After they wrap up translating and editing the four visual novels they promised fans, Sol Press will be winding down their publishing arm of visual novels, mostly due to Valve’s inconsistent and unreliable setup for allowing the software on Steam. Instead, Sol Press will be focused on light novels and mangas.
The news came via a post on the Sol Press blog, where they announced that Irotoridori no Sekai, Nukitashi, Happiness! and Love Among the Sunflowers are all progressing well and that they will eventually complete and release those titles to the public. Following that, however, publishing visual novels will be brought to a halt save for special occasions or high demand for sequels.
In the blog they explain…
“To further our efforts with our book publishing, we are, regrettably, going to be phasing out of visual novel publishing. As of right now, we intend to finish all announced projects, but we currently do not have any plans to pick up more VN licenses (with the exception of sequels if demand is sufficient). There is simply too much uncertainty surrounding their publishing in terms of things like releasing on Steam, which is by and far the largest VN distribution platform available, in an already niche market. Couple that with the extremely high cost of licensing, production, and additional fees, and it simply does not bode well for our long-term goals and release schedules.”
To further explain, Steam does have the largest share of visual novel consumption in the digital space, and so if you want your visual novel to have any sort of chance of breaking even or making profits, you NEED to be on Steam in order to garner visibility from the 100 million+ userbase.
If you’re not on Steam, then it’s going to be very, very, very difficult to get eyes on your product, or you’re going to need a very aggressive marketing campaign so people can find your product on other digital distribution platforms.
Valve knows this, which is why their software curators, oftentimes referred to as “Taste Police”, will bully developers into censoring content, like what they did with Simon Creative and Food Girls, or outright ban games they don’t want on the platform to deter visual novel creators from pursuing certain kinds of content, specifically stories revolving around school settings or college campuses.
Even all-ages versions of games set in college have been banned, such as My Girlfriend.
Valve has also been unfairly targeting a lot of Asian developers, some of whom outright called Valve’s antics “discrimination”.
Valve has repeatedly said that they only ban games that are “trolling” or “illegal”, but that isn’t always true. They target games that they claimed as “legally grey”, and then ban them at their own discretion and purposeful misinterpretation of the law, which is why completely legal games like They Key To Home were banned twice, all while games like Life Is Strange 2 were allowed on the platform despite featuring underage sex scenes.
Another big problem is that communities on Reddit and social media have lied to many developers, claiming that there “are no issues” with putting games on Steam, and that Valve is only banning “illegal” games, which has unfortunately resulted in many developers finding out firsthand that such claims are untrue. After years of hard work they’re met with bans, all while those same people who claimed that Valve wasn’t banning games slink into the shadows and ignore the censorship taking place.
We’ve cataloged many of the games that have been banned from Steam for either unclear or duplicitous reasons, but given the misinformation spread by aforementioned communities, many developers don’t know about the bans or aren’t informed enough to collectively have Valve address or clarify their content submission rules.
As for Sol Press, they’re not going to give up on publishing visual novels entirely. They note that they may keep their toes “dipped in” the genre depending on the circumstances, where they write…
“As much as stepping away from VNs is a necessary move for us, everyone at Sol Press loves the medium, and we have hopes that we don’t have to stop publishing VNs entirely. If at all possible, once we get things sorted in regards to publishing our light novels and manga, we’d like to keep our toes dipped in, so to speak, and pick up the occasional VN. Doing so will depend on numerous factors, so we don’t want to make any promises that this is something that will happen, but we’re all such big fans that we definitely don’t want to drop the medium as a whole. We’ll work to keep you updated on what happens in that regard.”
But for now, once they finish up their four visual novels currently in development, they will be stepping away from publishing visual novels.
(Thanks for the news tip KH100HCHA)