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[Toadthemushroom]

How to market a game like Culdcept Revolt

I like these features from Katharine Byrne that focus on smaller publishers' work. This one's on NIS America and the recently released Culdcept Revolt, which they licensed from Nintendo to localise and publish outside of Japan:

In fact, the series celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, having first released in Japan on the Sega Saturn way back in 1997. The original, which can only be described as Monopoly meets Magic: The Gathering as players take turns to lay down monster cards on a looping board of tiles, has since been ported to the PlayStation, Nintendo DS, PSP and PS3 in Japan and the PS2 in the US, but Revolt marks its first appearance in Europe, giving publisher NIS America the difficult task of trying to distil this complex card game to a new, unsuspecting audience.

We spoke to NIS America's senior associate producer Alan Costa at Gamescom to find out more about the challenges of marketing such a complicated title to a fresh user base.

"We've actually had a lot of support from Nintendo of Europe," Costa told MCV. "They featured us in several different media outreaches, so that's always a really, really big boost when you have Nintendo itself saying 'Hey guys, check this game out.'

More at the link above.

Culdcept Revolt is great, and I hope it does well for NISA. I started playing it this week and somehow already managed to sink almost ten hours in - it makes long journeys fly by. I worry that it went mostly ignored by 3DS owners, though, as going off the UK charts it's already out of the top 50. Which is a crying shame as the game feels like a perfect swansong for 3DS: A superb 3D effect both to convey dense information and the 3D visuals, portable-friendly game design, intelligent use of the dual screens. It's a top effort from Omiya Soft.

 

[Oregano]

It's really weird seeing NISA and Nintendo being all friendly.

 

[Hero of Legend]

It's really weird seeing NISA and Nintendo being all friendly.

Yeah, ditto. Also slightly surprising that XSEED didn't get it since they did The Last Story and Pandora's Tower, though there was a rumor that they were going to do Devil's Third but Nintendo pulling out at the last minute didn't go so well with XSEED.

... not that XSEED should be bitter since the game wasn't very good and bombed. You'd think XSEED would be grateful even.

 

[Santar]

Just got the mail that my copy is on the way finally.
Apparently the game doesn't have a Nordic publisher so the store i pre-ordered from had to import it. A bit concerning for future European releases from the same publisher actually.

The series hasn't ever really clicked for me before but I've always been intrigued by it and am going to give it a real go this time!
I'm always thankful for card games that are not online focused since they can be kinda rare so I really hope I end up liking it.

 

[Hero of Legend]

Just got the mail that my copy is on the way finally.
Apparently the game doesn't have a Nordic publisher so the store i pre-ordered from had to import it. A bit concerning for future European releases from the same publisher actually.

The series hasn't ever really clicked for me before but I've always been intrigued by it and am going to give it a real go this time!
I'm always thankful for card games that are not online focused since they can be kinda rare so I really hope I end up liking it.

Don't NISA games usually hit Nordic countries? Why would this be an exception? Isn't Koch Media their distributor in EU?

 

[Santar]

Don't NISA games usually hit Nordic countries? Why would this be an exception? Isn't Koch Media their distributor in EU?

All I know is what the online store told me, the game doesn't have a nordic publisher (Usually means Scandinavia) which probably means it won't be on physical store shelves in these countries, though a select few online stores seem to take in a few copies.
Of course it could be because it's a late era 3ds game but wasn't there some changeup with European publishing on NISA games not too long ago? Could be wrong on that part though.

 

[Newk86]

The free DLC promotion was a good idea, and the nature of the 3DS eShop means that you need to actually own the game to actually download it to your system pretty sure.

I know I was in both a JB Hi-Fi and EB Games over here in Australia the day after release and didn't see it on the shelf in either of the them, which was disappointing.

 

[AniHawk]

It's really weird seeing NISA and Nintendo being all friendly.

there's a storm coming. sony and their friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, they're all going to wonder how they ever thought they could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.

Yeah, ditto. Also slightly surprising that XSEED didn't get it since they did The Last Story and Pandora's Tower, though there was a rumor that they were going to do Devil's Third but Nintendo pulling out at the last minute didn't go so well with XSEED.

... not that XSEED should be bitter since the game wasn't very good and bombed. You'd think XSEED would be grateful even.

xseed was the publisher of a couple of games that were localized into english by noe and published by ncl in japan. nisa localized and published the game for both the us and eu - it's a pretty big difference in the level of effort required, not that xseed didn't put in an effort (the last story box was really nice and creative, and they did a reverse coversheet contest for pandora's tower iirc).

All I know is what the online store told me, the game doesn't have a nordic publisher (Usually means Scandinavia) which probably means it won't be on physical store shelves in these countries, though a select few online stores seem to take in a few copies.
Of course it could be because it's a late era 3ds game but wasn't there some changeup with European publishing on NISA games not too long ago? Could be wrong on that part though.

The free DLC promotion was a good idea, and the nature of the 3DS eShop means that you need to actually own the game to actually download it to your system pretty sure.

I know I was in both a JB Hi-Fi and EB Games over here in Australia the day after release and didn't see it on the shelf in either of the them, which was disappointing.

this sounds more like stores didn't have much faith in the game more than anything.

 

[Hero of Legend]

xseed was the publisher of a couple of games that were localized into english by noe and published by ncl in japan. nisa localized and published the game for both the us and eu - it's a pretty big difference in the level of effort required, not that xseed didn't put in an effort (the last story box was really nice and creative, and they did a reverse coversheet contest for pandora's tower iirc).

Yeah I realized that afterward.

there's a storm coming. sony and their friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, they're all going to wonder how they ever thought they could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.

You TEASE!