Their gaming division suffered losses primarily due to recent game releases falling short of expectations, despite the notable success of “Fashion Dreamer” for Nintendo Switch, which sold nearly half a million units.
https://corp.marv.jp/library/img/tanshin3q2024.pdf
Overall company sales reached 21,760 million yen, marking an 18.2% increase year-on-year. However, operating income plummeted to 1,390 million yen, reflecting a significant 56.2% decrease compared to the same period last year.
In the Digital Contents Business, focusing on video games, sales rose to 12,137 million yen, representing an 18.2% increase year-on-year. However, this segment incurred a loss of 300 million yen, a notable decline from the 1,635 million yen profit recorded in the corresponding period last year.
Honestly, Marvelous’ decline doesn’t come as a surprise to me personally.
The Senran Kagura franchise has been effectively dormant for quite some time now, especially since series creator Kenichiro Takaki parted ways with the company nearly five years ago due to Sony Interactive Entertainment’s censorship interventions concerning Senran Kagura 7EVEN.
With one of their most infamous franchises effectively shelved (due to Sony), Marvelous appears to have shifted towards adopting more Western ideals and policies for future releases. Since the aforementioned ordeal, they have not released any “lewd” games but instead have focused entirely on farming simulators.
The final straw for me undeniably has to be the launch of Rune Factory 5, a game notorious for its piss poor performance and numerous game-breaking bugs and glitches. However, clipping through the floor and plummeting endlessly, along with frequent crashes, aren’t the only issues plaguing the game.
More rather Marvelous in their infinite wisdom decided to give their players a choice, Rune Factory being a notorious franchise for its unique blend of dungeon crawling, farming simulation but mainly its romance mechanics.
The franchises staple is the ability to develop a relationship with one of many different heroines which culminates in marriage.
Naturally, this carries over into Rune Factory 5, however Western influence essentially bastardizes it entirely but not in the same way of how Fire Emblem Engage’s localization dumbed down the entire context for relationships and inserted friendship instead.
The game launched completely broken, but rather than actually taking the time to fix the several game breaking glitches, Marvelous (and XSEED) instead decided to incorporate same-sex marriage options in the game instead via a forced update.
The inclusion of same-sex marriage options upset the core Japanese audience of the franchise, who took to Twitter to express their frustrations as to why Marvelous and XSEED would prioritize homosexual relationships over actual bug fixes.
Of course, such a significant change introduced through a game update was bound to cause issues, and it certainly did in Rune Factory 5. Following the addition of same-sex marriage options, male marriage candidates now appeared to aggressively pursue the player with every interaction, creating a disruptive experience for heterosexual players.
Data miners uncovered plans by Marvelous and XSEED to introduce DLC for Rune Factory 5, which would have enabled players to pursue romances with new heroines such as Livia and Radea.
Voice lines related to character confessions and marriage dialogue were discovered within the game files, indicating intentions for content that was never officially released.
The combination of forced homosexuality, along with a broken and buggy game featuring sparse and limited straight romance options, compounded by the censorship of upskirts using a black void, has understandably led to a feeling of betrayal among Marvelous’ core audience.
Consequently, many of them seem eager to distance themselves and their wallet from the company entirely, this whole ordeal may have happened a handful of years ago however the impact has continued to be felt by Marvelous ever since.
Rune Factory 5 sold over 500,000 units worldwide, a tremendous success for Marvelous and XSEED, however the following release of Rune Factory 3 Special, a remake of the original RF3, essentially flopped with Famitsu reporting that the game had only managed to shift 16,627 copies during its release week, versus the 102,853 copies sold during Rune Factory 5’s launch week.
Knowing all of this it’s hardly shocking that Marvelous is facing financial difficulties. Having forsaken their core audience long ago, the sales of their newer games such as Fashion Dreamer and Silent Hope have fallen far short of expectations. Consequently, they have failed to recoup development costs, resulting in operating losses.
Fashion Dreamer, launched exclusively for Nintendo Switch, achieved sales of nearly 500,000 units worldwide. This success was bolstered by the ongoing strong performance of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, which was released in the preceding fiscal year and continues to perform admirably.
Dolphin Wave, the jet battle mobile gacha game, continues to show strong performance, albeit experiencing an expected decline in sales compared to the same period last year, which included its robust launch quarter.
Older mobile games like Shinobi Master Senran Kagura: New Link and others also made consistent contributions to earnings thanks to collaborative announcements with the likes of Azur Lane, although their sales have decreased over time.
Consequently, Marvelous has revised its full-year forecast for the fiscal year ending on March 31. Sales have been adjusted upward from 27,000 million yen to 28,500 million yen, while operating profit has been revised downward from 3,500 million yen to 2,000 million yen, marking a 42.9% reduction.
In response to the underperformance, which is being taken seriously, Marvelous’ executives have volunteered to take a pay cut. Specifically, the CEO will take a 30% reduction, and Directors will take a 12% reduction in pay from February to April 2024.
The detrimental influence of progressive ideology persists at Marvelous. Even if they were to undergo a complete reversal and rid themselves of feminist Western localizers, their products would still suffer.
This is because the company has prioritized Western culture and sensitivities over creating quality content that players truly desire. Moreover, they have neglected to address issues such as fixing buggy and broken games, which has ultimately led to the demise of the Rune Factory franchise by forcefully including same-sex relations over everything else.
So long as Marvelous continue with their American branch of XSEED Games, they are doomed to fail.
