News of Disgaea smartphone RPG reveals NIS is in financial hot water; not able to pay employees.

casiopao · May 20, 2019

Pandora012 said:
Why did they work with forwardworks instead of Aniplex? Both of which are sony companies, and one of which has the popular game FGO.

Because Forward Works is cheaper to work with vs Aniplex..... who had zero reason to work with Nis when they had their own Ip to work with?

Spyder_Monkey said:
I'm pretty sure the Sony thing is just an excuse. Fact of the matter is they put out too much, too fast, and none of it sold.

Nah. Based on their financial they at least still able to work on those slims profit there. It is the mobage failure that killed them totally there.

zarathusta · May 20, 2019

damn this sucks

casiopao · May 20, 2019

Actually. I think some Chinese company can just come and save NIS i guess? There is no need for jp company here.

We see with Tri ace, SnK. And probably Nis this time?

Kieli · May 20, 2019

I have to imagine it is more expensive to churn out 10s of games per year. Even if they purchase assets instead of making them from scratch, that costs money that they don't have.

CaviarMeths · May 20, 2019

Sad news. I really hope they pull through. Been a fan since Disgaea 2. Their output for a company their size is insane though, and a big failure in the mobile market can spell doom pretty easily.

Deleted member 5535 · May 20, 2019

There's more news here on ANN:

Nippon Ichi Software announced on Friday that it will issue stock warrants through a third party allotment, issuing 3,750 warrants for an issue price of 837 yen each (for 3,138,750 yen in total) in order to aim to raise funds equivalent to 573,638,750 yen (about US$5.20 million).

This type of MS ("moving strike") warrant is often used by companies to raise funds due to being unable to borrow from banks or investors due to already being in deficit. While the sale of stocks at cheaper prices generates funds quickly, existing investors lose out due to dilution of their own stocks, leading to investors losing trust in the company.

If Nippon Ichi Software raises the required 573,638,750 yen, it noted that it will use 369,638,750 yen (about US$3.35 million) for paying its employees, 170,000,000 yen (about US$1.54 million) for paying for partial outsourcing of development, and 34,000,000 yen (about US$308,500) for investing in development. These payments will be implemented in June and will be used through June 2021.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/ne...-stocks-at-lower-price-to-raise-funds/.146902

Pandora012 said:
Why did they work with forwardworks instead of Aniplex? Both of which are sony companies, and one of which has the popular game FGO.

casiopao said:
Because Forward Works is cheaper to work with vs Aniplex..... who had zero reason to work with Nis when they had their own Ip to work with?

Nah. Based on their financial they at least still able to work on those slims profit there. It is the mobage failure that killed them totally there.

Aniplex isn't a developer but a publisher/operator of their mobile titles. The developers are other companies contracted by them, unlike Forwardworks

casiopao · May 20, 2019

Kieli said:
I have to imagine it is more expensive to churn out 10s of games per year. Even if they purchase assets instead of making them from scratch, that costs money that they don't have.

If only they like cut those 10 games into 5 games but focus on making them more successful, they would not be in such bad position.

CaviarMeths said:
Sad news. I really hope they pull through. Been a fan since Disgaea 2. Their output for a company their size is insane though, and a big failure in the mobile market can spell doom pretty easily.

Now, compile heart future is going to be scary as heck too lol. As they also partner with the hand of bomba Forward Works atm for mobage.

AniHawk · May 20, 2019

MegaXZero said:
https://boards.fireden.net/v/thread/461447908/
No clue if they were trustworthy, but the point in their favor was they apparently had access to NISA's file system? They went by DaniRamenNIS, and a ton of people asked them questions. They mentioned Disgaea 6 was shelved as they had to recoup the mobile game's losses.

The only problem is they mention Danganronpa but that wasn't an NIS game so I was confused.

Deleted member 8593 · May 20, 2019

Mobile hasn't been the land of milk and honey for a while now, in many regards it's even more competitive than the traditional market. NIS must have been extremely optimistic for this to backfire so hard.

casiopao · May 20, 2019

Dardan Sandiego said:
Mobile hasn't been the land of milk and honey for a while now, in many regards it's even more competitive than the traditional market. NIS must have been extremely optimistic for this to backfire so hard.

NIS must never check FW track record first lol.

And indeed, mobage market have been so crowded nowadays. Especially with how China and South Korea is also entering mobage market hard.

Tiggleton · May 20, 2019

AniHawk said:
at this point, disgaea 6 should be out on ps5.

Wouldn't that doom the game in Japan since it took them forever to jump on board with the PS4? On top of that I don't see how people would be more likely to buy Disgaea 6 in the west on PS5 than on PS4 and Switch. T

It really sucks to hear people dunking on NIS's smaller titles in this thread. I'm really glad NIS started to branch out more instead of recycling Disgaea style games over and over again.

I agree with people saying they should cut their output down. The only game from NIS I'm at all excited for is Destiny Connect right now. I hope it sells enough in the west to justify making a better sequel.

fiendcode · May 20, 2019

casiopao said:
Actually. I think some Chinese company can just come and save NIS i guess? There is no need for jp company here.

We see with Tri ace, SnK. And probably Nis this time?

I thought Nepro (who bought tri-Ace) was a Japanese company? They also own Game Studio.

Lusamine · May 20, 2019

Dardan Sandiego said:
Mobile hasn't been the land of milk and honey for a while now, in many regards it's even more competitive than the traditional market. NIS must have been extremely optimistic for this to backfire so hard.

It was on track to be a huge success so they'd be dumb to not pour whatever was needed to strengthen the launch content.

casiopao · May 20, 2019

Tiggleton said:
Wouldn't that doom the game in Japan since it took them forever to jump on board with the PS4? On top of that I don't see how people would be more likely to buy Disgaea 6 in the west on PS5 than on PS4 and Switch. T

It really sucks to hear people dunking on NIS's smaller titles in this thread. I'm really glad NIS started to branch out more instead of recycling Disgaea style games over and over again.

I agree with people saying they should cut their output down. The only game from NIS I'm at all excited for is Destiny Connect right now. I hope it sells enough in the west to justify making a better sequel.

I dont think many hated NIS small game effort there. It just need to be more focused. Like maybe from 16 games a year, probably make it like 8 games a year? With more budget for marketing and increasing the scope of those games. I feel thats a much better thing to do.

fiendcode said:
I thought Nepro (who bought tri-Ace) was a Japanese company? They also own Game Studio.

I probably remember wrongly than kek. TT

Curler · May 20, 2019

DarKaoZ said:
This explains why SNK store (powered by NIS) is closing in a few days, or closed already. Either of those, I thought it was due to SNK, but it seems it was NIS the one in hot water. This sucks =/

I think it's already gone? The links just all redirect back to the new NISA main storefront. Was always weird to have it as a separate thing, when they always carried the titles in the main store, anyways. Only 2 SNK titles came out of it, so I guess I can assume that we shouldn't expect to see some sort of Samurai Shodown LE release on there?

Foffy · May 20, 2019

Dardan Sandiego said:
Mobile hasn't been the land of milk and honey for a while now, in many regards it's even more competitive than the traditional market. NIS must have been extremely optimistic for this to backfire so hard.

Gonna assume their release of Makai Wars gave them enough hope that a Disgaea game would get them good money. I may be mistaken but unlike Makai Wars, which was largely developed externally, NIS was much more involved with this project. They were in trouble the moment they lost a third of their stock due to the delay caused by the questionable launch.

Fair to say that this turmoil has likely put Disgaea 6 and Labyrinth of Galleria in dire situations as far as NIS traditional projects go, I guess.

MegaXZero · May 20, 2019

AniHawk said:

Yeah that part about Danganronpa was really too suspicious.

Deleted member 6730 · May 20, 2019

Oregano said:
To some extent sure, like said earlier this might be just the straw that broke the camel's back but as DarkDetective pointed out, they have still managing to make a (meagre) profit right up until this year.

Someone earlier also mentioned that a supposed leaker on 4chan had described the project was a giant moneysink before this. It would be interesting to see the source on that.

Sure, but a mobile spin-off rpg just doesn't kill your company overnight.

Oregano · May 20, 2019

Spyder_Monkey said:
Sure, but a mobile spin-off rpg just doesn't kill your company overnight.

Well it did take a 1/3 of the value of their shares literally overnight.

Foffy · May 20, 2019

Spyder_Monkey said:
Sure, but a mobile spin-off rpg just doesn't kill your company overnight.

They depended very heavily on the stock market in Japan due to how small they are. The botched launch of this game, larger audience than anticipated, and delay as a result of trying to get it all in order shaved a third of their value on the stock market. For a company like NIS, you can think of it as if it would be like every game they released in one year all underperformed harshly. For NIS, this issue is as if they made a AAA game that bombed; staff and studio shaving becomes a real target of conversation.

fiendcode · May 20, 2019

Curler said:
I think it's already gone? The links just all redirect back to the new NISA main storefront. Was always weird to have it as a separate thing, when they always carried the titles in the main store, anyways. Only 2 SNK titles came out of it, so I guess I can assume that we shouldn't expect to see some sort of Samurai Shodown LE release on there?

Yeah, it seems like the SNK & NISA deal fell apart super fast. Samurai Shodown and the SS Collection are being published by Athlon Games in the west, who are owned by the same parent company as SNK. Digital Eclipse is self publishing the Xbox port of the SNK Anniversary Collection too.

That seems like a big missed opportunity for NISA given SNK Heroines apparently did pretty well for them.

Deleted member 17627 · May 20, 2019

Man God said:
NIS has had it rough for most of the time since the the PS2 ended, with blips of success. The PS3 era wasn't great for Japanese sales especially at the beginning and when the PSP wound down the Vita did not really replace it by any means, but the titles kept flowing that way and NIS were prolific to say the least during the last decade.

I thought NIS's lineup on the PSP was amazing. But then the Vita happened and all they did was make visual novels and these indie releases which I respect them for, but never found any to be interesting.

Tohsaka · May 20, 2019

King of Dreamland said:
I thought NIS's lineup on the PSP was amazing. But then the Vita happened and all they did was make visual novels and these indie releases which I respect them for, but never found any to be interesting.

They didn't even bother localizing any of the Visual Novels, or some of the other Vita exclusives like Great Edo Blacksmith (which I wanted to play). I'm surprised the Japanese branch didn't make them prioritize the in-house games for localization.

Deleted member 17627 · May 20, 2019

Tohsaka said:
They didn't even bother localizing any of the Visual Novels, or some of the other Vita exclusives like Great Edo Blacksmith (which I wanted to play). I'm surprised the Japanese branch didn't make them prioritize the in-house games for localization.

I was surprised by that too, especially with the ever growing popularity of visual novels at the time. But that's the Vita for you, a bunch of companies being too late to do anything, so they didn't do anything at all.

Curler · May 20, 2019

fiendcode said:
Yeah, it seems like the SNK & NISA deal fell apart super fast. Samurai Shodown and the SS Collection are being published by Athlon Games in the west, who are owned by the same parent company as SNK. Digital Eclipse is self publishing the Xbox port of the SNK Anniversary Collection too.

That seems like a big missed opportunity for NISA given SNK Heroines apparently did pretty well for them.

I was hoping that NISA's store would foot an LE at leaat, like they do for Natsume, K-T, etc., at least.
Surprised SNK Heroines did good though, felt like something that wouldn't do as well.

Desma · May 20, 2019

Ain't much, but here's a statement from NisaTravis from their discord

Curler · May 20, 2019

DesmaX said:
Ain't much, but here's a statement from NisaTravis from their discord

This is good to see.

SteelBeast6Beets · May 20, 2019

Refresh my memory but didn't NISA claim that the case of Disgaea 5 not selling spelt a lot of trouble for the company? I recall the doom-and-gloom being brushed aside because it's what NISA said everytime time a new Disgaea game was released.

ILikeFeet · May 20, 2019

DesmaX said:
Ain't much, but here's a statement from NisaTravis from their discord

there's no point in destroying the one saving grace of NIS

Garrod Ran · May 20, 2019

NISA just started their redemption arc, they need to survive

Deleted member 8593 · May 20, 2019

Lusamine said:
It was on track to be a huge success so they'd be dumb to not pour whatever was needed to strengthen the launch content.

Throwing money at a project to the point where it potentially tanks your entire business doesn't strike me as particularly prudent, however. Someone fucked up the risk and reward analysis on this project.

Deleted member 5334 · May 20, 2019

Tohsaka said:
They didn't even bother localizing any of the Visual Novels, or some of the other Vita exclusives like Great Edo Blacksmith (which I wanted to play). I'm surprised the Japanese branch didn't make them prioritize the in-house games for localization.

I was really saddened by the fact that they skipped over localizing "Hero Must Die". I did buy it and I actually need to finish it (my backlog is REALLY bad), but I kinda feel for people, since these games can be a bit of a barrier if you don't know any Japanese.

MegaXZero · May 20, 2019

Tohsaka said:
They didn't even bother localizing any of the Visual Novels, or some of the other Vita exclusives like Great Edo Blacksmith (which I wanted to play). I'm surprised the Japanese branch didn't make them prioritize the in-house games for localization.

Probably because they wouldn't make a lot of money on them when they could try other properties with more potential. NISA clearly has been better than NIS at reading the market.

DesmaX said:
Ain't much, but here's a statement from NisaTravis from their discord

Pretty much what I would expect when we know NISA actually makes the company money. Also from the siliconera article the situation is bad but not really "we close tomorrow" bad.

HaremKing · May 20, 2019

For a "Japan First" (Nippon Ichi) company, this is just not sustainable.

System Title FW LTD
PS4 Lapis x Labyrinth 4.003 4.003
SWI Lapis x Labyrinth 3.725 3.725
SWI Yomawari: The Long 2.968 2.968
PS4 Disgaea 1 Complete 4.305 4.305
SWI Disgaea 1 Complete 2.943 2.943
PS4 Closed Nightmare 1.698 1.698
PS4 Liar Princess and 4.965 6.379
SWI Liar Princess and 5.346 5.346
PSV Liar Princess and 3.040 3.040
PS4 The Silver Case 2.195 2.195
SWI Anata no Shikihime 2.864 2.864
PSV Anata no Shikihime 2.027 2.027
PS4 Coven and Labyrint 5.075 5.075
PSV Iwaihime: Matsuri 2.006 2.006
PS4 Yomawari: Midnight 9.492 17.120
PSV Yomawari: Midnight 8.678 11.496
PS4 Hakoniwa Company W 3.891 3.891
PSV Tsuihou Senkyo 3.712 3.712
PS4 Anata no Shikihime 2.990 2.990
SWI Disgaea 5 Complete 5.065 5.065
PS4 The Witch and the 15.709 27.673

Sorry for the cut off names. Data from Game Data Library.

Deleted member 49319 · May 20, 2019

AniHawk said:
well it was delayed a year and there's no switch version announced so the only platforms two platforms that will be dead in japan by then.

It baffles me why Galleria is not planned on switch, considering how well D5 and Refrain sell.

Curler · May 20, 2019

HaremKing said:
For a "Japan First" (Nippon Ichi) company, this is just not sustainable.

System Title FW LTD
PS4 Lapis x Labyrinth 4.003 4.003
SWI Lapis x Labyrinth 3.725 3.725
SWI Yomawari: The Long 2.968 2.968
PS4 Disgaea 1 Complete 4.305 4.305
SWI Disgaea 1 Complete 2.943 2.943
PS4 Closed Nightmare 1.698 1.698
PS4 Liar Princess and 4.965 6.379
SWI Liar Princess and 5.346 5.346
PSV Liar Princess and 3.040 3.040
PS4 The Silver Case 2.195 2.195
SWI Anata no Shikihime 2.864 2.864
PSV Anata no Shikihime 2.027 2.027
PS4 Coven and Labyrint 5.075 5.075
PSV Iwaihime: Matsuri 2.006 2.006
PS4 Yomawari: Midnight 9.492 17.120
PSV Yomawari: Midnight 8.678 11.496
PS4 Hakoniwa Company W 3.891 3.891
PSV Tsuihou Senkyo 3.712 3.712
PS4 Anata no Shikihime 2.990 2.990
SWI Disgaea 5 Complete 5.065 5.065
PS4 The Witch and the 15.709 27.673

Sorry for the cut off names. Data from Game Data Library.

Super bad numbers for a Japanese audience... Did some of those just not sell just their first week? At least, not enough to really count?

Oregano · May 20, 2019

Dardan Sandiego said:
Throwing money at a project to the point where it potentially tanks your entire business doesn't strike me as particularly prudent, however. Someone fucked up the risk and reward analysis on this project.

Keep in mind that when the project was signed it was a collaboration with the new mobile division of the company absolutely dominating the console industry. It probably seemed like a safe bet, and then Forwardworks happened.

Deleted member 8593 · May 20, 2019

Oregano said:
Keep in mind that when the project was signed it was a collaboration with the new mobile division of the company absolutely dominating the console industry. It probably seemed like a safe bet, and then Forwardworks happened.

True, I guess this is gonna be used as a prime example for sunk cost fallacy in the gaming space.

Zarckoh · May 20, 2019

Oregano said:
Keep in mind that when the project was signed it was a collaboration with the new mobile division of the company absolutely dominating the console industry. It probably seemed like a safe bet, and then Forwardworks happened.

The reason why the collaboration and big bets likely happened has to do with the high success of FGO considering that Forwardworks was born as a result of the high revenue that Delightworks managed to bring. I still remember the japanese launch of the game, the game was basically on maintenance all the time, bad performance on the phones, lack of content, among other things that made it a shitshow but somehow it managed to survive given the strength of the IP.

Overall it seems that their mobile teams depend on popular multimedia licensed IPs like Fate and Madoka being the notable hits. Their original projects have basically went nowhere and with the IP that they own like Minna no Golf don't do much and games created with legacy IP like Wild Arms is pretty much dead.

Oregano · May 20, 2019

Zarckoh said:
The reason why the collaboration and big bets likely happened has to do with the high success of FGO considering that Forwardworks was born as a result of the high revenue that Delightworks managed to bring. I still remember the japanese launch of the game, the game was basically on maintenance all the time, bad performance on the phones, lack of content, among other things that made it a shitshow but somehow it managed to survive given the strength of the IP.

Overall it seems that their mobile teams depend on popular multimedia licensed IPs like Fate and Madoka being the notable hits. Their original projects have basically went nowhere and with the IP that they own like Minna no Golf don't do much and games created with legacy IP like Wild Arms is pretty much dead.

Maybe I had it wrong but the pitch I saw for Forwardworks was entirely related to the death of the Vita and Sony's position in Japan. I imagine the plan was to supplant Vita with Mobile and have Forwardworks be the intermediary for third parties to maintain that nice cut. In the meantime convincing them to go all in on PS4 when it comes to console development.

Dardan Sandiego said:
True, I guess this is gonna be used as a prime example for sunk cost fallacy in the gaming space.

I doubt you'll see anyone jumping to work with Forwardworks now.

JayWood2010 · May 20, 2019

I like the Disgaea games so hoping they do fine. Is it possible for NIS to be acquired by a bigger publisher?

fiendcode · May 20, 2019

Zarckoh said:
The reason why the collaboration and big bets likely happened has to do with the high success of FGO considering that Forwardworks was born as a result of the high revenue that Delightworks managed to bring. I still remember the japanese launch of the game, the game was basically on maintenance all the time, bad performance on the phones, lack of content, among other things that made it a shitshow but somehow it managed to survive given the strength of the IP.

Overall it seems that their mobile teams depend on popular multimedia licensed IPs like Fate and Madoka being the notable hits. Their original projects have basically went nowhere and with the IP that they own like Minna no Golf don't do much and games created with legacy IP like Wild Arms is pretty much dead.

Forwardworks =/= Aniplex

Completely different groups under completely different divisions with different aims and approaches. Forwardworks is very much SIE Japan Studio trying to leverage mobile as a replacement for their defunct handheld line.

casiopao · May 20, 2019

Curler said:
Super bad numbers for a Japanese audience... Did some of those just not sell just their first week? At least, not enough to really count?

There is a reason why NISA is much bigger money maker vs NIS there. Also, a few of those games had some legs that end up selling ok.

jrpl · May 21, 2019

https://wccftech.com/nis-staff-affected-by-layoffs/

However, all is still not right and staff are affected, including in the subsidiary Nippon Ichi Software America (NISA). A source, who will remain anonymous, has told Wccftech that layoffs have occurred at NISA, indicating that the subsidiary is also at risk and scaling back. As a result of the sources anonymity I cannot state this as a fact and would ask that you take this as a rumour. I haves reached out to NISA directly in at attempt to confirm these statements.

Kresnik · May 21, 2019

jrpl said:
https://wccftech.com/nis-staff-affected-by-layoffs/

However, all is still not right and staff are affected, including in the subsidiary Nippon Ichi Software America (NISA). A source, who will remain anonymous, has told Wccftech that layoffs have occurred at NISA, indicating that the subsidiary is also at risk and scaling back. As a result of the sources anonymity I cannot state this as a fact and would ask that you take this as a rumour. I haves reached out to NISA directly in at attempt to confirm these statements.

Oh dear :(

Hailinel · May 21, 2019

jrpl said:
https://wccftech.com/nis-staff-affected-by-layoffs/

However, all is still not right and staff are affected, including in the subsidiary Nippon Ichi Software America (NISA). A source, who will remain anonymous, has told Wccftech that layoffs have occurred at NISA, indicating that the subsidiary is also at risk and scaling back. As a result of the sources anonymity I cannot state this as a fact and would ask that you take this as a rumour. I haves reached out to NISA directly in at attempt to confirm these statements.

Given the circumstances, this is unsurprising if true. Even though NISA is the biggest moneymaker for NIS, their income won't necessarily protect them from being scaled back.

jrpl · May 21, 2019

Kresnik said:
Oh dear :(

Hailinel said:
Given the circumstances, this is unsurprising if true. Even though NISA is the biggest moneymaker for NIS, their income won't necessarily protect them from being scaled back.

Lmao
I have no idea anymore

Sagadego17 · May 21, 2019

jrpl said:
Lmao
I have no idea anymore

Oops. Never heard of that site

Zippo · May 21, 2019

Hope all goes well for the company and it's employees.

Though, if they do get bought out, I hope it is a really good company that lets them keep their creative freedom.

Hailinel · May 21, 2019

Sagadego17 said:
Oops. Never heard of that site

And as much as I wouldn't be surprised at NIS's money woes affecting NISA, I also wouldn't be surprised at people using the situation to stir rumors.

News of Disgaea smartphone RPG reveals NIS is in financial hot water; not able to pay employees.

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