Clannad and Angel Beats Visual Arts Sells to Tencent! Massive Changes to Come?

No eroges to begin with

Will this affect their visual novel's availability on platforms such as Steam?

Honestly speaking, I think the main thing that is gonna be affected by this is the censorship of things, which for the most part isn't the main draw for what Key VNs... but it's still a worrying factor nonetheless.

Also for the most part gacha games are just the current "evolution" of Visual Novels as much as people hate to accept it.

They said they looked for a Japanese buyer, and no one was interested.

Visual novels are an excellent medium for Indy developers, those people who really want them will find them and those that want to create them have a much lower burden of entry.

If anything, the Chinese audience appreciate KEY IPs and hopefully with the right people, they can capitalize it in places that VA can't ever reach on their own. However, if we look at the crazy situation with Winnie the Xi's regime, one wrong move and the whole industry (not just Tencent Games) could come crashing down. I remind everyone of the cram school industry in China 3 years ago.

BUT OTOH, VA's is technically more than just KEY. What about the other ones?

Even way before HBR, FGO has already prove this is the trend, so there’s really no need to be surprised. Just adapt and cherish the “true” visual novels that you can still read. I have tried so many times to push people around me to read vn, but this medium might just be too time-consuming for modern people anyway and they tend to go watch anime adaptation of it as a faster but incomplete experience. And too bad if a vn failed to get properly adapted, it would just be a mediocre impression for most people even if the original is a masterpiece artwork. Going gacha is just the most save way to keep its fanbase alive.

p.s: Also not hating on the gacha, as HBR is a really good quality game with story telling that rival many good vn. It’s just like you said, as a gacha it can’t have routes or critical decision points that would divide the story path as like traditional vn.

Just hope they don't ruin the legacy of their best works, especially Clannad
(If they decide to do new stuff with them and it ends out being surprisingly good, then color me impressed)

Gacha is always a skip for me.

look whats happening with muv luv. they said the future of muv luv depends on how successful their gacha game becomes. i could be wrong but vns sales are hard to sell these days

Get the Kyoto Animation adaptations of these Visual Novels.
Enjoy them whole they are still in print.

Fan Translation of these Key Visual Novels are the only way to play these games.
Just play the Fan Translations with English Patches as they would never be localized officially.
Visual Novel Companies that disappear, Peach Princess and G-Collections as well as Hirameki are examples of English Localized Visual Novel companies who have gone since the late 2000s/early 2010s.

Feels like every time a visual novel company gets a blockbuster they go to more profitable games and media same thing to nitro plus. Indie vn is all we are going to get.

At least he didn't sell it to American company.

“Damn the Chinese, I will never forgive them” the racist jojo’s I guess

Honestly speaking as a long-term Key fan who has kept up with them for the past 10 years, I personally think that whether Key stayed independent, went to Tencent, or went to another place, Key have passed their glory days and were pretty much going on a downhill path. Baba failed to make the smart money moves when they mattered and failed to find a successor to pivot Key when Key went through their dark years. Maeda hit his peak over a decade ago, and his successor (Tonokawa) left Key. As much as I respect Baba and Maeda, the problem has always been the dependence Key has had only on them to run the company.

Hisaya, Kai, Kashida, and/or Suzumoto could've stayed at Key full-time and created/planned/conceptualized stories for the company, meanwhile Hinoue and Tonokawa wouldn't have left the company in the first place. Key would've been producing at least 2 IP's every year without anyone feeling overworked instead of depending solely on Maeda's hit-or-miss ideas. But at least even if Key heads in the direction of Gacha, we'll still have Leaf, 07th Expansion, Frontwing, and maybe novamicus depending on how they move forward after the ONE. remake.

@Otaku Spirit Tencent gets a bad rep due to their smartphone game side, but Tencent has been involved, and have been even making, amazing anime in recent years.

PS. There's a ton of VNs being made these days, not counting indies, you want to check out idea factory, they make tons of VNs under the deveper(whom they own), called Otomate.

When a company says multiple times "we are not gonna change", one huge red flag rises.

I don't trust tencent at all. Big problem are the strict rules and censorship over there.

This is very concerning and I pray that it doesn’t get ruined because of it.

Well to me Heaven Burns Red is done for. No way I will pay for any future gacha which will indirectly fund a regime and support its genocide.

with how much censorship and changes that has happened over the industry over the years yeah I'm not giving key a chance anymore I've loved their anime adaptations so much when I was a teen I watched so many of their anime adaptations. ive bought dvds and certain games from them physically and digitally. the company will change in a way and i know i dont want to support it lets face it theres a high chance they could censor their content and try to suck out as much money as possible. i will always love the key content i grew up with thats why it hurts to see whats become of the company behind these miraculous works.

air kanon clannad angel beats little busters will always have a special place in my heart. i do not want to support tencent owned intellectual properties as much as possible.

I want to wait and see. The announcement for this included the fact they have a new VN, a new anime and a new gacha in the works. So I have a slimmer of hope with more VNs on the way. As long as they keep doing English localizations for the VNs I will have some hope. They announced Lunaria and Tsui no Stella are supposed to come later this year in English plus Summer Pockets Reflection Blue, hope those loc projects are still going fine since they did mention a want to continue offering their titles globally.

Gtfo tencent, I'd stay the hell out of anything related to china

I'm sad to see it to be passed on, but to a Chinese company is a no no. It's China, they have strict policy in their country and I dislike this idea.

I just don't like seeing a Japanese company become a subsidiary of a Chinese corporation.

Tldr: I think visual novels and gatcha games have the potential to be a really positive option, but corporations and devs always go for the worst and least effort possible option.

I think visual novels and gacha games could be a good combo. Like having basically a full series adapted. It could be an awesome way to get continual content. Like you could have the anime series provide early art for the series and they make the game out of it while the anime is coming out. Or it fund's an anime.

But in actuality how gacha game seem to work for the most part is that it's some side story that is very basic and then they stop supporting it 5 years later for the ones that get moderate success. Then it leaves all the stores and no way to play it again. So you'd never be able to play it again.

I wonder what sweet lies they had to tell the old man to get him to sell to them. I give it 5 years tops before the company's original staff is gutted with only the most spineless of yes men remaining on board as they are forced to churn out gatcha games based on their once beloved IPs. If by some miracle they are still making visual novels, they will be neutered husks of what they once were.

They didn't even make heaven burns red by themselves though wright flier studio helped them which is a great gacha game company. Even if they are shifting to gacha they prob don't have the manpower to make any themselves. Also, god knows of Jun Maeda will stick around if there are things that he won't be able to put into his stories cause of the Chinese audience and the CCP.

...i was happy to see news of my favorite show for a moment...

Can continue to create good stories just nothing with time travel cause that could overthrow the CCP. Time travel stories are banned in China for real look it up.

To be fair to the Chinese games industry their gacha games are top tier in terms of quality. Creative liberty not so much, which I imagine visual novels need a lot of if you want to tell a good story. Ain't no way a tencent funded Chinese developer can make something like Nukitashi without getting heavily censored.

people dont realize this is a issue its not just anime stuff. Tencent is buying everything Games, studios, Companys. and when they get them they censor them and put chinese proganada into the games look at PUBG. This is bad and we need goverments across the world to stop tencent

O_o