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Forums - Gaming Discussion - The Rainclouds clear-Let's discuss the results of Operation Rainfall.

Personal note, Operation Rainfall is what got me to browse the gaming forums. And after beating Xenoblade (Amazing game btw), I wanted to see how well it did and sales and all that and that lead me to the Chartz. Looking back, Rainfall was my origin point in becoming "informed" about the gaming industry in general.

Operation Rainfall was likely one of the greatest fan movements in the past years.

Background

Operation Rainfall formed from the focus on three Wii-exclusive titles: Xenoblade Chronicles developed by Monolith Soft (makers of Xenogears, the Xenosaga series), The Last Story developed byMistwalker and AQ Interactive, and Pandora's Tower developed by Ganbarion. All three titles were published by Nintendo in Japan, Europe, and Australia between late 2010 and early 2012.

On June 23, 2011, Mathieu Minel, the marketing manager of Nintendo France, stated that Nintendo of Europe wanted to show Xenoblade Chronicles at the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo, but that "Nintendo of America wouldn't let them because they didn't want to show products they aren't planning to sell."[6] Minel's departure from Nintendo was announced 11 days later.[7] In response, fans of role-playing video games on the IGN message boards, specifically the Nintendo Wii Lobby, started a campaign the next day, dubbed "Operation Rainfall", in the hopes of persuading Nintendo of America to localize Xenoblade Chronicles, along with The Last Story and Pandora's Tower, as ultimately, none of these three games had appeared at the Expo or possessed any sort of North American release.[8][2] The main organizers of the campaign did not exclude supporting other titles for North American localizations, but focused on the three games.[9]

Well we got all 3 games now, so Operation Rainfall is officially finished. And the results?

Xenoblade Chronicles- sold better in both EU and NA than Japan, NA numbers are double Japan's numbers. Not bad for a retailer exclusive, not marketed 2012 Wii release (Overtracked in Chartz though). Reggie said that NoA was pleased with the sales and the developers almost certainly made back their $$ after the NA and EU releases. 

Another thing to note is that Xenoblade was pirated nearly a million times. http://mynintendonews.com/2011/12/31/heres-the-most-pirated-games-of-2011/, which cut into sales and explains why NoA was so hesitant on releasing the game over in NA, even though the numbers in Europe were good. Could've easily been a million seller if not for all the piracy and stock shortages.

Xenoblade also was ranked #2 on TIME's top 10 games of 2012, and is currently the most expensive game on the Wii at Amazon. 

The Last Story- Mistwalker's Wii RPG was published by Xseed in NA (due to Nintendo seeing it as too risky no doubt), and they declared it as "their most profitable title yet"http://gematsu.com/2012/11/the-last-story-is-xseeds-most-successful-release

Chartz has the NA numbers just surpassing the JP numbers. (Again, likely overtracked.)

The Last Story was ranked #7 on TIME's top 10 games of 2012, and Sakaguchi stated that he was pleased that it was recieved so well.http://operationrainfall.com/hironobou-sakaguchi-time-magazine/

Pandora's Tower- Just released last week, this "Black sheep" of the Rainfall games wasn't as critcally acclaimed as it's other two brothers. Published by Xseed in NA again, likely spurred by The Last Story success, we have yet to know how well it will do. But keep a close eye out for this one.

 

What Operation Rainfall ultimately proved is that there is still a very sizeable market for good JRPGs in NA and that fans of the genre can really band together and scream for localizations. Since then, Operation Rainfall has birthed many fan movements to get games localized. I have no doubt in my mind that Nintendo's recent strategy with bringing Japanese 3DS games to the West is partially influenced by the success of Operation Rainfall. Games like Bravely Default making it here published by Nintendo should be a clear sign that Nintendo has started to hear the fans. 

"X" premiring worldwide on Nintendo Direct should be even more telling. Really glad to see that the campaign worked out.

 

 





http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/profile/92109/nintendopie/ Nintendopie  Was obviously right and I was obviously wrong. I will forever be a lesser being than them. (6/16/13)

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The black sheep is imo the most interesting title of the three. But congrats to all of them for being released worldwide.



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Man JRPGs really did badly overall in the 7th gen. Good to see still some life in the genre.

FF Type-0 on the other hand never made it...saddening.



http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/profile/92109/nintendopie/ Nintendopie  Was obviously right and I was obviously wrong. I will forever be a lesser being than them. (6/16/13)

Japan should understand that players around the globe want to play their games too. I don't know how they keep being so stubborn if you're even telling me that numbers were greater in America and Europe than in Japan...



I'm not really convinced that Operation Rainfall had much of an affect. I'm pretty sure the games would have released regardless of the fan campaign. Nintendo of America didn't plan on releasing them because they probably didn't think the cost of localization was worth the niche market sales they expected. I'm guess they decided to released the UK localizations after they noticed they had nothing on the calendar. Normally NOA would do a US localization, but the UK versions were cheap and close enough to make a quick easy small profit. If the UK version hadn't already happened I doubt NOA would have invested in a US localization.

I'm glad that NOA decided to release the games. Xenoblade is great and I'm looking forward to Pandora's Tower. I'm not all that interested in The Last Story personally.

Although I don't think Operation Rainfall did much to bring the games over, I do believe that it spread the word on the games and they probably sold better than they would have without the fan campaign.



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Well looks like with Iwata's promotion to NoA CEO, hopefully we never have to do anything like this again.

(Seriously though, Xenoblade was pirated 950,000 times...)



http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/profile/92109/nintendopie/ Nintendopie  Was obviously right and I was obviously wrong. I will forever be a lesser being than them. (6/16/13)

Otakumegane said:
Well looks like with Iwata's promotion to NoA CEO, hopefully we never have to do anything like this again.

(Seriously though, Xenoblade was pirated 950,000 times...)


That was probably before NOA announced it would bring it over. I don't consider it wrong to download a game that the company says it will not bring over to your region. It's NOA's own fault for saying they wouldn't bring it over when they had no reason not to.



spurgeonryan said:
No one even heard of these game until operation Rainfall. There is no chance in hell that they would have ever released without the campaign.

OT: Pandoras Tower released in America?


No doubt that Oprainfall helped these titles get exposure, and raised the awareness of the state of JRPGs in NA in general.

(Pandora's tower released April 16th)



http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/profile/92109/nintendopie/ Nintendopie  Was obviously right and I was obviously wrong. I will forever be a lesser being than them. (6/16/13)

bought all three!!!



Otakumegane said:
Man JRPGs really did badly overall in the 7th gen. Good to see still some life in the genre.

FF Type-0 on the other hand never made it...saddening.


It is really disconcerting the direction that the RPG titles are being handled by SE lately. I mean Type-0 looks like it may not come, and it took Nintendo taking over the publishing to get Bravely Default released in other territories. And with them doing poorly right now I doubt they will be releasing many physical games in any plentiful amount, except those they deem "safe".

Also I have bought two of the three so far, need money to get the thrid. But I doubt I will have enough soon, with the courts finalizing the lawsuit a creditor who had one of my unsecured student loans brought against me. (Don't know what they expect to get out of me. I don't own anything valuable, and I make way below the poverty line.