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NEWS: CyberAgent to Acquire Creative Company Nitroplus for 16.7 Billion Yen




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Polly E.



Joined: 26 Sep 2007
Posts: 140
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2024 7:59 am Reply with quote
One of the most prominent and prolific producers of classic and quality visual novels being acquired by this group is enough for pause. They're apparently receiving funds to continue projects that needed the money and their "freedom of content creation will remain unchanged," but my pessimism keeps this feeling real shaky.

Not hard to imagine a world where we're seeing Steins;Gate, Saya no Uta, and Muramasa-branded gachas coming out or talent getting funneled to Cygames' gacha game content/assets.

Crossing my fingers on this one.
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WANNFH



Joined: 13 Mar 2011
Posts: 1727
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2024 8:32 am Reply with quote
Polly E. wrote:
One of the most prominent and prolific producers of classic and quality visual novels being acquired by this group is enough for pause. They're apparently receiving funds to continue projects that needed the money and their "freedom of content creation will remain unchanged," but my pessimism keeps this feeling real shaky.

Not hard to imagine a world where we're seeing Steins;Gate, Saya no Uta, and Muramasa-branded gachas coming out or talent getting funneled to Cygames' gacha game content/assets.

Crossing my fingers on this one.
Well, it also can go both way with Cygames (though CA itself have not only Cygames, but also other studios like Applibot under it), which in a couple of years developed a portfolio outside of gacha gaming (GBF Versus/Relink, Little Noah, Umamusume: Party Dash) and also produced anime series that had nothing to do with gacha (Zombieland Saga, Akiba Maid War, Bravern).

And honestly, at this point Nitro+ as visual novel brand kinda lost itself amongst the loss of interest to VN market itself (last that when N+ did a new game was in 2018 with Mojika), while Science/ADV brand belong to MAGES. as a publisher (which since 2020 belong to Colopl) - so CA got nothing with it when purchasing N+.
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MunchiMunch



Joined: 22 Nov 2020
Posts: 22
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2024 9:17 pm Reply with quote
Polly E. wrote:
One of the most prominent and prolific producers of classic and quality visual novels being acquired by this group is enough for pause. They're apparently receiving funds to continue projects that needed the money and their "freedom of content creation will remain unchanged," but my pessimism keeps this feeling real shaky.

Not hard to imagine a world where we're seeing Steins;Gate, Saya no Uta, and Muramasa-branded gachas coming out or talent getting funneled to Cygames' gacha game content/assets.

Crossing my fingers on this one.


Just to clarify, the acquisition wasn’t about money. Nitroplus was doing fine on its own funding its own company and games, which Cyber Agent and Nitro+ discuss in the original article. It was apparently more of an issue with management and organization, which prevented the creators in the company from being able to make and release whatever they want. The plan to join with Cyber Agent was to help with business management, strengthen Nitro’s organization power, and create a system to help them release quality content faster while still using the original ideas from the employees, which is why there is such an emphasis on Nitro+ not being forced to give up their creative freedom as a company, which is what they’re known for.

No doubt Cyber Agent will also help fund these projects, and also lend out some of the technology for Nitro+ to use, but yeah.

And I don’t know about that last part. Like, how do you even make a Saya no Uta gacha game? What would it even be about? Nitro+ did say they aren’t going to change the way they usually do business, so I don’t know. I think they’re just going to churn out more visual novels faster, meanwhile Touken Ranbu will probably be the IP that gets milked by Cyber Agent and turned into a weird gacha game.
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MunchiMunch



Joined: 22 Nov 2020
Posts: 22
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2024 9:26 pm Reply with quote
WANNFH wrote:
Polly E. wrote:
One of the most prominent and prolific producers of classic and quality visual novels being acquired by this group is enough for pause. They're apparently receiving funds to continue projects that needed the money and their "freedom of content creation will remain unchanged," but my pessimism keeps this feeling real shaky.

Not hard to imagine a world where we're seeing Steins;Gate, Saya no Uta, and Muramasa-branded gachas coming out or talent getting funneled to Cygames' gacha game content/assets.

Crossing my fingers on this one.
Well, it also can go both way with Cygames (though CA itself have not only Cygames, but also other studios like Applibot under it), which in a couple of years developed a portfolio outside of gacha gaming (GBF Versus/Relink, Little Noah, Umamusume: Party Dash) and also produced anime series that had nothing to do with gacha (Zombieland Saga, Akiba Maid War, Bravern).

And honestly, at this point Nitro+ as visual novel brand kinda lost itself amongst the loss of interest to VN market itself (last that when N+ did a new game was in 2018 with Mojika), while Science/ADV brand belong to MAGES. as a publisher (which since 2020 belong to Colopl) - so CA got nothing with it when purchasing N+.


> And honestly, at this point Nitro+ as visual novel brand kinda lost itself amongst the loss of interest to VN market itself (last that when N+ did a new game was in 2018 with Mojika), while Science/ADV brand belong to MAGES. as a publisher (which since 2020 belong to Colopl) - so CA got nothing with it when purchasing N+.

I don’t think it was because of the loss of interest in the VN market.

They explain in the article that the slow down was because of management and a lack of organization in the company, which prevented their creators from being able to make the games they like. This is why they approached Cyber Agent to help with these things, and allowed them to acquire them.

It can also probably be blamed on Touken Ranbu, which Nitro also made, and which has a looot going on as a multimedia franchise. I remember in a 2022 article, Digitarou, the company president, said he has a lot on his plate because of all of the projects the franchise has going on, most of which he has some involvement in. That could also explain the slowdown if they have to focus on managing Touken Ranbu as a franchise.

All that said, who knows if after this, they’ll go back to releasing Visual Novels at a faster pace. I don’t remember them saying anything about new VN’s specifically, saying more like “New IPs” which could mean anything.
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Chipp12



Joined: 30 Mar 2012
Posts: 312
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2024 3:38 am Reply with quote
MunchiMunch wrote:
All that said, who knows if after this, they’ll go back to releasing Visual Novels at a faster pace. I don’t remember them saying anything about new VN’s specifically, saying more like “New IPs” which could mean anything.

Digitarou did mention that there's a new ADV game (VN) in a development about a year ago.
Maybe now they'll be able to work on it more efficiently (especially since the company celebrates 25th anniversary this year and they've got nothing to show aside from Rusty Rabbit and Dolls Nest supposedly releasing this year)


Last edited by Chipp12 on Fri Jun 28, 2024 2:13 am; edited 1 time in total
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Southkaio



Joined: 11 Jul 2012
Posts: 350
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2024 11:11 am Reply with quote
What will happen with the brand-new Puella Magi Madoka Magica movie titled "Walpurgisnacht Rising", helmed by Urobuchi?
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WANNFH



Joined: 13 Mar 2011
Posts: 1727
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2024 11:47 am Reply with quote
Southkaio wrote:
What will happen with the brand-new Puella Magi Madoka Magica movie titled "Walpurgisnacht Rising", helmed by Urobuchi?
Nothing? PMMM as a brand owned by Aniplex and Shaft, so Nitroplus purchase will affect nothing with its production.
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Chipp12



Joined: 30 Mar 2012
Posts: 312
PostPosted: Fri Jun 28, 2024 2:14 am Reply with quote
Southkaio wrote:
What will happen with the brand-new Puella Magi Madoka Magica movie titled "Walpurgisnacht Rising", helmed by Urobuchi?

Hopefully it ends up actually being released.
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