Forum - View topicNEWS: Sekai Project Lays Off Marketing Staff
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2303 |
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Typo? |
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GNPixie
Posts: 320 |
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Maybe Kickstarter-ing everything and then failing to release some of those titles on platforms you said you were going to release them on wasn't such a good idea after all? |
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Dardre
 Posts: 166 |
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How does laying off your entire marketing unit help you "to better take on the changes in the market"? I would think it would do the exact opposite.
Now, if they were dissatisfied with the quality of that marketing staff, wouldn't it have made more sense (and looked better from the pov of your costumers) to make a few changes to staff, rather than fire them all? Let me guess, they hired some slick new MBA-degree holding "genius", who is definitely going to make them into a big, big business. |
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mgosdin
 Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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Oh joy, here we go again... ( Needs to be a Harvard MBA, don't 'cha know. ) Mark Gosdin |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2246 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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You'd settle for one of those _Harvard_ hacks? Psha. It'd better be a _Standford_ MBA or you're basically paying for tap water. |
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Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1052 |
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Makes note to buy Clannad and Planetarian while Sekai's still in business.
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Mr. Dent
 Posts: 78 |
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GATE wasn't the only manga they published, they also released the first volume of The House in Fata Morgana. I do hope they'll still be able to continue the series...
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noblesse oblige
 Posts: 280 Location: Florida |
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This is most likely the result of Steam cracking down on visial novels destroying the distribution path to a health chunk of the VN market for Sekai. “Restructuring” is just the business world PR term for downsizing for survival.
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moonshine101
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I am a digital marketing expert, and can tell you from my background in IT, that you don't need an IT degree to do marketing, it is all about psychology realistically.
If they do happen to outsource to someone with a MBA they'd be foolish, I actually teach people with MBA's in marketing how to actually market because I am self-taught marketing expert and the skills you learn about marketing in college/university mean very little in the real world. The amount of 'marketers' I meet who think they are top-shit because they are have a marketing degree is hilarious, and I always correct them because marketing has changed. All you need is Youtube and Facebook to learn about marketing and you are fine. I recall someone I used to work with that was the marketing manager who knew nothing about marketing, split a/b testing, psychology behind it, the different objectives for different goals, how to make engaging ad copy and creative, landing page experience, upsells, downsells, the list goes on. But unfortunately most of the world lives on the whole basis that you need a degree because it is social proof you have the skills when most actually don't. We live in a sad world. |
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2480 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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It’s weird, because they seemed like they were going full guns when I went to their panel at Anime Central in May, though I mostly remember that session for the picture of “Grisaia Mountain”, the stack of physical rewards boxes that were finally ready to ship, years after the Grisaia kickstarter ended.
Obviously, there’s a lot of controversy with Sekai, from early on when they only offered all-ages versions of titles that had originally been 18+, to KIckstarters that took many years to complete (although that seems to be the norm for VN Kickstarters) or remain unfinished. I was surprised to learn they had an office staff… the tiny market for VNs makes me assume a company like this would be more of a shoestring mom-and-pop operation with little or no permanent staff and facilities and just a lot of freelancers (like Discotek is with DVD & Blu-Ray).
IMO, what’s killing VNs is mobage. I do a panel called “Whatever Happened to Visual Novel Anime?” (next stop: AWA) that gets into the numbers. They’re pretty bad. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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It seemed like everything Sekai touched for awhile was not the polished Japanese VN but either OEL VNs or budget Japanese VNs. Looking back in my email feed for Sekai stuff, I see Shining Song Star Nova(American), Will: A Wonderful World (Chinese), and a whole bunch of doujin Japanese games that are priced far higher than they ever should be.
No thanks Sekai. |
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invalidname
Contributor Posts: 2480 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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To be fair, though, OEL VNs are getting pretty good. What was the last VN to cause a real sensation anywhere in the world? I'd argue it's the (self-published) Doki Doki Literature Club, which got a fan translation to Japanese (and a series of Let's Play videos from Kizuna Ai herself). |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4627 |
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Wording like that is usually code for the budget is running thin and they had to choose between the people working on their products, and the ones trying to sell them. I doubt it had much to do with the quality of anyone's work. |
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S0crates
 Posts: 227 Location: Banned - Noticed our poor ethics |
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What was that? Tsk, It'd better be a *School of Life* MBA or you're basically submitting to communism. |
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derpherp
Posts: 1 |
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Their Kickstarter jumped by $16k from only 22 backers the day after everyone got laid off. That is not suspect at all /s.
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