/jp/ - Otaku Culture

KoiKuma was released a bit over 10 hours ago, and has thus far peaked at 97 concurrent users and climbing. It may not become quite a Nekopara like hit, but it is going to be one of Sekai's best launches and has the potential to continue to climb through the weekend. One harder to answer question is what kind of conversion rate they are getting with people purchasing the R18 content. As an advantage of the Steam policy change, they have been able to not only offer the DLC on the main page, but also offer bundles containing the R18 DLC making it even more visible than just including a DLC on its own (as seen in the image).

Sanoba Witch was released an hour and a half ago, and currently it is skyrocketing out of the gate. It has already shot up to a quick peak of 99 concurrent users, and if this trend continues NekoNyan seems to have managed to nab themselves a sizable hit. NekoNyan's previous release of Fureraba peaked at just 69 concurrent users at launch, and that already was one of the more successful moege launches on Steam (and incidentally, it has shown signs of having a long tail, with daily peaks still often hitting double digits even a half a year after the Steam launch). In addition to its strong Steam performance, NekoNyan has released Sabona Witch on pretty much every platform aside from Denpa, and between their own site and Fakku/Nutaku/MG/Jast it should enjoy relatively strong sales off of Steam as well.

Kara no Shoujo on Steam has thus far peaked at 25 concurrent users, doing so 3 days after launch. While it obviously it isn't doing much in comparison to the success of Evenicle or these other two new releases, every sale on Steam is an unexpected bonus for the 7 year old game. The relatively active forum for its peak and a decent 21 reviews thus far are some indication it may continue to sell well in the long term, rather than just getting some sales at launch and disappearing.

Just as a quick note, between the successes of Evenicle and now KoiKuma and Sanoba Witch, it seems that Steam isn't quite as dead for VN sales as it had previously seen. All three of these titles are going to have very strong Steam launches, even compared to Steam craze launches. These recent strong launches on Steam would argue for a stronger set of new licenses next year if there happens to be some added confidence in new Steam releases. Of particular note, Riddle Joker is suddenly looking to be one of the most appealing license up for grabs (provided no one has it yet).