Hololive’s New Policy Allows Indie Devs to Profit from Fanmade Games 

On November 15, COVER Corporation announced the establishment of holo Indie – a new game brand for derivative works and fanmade efforts. The upcoming title HoloParade is slated to be the first game released under the brand. COVER simultaneously announced a revised version of its “Derivative Works Guidelines” as well as adding a new “Derivative Work Game Guideline.” 

COVER Corporation runs the VTuber Agency Hololive Productions as well as the popular all-female Vtuber group Hololive. The increasing worldwide interest in Vtubers such as Gawr Gura and Houshou Marine has led to the development of numerous Hololive-inspired games. Fanmade titles include the roguelite title HoloCure – Save the Fans! and the fighting game Idol Showdown. 

The establishment of ‘holo Indie’ and the introduction of these new guidelines indicates COVER’s support for fanmade content. The company hopes that these measures will provide opportunities for more fans to enjoy creating diverse content based on COVER’s IPs, without having to worry about copyright claims. COVER state that they will not exercise their rights as long as derivate works comply with the guidelines. 

In addition, COVER added that they will establish a dedicated Steam account for fanmade games as part of their Game Developer Support Program. The fanmade efforts published on this account will be released under the company’s new game brand holo Indie. Up until now, derivative works approved under COVER’s previous guidelines could only be distributed for free, however, the new guidelines also allow for paid distribution of fanmade games. In this way, COVER aims to create an ecosystem that provides continuous support to indie developers. 

HoloParade, the first fanmade creation to be released in this manner, seems to be COVER’s test case for the holo Indie brand. HoloParade is a single-player 2D tower defense game which features 65 Hololive production VTubers and mascot characters. According to COVER’s announcement, Japanese developer Roboqlo is the main creative force behind this game; they were responsible for the planning, graphics and programming.

In HoloParade, you summon characters into your parade squad and aim to destroy the enemy’s base. The characters have different abilities such as ally-healing support and self-destruct attacks. In addition, the game features the “Symphony Effect,” that activates various effects when the characters play their musical instruments, impacting gameplay in multiple ways. It seems that the combination of characters in your parade and the order in which you summon them will be important strategic factors. The “Skill” system allows you to equip each character with up to three special abilities, customizing the way you develop them. The game will also include mini games and a gacha system through which characters can be obtained. 

HoloParade is scheduled to be released for the PC and Mac (Steam) on December 1st in Japanese, English and Indonesian.  

Written by. Verity Townsend based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date 2023-11-15 18:56 JST)