>>32881177In retrospect, ID has unironically shit the bed less despite male collabs and yubigate. At the very least, they're reminiscent of the more lax JPs rather than being seen as anti-Hololive. Except for Ollie, who's been a full on pro-westernization shitter from the start.
In CN's case, setting political disagreements and woman moments aside, it seems like that was primarily a management issue. Or rather, they made the mistake of having a local CN branch rather than an "unofficial CN" Taiwan branch. They (presumably?) could've also just run a Chinese language branch in house and contracted out to Chinese speaking vtubers without having a formal corporate presence, the same way Bamco started directly translating their SRW games after western copyright and licensing issues caused the Atlus partnership to fall through.
Contrary to what the managerial class might want, business isn't about mathematics and formulas aren't absolute. Running a successful enterprise requires a bit of creativity. That includes trying to head off problems before they happen and bootstrapping solutions to whatever problems arise instead of always doing things the conventional way. Despite that, existing formulas for success can indeed be adopted and repurposed in pursuit of stitching together a workable product. That's the difference between the risk-taking EN (which mostly exploded due to first mover and cult following advantages) imploding right now after flying too close to the sun, ID (which has branding and discoverability issues due to being labeled ID and mostly separated from EN proper despite the vtubers often speaking english) hanging on despite male collabs and juggling streaming in two languages (one of which is a debuff in the west), and CN (which made structural and staffing errors that eventually resulted in the brand getting itself put down).
ID might not be the highest performer, but it is the only side branch that's managed to get closest to the JP style of vtubing, and doesn't seem like it'll die any time soon. Not as sure about EN. Even if they live on, it might be as a generic mass market branch that just indulges the whims of the western market. Unless that fails, then they might devolve into a sort of zombie branch that gets by but isn't as relevant if their lunch gets eaten by the appearance of a more innovative competitor in the EN sphere (ie one that invests in augmented reality, 3D, and other tech that expands the kind of content and interactivity vtubers are capable of).
tldr CN failed completely while ID's brand image is still intact.
