Tales of fans in the west, you deserve praise!
I mean this, especially to the loyal Tales of fans that saw how close Bamco was to giving up on the west completely. Do you want to know what happened and why we are now getting Arise at the same time as Japan? The western fandom happened.
I am not exaggerating. It's on record that because the fans in the west kept asking for Bamco to release Tales of games to the west that they haven't brought yet, Bamco decided to listen. That's when they released Tales of Graces F to the PS3 and Tales of the Abyss shortly after for the 3DS.
Contrary to belief, sales did not hold the fate of the series for the west. There was an interview with a rep that said the fate of the series fall on sales in the west. It turns out that this person had no business trying to be a rep for the series and they condemned what the person had said, assuring people in the west that the fate of the Tales series in the west does not depend on sales. "Any updates will be written on our website so please disregard anything that person has said for they do not represent us."
So really, it wasn't sales too much, if at all. Bamco just wasn't focused on the series that much at the time. They weren't treating it as a top tier IP resulting in lack of content in the west and less than stellar attention in Japan, the very home of the series. So it wasn't sales that drove the series back to the west. It was the Tales of Fandom.
They began to focus a little less on other IPs and began bringing over Tales games that were only in Japan. Then they began to bring games to the west with less time between the Japan release and the western release on newer games.
They listened to us fans that were complaining about how poorly they treated their Tales IP in the west. If it wasn't for us they wouldn't have started treating the series with more respect in the west because we showed them there was a demand and we deserve more from them when it comes to the series. We have been loyal fans and continued to be loyal fans. Our complaints/issues and being vocal about them alone showed a bit of how loyal we really were.
That is how they realized how much the west wanted more games from the Tales of series and for them to stop treating the series like crap here and for them to stop keeping them in Japan only.
They were happy to see the sales of Graces F and considered it a success. I think partially because it was pretty good for the west, which was during the FPS all day every day era. The other part is they saw us vocal fans weren't blowing smoke out of our asses. They did a survey on which game to localize on FB with 50k answering for Graces at the time and they received that many sales fairly quickly in the west.
Graces F sales did help solidify what us fans were saying and yelling at Bamco about for sure. So Bamco spent the next few years to bring us remakes/localizing region locked games in the series. This also made them focus much harder on treating the west with respect and try to release Tales games in the west as close to the time they are released in Japan. It's finally at the point where we will see all Tales news, scenes, and releases at the same time as Japan and it feels so good knowing that the fan base is the reason behind that.
This isn't a joke or speculation. A rep has said the reason the series made a comeback and was revitalized in the west is because the fans. The fans were very vocal about what they wanted in the west from Bamco and it was all about the Tales series. We basically were very loud and very annoying to Bamco until they caved in so here we are. Less than a month away we will receive Tales of Arise at the same time Japan does.
So thank you fellow Tales fans for being vocal and telling Bamco what we want! You can't say Bamco doesn't listen and you can't say they don't care because it's the very reason why Arise is coming to the west the way it is. I gotta give Bamco credit for listening to the western fans and credit to the fans for being vocal about our concerns and wanting more Tales of games. The loyalty of Tales fans in the west is absolutely insane and it's why games like Destiny, Abyss, and Symphonia still show up on my dash and they are over a decade year old.
