It’s time for the post I’m sure a few of you have been waiting for: the licensing survey results! Apologies for the wait, it has been a busy few weeks here as of late. We’d like to extend another round of thanks to the nearly 8000 people who responded this year.

Most of the base demographics were pretty similar to last year, although it seems we got a slightly less diverse group of respondents this time around: only about 20% of respondents were women and we only had about half of the 13-17 year olds that we got last year (perhaps many of them were 17 last year!). I’d attribute some of the discrepancy to the difference in coverage of the survey this year.

Interestingly, while the sample was slightly smaller and less diverse, more people are buying more visual novels than ever now: over 60% of respondents bought three or more visual novels in the last year. PC remains the overwhelmingly most popular platform (actually gaining a few percentage points this year over handhelds), but Steam has moved into first place for most popular purchasing format with independent digital downloads following close behind and interest in hardcopies waning––though, despite that you will be seeing several new games on our convention tables this year.

In terms of what qualities people are most concerned about when deciding whether to buy a visual novel, story, art and characters remain the top three. This year’s new option, translation quality, being seemingly a rather minor concern for most coming in at 6th place beneath the presence of erotic content and preferred relationship types. While not an absolute necessity for most, the majority of respondents demonstrated a moderate preference for HD graphics (one of our unannounced projects might particularly enticing to this crowd, no joke).

Romance and science fiction/fantasy took the top spots in the genre question––quite a few of our upcoming announcements fit one or both of those categories, particularly fantasy. Yuri and nukige gained substantial ground this year with otome and BL losing a few points (probably related to the smaller proportion of women responding this year).

And now for the part you’ve all been waiting for, the top license choices:

Rance Series ↑6 Baldr Series ↑1 Sono Hanabira Series NEW! Dies Irae NEW! Fate/Stay Night ↓4 White Album 2 ↑3 Shin Koihime Musou ↓1 Majikoi Series ↓6 Aiyoku no Eustia NEW! Diabolik Lovers NEW!

Nothing terribly surprising, as you might expect. The SonoHana contingent was particularly strong this year and Dies Irae certainly shot right up the ranking though. There were actually a lot of other BL and otome titles just outside of the top 10 (DRAMAtical Murder took 11th and BL/otome titles took 10 spots of the top 50 total). Key titles showed up quite frequently as well. For those of you who put Umineko in 35th place: it shouldn’t be too much longer!

So, where’s that leave us for the year ahead? Well, there were a few hints peppered in the analysis above, but we can give you a few more morsels to chew on: continuations and sequels certainly are in vogue these days, so you might want to keep your ears tuned for some spirited additions and some double trouble.

And lastly: we’ll be having not one, but two special guests at Anime Expo this year. Whoever could they be~