Why won't they allow us to buy SuperRobotWars V?

[L-laine]

It's on the steam store now but us in the western world can't see it or purchase it. What was the point of a steam release with english subs then if we can't even buy it legit?

[Willem]

One Word: Licensing

Bandai Namco owns the entire Gundam Franchise, meaning they hold all the licenses, that includes overseas and do not have to pay anything for their use, with Super Robot Wars however... they do not have all the Licenses in the US/Europe, and thusly the costs of acquiring the Licenses would probably far outweigh any gain from sales.

And the English version is not made for us, but for the Asia region where a lot of English speaking people are.

TLDR: Copyright Shenanigans are a bi***

[manny01999]

the copyright holders for the west is all over the place that would have to be paid if directly brought to the west. I dunno why they did a steam release when numbers would be theoretically low

[Ralen]

Originally posted by Willem:

One Word: Licensing

Bandai Namco owns the entire Gundam Franchise, meaning they hold all the licenses, that includes overseas and do not have to pay anything for their use, with Super Robot Wars however... they do not have all the Licenses in the US/Europe, and thusly the costs of acquiring the Licenses would probably far outweigh any gain from sales.

And the English version is not made for us, but for the Asia region where a lot of English speaking people are.

TLDR: Copyright Shenanigans are a bi***

This isn’t 100% true. Bandai Namco doesn’t actually own the license to the Gundam TV series. Sotsu does, which is why Bandai Namco needs to pay a licensing fee to use the various Gundam series.

This is actually why SD Gundam and SRW use the super deformed robot art style, because they only have to pay for one license for Gundam instead of individual ones for every series.

That being said, Bandai Namco is currently in the process of buying Sotsu, so in the near future they should have 100% ownership of the Gundam IP.

As far as SRW, yeah it’s a licensing issue because of the other IP’s included that are more obscure that Bandai Namco doesn’t own. Indeed, the English version exists because of countries like Singapore, where one of their official languages is English. These games aren’t made with the West in mind at all sadly.

[Mentally Unstable]

Originally posted by manny01999:

the copyright holders for the west is all over the place that would have to be paid if directly brought to the west. I dunno why they did a steam release when numbers would be theoretically low

I guess that the effort needed to port it to pc is simple and cheap enough that even a limited release would still be profitable.

Given that they just put up SRW X for sale on steam as well, I guess they are pleased with the sales of V so far for a limited release.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1031510/

[Willem]

@Kamille Bidan

Thanks for clarifying, looks like I just had a literal case of "Spoke too soon" about the Gundam IP

@Mentally Unstable

Eh, no, Limited Release would be even less profitable, and it is not the costs of porting the game, but as mentioned above, the costs of the licenses, since the licenses for every single series featured would have to be obtained regardless for an official release, Limited or otherwise, which outweighs any eventual profit that can be made.

[Sayla Massochist]

2 words:

Harmony Gold

They are the Western Distribution Rights holder for the series Macross (a SRW staple). They bought the rights during the initial anime boom of the mid 80s and mashed together the first three Macross series into a mishmashed Saturday morning cartoon called Robotech. Since then they have simply been content to sit on the license, releasing a DVD/Blu Ray every 10 years or so to maintain the rights. Since they have never really brought proper versions of any Macross series, and none since the original three used for Robotech, Macross never really took off outside of Asia. But, they apparently still demand a rather steep price to use the Macross/Robotech license and no one in their right mind is paying them a million dollars to license the rights for a practically unknown anime.

[Mentally Unstable]

Originally posted by Sayla Massochist:

2 words:

Harmony Gold

They are the Western Distribution Rights holder for the series Macross (a SRW staple). They bought the rights during the initial anime boom of the mid 80s and mashed together the first three Macross series into a mishmashed Saturday morning cartoon called Robotech. Since then they have simply been content to sit on the license, releasing a DVD/Blu Ray every 10 years or so to maintain the rights. Since they have never really brought proper versions of any Macross series, and none since the original three used for Robotech, Macross never really took off outside of Asia. But, they apparently still demand a rather steep price to use the Macross/Robotech license and no one in their right mind is paying them a million dollars to license the rights for a practically unknown anime.

Name sounds familiar. They are the ones had a conflict with the devs of the battletech pc game as well right? They hold the rights to titles involved in SRW too?

[Sayla Massochist]

Originally posted by Mentally Unstable:

Originally posted by Sayla Massochist:

2 words:

Harmony Gold

They are the Western Distribution Rights holder for the series Macross (a SRW staple). They bought the rights during the initial anime boom of the mid 80s and mashed together the first three Macross series into a mishmashed Saturday morning cartoon called Robotech. Since then they have simply been content to sit on the license, releasing a DVD/Blu Ray every 10 years or so to maintain the rights. Since they have never really brought proper versions of any Macross series, and none since the original three used for Robotech, Macross never really took off outside of Asia. But, they apparently still demand a rather steep price to use the Macross/Robotech license and no one in their right mind is paying them a million dollars to license the rights for a practically unknown anime.

Name sounds familiar. They are the ones had a conflict with the devs of the battletech pc game as well right? They hold the rights to titles involved in SRW too?

Yes. Battletech apparently had models that resembled in some way the mech designs of Macross. Harmony Gold is what is known as a "Right sitter". Basically mean they make their money by holding an IPs right and someone paying licensing fees or suing anyone who does anything even passingly similar.

[Willem]

@Mentally Unstable if said Super Robot Wars game has ANY Macross Series in it, then yes.

[Mentally Unstable]

Originally posted by Willem:

@Mentally Unstable

Eh, no, Limited Release would be even less profitable, and it is not the costs of porting the game, but as mentioned above, the costs of the licenses, since the licenses for every single series featured would have to be obtained regardless for an official release, Limited or otherwise, which outweighs any eventual profit that can be made.

I was answering in the context of the question posed by the person I quoted - " I dunno why they did a steam release when numbers would be theoretically low"

You are right about the licensing fees being prohibitive enough that they resulted in Bandai not releasing SRW V pc to countries outside of Asia. Like you mentioned, Bandai does not have all the licenses in US/EU. However, I was trying to explain why Bandai still decided to go ahead to release the game in a limited manner(ie excluding western market) despite potentially low sales figures. The license fees for an asia only release coupled with relatively cheap porting are low enough that a profit can still be made from an Asia only customer base.

[Willem]

@Mentally Unstable

Got it, thanks for clarifying that part.

[Aya]

Originally posted by Mentally Unstable:

Originally posted by manny01999:

the copyright holders for the west is all over the place that would have to be paid if directly brought to the west. I dunno why they did a steam release when numbers would be theoretically low

I guess that the effort needed to port it to pc is simple and cheap enough that even a limited release would still be profitable.

Given that they just put up SRW X for sale on steam as well, I guess they are pleased with the sales of V so far for a limited release.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1031510/

Here's hoping X is also a success, cuz I'm gonna guess BB Studio will base their decision on continuing their PC support over the SWR games.