The Ghostlight Q&A 2017 part 2

Hi everyone. Thank you for the great response to last week’s Q&A blog. I’m glad so many of you found it interesting and that you’ve sent me some more questions to answer, without which part two could have been rather short. :) If you haven’t read part one yet, you can find it in the previous blogpost.

Before I dive headfirst into the Q&A, I thought I’d just give you a quick update on what’s been happening in the Ghostlight office. We’re currently working on several PC releases for other publishers, which so far seem to be going pretty smoothly. We’re also getting closer to signing our next JRPG, we’re still waiting for all the paperwork to be completed before we can announce it, but it does look like I’m going to be able to tell you all about it soon (although I think I might have said that before.) :)

And now onto the Q&A:

Vazra asked us:

“What is the most satisfying part of the job?”

Good question! :)

There are lots of parts of the job I enjoy. From the excitement that comes with first signing a game, to seeing how the game gradually change from the first playable build, to the release build, or simply just hanging out and talking to you all on places like Twitter. :)

But the most satisfying part is seeing people playing and enjoying a game. Whether it’s from taking the game to a show, like I did with Flame Over and International Athletics and watching them play in person, or from seeing people enjoying a game I worked on online after release.

From the time when I saw one of my friends from university talking about how much they’d enjoyed Shadow Hearts: From the New World on Facebook, it’s always been something I’ve enjoyed.

FX102A has fond memories of our console releases and asks:

“Are you fully converted to a Steam Game publisher? Miss all your past PS2, PSP and DS releases.”

We are still actively looking to for games to release on console, and if the right game became available in our region and we can reach agreement on it then we would definitely be interested in releasing more console games.

Having said that, at the moment our focus is mainly on bringing Japanese console games to PC, through places like Steam and - of course – GOG. :) Between the games we publish ourselves and the games we port for other publishers, I don’t think there can be many companies out there with more experience in bringing Japanese games from console to PC, so it makes sense to take advantage of our strengths.

Valxal had two questions to ask us:

“I'd like to ask is what games would the Ghostlight team personally wish they could port to PC if it were possible.”

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’d love to have the chance to work on the PC port of an Atlus game.

“Another question is have there been any ports in the works that had to be cut short and didn't make it to Steam/other platforms? If so are you allowed to state which ones? I know that you probably can't disclose certain information but it'd still be interesting to hear!”

While we’ve had some tricky ports, such as the one I talked about in last week’s blog, we’ve always been able to complete and release every port we’ve attempted. Some of this is because we take a good look at the underlying source code before signing the game, but a lot of it is due to the hard work of our dev team, who seem to be very good at solving any problems that crop up in the porting process.

Badre asked us:

“Have there been any titles you wanted to port, but were denied or had difficulty in porting?”

We’ve always got a long list of games we’d love to work on should the opportunity arise but, as was the case when we were bringing over console games, you’re never able to get hold of all the games you’d like to work on.

While I can’t mention individual games, there are plenty of reasons why we may not be able to pick up a game we’re interested in porting. Sometimes it’s simply that we cannot work out a deal that suits both us and the Japanese company who’s game we want to bring to PC. It might simply be that we don’t feel we can justify meeting the price they want for the game, or it might be that someone else has also come in for the game and is willing to pay more, or there is another Western publisher that the Japanese company has an existing relationship with and they would rather continue to work with them.

Even when it’s possible to agree a deal, there can sometimes be issues that prevent us from porting the game. For example, I remember at least two instances where we were very close to signing two games, both of which I really liked the look of, but unfortunately the source code had been lost, so we had to pass them up. There are still occasions where the rights situation is somewhat complex, which can make it impossible for us to license a game.

Once again, thank you for all the questions. I’m very sorry if I didn’t get to use yours this time round. I hope you’ve all found this interesting and that it won’t be 5 and a half years until we do this again!

Finally, and I hope you’ll all forgive a little self-indulgence, but I’m in the process of booking a trip to Japan in September, so if any of you have any hints or suggestions for things to do out there - gaming related or otherwise - I’d love to hear them. :)

I’ll be back next week with another blog, and - remember - if you’d like your question answered in the upcoming part 2 of this Q&A, then please feel free to ask your question in the comments, or in any of our Social media spaces, such as our Twitter and Facebook pages, or our  Google + account, where we’ll be posting all the latest news from Ghostlight. Or you can follow my Twitter account for a personal take on all things Ghostlight.