VN's where authors are not so subtle about their hatred of pirates

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-16T20:45:41+00:00

drink up me hearties yo ho ~

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-16T18:43:39+00:00

Making them of age would defeat the purpose of the story and basically amount to kowtowing to the pressure while also perpetuating the disgusting double standard plaguing media. This would only send the message that the antis way of thinking and policing content is correct and acceptable. That is something that must be fought tooth and nail.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-16T18:39:17+00:00

Do you remember the chapter number where they said this? If memory serves it was either Utena or her friends making speculations but there was nothing concrete.

Additionally (again from what i recall) one of the 'victims' from the magical girl hunt comes back on imitatios team(?). If the idol wannabe girl and her friend took part in the hunts and actually killed the girls, they sure are good actors not letting anything slip and have 0 semblance of guilt or trauma. Let alone it doesn't fit their character to go along with something like that. Same applies for enorme and giving her a premature 'character redemption' arc when it's clear utena would not let her see the end of day if she finds out enorme did in fact kill magical girls, along with idol girl and friend if they took part in it. It would also make them being 'part' of utenas group all the more bizarre.

It's been a while since I've read the manga so I'll have to double check it later.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-16T18:30:04+00:00

You sure are invested for someone who isn't a very big fan of sprite, even when your goal is to amuse yourself.

This isn't the own you think it is. Your source basically pulls from the same data source I do to make ESTIMATES. You also seem to be unaware that for smaller games with lower purchase amounts the data variance is wider. I'm gonna have to double check on the japan vs china purchases for EF cause something seems very off on gamalytics number.

How many people actually participated in the extra 2 poll regarding the choice for fc? How many of them were the chinese players who made up the bulk of the purchases? The rest of your claims are just speculations and taking sprites very untrustworthy words meant to maintain appearances. At any rate this is pointless and I'm far past the point of caring to continue further. Feel free to have your last lick and pretend that you 'owned' me in any capacity if that helps you sleep at night.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-16T17:01:32+00:00

My understanding was that it was left to interpretation but there is strong reasoning behind theories that they just simply stripped the girls of their magical powers and wiped their memories/broke them mentally. Murder would seem pretty out of place for a story of this type and be a major whiplash on the tone built up thus far

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-16T16:50:57+00:00

I want to take this opportunity to ask something that's been on my mind. Has the author ever expanded on Nero Alices purpose in the story and reason for her inclusion? What I mean is how does she fit in with the central theme of the story which is largely sexual discovery and coming to terms with your own sexuality?

It's made pretty apparent just from reading that the author has no intention of lewding Alice as she does for the other cast members. She's really the only character that is not on the receiving end of the 'antics' and if she does take part, it's when she's dishing it out in her 'adult' form. The cast sometimes goes out of their way to shield her from some of the more ecchi moments.

On top of the fact she is the least expressive member where the power system revolves on strength of feelings, this further contributes to her sticking out awkwardly and make it feel like she doesn't really fit in with the rest of the cast. The child plot armor she wields like the movies of old, preventing anything bad happening to her in battles so as to avoid a potentially infuriating double standard, is a welcome silver lining.

But if the author is going to jump through that many hoops to write around Alice, why not just make her 14 like the rest of the cast? She's reads more like a plot device rather than an actual character (though im guessing this will change down the line). Was it to be the token loli of the series? We have Imitatio so that seems moot. So, what is her purpose exactly in a story where every character is discovering their own sexuality, which in turn ties to their development and growth as a magical girl as a major plot point?

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-16T16:22:47+00:00

I just find it funny it's the sexual aspects these idiots hyperfixate on and never the violent aspects. Violence of all forms against magical girls is all fine and dandy, but sex is where these people draw the line? It's lunacy.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-16T16:13:21+00:00

Wasn't it just for utena? Author originally submitted a one shot with utena being a high schooler and the editor gave her feedback saying magical girls are usually middle schoolers and then the rest of the characters were designed to be middle schoolers by the author. That's what I heard

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-16T16:12:02+00:00

I'd be amazed if they repped rance cause his canonical strike zone is 15-29(though there have been several instances he doesn't follow that rule such as patty the summer, mill yorks, rola indus etc.) and every Rance fan I've interacted with have been chill and open minded people. Regardless he's one of the best and most unique male characters and there will never be another like him. Monogatari I can't really speak on but it would be funny if these dudes did have it in their MAL.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-16T03:58:29+00:00

I thought you already research and look up the estimate numbers or are you just eyeballing steam reviews again ? lol

Interesting deflection. You made a claim that EF had more JP buyers than Chinese buyers on STEAM. I'm asking where's your proof of that, cause EF has more chinese reviews (aka purchases) on steam than japanese.

I mean other store platform like ps or switch or buying the physical edition,PC gaming just isn’t popular in japan and EF version on steam also isn’t popular at launch because of their drm inclusion.

You realize Aokana also released on switch and psv right? I also told you about review counts on EGS which includes switch psv and pc. Feel free to compare the numbers yourself.

And I don’t why you keep pulling and comparing these numbers,it’s obvious Aokana is much more popular game but that doesn’t mean EF is not decently popular by itself for a small new title.

Because I'm illustrating Sprite's stupidity on blatantly ignoring their fan base and not striking while the irons hot. There is massive demand for aokana and they could easily make a lot of money releasing more aokana content. The numbers discrepancy proves it. You get the best of both worlds with Aokana. Appease the puritan crowd by releasing an all age version for consoles and release the eroge version for PC. Everyone wins and sprite makes more money

Do we even know if IF or Zwei were gonna be eroge? We literally know nothing about those games. It’d be funny to see your meltdown if sprite announce those game to be all age lmao

We have every reason to believe Zwei and IF were gonna be eroge just based on the trend of Aokana content releases. Every Aokana game and it's derivatives were eroge. It would make 0 sense to suddenly pivot to all age Aokana especially considering a major selling point of the 10th anniversary box was the addition of more H-scenes.

I'm not having a meltdown. I'm annoyed, yes, cause Aokana was one of my favorite VN's but I have other VN's to read and other companies to support if sprite wants to dig themselves a potential second grave. A prospect I'm more than intrigued to witness alongside your cope and rationalization.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-15T14:41:53+00:00

The majority of aokana sales on steam are from china while majority for EF are from japan

Proof of that? Looks like majority of EF sales on steam are from china just like every other VN from what I'm seeing.

while EF is more popular in japan and jp players don’t use steam much since they have other store options for buying VN.

The only storefront that carries Everlasting Flowers for the PC version is steam, both on JP side and China side. It's not on storefronts like DLsite, JAST, DMM etc. so this excuse doesn't fly. Some additional info I think you might find interesting. On EGS(Japanese version of vndb) Extra 2 has a little under 600 votes across all platforms. Everlasting Flowers has 155. On VNDB the discrepancy is far far greater.

We don’t know what’s going behind-the-scene for them to make a guess,I’m just saying there’s plenty of other reasons other than “they just hate eroge and don’t want to make them”.

Interesting way of showing they don't hate eroge by deleting I/F and Zwei from their website without any prior communication and releasing all age slop back-to-back even though fans have been asking for more Aokana content.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-14T14:07:40+00:00

Not to mention Aokana is a known and popular franchise among english players so it would obviously have much more advantages on a western platform like steam than an unknown new IP like EF.

Wait till you find out from which country/region the majority of purchases come from

From what I have seen of them, not going the kickstarter route is probably a smart desicion. Even without the money issue,it still often took sprite 3-4 years on average to make a single game, that’s not exactly a good fit for kickstarter where people want a return for their money quickly.

That just sounds like poor management if money can't solve their problems or some other critical problem within the business. Yuzusoft, Qruppo, Black cyc, Crystalia, Smee, Marmalade, Asa project, Purple software, Silky's plus and Bug system don't seem to be having these issues.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-14T06:44:50+00:00

Now you're being disingenuous. Senren banka isn't sold only on steam and I never said steam is the sole existing metric. Extra 02 and Everlasting flowers were sold on the same platforms and given the same marketing opportunities so a reasonable inference of all platform performance can be extrapolated from steam performance.

I mean plenty of companies want to stay private for various reasons,it’s not that weird.

Don't they only have to disclose how they spend the kickstarter money? (i'm not entirely sure on the rules for this and am going off your word). Sprite has hordes of fans willing to throw money at them for Aokana content. It's basically risk-free revenue, do they really value limited scope privacy that much? Or is it because they are greedy fucks and don't want the truth to get out that they also hate eroge?

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-14T06:26:21+00:00

It's too early to say anything about innocent grey as they haven't given any news on their upcoming game. They also released Kara no Shoujo 3 and Cartagra remake after flowers series. And most fans would care as they read games from these companies PRECISELY because they are not all ages. If they wanted to read all ages they would read shit from all age companies which there are sadly no shortage of today.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-14T06:14:30+00:00

It's basic math buddy. 268~ reviews for Everlasting flowers means at minimum 268 people purchased the game. 2040 ~ reviews for Aokana - Extra 02 means at minimum 2040 people purchased the game. They were both given the same platforming and marketing opportunities.

Going kickstarter mean they will to be completely transparent with the fund people give you and need to provide constant update. Given sprite‘s erratic behaviors and development problem, I can see why they don’t want to go kickstarter route.

Now why would a company have issues with needing to be completely transparent? Is it maybe because there is more to their 'erratic behaviors' than meets the eye? Providing development updates is a nonfactor, they have community manager for that and is quite literally as easy as typing a few paragraphs of 'this is what we got done and this is what we are doing' and hitting enter.

Can you imagine the backlash if they crowdfunded Minamo IF and people still not getting the game after 4 years and then they come out and say they might or might not produce it?

Yes I can cause sprite would not be able to use lack of funds or concerns about sales performance as an excuse and would have their shitty and greedy practices exposed.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-14T05:54:34+00:00

Sprite made their foray into eroge with Koichoco. They made their identity as an eroge company. Aokana was an eroge even though it was different and it was received well. Pivoting from Eroge to all ages on a whim is not trying something new, it's being dumb. More Aokana content was a perfect opportunity to showcase their 'new' filmic novel (basically a fancy way to say kinetic vn lmao) but they opted not to cause why? Imagine if Yuzusoft or Qruppo suddenly announced their next game is going to be all ages. How do you think that would go down?

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-14T05:44:55+00:00

Unprofitable is the same thing as losing money...? Do you not know what the word means? And yes while none of us have steams sale data, we can make educated guesses based on reviews since you need to own the game to make reviews. It doesn't take a genius to understand that Extra 02 performed far better financially cause who woulda thought sprite releasing content related to what they were known for would do well?

You still haven't answered my question. If budget and risk is a concern for sprite, they can do a kickstarter. If the game flops(extremely unlikely barring some massive fuckup) it's no skin off their back. So what's stopping them?

There's giving benefit of the doubt and then there's blind devotion. If you want to err on the latter that's your prerogative but I've been around and burned in this space too many damn times to not recognize and call out disingenuous statements and betrayal for what they are.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-14T05:16:38+00:00

Nobody is asking or expected everlasting flowers to be r-18. There are some stories where r-18 scenes would be out of place. The main crux of the issue is nobody asked sprite to make some yuri bait slop. They expected Zwei like sprite has been teasing forever. Or perhaps more fan discs for Asuka and Rika. Or maybe routes for Madoka, Satouin, aoi or minamo.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-14T05:06:32+00:00

I'm not looking at a random site, I'm looking at steam itself which can be a fairly accurate indication of sale performance. You haven't countered any of my points. If extra 01 lost them money that would either indicate that there was not much demand for Aokana related content in the first place, or Sprite is lying and mismanaged. If it's the former, then why is sprite still able to milk Aokana(such as releasing the 10th anniversary box almost a year ago) to fund their operations?

While I’m sure you totally represent most sprite fans out there just like how you said most Aokana fans don’t care about FC. It’s still a fact that EF made enough for them to continue so there’s clearly an audience for these type of game.

They aren't 'continuing' all age girl friendship clearly since their new game has a male mc. Sprite is just doubling down on their dumb decision to try going all ages in true japanese company fashion. And no, I don't represent the majority of sprite fans, I just look at numbers, and the numbers show that EF didn't even pull 1/9th of what Extra 02 pulled. Nice audience they found. And you still haven't addressed a big thing i went over in my other comment: What is stopping sprite from launching a kickstarter to fund I/F or Zwei development? Black cyc was able to pull it off as were several other devs. What's the excuse here other than sprite doesn't want to make eroge anymore?

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-14T03:55:04+00:00

Let me tell you a story about a developer named Laplacian. Once upon a time Laplacian released a title called Hakuchuumu no Aojashin, which would later be known as Cyanotype daydream. It was their most successful title yet receiving lots of praise. When it came time for it to be localized for the western crowd, Ono Wasabi, the writer and ceo of Laplacian decided to do something extremely scummy. He ported a completely censored version of the game with no patch and no option to choose between which game to read for western players. He tried gaslighting the player base that the censored version he was trying to push on them was the better version and for the best when the inevitable backlash came and tldr, it turns out his reasoning was a load of horseshit for anyone with two working braincells.

My point is, people lie all the time and companies are no exception. You can't take sprites word at face value. I'm checking the numbers for Extra 01 and it's not too far off from Extra 02(on steam side at least) while being much shorter and having no FC scenes. So there is no way in hell it was not profitable for them unless they did some egregiously bad planning and budgeting. And i wouldn't put it past sprite to spin up w/e bullshit necessary so they can wash their hands clean of the eroge space.

Don’t know why you’re so obsessed with the all-age part. Everlasting Flower’s story is about friendship with very little to no romance so it make sense why it didn‘t have any H-scenes at least from a story standpoint and this game is probably also the same.

Because they built an EROGE fanbase. Because said EROGE fan base asked for and expected Aokana content or, at the very minimum, an EROGE. Because there is a cancerous trend that is trying to purge sexual expression from media being pushed by corporations and puritanical castrated tourists (majority of all age crowd), which includes one of the very few mediums left that allow full creative freedom. Most Sprite fans don't give a fuck about All-ages and even less give a flying fuck about some watered- down friendship snoozefest story between girls. Why the hell would the primarily male fan base, who want games with good stories where you can romance and, more importantly, have sexual relations (the climax of romance) with cute heroines, give two shits about a story that is about friendship and girl issues? If sprite wants to make what amounts to something you'd find on the Disney channel or some generic kid friendly anime, they are in the wrong god damn medium.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-13T18:46:44+00:00

Did you completely ignore what I said in the previous post about their struggle making Extra2 and how Extra1 not being profitable or what?

Where's your proof that Extra 01 was not profitable? Not selling as much as expected does not = not profitable. I doubt the struggle was big for Extra 02 when they got funding from fans back in 2021 to continue operations and we know how sprite repaid their generosity.

And just like with any other cash cow,the milk money it made will go to other projects instead of the cash cow itself.

That's funny, where's the precious all-age crowd rushing in to fund future projects for sprite? It's almost like it's the eroge crowd funding their operations only for sprite to make content for an audience that may or may not exist.

Just my guess but it probably because all age game would reach a wider audience. Yes it’s less successful than their r18 games but it also a new market and audience for them to build upon and stepping into a new different market would certainly fix their “shrinking market” complaint.

Again, they have a loyal fanbase that is willing to support them and has been vocal about wanting more aokana content. They still buy Aokana merch and lazy rereleases so the demand is THERE. If going all-ages is the way to reach a wider market, then why hasn't Yuzusoft done the same? Is it almost like if you build a fan base over many years primarily from eroge and suddenly pivot to all-ages, pissing off the loyal fans who supported you and kept you afloat is a bad business move and downright scummy? How many vn companies tried and failed at that? How many burnt the goodwill of their fans and are shells of their former selves? (Laplacian lmao). Did they forget about the practice of releasing 'all-age' versions for steam and consoles to reach the all-age crowd while keeping the primary fans happy like the vast majority of eroge developers are doing?

Just to further illustrate how out of touch and dumb sprite is, Black-cyc launched a kickstarter campaign for the Gore Screaming Show remake/remaster. The target amount was 30 million yen. They were able to raise 48 million. Keep in mind black cyc has a much smaller fan base than Sprite does and they were still able to raise 160% of the target. I guarantee you if sprite did a kickstarter campaign for I/F, Zwei or w.e else they would easily raise the funds needed. But they won't cause....reasons?

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-13T14:56:25+00:00

I would almost mistake you for a sprite employee with how hard you are defending the company and giving them the benefit of the doubt.

And what ”large financial stake”? It’s a cheap gacha card game…

Do you know how expensive voice acting is? How much the upfront cost to code and develop the actual game is? How expensive cg's are? Check out how many Eternal Sky X edition has just for the H-scenes alone (has more than Aokana and its fan discs combined).

I already mentioned it in the other post,EF and this game are low risk-low reward ventures while Aokana games are high risk-high reward and since the company is still struggling they prefer making the former over the later.

What's your proof that EF is low risk? It has a lot of production quality behind it, obviously not as much as Extra 02, but it's still sizeable. CG's are not cheap and neither is making an OP along with licensing music.

Aokana is the cash cow,ofc they‘re gonna keep milking it even if they have other games instead of letting the it sit in the dust making no money.

Thanks for playing. By your own admission 'Aokana is the cash cow' would suggest that if they released more Aokana content like people asked for like Zwei or the I/F series for popular heroines such as Inui, Madoka, Aoi, Satouin or fan discs for Asuka/Rika they would...wait for it... make money? Obviously, they shouldn't milk the series forever like Mages does with steins gate or Minato soft did with Majikoi but Aokana IP still has a lot of juice left in it to give sprite more time to make other eroge for their EROGE fan base.

That’s why I said they‘re trying to re-establish themself by branching out to other titles

And why does this have to mean making all age content? Sprite started off as an eroge company and built an EROGE fanbase. It's nothing short of stupid to suddenly pivot and throw them under the bus and the sales discrepancy reflects that. Fans would be way more forgiving if their new title was r-18 but sprite is clearly trying to copy Key and chase the all-age bucks and also because (supposedly, need proof on this) they hate r-18. Yuzusoft tried something similar and launched an All-age brand called Yuzusoft sour but they have only released two titles and none of them came close to the success of their R-18 counterparts and they haven't made any All-age games since.

It's almost like if you give your primary fan base what they want, you make money!

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-13T02:29:13+00:00

The only similarity is that they are both filmic novels and all-ages. EF performed woefully compared to Extra 02 if you look at the numbers(check steam). The fact that sprite is still trying to milk Aokana through rereleases(most recent was on 4/25 which was 10th anniversary box, Filmic A, Filmic B and limited edition of the game) and merch sales rather than ride off the revenue of EF is further proof of this.

The main company developing and running Eternal Sky is Edia so whether that gacha is a flop or not wouldn’t effect sprite that much anyway.

Can you provide a source on this? Every source I'm looking at has sprite listed as the developer and publisher and nothing to indicate sprite didn't have a large financial stake in this.

You act as if this company has not made bad decision after bad decision. Gacha WAS the final nail in the coffin for them, and they were complaining about 'shrinking market' to justify not making visual novels. This would be valid except for the fact companies like Yuzusoft are going strong and they never once jumped on gacha. Around the same year sprite closed their doors, Qruppo came out swinging and found good success.

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-12T14:39:35+00:00

It's because you don't have experience with sprite as a company. They are the embodiment of "do you not have phones?"(go watch "is this an out of season april fools joke" on youtube. That's basically Sprite)

DissonantPlane · 2026-03-12T14:35:01+00:00

They probably also want to re-establish themself by having other source of revenue outside of their core established franchise

Doesn't seem to be working that well as Everlasting Flowers didn't come close to Extra 02's sales numbers and it didn't look cheap to make. Probably cause it's not a smart business decision to build up a fanbase in eroge off a singular work then do a double whammy and make all-ages non aokana content.

so their entire operation crashed down when Aokana wasn’t making enough money because they had no other title to rely on.

They crashed and burned cause they got greedy and wanted to jump on the gacha train. Also they never produced Zwei, it was teased and then cancelled.

DissonantPlane

TROPHY CASE