A Kickstarter idea for the rest of Sora no Kiseki

[JiggiUp]

For instance, if we were to do as you're suggesting, we'd have to tell Falcom, "Hey, we're planning to release SC as a digital-only title... but! We're holding a fundraiser right now, and if we get enough money, we'll do physical too!" That's not really good business practice here, much less in the far more conservative business world of Japan. It's not outside the realm of possibility, but it is most likely the reason you haven't seen more companies try something like this.

The thing is, this is exactly what Acquire let Vic Ireland do with Class of Heroes II. That already proves that it can be done, regardless of whether his fundraiser failed.

[Wyrdwad]

Which is why I said it's not outside the realm of possibility. It's just... not likely. For tiny localization houses like us, relationships with foreign developers and publishers are everything. Without them, we'd be toast. So we're not about to risk pissing them off unless we're really confident that the ends WILL justify the means.

-Tom

[JiggiUp]

Monkey Paw/GaijinWorks is much smaller than you are, having never released a single physical game. All it proves is that Vic is more willing to take risks. Which isn't necessarily a good thing, since he earned his reputation as a terrible businessman in the 32-bit era. (Seriously, a "punching puppet" as a LE bonus? Shining Wisdom as a purported RPG killer app? Releasing Magic Knight Rayearth after Sega America had all but discontinued the Saturn?)

[Shizuka]

While XSEED is bigger than Monkeypaw/Gaijinworks, they're still smaller than most of the other localization companies. If the time comes, and they feel like there's a great market for physical copies of SC, but not enough to make them print the game with their own money, they'll talk to Falcom. Otherwise, it's DD-only or nothing.

[JiggiUp]

I think all bets for a physical edition of SC are off. The 2 UMD manufacturing requirement would be prohibitively expensive even with a Kickstarter. I'm only concerned about the fate of other games.

Just so you know, XSeed, I'd buy a physical box of SC's PC version even without extras. I don't figure many others would, though.

[commodorewheeler]

I believe I mentioned this once or twice before, but the big problem with Kickstarter when dealing with someone else's game (in this case, Falcom's) is that you run the risk of damaging your relationship with that company. For instance, if we were to do as you're suggesting, we'd have to tell Falcom, "Hey, we're planning to release SC as a digital-only title... but! We're holding a fundraiser right now, and if we get enough money, we'll do physical too!" That's not really good business practice here, much less in the far more conservative business world of Japan. It's not outside the realm of possibility, but it is most likely the reason you haven't seen more companies try something like this.

-Tom

That makes sense. While it looks great to customers, something like that might suggest to the software developer a lack of faith in the product's ability to succeed here, or even that the localization company just doesn't have their BACONBACONBACONBACON together. I hadn't really thought about it from the other side.