Earnings Call: Recettear's Follow-Up Revealed
Joyous tidings from Carpe Fulgur, translators/Western distributors of the ever-lovely indie shopkeeping game Recettear: they've only gone and sold 100,000 copies of the bally thing, without promotion or publisher and solely via digital distribution on PC. Oh, and they've cheekily revealed what the next Japanese indie title to pass through their Westernisotron will be...
Back to that 100,000 sales thingy - it's a little more complicated than that, as this fascinating blog post (well worth a read by anyone either interested in digital business models or prone to wild pronouncements about Steam et al) reveals. Steam sales are all well and good for big turnovers and banner figures, but the lowered prices involved mean less profit. In Recettear's case, "the lion's share" of the money goes to the game's original devs, Japanese outfit EasyGameStation.
On the other hand, the name's out there, the appetite's clearly out there, and long-term that could pay off well. Carpe Fulgur's post reveals that the company's at something of a crossroads, doing pretty well right now but weighing up all sorts of ways to bring in the big money. Sadly for us, that seems to include encompassing consoles, but hopefully these chaps will remember the platform that made 'em, rather than pulling a Double Fine on us. Schaaaaaaaaaaaaaafer!
So, two things in the offing: number one, the possible option of English voiceover for Recettear. Not something that especially concerns me - reading is fun! - but it is admittedly a super-texty game, while English dialogue might help lure in those players turned off by the evident Japanesiness of the game.
More concrete is that the next game will be Chantelise. It's another EGS game, its title is another portmanteau, it appears to be a dungeon crawlery kinda thing, and from what I gather it's set in the same universe as Recettear. Here's some details on the Japanese release, including a link to a demo. Not that you'll understand it.
We should have more info on what's going down with Carpe Fulgur and Chantelise very soon.