jjrrs
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 Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 8:57 pm Post subject: How many Suikoden Fans are there? and how did you become one |
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I am not a day one fan since I didn't own a PSone until I got a PS2 when its era began as I finally had enough freedom from the controls of my parents and enough money to do so. It started when I was skipping school one fall day of 2001, I wanted to spend my only $20 on a game that would last me long enough until who knows when I'll get another twenty bucks, so I went looking for a rpg. After some really enthusiastic gamestop dude I met brag to me about his thousands of dollars game collection he wrote down a few rpg names for me. As I got home, I had nothing better to do than to punch in those names for a search, when a suikoden fan site came up I realized the Japanese title of the game was one of favorite novels. Shortly there after I got a copy of suikoden II on ebay for $30 and a copy of suikoden with crap all over it from half.com for $9.50(cheapest price available) I finish suikoden before Christmas of 01, thought it was pretty good but wasn't really in the mood for II as FFX came out.
Fall of 02 when III released, I had enough money so I picked it up on release day still mainly based on the fact I like the chinese novel. I tried but failed many times when attempted to play it, knowing I am missing the storyline of II; but was quite satisfied with my purchase because back then III was super rare, I even bought another copy before they got reprinted to keep that I still have somewhere sealed, way before I even played the game. In the summer of 03, I just quit my job and was getting ready to move for college when I decided to buy a PSone to play some PS games that I started collecting to kill time when I finally played my copy of II for the first time since I got it a year and a half ago. I couldn't believe how much I liked it, must have played it 5 times from June to Sept. After finishing III in Oct. of 03 I became a huge fan, looking up everything I can on the series and stumbling on the official konami site when IV was first announced, since then I been checking up on the series every chance I got and buying everything suikoden I could get my hands on...
I really regret having II just sat in my room for so long when I could have just played it and enjoyed what I still think is the best game ever, but I am super glad I got it when I did and was able to play the game when I could.
I guess my main question is that: How many people here in the US/North America or Europe really is a fan of this game and like it enough to at least spend their money to play it? Also in term of suikoden fan sites like this one, what fraction of the paying fan base would be participating?
I find the majority of game store workers know about suikoden as a hard to find game, and 15-25% of them actually played it before. I have ran into a person who is interested in whatever suikoden stuff I'm buying in a store a few times, but I think on average there would be about 3-6 people at most that would buy their new suikoden releases at a particular game store. Some rough numbers I can provide based on years of looking to buy suikoden stuff is I think there is always about 30-60 auctions on ebay for suikoden games(5-10 copies of I, 10-15 II, 5-15 III, 5-15 IV, 5-10 Tactics), and about just as many auctions for suikoden stuff with some being from japan directly. If you do a search for used suikoden games on gamestop's website, I'd say there would be about 5-15 copies of I within 100 miles of a major city, 0-3 of II, and 25-35 of III. I also know that IV was reported as the 20th best sold game in Jan. of 05 when it first came out according to game informer, which I don't really know what it means since that was a very slow month and I didn't see any numbers as a fact.
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jjrrs
Joined: 06 Jun 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:55 am Post subject: |
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sorry, didn't mean to rant early on about what is a topic from before, but the reason I started this topic was really to see if anyone has a realistic gage on the suikoden fan base more than anything else.
I always thought that our fan base is not all that large as I'd think over 80% of the all gameplayers would still have a hard time just saying the name Suikoden, much less played or want to pay for it. I personally dislike anything followed by too many people because no matter how good those things are, they are no doubt overrated just because there could only be so many true fans who spend their won time and energy outside of just playing the game to learn about it.
I hope and still think this series is taking an underdog role with each new release but then nowadays other than the over blown square titles, what rpg doesn't seem to be? which is why I am interested in seeing what other suikoden fans think of the current situation.
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