Since its launch in 2019, HOLOSTARS has been active for almost seven years. With the debuts of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Gens, followed by UPROAR!!, it has grown into a group with a total of 12 currently active members and over the course of seven years, their activities went beyond streaming on YouTube, as they joined events, exhibitions, collaborations, and live shows on site.
However, the current state of the HOLOSTARS business has forced us as a company to have repeated discussions about how to maintain HOLOSTARS in a sustainable manner. We considered the future direction of the group’s activities from various perspectives. Ultimately, we have arrived at the conclusion that changing the management structure in a way that fits the current status of HOLOSTARS’ activities is unavoidable.
As a result, the company-led activities of the group, which have progressed alongside the individual activities of each talent, will be coming to a close. From this fiscal year onward, activity policies will shift to mainly focus on individual activities. Moreover, as we will reallocate certain resources, some of our support will be limited or conclude entirely.
Male VTuber glass ceiling moment.
This is basically Cover “quiet firing” them. They are putting them in a corner hoping they quit on their own, which is extremely common Japanese business practice.
They just don’t make enough money. Outside of maybe the top 2 or 3 stars, basically everyone else will probably have to stream while working a part time job if they want to stay in holostars, which will inevitably lead to many just quitting which is exactly what Cover wants.
I mean, at this point I doubt Cover shareholders care if they quit or not, they basically removed all the expenses from the branch already.
Also, more than “male VTuber glass ceiling”, I’d say it’s market saturation. Male VTubers can get enough gachikois to be profitable, but all the “whales” in the market are probably already following Kuzuha, Kanae, Vox and the other big Niji ones.
Cover shareholders probably do care, and probably do want them to quit. Its a dead weight the company is dragging along. A liability. What happens if there is legal trouble with a HoloStars IP? Thats a alot of legal fighting and money being spent on something that the shareholders would rather not even bother with. Its all about money to shareholders, they couldnt care less if someone was starving on the street dying.
Most male VTubers will just never be able to make enough money to please shareholders, especially when compared to female VTubers. Even the top male vtubers like Vox or Roberu likely make less than half of what the top female vtubers make. The more or less reliable data I saw on just superchats from 2023 had like ~13 female vtubers before they got to the first male (it was Bettel I think) and then it was a huge gap to the second. Its just down to a matter of time, and how long someone in the company fights to stop this from happening. This is only one step away from just ending HoloStars completely.
And this isnt even considering competition from outside companies. Stars just doesnt bring in the money, and they are absolutely getting dropped hard because of it.
I’m looking at the 2023 Playboard ranking and I see 4 males in the top 10 VTubers. It’s just that they’re all from Niji (and on the other hand, 5 out of 6 females are from Holo). There is a market share for male VTubers, it’s just already full (and probably more geared towards BFE than what Holostars ever was).