The miracle of FGO may not be able to repeat itself in the 'Sakura Wars'.
<h1>The "dream lover" who never returns</h1>
"Pretty Girl", "Opera", "Steampunk", "Taisho Romance" and "Power Mecha".
Even today, there are not many games that combine these elements, and the only ones that can impress people are probably the "Sakura Wars" series that was released twenty-four years ago.
Sakura Wars (1996)
In September 1996, led by Japanese producer Prince Hiroi and released by Sega, the SEGA SATURN game, Sakura Wars, was released in Japan, in which the revolutionary reform of the love game is still talked about by many players even today, and the game's black hair and pink kimono, Masanomiya Sakura, is the "dream lover" of many male players.
For how powerful the "Sakura Wars" really is, there have been too many introductions and analyses on the Internet, and I will not dwell on them here, in addition to the fundamental changes made to the "love simulation", this game type, but also created a "2.5-dimensional" stage drama, as well as the precedent of cross-media idols (the living ancestors of the "Idol Master" and "LoveLive" series of projects), the far-reaching influence, so that it once became the biggest "pillar" of the Sega game brand.
In 2018, "Sakura Wars" was held in the name of Sega's second representative, and the "LoveLive!" of the then fire was fought. SunShine！ "Linkage was made
However, with Sega's own game console, Dreamcast retreated in the increasingly fierce console war at that time, and the "Sakura Wars" series could only be transferred to its former competitors, sony's PS platform for sale, which directly led to a large loss of fans of the series.
In 2002, in order to revive the glory of the "Sakura Wars" series, Prince Hiroi published a project called "Sakura Wars World", which included a total of 6 new works, which really excited many fans
The Sakura Wars World Project was supposed to have 7 productions
However, due to the "unsatisfactory water" of the away battle, the first few works that landed on the PS2 platform did not get too good response, and in 2005, the first orthodox sequel of the series on the PS2 platform, the dismal results after the release of "Sakura Wars 5 Goodbye And Love", even more frightened Sega to cancel the other four games that had not yet been made. The glory of the "Cherry Blossom War" has officially come to an end.
However, unlike other IPs that have been eliminated in history, due to the huge influence in the early days of the series and the existence of loyal fan groups, even in the 14 years after the "violent death" of "Sakura Wars 5" and the basic coolness of the main transmission, the linkage with other game works has never stopped.
Of course, what also didn't stop was the fans of the series, as well as the solidarity from within Sega.
Speaking of sega's internal solidarity, there is also an interesting story here, it is said that every year within Sega, someone will come up with a "cherry blossom war" related plan, the content from "Kyoto chapter" to "future chapter", has become the practice of the annual summer planning meeting, and even got the title of "summer style poem".
The Linkage of "Riding Air Regiment" and "Chinese Strike Regiment" (2017)
In the "First Sega General Election" section of "Sega FES2016", the "Sakura Wars" series won the "Works Department" and the "Most Anticipated Resurrection Department" with the first place in the fan vote. In the face of the enthusiasm of the fans, the resurrection of the "Sakura Wars" was finally scheduled.
Three years later, New Sakura Wars was released on the PS4 platform.
At the beginning of the publicity, "New Sakura Wars" was repeatedly questioned because of the absence of the soul character Prince Hiroi, the major changes in the combat system (SLG to ACT), and the character design of Kubo's people. In order to quell doubts and make maximum use of the features of the series "Cross-media Planning Ancestor", the game was released at the same time as the TV animation series and live-action stage drama plans were launched at the same time.
Unfortunately, even this increase in publicity did not change its mediocre nature, and after only five weeks of release, "New Sakura Wars" disappeared from the sales list, and as of May of the following year, only 180,000 copies were sold, which can be said to be quite dismal.
Kubo's painting skills are unquestionable, and the heroine, Sakura Tengu (Ayano Sakura Sakura Sakura), is cute enough, and the biggest problem is in the game itself
Despite the sluggish performance of "New Sakura Wars", Sega, whose share in the Japanese game industry is shrinking, has not given up on the exploration of the value behind the brand (or can't stop).
This time, Sega is aiming at the fastest mobile platform for money nowadays.
<h1>Cherry blossoms on the fire "revolution"</h1>
Just last year, on August 27, Sega unveiled a project called "B.L.A.C.K", and along with it, there was an anime MV composed by Fair Tanaka, three female characters, and the general background setting of the project:
"'B.L.A.C.K' is a group of artists who sang for Japan and fought for Japan, and is also an abbreviation for 'Brilliant, Legislative, Artistic, Celebrity, Knights'."
Sega's new project "B.L.A.C.K"
Although it is not explicitly stated, many players have already deduced the true identity of this project just from the clues of "singing", "fighting", "big empire", and one of the "Iron Triangles" and "Tanaka Fairness".
A few days later, sega officially announced the latest work in the "Sakura Wars" series at the live event, the mobile RPG jointly developed and produced by Sega and DELiGHT WORKS, "Sakura Revolution ~ Blossom Girls ~ " ( hereinafter referred to as "Sakura Revolution"), and released a special animation produced by Clover Works to explain the background of the game's story. However, what many players did not expect was that in the special animation, the idol group "B.L.A.C.K" released by Sega officially before actually became the villain who tried to hand blade the protagonist.
The C-bit character of "B.L.A.C.K" in the previous promotional film
The real heroine of the work, Sakura Shino, also made her official debut at the event. However, despite wearing the series's most iconic Taisho kimono and black hair, the image of the heroine "Shino" with thick eyebrows and short hair has still been questioned by many players, and it is even more confusing to think of the original public project name "B.L.A.C.K".
In fact, on the same day that "B.L.A.C.K" was first published (August 27), DELighT WORKS also released a game plan with the theme of "Japan, Take Back" through the official website push and other forms, but the style was too far from "B.L.A.C.K", and key information such as Sega or "Sakura Wars" did not appear.
DELiGHT WORKS' new RPG "Japan, Take Back" program was launched
It can be seen that this propaganda map hides a lot of important information
However, what is most unacceptable to the players of the series is not this.
As I listed at the beginning, "Pretty Girl", "Opera", "Steampunk", "Taisho Romance", "Power Mech", for the "Sakura Wars" series of games, none of these elements are missing, and among them, the Lingzi Armor (or the Lingzi Fighter in "New Sakura Wars") that represents "Taizheng's strongest steam technology" (or the Reiko fighter in "New Sakura Wars") "Guangwu" can be said to be the eternal soul of the series from the beginning.
The story background of the "Sakura Revolution" is set as "Taizheng 100 Years", that is, 81 years after the story of "New Sakura Wars", in this era, the series of traditional "Lingzi Energy" and "Lingzi Arms" have long been eliminated, and the mainstream combat equipment has become a kind of wearable "Lingzi Dress", and the effect after the equipment may be more appropriate than the mech, saying that it is some kind of exoskeleton or prosthesis.
Such a design will naturally be dissatisfied by old players.
"Lingzi Dress"
However, considering the ultra-long time span set in the background of this game (according to the calculation of real time, the taisho century should have entered the twenty-first century), even if the bulky steam mech fades out of the background stage, it seems reasonable. On the other hand, for the new generation of players who are the main force of mobile games, the past "Lingzi Armor" design is really difficult to arouse people's interest, so that the character directly shows his face, and perhaps more attractive.
After this debut, the "Cherry Blossom Revolution" officially entered the publicity stage, but its troubles have just begun.
"Advance registration" is a traditional art of Japanese mobile games, and the "Cherry Blossom Revolution" has certainly not been forgotten. However, this traditional skill has become an important trigger for his first "inflammation".
Under normal circumstances, "pre-login" will use the virtual props in the game as a reward, while mobilizing the enthusiasm of players, increasing their own dissemination efforts, taking the still closely watched "Ghost Blade: Blood Wind Sword BLADE ROVAL" as an example, probably like this:
Basically, it is mainly based on drawing cards, and after the highest target of 500,000 people is achieved, there is an SSR skill card as a reward
Perhaps the number of logins is really not enough, or the popularity of Vtuber in recent years, the operator of the "Sakura Revolution" actually "ingeniously" added the strange reward of "if 300,000 logins are reached, it will be enabled to blow snow on the white, and Pauline Marlene as the voice actor of the game" on the occasion of the 200,000 people.
As anchors of Vtuber's "hololive", these two have also been affected a lot in the previous "that incident"
This strange operation of "unprecedented ancients" has once again ignited the dissatisfaction of fans of the series and accumulated for a long time.
"Sakura Wars" was inspired by the series' creator Prince Hiroi, who watched a performance by his aunt at the Shochiku Opera Company in Japan when he was young, as well as his own understanding and love of opera. Because of this, since the beginning of the "Sakura War", the casting of voice actors has been placed in the most important position, in addition to fully understanding the mood of the character, how to interpret it on the stage is a huge challenge for voice actors who eat by sound, and the position of sound supervisor at that time was tosio Sato, who was very influential in the Japanese film industry.
The 1st Sakura Wars Song Show (1997)
This "obsession" with voice actors and performance effects became the cornerstone of the success of the future "Sakura Wars", and at the same time made revolutionary changes to the concept of voice actors themselves.
In contrast, this "Vtuber on the incident", although Vtuber is also "only hear its voice, do not see its people" work, but the two anchors of Hololive, compared with professional voice actors, are still too amateurish, not to mention after leaving the virtual image, this biggest "signboard", the rest is just an ordinary person.
However, in an objective and impartial manner, no one can determine how the characters voiced by these two Vtubers can perform until they officially appear, in fact, Vtuber as an example of voice actors dubbing characters is not the first time (but the situation of "Sakura Wars" is more special).
The "computer girl Xiaobai" in "Vtuber Four Heavenly Kings" once contributed to the protagonist of "Borderlands 3"
By now, the protests of old players have long since lost any meaning.
With the publicity of these two Vtubers, the popularity of the "Sakura Revolution" has indeed increased a lot, and this "star effect" that relies on the popularity of young Vtubers is also a good medicine (for the current stage) for the long-term suffering from "loyal fans but not target users" and the lack of exposure of the "Sakura War".
In terms of fan base, these two did bring a lot of extra attention to the "Sakura Revolution"
<h1>The 3 billion yen incident is in doubt</h1>
On December 15, after a brief ticket jumping "cherry blossom revolution", finally before the New Year, the Google Store and the Apple Store landed simultaneously, and the operator seems to be ready to take advantage of the annual turn and people's consumption desire is at its most abundant to take a "door" for this new work.
The game began to operate normally, players downloaded login, received advance login rewards, played cards, the total download volume of the game also quickly exceeded the number of previous logins, as long as there are no accidents, the revenue road of the "Cherry Blossom Revolution" should be slowly on the right track.
But what Sega and DELiGHT WORKS did not expect was that not to mention the old players, even the new generation of user groups mainly targeted this time seemed to be less willing to buy the game.
In the first month of the game's credit, the "Sakura Revolution" not only failed to perform anything wonderful, but even the top 50 of the Krypton gold list did not enter. In Apple and Google Store for software downloads, the game's player ratings have continued to decline since it was launched, and in just half a month, the ratings of these two platforms have both fallen below 3.0.
Player ratings are still falling
What is the concept of 50 or less?
Taking the "Ark of Tomorrow" daily service as an example, it was officially launched in mid-January last year, and it took less than a week to "kill and kill" in the fiercely competitive Japanese mobile game market, jumping into the top 20 of the Krypton gold list, and maintaining this result to this day.
Of course, no one can look at the beginning of the "Cherry Blossom Revolution".
Players began to express their dissatisfaction with the Sakura Revolution game system and DELiGHT WORKS on social networks. These dissatisfactions mainly focus on two points, "the characters are ugly women" and "FGO remakes".
On Twitter, the first word associated with "Sakura Revolution" is "ugly girl."
"Drawing cards" is the main means of revenue of Kryptonian mobile games at present. In the "Sakura Revolution" card drawing setting, the protagonist and his party need to find girls from all over Japan who can wear the "Reiko Dress" to fight, and "all parts of Japan" become an important element of the game, and the card drawing activities are basically carried out around the region.
These settings themselves are very interesting, but because many of the characters are not cute enough, or lack characteristics (can not catch the player's sexual fetish), they have been criticized by players, and on social networks, this process has even been ruthlessly ridiculed by Japanese netizens as "collecting ugly girls everywhere" or "national ugly girl parade".
"UP Shipment Rate activity for teenage girls in Shikoku region"
In addition to some excessive ridicule, the strange shape of the "Lingzi dress" in the "Cherry Blossom Revolution" has indeed made many players look dumbfounded. Although some characters are cute and the modeling is also said to be in the past, as soon as they enter the state of battle, they immediately become "earthy", and directly dissuade a group of players who rushed into the pit under the name of "Beautiful Girl Game".
Even from the most tricky point of view, I can hardly praise this mech for its "excellent" design.
In the extremely depressed opening, as well as the player's condemnation, the "Sakura Revolution" ushered in the Japanese New Year, which should have been the first round of revenue, watching other mobile games, one by one, with new year activities, opened the money roll mode, but their own home was a so-called news report, top of the Twitter hot search.
On January 5, 2021, an article with a very eye-catching title began to go viral on the Internet.
The article, published on the Japanese economic news website Business Journal, is titled "'Reasonable Reasons' for Sega's 'Sakura Revolution' Violent Death & Inflammation?" The article with more than 3 billion development fees and only 70 million revenues, while pointing directly to the pain of the "cherry blossom revolution", is more like a spark splashed on the haystack, igniting the "desire to attack" of all players at unexpected moments.
This report sent directly to the "Cherry Blossom Revolution" into the Twitter hotspot
For a time, a lot of discussion about the "Cherry Blossom Revolution" became popular on the Internet, and the focus of attention was all on the title "3 billion yen".
In this article, the author privately interviewed a number of people in the game industry, as well as Sega's internal employees, according to this internal employee, the total project of the "Sakura Revolution" cost more than 3 billion yen, and it was Sega's "desperate fight" to reverse the current business difficulties.
Development costs of $3 billion and revenue of $70 million are the biggest focus of this story
In addition, the article also quoted the Revenue Value Forecast of "Game-i", a Japanese game revenue data analysis website, and directly set the revenue data of the "Sakura Revolution" for December at 73.7 million yen.
In addition to the 3 billion and 70 million, in the second half of the article, the so-called "internal employees" also give a certain explanation for why management chose DELiGHT WORKS:
"Because DELiGHT WORKS is the company that created the myth of FGO revenue, their words may be able to 'take back a city' for Sega in distress."
However, according to the idea of this "internal employee" and the so-called "game developer", FGO is not only "artist pulling crotch" and "eating ugly", but also the strategy of being the core of the RPG is almost equal to nothing, and this project is likely to be a "wrong decision" by Sega's senior management.
The story, in the same form, went viral on the Chinese Internet
"This thing cost 3 billion yen?"
"3 billion yuan is not swallowed by anyone alone"
"In the end, the big sale of FGO is not at all the credit of DELiGHT WORKS." (I feel the same way)
Both the expenditure and the revenue are far beyond the imagination of players, Sega and DELiGHT WORKS, so they have successfully become the "target of cyber violence" on the Internet. "Spending huge sums of money to do garbage" has caused many players to erupt with their long-term dissatisfaction.
After the fermentation of this "fire-pouring" report, the revenue of the "Cherry Blossom Revolution" further declined, and many past interviews with producers about the work were ridiculed by netizens.
However, if you have carefully read this article, you will definitely feel suspicious of some of the industry descriptions, and in the spirit of the rigor that media reports should have, I conducted a simple background check on some of the information quoted in this article and this news website that can get "super exclusive material".
What's even more interesting is that just typing the name of this news site into the Google search bar, and the associative words that appear seem to have exposed some problems.
Business Journal Credibility
<h1>epilogue</h1>
What I didn't expect was that at the same time that I was collecting information for this article, the editor of this report actually revised the content of the report, and "Game-i", which is the source of the "70 million yen", this important information quoted from the source, also responded to the relevant information on the homepage of his website, and the authenticity of the whole report suddenly became ambiguous.
For this unexpected reason, I was unable to state everything clearly in the length of an article, so I decided to make a brief summary here for the time being.
At the beginning of November 2020, Sega announced the official sale of its arcade operating company, "Sega Entertainment", which has been operating for nearly half a century, causing a large number of players to sigh, under such conditions, the production cost of 3 billion yuan is particularly harsh, in the next article, I will elaborate on the truth reported by the Business Journal, and DELiGHT WORKS, the story behind the incredible revenue myth.