the graphic novel industry background of the devs?  With the traditional bishoujo industry dying, it would be safe to say that global developers, coming from comics or graphic novels or indie games, would be the one taking up the slack...and they would be publishing on tablet pcs, the optimum format for the medium.  These guys took up VNs because they like storytelling, and the VN format is much more forgiving and rewarding for the artist than animation and comics.  As for the writer, they can incorporate music, interactivity and minimal action for less than the cost of a full-blown production.

At some point I think the now more western-focused fledgeling EVN industry will merge with traditional story-based games such as adventure games and interactive fiction once they've thrown off all the 'animu' vibes, I guess (for example, the main dividing line between JRPGs and WRPGs is cultural - a lot of JRPGs have traditional D&D or Wizardry rulesets, they just have loli art.).

This brings me back to somewhat fondly recall the main argument 1-2 or so years ago... regarding 'serious' EVN developers and if they needed their own forum.  Well guess, what?  The serious people have taken over.  The only issue now is to try to attract some of the older writers again as most of the games with quality art are still pretty lightweight.

If there's one element that's truly in danger I suppose it would be the hentai facing side of the industry... as they're digging deeper and deeper into their niche on DLsite.  In Japan, the writers have fled to light novels (there are now more LN-based anime than VN-based anime, the turnaround started after Haruhi).  I'm still in contact with Neko-soft but I think we're sorta have one hand on the pulse and trying to bide our time and trying to make educated guesses at what to do about things.  I seriously need to reprogram the presentation of the old projects since apparently time and trends have passed us by.

So basically, for my own personal projects, that leaves me with the skillset to program or lead projects and even the money to commision artists but still be not yet ready to go commercial since my mindset is still stuck on old animu tropes.  So what I have are 'halfway-there' pro-quality projects in terms of assets, but the whole approach and attitude is still early doujinshi based (i.e. anything that comes to your mind goes).  With this happening, I wonder if the global audience expects the new amateurs to give them the same type of entertainment that the professionals gave, or if... now raised on whatever happens to be on youtube, totally uncurated... they won't mind some crazy hanky spanky that my brain farts out.  But with the improving quality of assets (instead of stick figures), would there be a disconnect?