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CAVE restructured - No more dedicated divisions, but not quite dead yet

Sorry, but the era is not actually over yet. Someone pointed out to me that the article doesn't actually say that this is happening now. This is an industry wide assessment/analysis by 4Gamer as part of their reports on the end of the financial year. No one bothered to read the introduction to the article (including me!) and everyone jumped into the summary on Cave.

4Gamer's analysis is saying that based on the business trends of the company and their results, this is the likely route they will take in the future. It's an analysis I think most people will agree with, but it's not something the company has confirmed or commented on. Cave's year end report to shareholders should come out mid-July. If there are any actual announcements about a major shift, that's where it will be.

This should be added to the OP to avoid further confusion.

Even the title refers to the POSSIBILITY of Cave closing their consumer division--"CAVE could close consumer division and go full online/social"--not the actual event.

There's still a possibility that CAVE will stay alive and continue to release games as they have been.
 

duckroll

Member
This should be added to the OP to avoid further confusion.

Even the title refers to the POSSIBILITY of Cave closing their consumer division--"CAVE could close consumer division and go full online/social"--not the actual event.

There's still a possibility that CAVE will stay alive and continue to release games as they have been.

I changed the title. I was also editing that into the OP while you were making that post. :p
 

Jesus Carbomb

From Water into Guinness
JfzyyoI.jpg

I'veMadeaHugeMistake.gif
 

antitrop

Member
I don't even play shmups and reading this thread was fascinating (and hilarious) for the discourse. Couldn't stop reading it for some reason.
 
Sorry, but the era is not actually over yet. Someone pointed out to me that the article doesn't actually say that this is happening now. This is an industry wide assessment/analysis by 4Gamer as part of their reports on the end of the financial year. No one bothered to read the introduction to the article (including me!) and everyone jumped into the summary on Cave.

4Gamer's analysis is saying that based on the business trends of the company and their results, this is the likely route they will take in the future. It's an analysis I think most people will agree with, but it's not something the company has confirmed or commented on. Cave's year end report to shareholders should come out mid-July. If there are any actual announcements about a major shift, that's where it will be.

Okay, thanks for the clearing that up.
 

Risette

A Good Citizen
also, I think there needs to be a moratorium on stuff from JP gaming sites unless people posting it know Japanese
 

Clov

Member
This article scared me; but thankfully it seems like there's still some hope. I really want their regular division to stay open; I'm not the greatest at schmups, but I always found Cave's to be lots of fun.
 

duckroll

Member
The analysis assessment by the 4Gamer reporter is based on Cave's 3rd Quarter shareholder's report. I think what is stated is not a full representation of what was actually stated in the report. I'll post some slides and explain.



What has happened is that Cave has restructured their company and moved to new offices recently. As such, the structural change means there is no longer a Consumer Game Division. But it also means there is no longer a Social Game Division or Online Game Division. Instead the entire company is one department meant to leverage on the skills and experience of all the staff to make development more agile.

The new management structure will focus on 3 points of development:
- Existing Social Games
- Existing Online Games
- New Products

It is important to note that what they're saying is that they're going to continue supporting existing services, while creating new products as well.

They're looking to target audiences in-between heavy core users (who play shmups for example) and light casual users. There are other slides I didn't post, which basically also implies heavily that yes, they will be focusing mostly on Smartphones and online distribution of titles.

The last slide there shows the sort of new upcoming products they are developing. ARPU is Average Revenue Per User, and the horizontal axis represents the Social aspect of a product from low on the left to high on the right. In the top left corner is "Bullet Hell Shooters" specifically, which are very high ARPU games with almost no social aspects. The fact that they're still looking to release new stuff close to that range indicates that they're still making shooters, and will probably not abandon arcade development entirely. It's possible that most of the future shmup ports released by Cave themselves will be Smartphone only, but maybe that doesn't rule out arcade ports from other publishers?


tl;dr:
- Cave restructured but they didn't fire everyone from their gaming division
- They still plan to make games with high revenue per user with no social content (ie: shmups)
- Not entirely dead yet, business as usual
 

DR2K

Banned
The arcade gaming audience does not care what platform they are on. This is the same audience that drops a thousand or more per game to have the PCB at home. They are also not interested in other console games -- they only want the arcade ports. It is simply a small audience.

It's best to educate yourself before playing armchair industry analyst.

Yes. G.rev's efforts on PS3 have sold about as much as they did on the 360 or less; Ketsui will likely be the same.

But trying to appeal to just a small niche is business suicide, as shown by the report.
 

BOTEC

Member
also, I think there needs to be a moratorium on stuff from JP gaming sites unless people posting it know Japanese

I thought this was a bannable offence, but it seems the rules about that have been relaxed a bit.

You can also set your watch by "Cave going out of business" stories.
 

Risette

A Good Citizen
But trying to appeal to just a small niche is business suicide, as shown by the report.
The last slide there shows the sort of new upcoming products they are developing. ARPU is Average Revenue Per User, and the horizontal axis represents the Social aspect of a product from low on the left to high on the right. In the top left corner is "Bullet Hell Shooters" specifically, which are very high ARPU games with almost no social aspects. The fact that they're still looking to release new stuff close to that range indicates that they're still making shooters, and will probably not abandon arcade development entirely. It's possible that most of the future shmup ports released by Cave themselves will be Smartphone only, but maybe that doesn't rule out arcade ports from other publishers?
( ≖‿≖)
 

duckroll

Member
I thought this was a bannable offence, but it seems the rules about that have been relaxed a bit.

You can also set your watch by "Cave going out of business" stories.

This is not really a "didn't know Japanese and posted total nonsense" issue though. It's fair to say that not everyone is particularly in the loop with regards to business news regarding niche Japanese companies, so sometimes it takes a bit of research to find out what is really going on. It happens with gaming business news in English too, but that usually gets corrected relatively quickly if there are misunderstandings because there's just more people who are checking up on stuff and spotting misunderstandings.
 
Can't wait for Curtain Fire With Friends

Pete found an extra Laser power-up while shooting robo-lolis! Play now and help Pete make it to 2-ALL!
 
:(

Thanks to UPS I got SDOJ today.
I have a jp 360 and all of their releases, the same for the PS2 games. For the rest I have Mame. I need this stuff.

Cave has to stay alive because all the other shmup releases (from other companies) of at least the last 10 years dont have this quality. (imo)

No new Cave shmups in the future ? I dont like this ;(
 

Koren

Member
That is ridiculous. The audience that will buy the game is not restricted to the people who will spend thousands on an arcade cabinet. If that were so, they have doomed themselves right from the start. If this is the reason they develop on the xbox exclusively, well, that is a pretty good explanation for why they are now online/social only.
I don't know if it's an explanation, but I know for sure that I would have bought most of their games if I could have. An import XBox is not an easy solution, I would have loved to see PS3 games.
 

Risette

A Good Citizen
I don't know if it's an explanation, but I know for sure that I would have bought most of their games if I could have. An import XBox is not an easy solution, I would have loved to see PS3 games.
Remember to buy Ketsui coming this July on PS3

Also, if you have a US 360 you can play most of their games released this gen.
 
Sorry, but the era is not actually over yet. Someone pointed out to me that the article doesn't actually say that this is happening now. This is an industry wide assessment/analysis by 4Gamer as part of their reports on the end of the financial year. No one bothered to read the introduction to the article (including me!) and everyone jumped into the summary on Cave.

4Gamer's analysis is saying that based on the business trends of the company and their results, this is the likely route they will take in the future. It's an analysis I think most people will agree with, but it's not something the company has confirmed or commented on. Cave's year end report to shareholders should come out mid-July. If there are any actual announcements about a major shift, that's where it will be.

Thank god. Been walking around depressed all day over this, but there's still [slim] hope.

Picked up an extra SLE of dodon to celebrate now that it actually may make some difference.
 
Great work duckroll! Crisis somewhat averted.

I'm glad the initial sadness got me to order SDOJ though, I'm looking forward to playing it now. I'm 99% sure I have Ketsui pre-ordered as well.
 
Does it cost much to release your game on GoD? We here in Europe would really like to play Deathsmiles II....

The game would need to be aged rated i think. No need to translate any text the US GOD was in Japanese. I think poor sales in NA didn't help us in Europe. We may have to just buy a Asian or Japanese xbox 360 sorry.
 
J

Jotamide

Unconfirmed Member
Absolutely none of their stuff is for PS3? Like zero? Oh well, I guess I'll get Under Defeat HD to fill that SHMUP void once I sell my Android phone.

EDIT: Thanks guys, I actually pre-ordered it!
 

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
Absolutely none of their stuff is for PS3? Like zero? Oh well, I guess I'll get Under Defeat HD to fill that SHMUP void once I sell my Android phone.

Ketsui is getting a PS3 release at it is published by 5pb.

But in general, if you like shmups you should buy a 360.
 

Tellaerin

Member
Not a huge Cave fan myself (I prefer trad shmups to bullet hell, honestly), but considering how some of my fave shmup developers have ended up over the years (Compile, Tecnosoft), my heart goes out to you guys. Hope Cave pulls through this and continues doing what they do best.
 

Kainazzo

Member
Ha, and I haven't even gotten SDOJ in the mail yet. I've heard of devs/pubs going belly up the moment their last game was released, but I can't recall any recent ones. Glad this wasn't the case! Should they actually develop any new titles for the 360, I'll certainly pick them up.

As this is the hot topic thread at the moment, would anyone like to recommend me other 360 shooters? I use my JP360 with a 4:3 monitor, so anything that's 16:9 only, like Caladrius, is out. I've liked that Cave was always so flexible with the display settings, are there any others? I know there's Ketsui, but I already sorta' get my fix with Ketsuipachi.
 

Jabba

Banned
They wouldn't have. Guwange bombed too.

Few people wanted to play these games because gaming is full of scrubs. It's just an unfortunate fact.

If you mean skill wise here, I agree. Jesus, people complained about the first 3d Ninja Gaiden on Xbox being hard. Itagaki called them losers and told them just fight their best fight.
 

Risette

A Good Citizen
Ha, and I haven't even gotten SDOJ in the mail yet. I've heard of devs/pubs going belly up the moment their last game was released, but I can't recall any recent ones. Glad this wasn't the case! Should they actually develop any new titles for the 360, I'll certainly pick them up.

As this is the hot topic thread at the moment, would anyone like to recommend me other 360 shooters? I use my JP360 with a 4:3 monitor, so anything that's 16:9 only, like Caladrius, is out. I've liked that Cave was always so flexible with the display settings, are there any others? I know there's Ketsui, but I already sorta' get my fix with Ketsuipachi.
All of Cave's stuff has 4:3 friendly modes (namely, the meat of the releases, the arcade port modes)

Triangle Service's stuff? i guess
 

Kainazzo

Member

Thanks! I'd heard about this, but a few Triangle Service puns had me thinking something was wrong with the release.

All of Cave's stuff has 4:3 friendly modes (namely, the meat of the releases, the arcade port modes)

Triangle Service's stuff? i guess

I'm thankful they are, and I enjoy the heck out of my Shooting Collection. Wanted to branch out a bit from Cave where I could, but it seems TS is my only real option?
 

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
Thanks! I'd heard about this, but a few Triangle Service puns had me thinking something was wrong with the release.

Triangle Service is the little engine that could. The company was formed by Toshiaki Fujino after he spent weeks(months?) developing G-Stream G2020 for Oriental Soft in rather adverse conditions... i.e. not getting paid and funding the project out of his own pocket.

Check out STGWeekly's episode on G-Stream G2020, which is included in Shooting Love 10th Anniversary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUpmG6gIhVo
 

Jesus Carbomb

From Water into Guinness
As this is the hot topic thread at the moment, would anyone like to recommend me other 360 shooters? I use my JP360 with a 4:3 monitor, so anything that's 16:9 only, like Caladrius, is out. I've liked that Cave was always so flexible with the display settings, are there any others? I know there's Ketsui, but I already sorta' get my fix with Ketsuipachi.

Eschatos has 4:3 TATE support and it is glorious.

I know this is a Cave thread but I loves me some QUTE.
 
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