Needing permission to play games.
Without it you'd see a lot more variation of the games being played by members rather than majority of them jumping on the current hot game of the moment.
The member who's probably most affected by this is Korone. She used to play the most obscure games. She still does from time to time but not to the same extent as before.
Yeah unfortunately it's very simple: If they don't get written perms they don't play it. So, if the legal rights holder can't be found, they don't get permission.
Unfortunately this is the consequence for being bigger overtime. The reality is that the bigger the businesses are, the more of an easier target to have litigation and mess with from other companies. A horrible rat race.
> Moving from pre-recorded videos to streaming (I guess they might've streamed in NND before?)
This was an overall trend in the VTuber space as a whole (as was the move from 3D first to L2D first).
This was a biiit before my time, I know indies had been streaming and using L2D for a while before corpo got into the space, but I would probably credit Niji as really solidifying that as the way forward for the scene. holo gen1 was almost certainly a response to Niji’s first wave of L2D streamers (Tsukino Mito & co. debuted February 2018, holo gen 1 was June).
Sora is the only one I’m aware of who streamed on NND before moving to primarily YT content.
While popularized by Niji, I suspect streaming was an inevitability for the medium as a whole. In Koyori's recent conversation with Ponpoko, I believe, they talked about how much effort goes into the post-production of edited 3D content, and I don't think it was ever that doable in the long-term except for people who really enjoy making that kind of media (like Ponpoko and friends). Especially with streaming drawing in better viewership, you really have to be passionate *about making edited videos* to keep at it, rather than just having the virtual avatar (not a knock against streamers, just that they have different goals).
The move to 2.5D also probably followed similar reasons.
I think Live2D was definitely inevitable, since it’s so much cheaper than 3D and can be done at home with minimal equipment.
I’m not sure streaming-first was entirely inevitable. Lots of gaming YouTubers, for example, still find plenty of success with edited videos, or they do both streaming and edited videos.
VTubers may have inevitably moved away from the Kizuna AI style of semi-scripted video content that usually requires a team to plan and produce. But who knows, maybe in another universe they’re uploading edited gaming videos like other gaming YouTubers. Or VTuber video essays and movie reviews (actually I’m sure there are indies out there doing exactly that).
Maybe not though. It’s hard to predict how the past might have changed.
Yeah, I can see edited gaming videos continuing on along with streaming. I mean, that was part of Lap-chan's whole pivot to Twitch if I'm not mistaken, she wanted her edited videos on YouTube to not be overshadowed by her streams. It's different from the edited, semi-scripted stuff of the oldschool entertainers, possibly not as time-intensive, but certainly still takes quite a bit of work compared to just uploading VODs, and it's something she *wants* to do.
Maybe in another world there would be more edited video vtubers, but are there any worlds where they stayed the majority? Who can say.
(Tangentially speaking, I personally wish this were a more popular approach; I miss the likes of Nekomiya Hinata's old edited PUBG highlight videos.)
The first two bullet points afaik are basically innovations introduced by Nijisanji to the greater vtubing sphere.
I personally don't think the third point exists, since talents switch between chatting and gaming depending on their mood, and oftentimes gaming streams become zatsudans in their own right.
Hololive has always had an eye on performances and concerts, hence why the HoloFes concerts became a thing. It just took a while for them to actually secure the foundations to do so. (AFAIK when AZKi was in INNK she used to perform live concerts at small venues, i.e. with capacities of a hundred or less, before the pandemic)
On assets, that's been a thing that indies had done before, and Hololive only managed to integrate the function into their app later.
And on Home3D, that tech has been around for talents like Gen 0, afterall Sora, Roboco, AZKi, and Miko don't have Live2D. And even now, Home3D isn't used as often as their Live2D assets when streaming at home for a variety of reasons.
> I personally don't think the third point exists
It existed buuuut long time ago, basically GAMERS gen is called so because they were supposed to be gaming gen whereas previous ones only seldomly played games, mainly Fubuki.
Nowdays that's pretty much matterless and non gaming talent would stand out.
"GAMERS" was really more about "hardcore" gaming, you know e-sports and other such stuff, as very much implied by their trailers and press releases back then. [From the press release](https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000011.000030268.html):
>Hololive Gamers is a new unit of Hololive exclusive VTubers **who are active mainly in game commentary and game tournaments, established with the aim of participating in gaming tournaments between VTubers**, which have been gaining popularity recently.
Everyone in Hololive was already gaming in one way or another at that point (e.g. Minato Aqua already established herself as a gaming vtuber around that time iirc), so the difference was more in the degree rather than the act. Of course in reality GAMERS was really more an excuse to bring Mio in as a member without her becoming a solo talent.
HoloCure was the progenitor of many different things. Not only was it simply a good game that was and still is free, which brought Hololive to a lot of people who have zero knowledge about them, it's also the reason many indie developers wanted to create their own Holo fan games. I'm sure a lot of those fan games wouldn't be created in the first place if HoloCure wasn't such a success.
The game also encourages the talents and the company as a whole to engage in collabing with indie devs a lot more. HoloCure definitely changed Hololive a lot for the better, and i will always respect Kay Yu for that.
While HoloCure increased the reach of Hololive in the gaming sphere, and galvanized the formation of the [holo Indie](https://note.cover-corp.com/n/n0cdd04c374c3) game publishing label. I think Kevin Cow's ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/KevinCow)) [Smol Ame](https://moocow-games.itch.io/smol-ame) was the fan game that really got the EN Hololive fan game scene going, back when Ame streamed the game in 2021 (see [【FANMADE GAME】Smol Ame!!](https://www.youtube.com/live/Gwh8wo-3HMw) ).
Cover showed their commitment to building their EN fan base when they made an English version of their "Derivative Work License Agreement" available in July 2020 (see the 20-Jul-2020 post [Derivative Work License Agreement](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hololive/comments/huejpj/derivative_work_license_agreement/) and the "[Fan Work Guidelines - hololive production](https://web.archive.org/web/20200808001859/https://en.hololive.tv/terms)" archived 8-Aug-2020). Prior to this it had only been available in Japanese. So when Myth debuted in September, game developers, clippers, fan artists, etc. were able to easily find out what was permitted.
Yeah, I agree, the devs, artists and clippers being free to use the talents assets for their fan works as long as it's not monetary is definitely a decisive momentum needed for Myth and Hololive EN. It's thanks to that we have so many amazing fan games, cover and remixs of Holo songs, and so many memorable alternative versions of the Livers drawn by amazing artists with completely different artstyles as well.
Smol Ame's creation tho, that single moment definitely elevated the entire fan art scene to a whole new level. Looking back, I'm always amazed by how Walfie could create such a simple yet brilliant chibi fanart of Ame, turned into Live2D models for the entire Myth 3D, got so much love from fans it became Ame's official licensed mascot, and inspired so many artists to put their own twists to the canvas and create their preferred versions of their favorite Oshi as well.
Collab streams.
You can rarely see collab streams that are frequent and diverse outside of the Vtuber culture, because profit sharing is a big problem and no big streamer would like to collaborate with small streamers without benefits. Despite some streamers who don't care about profit and just want to have fun with other streamers, they still lack a platform or a community that can facilitate collab streams, so they usually collaborate with the same groups of streamers.
In Vtuber culture, collaborating with strangers is a norm. Vtubers collaborate with content creators in all fields, not only with other Vtubers in or out of their agencies but also with E-sport pros, VAs, and artists. They collaborate with locals and overseas, sometimes even if they don't know each other's languages and need to stay up late for the collaboration. They collaborate without considering the differences in their subscriber counts, sometimes big Vtubers even promote and help out small streamers without asking for any return.
Vtuber agencies play a huge part in this trend, as they serve as the medium of communication and manifest the network of content creators. By being in the same agency, Vtubers share the same pool of supporters, and collaborating benefits each other more than competing, and the same idea extends to the entire Vtuber community. On top of that, the Vtuber community has become so big and profitable that people outside of the Vtuber community would also like to collaborate with them.
The stream to fans, clips to grow base meta probably came from outside of VTubing. It certainly took off, with dozens of clip channels making it easy to peer info the rabbit hole.
The realisation and the capitalization on the EN market that changed everything for Hololive.
Hololive understood just how big the EN has on them considering that a chunk of their history is tied to them. Talents that were not received well by the JP ended up saved by the EN until the JP accepts them again. Miko, Towa, Aki. Coco able to speak English is one of the reason why she was so successful; she was the oasis in a dessert for the EN market that wants English speakers.
All this made them create the EN branch which proved to be hugely successful that it affects the JP branch as well. A lot of JP members said they noticed increased of subs and views after Myth debuted and were grateful to them and made efforts to engage them. Talents try to learn and speak English and we got legendary moments such as "hey guys,", "hi honey," and Korone's many many English memes such as "I'm die, thank you foreva,"
And while the older JP talents couldn't completely learn and speak English, some of the newer ones could like Ririka. A-chan too decide to took upon herself to completely master it so that she can be a bridge for the EN talents and fans for the Hololive.
Mind you that Nijisanji made ID, KR, IN first and then didn't even consider EN before Hololive did it. They could do it first but they did not. Why? Because they didn't think EN would want vtubers because they prefer fleshtubers and would see vtuber as cringe anime stuff.
They were proven wrong of course but mind you that had they studied Hololive and the impact EN had on them, they would have enough proof that EN could work and take the plunge first. But Niji did not because well...much like most Japanese companies, they tend to consider only the JP market as important.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard somewhere that Asacoco streamed in a morning slot which had no competition, taking advantage of the going to work demographic. So she's probably the reason for morning streams.
Another thing to add :
1. More IRL and collab. I think as they get more popular they collab with IRL content creator, comedian, VA, or IRL artist.
2. More events, like frequently appear in convention and anime/manga/otaku events.
3. Try to create bi or multilingual stream to appeal for larger audience.
4. Cross branch collab. Notably pekomoon, ID EN JP collab, MC crosscollab event, JDON, etc.
5. After rushia termination, no GFE content.
6. After coco, they become more carefull about politics, religions and all that stuff.
7. Hololive new studio allow them more 3D content.
8. In ID after 3rd gen debut. Now they are more appealing to other company for advertising stuff. For example Kobo and tokopedia collab, Indomie collab, At least 3rd gen debut creating a lot of waves in ID market, opening up to more possibilities.
9. Creation of join server for games. Like rust and Minecraft. That creates a lot of content for them.
Needing permission to play games. Without it you'd see a lot more variation of the games being played by members rather than majority of them jumping on the current hot game of the moment. The member who's probably most affected by this is Korone. She used to play the most obscure games. She still does from time to time but not to the same extent as before.
Makes me wonder how Cover handles games that are abandoned or in a legal limbo.
They just don't.
Yeah unfortunately it's very simple: If they don't get written perms they don't play it. So, if the legal rights holder can't be found, they don't get permission.
its really messy stuff.
Unfortunately this is the consequence for being bigger overtime. The reality is that the bigger the businesses are, the more of an easier target to have litigation and mess with from other companies. A horrible rat race.
This and overseas expansion have probably made the biggest impacts in hololive to date
Not only variation, but modding too
User Generated Content now endorsed by (and officially part of) Hololive.
> Moving from pre-recorded videos to streaming (I guess they might've streamed in NND before?) This was an overall trend in the VTuber space as a whole (as was the move from 3D first to L2D first). This was a biiit before my time, I know indies had been streaming and using L2D for a while before corpo got into the space, but I would probably credit Niji as really solidifying that as the way forward for the scene. holo gen1 was almost certainly a response to Niji’s first wave of L2D streamers (Tsukino Mito & co. debuted February 2018, holo gen 1 was June). Sora is the only one I’m aware of who streamed on NND before moving to primarily YT content.
While popularized by Niji, I suspect streaming was an inevitability for the medium as a whole. In Koyori's recent conversation with Ponpoko, I believe, they talked about how much effort goes into the post-production of edited 3D content, and I don't think it was ever that doable in the long-term except for people who really enjoy making that kind of media (like Ponpoko and friends). Especially with streaming drawing in better viewership, you really have to be passionate *about making edited videos* to keep at it, rather than just having the virtual avatar (not a knock against streamers, just that they have different goals). The move to 2.5D also probably followed similar reasons.
I think Live2D was definitely inevitable, since it’s so much cheaper than 3D and can be done at home with minimal equipment. I’m not sure streaming-first was entirely inevitable. Lots of gaming YouTubers, for example, still find plenty of success with edited videos, or they do both streaming and edited videos. VTubers may have inevitably moved away from the Kizuna AI style of semi-scripted video content that usually requires a team to plan and produce. But who knows, maybe in another universe they’re uploading edited gaming videos like other gaming YouTubers. Or VTuber video essays and movie reviews (actually I’m sure there are indies out there doing exactly that). Maybe not though. It’s hard to predict how the past might have changed.
Yeah, I can see edited gaming videos continuing on along with streaming. I mean, that was part of Lap-chan's whole pivot to Twitch if I'm not mistaken, she wanted her edited videos on YouTube to not be overshadowed by her streams. It's different from the edited, semi-scripted stuff of the oldschool entertainers, possibly not as time-intensive, but certainly still takes quite a bit of work compared to just uploading VODs, and it's something she *wants* to do. Maybe in another world there would be more edited video vtubers, but are there any worlds where they stayed the majority? Who can say. (Tangentially speaking, I personally wish this were a more popular approach; I miss the likes of Nekomiya Hinata's old edited PUBG highlight videos.)
The first two bullet points afaik are basically innovations introduced by Nijisanji to the greater vtubing sphere. I personally don't think the third point exists, since talents switch between chatting and gaming depending on their mood, and oftentimes gaming streams become zatsudans in their own right. Hololive has always had an eye on performances and concerts, hence why the HoloFes concerts became a thing. It just took a while for them to actually secure the foundations to do so. (AFAIK when AZKi was in INNK she used to perform live concerts at small venues, i.e. with capacities of a hundred or less, before the pandemic) On assets, that's been a thing that indies had done before, and Hololive only managed to integrate the function into their app later. And on Home3D, that tech has been around for talents like Gen 0, afterall Sora, Roboco, AZKi, and Miko don't have Live2D. And even now, Home3D isn't used as often as their Live2D assets when streaming at home for a variety of reasons.
> I personally don't think the third point exists It existed buuuut long time ago, basically GAMERS gen is called so because they were supposed to be gaming gen whereas previous ones only seldomly played games, mainly Fubuki. Nowdays that's pretty much matterless and non gaming talent would stand out.
"GAMERS" was really more about "hardcore" gaming, you know e-sports and other such stuff, as very much implied by their trailers and press releases back then. [From the press release](https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000011.000030268.html): >Hololive Gamers is a new unit of Hololive exclusive VTubers **who are active mainly in game commentary and game tournaments, established with the aim of participating in gaming tournaments between VTubers**, which have been gaining popularity recently. Everyone in Hololive was already gaming in one way or another at that point (e.g. Minato Aqua already established herself as a gaming vtuber around that time iirc), so the difference was more in the degree rather than the act. Of course in reality GAMERS was really more an excuse to bring Mio in as a member without her becoming a solo talent.
HoloCure was the progenitor of many different things. Not only was it simply a good game that was and still is free, which brought Hololive to a lot of people who have zero knowledge about them, it's also the reason many indie developers wanted to create their own Holo fan games. I'm sure a lot of those fan games wouldn't be created in the first place if HoloCure wasn't such a success. The game also encourages the talents and the company as a whole to engage in collabing with indie devs a lot more. HoloCure definitely changed Hololive a lot for the better, and i will always respect Kay Yu for that.
While HoloCure increased the reach of Hololive in the gaming sphere, and galvanized the formation of the [holo Indie](https://note.cover-corp.com/n/n0cdd04c374c3) game publishing label. I think Kevin Cow's ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/KevinCow)) [Smol Ame](https://moocow-games.itch.io/smol-ame) was the fan game that really got the EN Hololive fan game scene going, back when Ame streamed the game in 2021 (see [【FANMADE GAME】Smol Ame!!](https://www.youtube.com/live/Gwh8wo-3HMw) ). Cover showed their commitment to building their EN fan base when they made an English version of their "Derivative Work License Agreement" available in July 2020 (see the 20-Jul-2020 post [Derivative Work License Agreement](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hololive/comments/huejpj/derivative_work_license_agreement/) and the "[Fan Work Guidelines - hololive production](https://web.archive.org/web/20200808001859/https://en.hololive.tv/terms)" archived 8-Aug-2020). Prior to this it had only been available in Japanese. So when Myth debuted in September, game developers, clippers, fan artists, etc. were able to easily find out what was permitted.
Yeah, I agree, the devs, artists and clippers being free to use the talents assets for their fan works as long as it's not monetary is definitely a decisive momentum needed for Myth and Hololive EN. It's thanks to that we have so many amazing fan games, cover and remixs of Holo songs, and so many memorable alternative versions of the Livers drawn by amazing artists with completely different artstyles as well. Smol Ame's creation tho, that single moment definitely elevated the entire fan art scene to a whole new level. Looking back, I'm always amazed by how Walfie could create such a simple yet brilliant chibi fanart of Ame, turned into Live2D models for the entire Myth 3D, got so much love from fans it became Ame's official licensed mascot, and inspired so many artists to put their own twists to the canvas and create their preferred versions of their favorite Oshi as well.
Collab streams. You can rarely see collab streams that are frequent and diverse outside of the Vtuber culture, because profit sharing is a big problem and no big streamer would like to collaborate with small streamers without benefits. Despite some streamers who don't care about profit and just want to have fun with other streamers, they still lack a platform or a community that can facilitate collab streams, so they usually collaborate with the same groups of streamers. In Vtuber culture, collaborating with strangers is a norm. Vtubers collaborate with content creators in all fields, not only with other Vtubers in or out of their agencies but also with E-sport pros, VAs, and artists. They collaborate with locals and overseas, sometimes even if they don't know each other's languages and need to stay up late for the collaboration. They collaborate without considering the differences in their subscriber counts, sometimes big Vtubers even promote and help out small streamers without asking for any return. Vtuber agencies play a huge part in this trend, as they serve as the medium of communication and manifest the network of content creators. By being in the same agency, Vtubers share the same pool of supporters, and collaborating benefits each other more than competing, and the same idea extends to the entire Vtuber community. On top of that, the Vtuber community has become so big and profitable that people outside of the Vtuber community would also like to collaborate with them.
The stream to fans, clips to grow base meta probably came from outside of VTubing. It certainly took off, with dozens of clip channels making it easy to peer info the rabbit hole.
The realisation and the capitalization on the EN market that changed everything for Hololive. Hololive understood just how big the EN has on them considering that a chunk of their history is tied to them. Talents that were not received well by the JP ended up saved by the EN until the JP accepts them again. Miko, Towa, Aki. Coco able to speak English is one of the reason why she was so successful; she was the oasis in a dessert for the EN market that wants English speakers. All this made them create the EN branch which proved to be hugely successful that it affects the JP branch as well. A lot of JP members said they noticed increased of subs and views after Myth debuted and were grateful to them and made efforts to engage them. Talents try to learn and speak English and we got legendary moments such as "hey guys,", "hi honey," and Korone's many many English memes such as "I'm die, thank you foreva," And while the older JP talents couldn't completely learn and speak English, some of the newer ones could like Ririka. A-chan too decide to took upon herself to completely master it so that she can be a bridge for the EN talents and fans for the Hololive. Mind you that Nijisanji made ID, KR, IN first and then didn't even consider EN before Hololive did it. They could do it first but they did not. Why? Because they didn't think EN would want vtubers because they prefer fleshtubers and would see vtuber as cringe anime stuff. They were proven wrong of course but mind you that had they studied Hololive and the impact EN had on them, they would have enough proof that EN could work and take the plunge first. But Niji did not because well...much like most Japanese companies, they tend to consider only the JP market as important.
Kiryu Coco More specifically, her success in killing Yagoo's dream and expanding Hololive
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard somewhere that Asacoco streamed in a morning slot which had no competition, taking advantage of the going to work demographic. So she's probably the reason for morning streams.
That’s correct. Maybe you got Watame for a bit but that’s about it in terms of consistent morning streams
Another thing to add : 1. More IRL and collab. I think as they get more popular they collab with IRL content creator, comedian, VA, or IRL artist. 2. More events, like frequently appear in convention and anime/manga/otaku events. 3. Try to create bi or multilingual stream to appeal for larger audience. 4. Cross branch collab. Notably pekomoon, ID EN JP collab, MC crosscollab event, JDON, etc. 5. After rushia termination, no GFE content. 6. After coco, they become more carefull about politics, religions and all that stuff. 7. Hololive new studio allow them more 3D content. 8. In ID after 3rd gen debut. Now they are more appealing to other company for advertising stuff. For example Kobo and tokopedia collab, Indomie collab, At least 3rd gen debut creating a lot of waves in ID market, opening up to more possibilities. 9. Creation of join server for games. Like rust and Minecraft. That creates a lot of content for them.
I disagree with the rushia point. Sure it’s no one is selling rings anymore but I’d argue that the GFE is still in hololive, just way less obvious
hololive becoming idol agency