Either way, people don't seem to care about said quality. 274 reviews in 3 years with 0 new content updates and 0 base price adjustments to reflect the reality shows the dev doesn't actually care.

My point with shovelware was that if we're going to be ignorant with the price, might as well go all the way. The reason I mentioned these games are asian, is because it seems to be a trend from them. As I said, this includes Capcom, Nintendo, and more. It's not just small indie devs, they just assume that their game is instantly $60. They could make sudoku and they'd price it at $60 and someone would buy it cause it says Bandai on it and then they'd shut online servers 9 months later. It gives me the impression they figured out that westerners find japanese culture interesting so they'd pay anything for anything. That's fine because it's them making the mistake, but I also think it's these devs that are making this situation possible in the first place.

If you want to compare this to another good game we can but it gets destroyed. Compare it to Halls of Torment. Released in May(although it's been in early access since February I believe, so let's say it's been out for 6 months. Halls of Torment has 9400+ reviews as of right now, at a base price of $4.99. At that price, I don't think it's ever been bundled(other than the steam dual bundles, this game would've sold at 10% reviews around 94000 copies. At $4.99 that's $470k. So why doesn't this game sell? 91% Overwhelmingly Positive reviews. In 3 years this sold 2700 copies assuming 10%, although it isn't fair since people have had 3 years to review this, vs 6 months, but we'll roll with it. That's only about $176k, although the price difference is like 93%.

As I'm assuming, it must just be that the place where said games are from are ignorant about pricing their games. They can do whatever they want, but my point stands. If they wanted more sales and more money, I could see them get them. They're just trying to create a fake standard that doesn't exist. They're comparing themselves to games that are priced in the $60 range, but do not offer a $60 experience, hence, they do not sell well. There's plenty of users on steam who only play visual novels, but they avoid this one, why? It has to be something. Either the 91% game actually sucks and it's reviews are fake, or it's overpriced as I assumed and the devs are ignorant and I don't think it's okay.

Same with shovelware, asset flips, etc. They price their games at $50, mods put them at 0 cv, and everyone here says they wouldn't buy them or pay more than 27 cents for them. Should these types of games maintain their cv despite being used for CV farming?

IDK maybe I just don't get it, educate me. It's as simple as me ignoring these situations or games, but I could also just ignore shovelware, assetflips, etc. and ignoring doesn't make the situation right.

If vampire survivors changed their price to $200 just because it was so successful and it's a great game people would lose their fucking minds that a game went from $4.99 to $200 and how it's not worth that much. If japan sells you VN's for the price of a $200 million budget game, no one gives a damn.

Thanks for the answer! I’ve used vndb now and then but ADV is a new word to me!

Thank you! I had a hunch it might be short for ”adventure” but I thought that wouldn’t make sense. I had zero idea it’s trademarked in Japan, everything makes sense to me now!

I'll reply to your paragraphs in order.
A. I call it a malicious sales strategy because it's the same with the shitty steam games that are worth $1 that are being sold for $50(not saying this game is $1, but I am saying it's not $50). They are overvalued for what they are and it's toxic to the industry. The price, it's sales, it's review count, it's discount in the bundle, As for things being more expensive in japan, hence why the regional pricing should be adjusted properly to reflect the price of other visual novels in the different regions, but it's not, hence part of why I called on their ignorance.

B. That's exactly what you are suggesting however. Like the rest of the world was affected by that. So what if there was a market crash. It wasn't game dev specific. Maybe elaborate if you feel like I interpreted it wrong, but you mentioning the stock market crash was completely irrelevant. I could care less about that as an impact or attempt at reasoning for their choice in pricing, because it affected everyone, and many other industries a lot, a lot more. "There is a possibility that buying an untested and expensive game will ruin the entire experience.". This is part of my point, not as many hours and money goes into making a game like this, so it isn't fair for it to be so expensive as an AAA game. "However, this cannot be compared to the sales of AAA games, which are unspecified potential customers.". This also doesn't add up. If you want to sell your game, you should price it accordingly to the market, not overprice it. If they know they wont reach as many people, it's because they know it's priced too high and people would rather invest their money into an AAA title. That was also part of my point. Why buy this when you can buy AAA for $5 less?

"This is cuz the YURI genre, which has only sold thousands of copies as you said, has a limited purchasing customer base." So basically what you're saying is if someone makes a horse multiplying simulator they should charge $30000 for it because it has a limited customer base? It doesn't explain why the dev who knows they have a limited customer base is willing to sell their game at 93% off as they're going to affect that limited amount of customers they were going to reach anyways at $65, and still in 3 years has not tried lowering it's base price to match other games to see whether it improves it sales or not. Plenty of other yuri games on steam going for less than $10, although I'm pretty sure most are not asian devs.

C. I don't remember, but I thought I also said this. It's their right to price it as they wish,t hey could price it at $10 000 a copy. Doesn't mean it's a proper price for the amount of work that has went into it. I'm not distorting it as a asian-wide problem, it's where it happens the most. Denying this is ridiculous and you can check steam prices across VN's right now in different regions and even compare to prices of other genres too although I understand if comparing is not something you want to do because it doesn't work in your favor. The only other area this happens as much is with shovelware, assetflips, etc. where they are overpriced garbage. In this case, you will have somewhat decent games at obscene prices, in general across the board. They can price their game whatever they want, to suggest that it's not okay for me to question it in a post about it makes no sense. Like oh no I can't talk about it's price because VN fans will get offended, even though they're getting it for $1.50 just like me, and they too wouldn't have spent $65 on this game. Ridiculous. They support the $65 price tag, but wouldn't pay it in 3 years.

D. Send m their e-mail or steam account and I'll talk to them if they're willing to talk. Generally, when it comes to someone pointing out something they're doing is fishy, ignorant, etc. they will probably just ignore. Doesn't mean you shouldn't at least be able to post your opinion publicly regarding a price and the way an industry markets itself. If you believe others with an opinion different than yourself should just vanish or shut up, then I'd say overall as a being you aren't helping and I'd say reevaluate the important things in life.

As for me not hearing about this game until now you are 100% correct. I would've probably never heard about it unless it was in a $1.50 bundle. I enjoy visual novels, but I can 100% say many people in this thread never heard about most games in this bundle before yet still bought it on this sale, because at $1.50 it is more of a deal or a discount, whereas $65 looks like borderline scam as I said so people will not spend another second to look at it. If it was more appropriately priced chances are I would have heard about it and made a purchase at some point. This is the 5th most expensive visual novel on steam and delivers around 30 hours of content in total according to how long to beat so it's actually pretty short in terms of content and received no proper updates that I see since release despite not getting any base price markdowns since either. The only reason I heard about that $2000 visual novel is because people laughed at it. But maybe what you are suggesting is that we should appreciate it and it's price because it's targeted at a specific group of people. I don't think so, but what do I know. Maybe you're just particularly okay with yuri visual novels or japanese games being pricy hence why I asked why it's not okay for shovelware, assetflips, etc. to do the same.

E. I gave you an option to compare them to western VN's prices, but you didn't want to, and ignored that. The reason why I compared them to AAA games, is because they priced themselves as an AAA game. If I'm going to compare them to a western VN that prices itself at $15, then damn, well that's not fair because one sells itself for more than a AAA game, and one sells itself for a decent price. That was part of my point, so if you want to compare them to other parts of the world visual novels, by all means. Lets do it. I'm all up for it. Do you want to compare it to Firework? I'll let you decide first.

If you looked at it's discussions forums, there are other people questioning it's price as well. Cutting it's price in half would not necessarily guarantee 2x the sales, but it would mean it's more appropriately priced for what it is. This isn't the correct price for this kind of item, no matter how you put it. It is just a visual novel. As I said earlier, just because someone makes a horse multiplying simulator and it has less of a audience(I'd hope) than the yuri genre has, doesn't mean the horse simulator should price itself at $10k a copy just to get some sales. Innovate, add content, find other ways for revenue like adding a soundtrack dlc, guide for all characters dlc, etc. for said people who need everything. Not a big fan of dlc myself, but this is the genre where I would find it reasonable. This is another why I point toward their ignorance. They haven't tried other things. This game barely sold a few thousand copies at said price. Of course at this price they will keep some of their own customers out, as the discussion forum already confirms as the top thread is literally complaining about it's price, and prevent many new customers from trying it out. Their own potential customers are complaining about it's price in their discussion forums. However, you don't see any developer/QA person contacting them to discuss the price reasoning with them, so me contacting them by e-mail is also probably fruitless as I said earlier. It is in multiple ways, arrogance, ignorance, maybe pettiness, etc. of said devs and of course I find this toxic from a developer.

I just don't think it's okay we give crap to aspiring people just trying to enter the industry as they're learning game dev and they do some cheap assetflip and sell it for $5, or those who go all out and sell some complete fraud for $50, and this who markets itself above Persona 5. Making excuses because it's a yuri game and not many people would play it and that justifies it's price is ridiculous. It's keeping people away from buying it, hence why many people are buying it through this bundle. It's not selling at $65. 91% overwhelmingly positive, 3 years 3000 copies sold is a joke. I have never seen a worst performing $60 game.

Gollum with 35% ratings mostly negative managed to sell more and everyone knows it's a disaster of a game. As I said, they're just trying to create some fake idea that this genre is worth more than it is, and it isn't, as the numbers point out in many ways. If it was worth so much, they wouldn't be willing to sell it for $1.50 after barely selling 3k copies as they should have many more potential customers. Part of the reason why big AAA titles do go on big sales is because they already reached an audiences so big they know it is going to be hard to get much more at such a hard price, so it only makes sense to lower the price and capitalize on the people who would get it at lower prices. Why doesn't this dev do the same?

I pointed it out in another comment that another game, firework for instance has made many times more than this game and has many more times the reviews, but it's price is also much more reasonable for what it is, so it makes sense. Maybe I have my own price or something, but if this was priced at like $30, I still would've thought it's way too high, but I wouldn't have said anything, because as you said, at that point I would've thought I'm not the audience probably or maybe I was missing something special the game did that I don't see in it's store page like maybe it was all done in 3D with many explorable areas and other game elements, etc. (hence why most expensive VN's have those). At $65, I know for a fact I wasn't the audience and I still don't know who the audience is, and I still don't think they do either, I think they're just hoping to sell some copies at 70% off, get some reviews, and some poor misfortunate soul will think that's the game price and actually buy at that and they get scammed out of $60. Doesn't mean I think it's a bad game, I just think it's horribly priced and marketed.

I'll conclude my comments here, wish you the best, my bad if I got too heated about the topic, in the end I still strongly believe in my opinion and nothing that was added even slightly changed my mind. I have to say I disagree and it's okay for us to disagree. Take care.

Compare it to a western visual novels then. My point was that it can't compete with AAA titles, which you agree, so okay, compare it to western VN's and then look at their price. What made this one so special? 91% positive reviews? This is the 5th most expensive game with the visual novel tag(that I can see on the steam store), over Persona 4, Persona 5, AI:The Somnium Files, Steins Gate Elite 2 game bundle, AOKANA, Phoenix Wright, Love's a Battle, Grisaia games, Nekopara games, Atri, Clannad, Epiphyllum, and many, many more, etc. How does this dominate all these in price by so far?

https://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Price_DESC&tags=3799&category1=998&category3=2&os=win&supportedlang=english&ndl=1

I think you're just disagreeing with me to disagree and that's cute, but you got no point. The idea that people shouldn't question the price of things on a forum posting of said bundle is ridiculous. What, you're upset others got other opinions than you over the internet? Boo hoo?

This mainstream game vs vn makes me think you're a hipster. So what if it's a game that sold 5 million copies? Wow other people played this game it must be dogshit? I'd rather pay even more for a much lesser known game that doesn't come close in staff, budget, years of development. That's some questionable logic. That wasn't the point in the first place, the point was that those games cost incomprehensible amounts of money to make, so to price your game at that price point, you are claiming you will deliver on that similar quality. If you don't deliver on the same quality, why is the game priced so high? It is my belief a VN is not at the same quality as a AAA game. That's something we can disagree on and leave it there because if you think VN's are better than AAA games it is what it is. It's a bit of a crazy thought, but you got your own opinion and that's okay. I want to understand why, but not if you don't want to talk about it because you're uncomfortable or you know you don't really got a point and would rather act nasty instead.

If you liked this game so much, why didn't you buy it at $65, or why don't you buy it right now at $65 to support the devs? Was it not worth it your money at $65 so far for the past 3 years? I thought you're very selective about your VNs, but I'll call bullshit on that.

Listen, I get it, you don't like me and you wanna argue, but what is the point you're making? Are you going to justify it's price and explain why this practice of overpricing said game/s is okay with VN's but not other games? Are you just VN obsessed and in some phase and I triggered a nerve?

I don't get why you can't compare 2 games of different genres by price. Why does it matter what genre it is? Are value and the amount of work irrelevant to the game, or is it somewhat relevant? Is is not reasonable to assume the amount of work will be somewhat proportional to it's value? Is all this irrelevant when it offends your opinion? I never heard anyone say that I can't compare other things just because they're not exactly the same genre or category and then be able to explain to me why not. Like I wouldn't be able to compare this to a $4.99 game like halls of torment because I mean halls of torment destroys it in terms of sales and reviews in it's first few months of release despite only being a super simple repetitive game which is priced about 93% less. I mean it wouldn't be fair, but then how do we justify the existence of said VN? It's for a very select group of individuals and as such it's priceless. $65 is just a number, a number they wouldn't buy it at, but $500k still wouldn't be too high of a price. You then question me, when I find this ridiculous. Oke. But if I compare it to another VN, maybe to Firework, that's priced at like $10 and has maybe sold at 10% reviews 300k copies, generating maybe 3 mil maybe more having only been released 2 years ago, it still doesn't seem justified to say this is overpriced, and that one has been correctly priced? I guess firework is just idk, about 111 times better than this one despite selling itself at a lower price although it could overvalue itself, since this is $65, Firework should increase it's price to $7215 per customer as that is it's performance. That makes sense.

It depends on person to person, but I noticed that for skins and cosmetics usually there is one absolute favourite for me. It's enough to get that one, then I'm set :)