AT what Rating Should a DEV Seek Help?

[coffeeaddicted]

Yes we are, all of us.
Even if we know that they are biased we can't prevent the cognitive bias that will happen when our eyes will see the rating, even if it's just for an instant. It doesn't mean that we never download a game with a low rating, or avoid a game with a high one, but our own view over the game is influenced by this rating.
The best way to limit the impact of a negative rating is to not play the game right after we downloaded it. If you wait one day, by example, you're most likely to have forgot about the rating, and will try the game with in mind the fact that is should worth it, since you downloaded it.

It's fascinating what manipulative creators we are.
I already hated Facebook with it's like button.
Now i have to ignore ratings and reviews.

And then there was a game where the dev manipulated the ratings. I forgot which game it was but it was stated on the front page.

At the moment, i don't even play any games but before, yes, i downloaded and played it. Just to see if the update was good which is already subjective because you want to have a path to continue for example. It seems the best stratgey to just leave it for awhile before playing.

Though i always wondered why games like adult VN are never or rarely completed and released. Is there a particular reason for that?

 

[grohotor]

Not all high rated games are good, but all the low rated games that i've tried have been shit. If a game has less than 3 star its safe to ignore it. Only exception that i can think of is if its new and only has a few reviews.

Though i always wondered why games like adult VN are never or rarely completed and released. Is there a particular reason for that?

The answer is simple, Money.

 

[Ambir]

Though i always wondered why games like adult VN are never or rarely completed and released. Is there a particular reason for that?

Adult games, in general, are rather hard to finance. The biggest financial model is patreon.

Patreon encourages small monthly patches (or more frequent than that).

And if you keep getting money each month from a game, do you really want to end the game and risk your income?

 

[coffeeaddicted]

Not all high rated games are good, but all the low rated games that i've tried have been shit. If a game has less than 3 star its safe to ignore it. Only exception that i can think of is if its new and only has a few reviews.
The answer is simple, Money.

Well, i did try out some lower rated games. Probably correct that most are not that good but some were actually not that bad.
I kind of liked Dirty Pool, but it has a rating of 3.9. So it's borderline.

Money. That's what i thought.

 

[baka]

feedback is important to fix issues and improve.
but the best reviewer is yourself.
I create the game "I LIKE". sure if you are a team, it will be more of "I do my part" the best possible I can manage and also the way I want it to be. if renders, I make as good renders possible, if story, I try to write as good possible. now, I create a game-engine of a game I want to make. and sure, I listen to feedback, but only the one I feel thats a good idea.
since Im in a team, I need to consider my partner, so its a give and take deal. but in the end I need to enjoy doing what Im doing otherwise I will not be able to continue. and sometimes its like that when the job is boring and not what I want (since I can not decide everything myself)
if my game gets 1 star, there a reason that has nothing to do with quality.
but if I only get 1 star, I need to think, WTF is going on. if I enjoy it myself why can't other? wheres the problem?
could be Im unique and everyone else so far didnt like it. maybe I need to find people that enjoy my game.
so you can try to be like the popular guy. copy him. and try to lure people to pay you.
or you can make something you like and hopefully a lot also enjoy it. if not, you need to consider, what is the important thing, money or creating a good game that YOU enjoy.

 

[osanaiko]

I just realized that just this forum with the development threads shows what's hot and what's not.
Some don't even get a reply other do get a lot and especially views (in K meaning there are a lot of people that were already curious at least about the game).
So this is already a quasi Darwinian selection for the games.
I just never seen it that way or wasn't interested in it. Should a developer when posting here, already draw consequences about releasing it officially?
Which makes me wonder, what make a game really stick out, really a game that draws a crowd. It can't be just the renders. Perhaps the story? Or is word of mouth?

There's many dimensions along which different players will be interested in a game.
A game that caters to more mainstream "fetish" categories will appeal to more potential players - i.e. the love interests are high school or college age girls, with large breasts but not extreme.
Fetish games have their place, but by their very nature they appeal to less people. Picking a common (these days) kink like incest adds that level of spice which turns the game story into a more exciting taboo situation.
Next ingredient is that the player can self insert. It's not by chance that so many of these games have a story about a main character who is still young and is thrust into some situation where by his own efforts he can score with several attractive girls - basic fantasy wish fulfilment for so many men.
Art wise, something unique or stylistic is often more attractive than "i've seen that 100 times before" standard art - these days just throwing together basic honey select or daz default models and clothing does not stand out from the crowd at all.
Story - the preview/summary has something that shows there is a tale to be discovered, something more than just "mc has a magic dick and women can't resist him".

If you analyse the most successful of all f95 games "Summertime Saga" you can see how it hits all of these targets:
- MC is a young guys in a tough situation but is surrounded by hot women, he has a mystery to solve and mini-quests to romance the girls. his own efforts will help his "roommates" and the town.
- unique hand drawn art, nothing too extreme but also has a clear recognizable style
- the blatant family taboo situation
- mainly busty girls, young ones with hourglass figures and older, ripe milfs.
- story is comfortably cliché but still has interesting twists
- technically well implemented
- the writing itself is cheerful and succinct, not too long and flowery, nor is it dumb, or poorly translated
- at the beginning, the developer clearly was putting a lot of effort in and making regular releases, which triggered the initial surge of committed fans
- success breeds success: because it came into the amateur adult game market at a time with not much competition from Western Erotic Games, it got much more attention than you can get today with a much more crowded scene.
- a clear high level of quality, but still some fun amateurishness

What does success mean? it means people who are not already part of f95 will stumble across it and want to play. of those, some percentage will pay.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Though i always wondered why games like adult VN are never or rarely completed and released. Is there a particular reason for that?

On the abandoned side of the problem, there's four main reasons, that I guess are equally distributed between the abandoned games:

1. The game don't earn enough.
   
   There's of course the creators who are doing this for money, them will obviously abandon their game if there's no money. But even a creator that don't care this much about how much they'll earn have a limit.
   Making a game have a cost, in money but also in time. If the game use Daz Studio, you can't pass your time paying between an average of US$ 30 for all the assets you need ; there's a moment where you stop if you can't even earn enough to compensate this expense.
   And, as I said, there's the time. Making a game all by yourself is really time consuming, and come a moment when you wonder if cutting down your social life worth the ten bucks you earn each month. Or a moment where your wife/girlfriend tell you that this is enough ; she agreed to let you have your hobby, but it cost too much money and left you with almost no time for her, and potentially your children.
   It don't mean that she's obsessed by money, but it's easier to deal with your lack of attention when you earn thousands, than when you earn few bucks. The main difference being that when you earn thousands, you can take her for a romantic weekend time to time.
2. The lack of idea or knowledge.
   
   Too many creators starts their game with the premise of a story, expecting that it's enough. But it's rarely enough, and ideas don't come on command. Some of them don't find a way to end their story, other face the blank page and are stuck there. They reach a point where the story can't be ended, nor be continued.
   And there's those who had a vision of their game that they can't technically achieve. Like for the story, they tend to wait the moment they'll need this particular game mechanism before working on it. And they discover that they just can't make it works. The story could continue, but they are so focused on this game mechanism, it's a so important part of the game like they imagined it, that not being able to do it make them abandon.
3. Life can change so much in few years.
   
   They are human beings before being creators. Some get sick, a long-term sickness, or have it's someone from their family. Others are fired, or promoted, and don't have anymore the free time they had before. Talking of free time, some get married or have a child. Their life changed and continuing the game isn't anymore a priority for them.
4. It's too bad man...
   
   And finally, there's the obvious, those who are absolutely not the right person to make a game. Everything suck and finally they accept to face this truth.

There's also other reasons. One creator had to abandon because his girlfriend discovered that he was making an adult game and kicked him out of the house. One lost everything because of a hurricane, and there's Chatterbox who died probably not the only one, just the one we heard about.
But globally all reasons fall under one of those four categories.

And on the "never ending" side of it, Ambir answered.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

feedback is important to fix issues and improve.
but the best reviewer is yourself.
I create the game "I LIKE". sure if you are a team, it will be more of "I do my part" the best possible I can manage and also the way I want it to be. if renders, I make as good renders possible, if story, I try to write as good possible. now, I create a game-engine of a game I want to make. and sure, I listen to feedback, but only the one I feel thats a good idea.
since Im in a team, I need to consider my partner, so its a give and take deal. but in the end I need to enjoy doing what Im doing otherwise I will not be able to continue. and sometimes its like that when the job is boring and not what I want (since I can not decide everything myself)
if my game gets 1 star, there a reason that has nothing to do with quality.
but if I only get 1 star, I need to think, WTF is going on. if I enjoy it myself why can't other? wheres the problem?
could be Im unique and everyone else so far didnt like it. maybe I need to find people that enjoy my game.
so you can try to be like the popular guy. copy him. and try to lure people to pay you.
or you can make something you like and hopefully a lot also enjoy it. if not, you need to consider, what is the important thing, money or creating a good game that YOU enjoy.

Oopss i didn't see your response. Sorry.

You know i want to tell a story that is dear to me.
So what i care foremost is me. I realize that is selfish but i think i agree with you that i need to enjoy it and not what everyone likes because you can't really make something that you don't believe in.

I like to do this on my own even if it's not the best. What i care is about the story.

And the point you make are, or anyone did, very valid.
In the end, if it doesn't turn out to be something that anyone likes, well that's ok. Maybe i just suck at it.
And i am doing it not for money but for expressing myself through a story.

I hope that when i am done or better, when i have something to show, that at least someone likes it or is curious
But i did learn through several attempts, that you need to get it right. The story with what i feel comfortable and convincing.

This is all a lot to take in but i feel good about it. Because it's honest and i hope i learn something and be honest with myself.

 

[PJWhoopie]

... and I find the dynamic fascinating too, which is why I asked the initial question for this thread.

Despite the fact that some say I am "doing it wrong", between Family, Work, Life etc etc, I don't have time to play every single game that drops.

For me, on a daily-ish trip to F95, the Latest Updates Page is the one that comes up when I click on my F95. I scroll down, first to see if there are any games I am currently following/supporting that have dropped (and while I do support a few games at various "backing with money" sites, I rarely go to those pages... not enough time in my day)

If nothing I am currently "into" has dropped/updated, I look for new stuff/stuff I haven't played.

1) Does it have interesting splash art/banner and a quasi interesting name? if yes
2) Does it have any ratings/reviews? If yes I go to the review page, if no I look to see what the version number is
3) If it has mostly positive reviews, I'll go ahead and download it...
4) If there are 1-2 stars, I skip
5) If there are no reviews/stars I'll actually check out the Art, read the Overview, and take a look at the Genre Tags
If it seems ok, I'll download and play.

Now, the first handful of posts were dedicated to telling me that reviews aren't worth shit, but to me, they are.... right or wrong, if a game has poor reviews (and by that I mean multiple bad reviews that I have read and they seem to have merit) I skip it.

Again , my time is limited, I should be making art/working on my game, not wasting my time, in a sense.

So, in that vein, I was curious what a developer does when their game is suffering from bad reviews.... which dissuade folks like me from playing, and in turn, prevents me from supporting them via their backing site of choice.

I'd think if you had 7 reviewers suggest you needed help with English/Grammar/Spelling, you'd seek help, as the bad reviews regarding it are impacting your bottom line. Now you can say that isn't fair all you want, but its my time, and my money, and that is just how it goes for me.

Regardless, I'll pivot a bit from the original line of questioning and ask others here what YOUR process is for discovering/playing games?

 

[coffeeaddicted]

... and I find the dynamic fascinating too, which is why I asked the initial question for this thread.

Despite the fact that some say I am "doing it wrong", between Family, Work, Life etc etc, I don't have time to play every single game that drops.

For me, on a daily-ish trip to F95, the Latest Updates Page is the one that comes up when I click on my F95. I scroll down, first to see if there are any games I am currently following/supporting that have dropped (and while I do support a few games at various "backing with money" sites, I rarely go to those pages... not enough time in my day)

If nothing I am currently "into" has dropped/updated, I look for new stuff/stuff I haven't played.

1) Does it have interesting splash art/banner and a quasi interesting name? if yes
2) Does it have any ratings/reviews? If yes I go to the review page, if no I look to see what the version number is
3) If it has mostly positive reviews, I'll go ahead and download it...
4) If there are 1-2 stars, I skip
5) If there are no reviews/stars I'll actually check out the Art, read the Overview, and take a look at the Genre Tags
If it seems ok, I'll download and play.

Now, the first handful of posts were dedicated to telling me that reviews aren't worth shit, but to me, they are.... right or wrong, if a game has poor reviews (and by that I mean multiple bad reviews that I have read and they seem to have merit) I skip it.

Again , my time is limited, I should be making art/working on my game, not wasting my time, in a sense.

So, in that vein, I was curious what a developer does when their game is suffering from bad reviews.... which dissuade folks like me from playing, and in turn, prevents me from supporting them via their backing site of choice.

I'd think if you had 7 reviewers suggest you needed help with English/Grammar/Spelling, you'd seek help, as the bad reviews regarding it are impacting your bottom line. Now you can say that isn't fair all you want, but its my time, and my money, and that is just how it goes for me.

Regardless, I'll pivot a bit from the original line of questioning and ask others here what YOUR process is for discovering/playing games?

Just a suggestion.

You should use the RSS feed for the updates. That's how i do it. So i see several times a day updates. It's easier that way.

I am torn on the reviews. As stated, and i believe it, they are all biased. Though they do have some times some truth in them, but it should be taken with a grain of salt.
I think of them as Yelp reviews.
They are not that useful and sometimes big misunderstandings go into reviews.

Since there are so many non native english speakers making games, i am ok with most of them.

The way i look for games is simple.

1) title (maybe something is implied there)
2) what's about (finding out what the game is actually about)

Ratings can be helpful but i give any game a shot if it has the tag i was looking for.
If it's a 2 it probably isn't good. A 3 can be good. Depending on what you are looking for.
I did find some abandoned games that i really like.

Currently i have time to do what i do. That will (hopefully) change one day and that's it with that adventure.
Since i try to make a game of my own i don't play really anymore.

But in a sense that is how i look for a game.
One game i really like was (if your into dilf) was Dating my Daughter. I still haven't played everything but it is actually really great.
Renders are good, story is ok. It has below 4 stars.
At the same time i find it always very hard to find a game i truly like. One of the games that stuck with me was Light of my Life. Very well made. 4.8

So that is that.

Anyway, i don't really look anymore for games. I have a couple that i watch but haven't even touched them so far.
Maybe i am getting too old now.

 

[osanaiko]

I'd think if you had 7 reviewers suggest you needed help with English/Grammar/Spelling, you'd seek help, as the bad reviews regarding it are impacting your bottom line. Now you can say that isn't fair all you want, but its my time, and my money, and that is just how it goes for me.

You might be surprised to learn that I have had two non-english-as-a-first-language game developers outright refuse to receive help from me in doing spelling/grammar/logic edit for FREE. It was shocking to me - why would a developer put in all the effort to make a game and then deny that there was a problem with the writing and story? I can only guess that some people are not rational thinkers.

 

[The Rogue Trader]

I find this thread very depressing.

While we all agree that there are some abysmal games (the "They really shouldn't make games" category. Sometimes I wonder how many of those are actually adults), where reviews just point out the obvious, in the many games where the developer clearly is putting up an effort, the situation is much more blurred.

I'll throw in two examples:
1) Indecent Desires has horrible ratings (weighted). In the thread you'll hear a lot of people complaining about a lots of things like the difficulty of finding events that forces to play with a walkthrough, the main plot being lost in a heap of random events, the kinks that make up the main focus not being the ones implied by the game concept and advertisement, and sex scenes being sparse and difficult to find. I'm among those complainers.
Yet, the renders are excellent and the game has decent financial backing.
2) Battle for Luvia is a complex and very mature game with a deep setting, political intrigue (where you, the player, make a difference), unique mechanics and lots of sex.
Art was unique and ratings were enthusiastic (4.5 stars). I'm playing it and enjoying it a lot and agreeing with the hype.
The game had mediocre to bad financial backing, and ended up being abandoned.
Since I'm writing a game that has much in common, at least in the concept, I had to comb the reviews very carefully to find ones that are critical and see what caused the game to fail.

So we have a successful game and an unsuccessful one. Of both I can't really say if, ultimately, it is/was a good game or a bad game.

So, if success is the only objective criterion we've left with (the main subjective one being "creator's satisfaction") what makes a game a successful one?

As Anne pointed out (I think it was him): success needs at least some level of quality, but in an oversaturated market quality alone doesn't guarantee success. The secret ingredient being... happenstance.
The argument as presented looks sound, and PJWhoopie and yester64's descriptions of how they browse this forum confirm it.

The market being oversaturated by promising prologues with 3 minutes of content that look nice but don't get to version 0.02 suggests to me that a developer should aim to a first release with lots of content.
It means working like a mule for months just to be able to throw your dice once. Once the forumgoers will start to ignore your thread, no new players will be even aware that you exist.
I'm no great businessman, but that sounds like a bad plan.

So you have two paths: do the same old thing ("Highschooler college guy returns home and starts fucking his single mom and sisters") and ignore the bad reviews you'll get because "that's the same as 100000 other games", hoping that you'll catch a slice of that market with some nice eyecandy.
Or focus on a specific niche: BDSM, guro, futa, loli, etc etc.

Basically, there's little room to be creative. Or at least this seems to be the consensus on this thread.

P.S.
As development threads, go, yester64, I wouldn't put too much weight on them. I saw games that look and sound amazing to me that get exactly zero reactions: it's the same as the game releases thread, but with a smaller base. PrivateDick's development thread is basically the dev monologuing, and the game, even if failed to meet its Kickstarter objective, still ranks in the thousands.

 

[Ambir]

I find this thread very depressing.

While we all agree that there are some abysmal games (the "They really shouldn't make games" category. Sometimes I wonder how many of those are actually adults), where reviews just point out the obvious, in the many games where the developer clearly is putting up an effort, the situation is much more blurred.

I'll throw in two examples:
1) Indecent Desires has horrible ratings (weighted). In the thread you'll hear a lot of people complaining about a lots of things like the difficulty of finding events that forces to play with a walkthrough, the main plot being lost in a heap of random events, the kinks that make up the main focus not being the ones implied by the game concept and advertisement, and sex scenes being sparse and difficult to find. I'm among those complainers.
Yet, the renders are excellent and the game has decent financial backing.
2) Battle for Luvia is a complex and very mature game with a deep setting, political intrigue (where you, the player, make a difference), unique mechanics and lots of sex.
Art was unique and ratings were enthusiastic (4.5 stars). I'm playing it and enjoying it a lot and agreeing with the hype.
The game had mediocre to bad financial backing, and ended up being abandoned.
Since I'm writing a game that has much in common, at least in the concept, I had to comb the reviews very carefully to find ones that are critical and see what caused the game to fail.

So we have a successful game and an unsuccessful one. Of both I can't really say if, ultimately, it is/was a good game or a bad game.

So, if success is the only objective criterion we've left with (the main subjective one being "creator's satisfaction") what makes a game a successful one?

As Anne pointed out (I think it was him): success needs at least some level of quality, but in an oversaturated market quality alone doesn't guarantee success. The secret ingredient being... happenstance.
The argument as presented looks sound, and PJWhoopie and yester64's descriptions of how they browse this forum confirm it.

The market being oversaturated by promising prologues with 3 minutes of content that look nice but don't get to version 0.02 suggests to me that a developer should aim to a first release with lots of content.
It means working like a mule for months just to be able to throw your dice once. Once the forumgoers will start to ignore your thread, no new players will be even aware that you exist.
I'm no great businessman, but that sounds like a bad plan.

So you have two paths: do the same old thing ("Highschooler college guy returns home and starts fucking his single mom and sisters") and ignore the bad reviews you'll get because "that's the same as 100000 other games", hoping that you'll catch a slice of that market with some nice eyecandy.
Or focus on a specific niche: BDSM, guro, futa, loli, etc etc.

Basically, there's little room to be creative. Or at least this seems to be the consensus on this thread.

P.S.
As development threads, go, yester64, I wouldn't put too much weight on them. I saw games that look and sound amazing to me that get exactly zero reactions: it's the same as the game releases thread, but with a smaller base. PrivateDick's development thread is basically the dev monologuing, and the game, even if failed to meet its Kickstarter objective, still ranks in the thousands.

This is a good exemple of what I was pointing out in my lengthy answer. Reviews point out what the players say they want.
The money points out the reality that is underneath.

It would probably be good to gather around more exemples like this, of games that succeeded when they didn't look like they should have, of games that succeeded and look like winners, of games that failed while looking like they were winners and of games that failed and also looked like failures. Otherwise, there is the issue that these exemples might not be representative of the whole.

We'd be able to gain a lot of understanding about what it is that makes an adult game succesful if we compare a lot of data. If it's possible to make sense of it, then we'd have our answer, and god forbid if we can't make sense of the data, then I'll be, albeit reluctantly, ready to accept that adult games succeeding is just like rolling a die.

 

[Gwedelino]

The market being oversaturated by promising prologues with 3 minutes of content that look nice but don't get to version 0.02 suggests to me that a developer should aim to a first release with lots of content.
It means working like a mule for months just to be able to throw your dice once. Once the forumgoers will start to ignore your thread, no new players will be even aware that you exist.
I'm no great businessman, but that sounds like a bad plan.

Since I'm working on my very own project, I asked myself the very same question à lot of times.

I too had in mind that In the current situation, newcomers need to release a very polished first version of their game with a lot of content if they want to make a different. And What I observed from new games seems to correlate that.

However some developers that made it to being successful told me that building Momentum was far more important than having a big first impact, meaning it could be better to release an average lengthy (but still polished) Game and keep some ressources (money / time) aside to follow up with updates than to try to make an initial big splash.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

I don't know.
This sound actually pretty gloomy.
I mean, think about it.
So here you working like an idiot crafting a game. If you use DAZ, that means a lot of renders. Lot of time invested in sheer man power. Cost, well depends i suppose. So far i only bought a couple of assets but using what's available here.
Then you think of your story. What do you want to tell. Is it interesting to others?
Since this is a porn board, people expect sex in it.
So you make sex scenes.
Then you think, ok i have now some playtime and release it and then the shitshow starts.
Is it worth it?
I don't know.
All i know is this. It's fun playing with DAZ and creating characters you like and have them placed in a story that you envisioned.
Unless you really aim for the money part and put all your winnings in it and sacrifice your personal life over it.
I don't know if most devs have families or are couples where everyone know that he or she does sex games but i can imagine that being a problem for some.

There was this one game. My first game actually. I don't know how or why but i played it.
It was called Family Matters. Well, there are three games actually. I played the v0.3. It's being abandoned. The author wrote something like, i not a bloody coder and i didn't know what i was doing and i had to call it's quits.
Though i thought, i looked great and very promising.
That was before i knew how it is done and what figures are used.
Still, i like the game. It didn't had any sex though.

So my takeaway from this today is, that no matter how you start out and think, well i am making a game, you may never finish. Even if you are successful because keeping up probably means to invest even more time and resources and probably hire people since you can't do everything alone at one point.

I think for myself that i will "only" do a small game. I am aiming for 2 hours play time. Something that i can complete and where the code is hopefully alright. I am no bloody coder either.
And, this is totally personal, i did it. So far i didn't.

Age playes probably a huge role as well. If you young, i assume most are, it's easier to do a game as you have time and still all the life ahead. Me, i am older. I count myself lucky if i life 20 more years.

I just wished i were better in drawings and create a game with drawings. It seems not a lot of people like 3DCG though i always thought, mm.. so realistic.

Anyway, i kind of think that is purely luck if you get successful though luck doesn't exist, or does it?

There isn't, in my opinion, a road map. If you do this, then this will happen. That would be great but i think that Anne is right. If you release your game (and have the stamina) at the right time and the right people agree with you, you have a fair shot.
Plus, the years.
I didn't know this board 5 years ago. Now there is a new game every day. Meaning you compete with a lot of games already. Every idea was in some form already there. So you don't add anything new to it. Maybe a new twist but really nothing spectacular new.
And humans are like humans, the stick with what they know.
So i am not certain about my adventure. Even if i think it's great, it won't make a dent. But that's ok. At least i tried. Maybe.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

As development threads, go, yester64, I wouldn't put too much weight on them. I saw games that look and sound amazing to me that get exactly zero reactions: it's the same as the game releases thread, but with a smaller base. PrivateDick's development thread is basically the dev monologuing, and the game, even if failed to meet its Kickstarter objective, still ranks in the thousands.

One thing i took away from checking the thread was Futa is the shit.
If you do a game with Futa, you kind of get traction.
There is also this other person that does a medieval game. Seems very talented. Also a huge crowd.

I checked the PrivateDick and it looks unique.
Though i am not sure if it would be my game but this is what sticks out and probably attracts people.

As for myself, i don't really play game that have 5 star ratings. These games tend to be a swiss knife and not very interesting to me. I go for the average.

 

[osanaiko]

Like it or not, games are an entertainment product, and in some ways follow a similar arc as music performers. Just being a good singer is not enough to become a wide commercial success. You need some other qualities - attractive and/or a specifically unusual look that makes you stand out. Creativity, charisma. And most of all, Luck! Perhaps, if your debut is overshadowed by a different major event, then you might never get another chance...

Another thing to keep in mind is that not everyone has the talents to do a good job:
- writing: (both micro level with spelling, grammar, mid-level with good "quality" dialogue and description, and macro level with interesting engaging storyline).
- Art: (it takes 1-2 years to get good at hand drawn art, and 3-6 months to get good at daz).
- Coding: (depends on the game concept - interesting to me is that some games with very simple linear mechanics are actually successful, more so than many complicated gameplay concepts)
- marketing/community engagement: some developers grew their popularity by engaging with their fans, responding to thread or questions. or even streaming a la Dark Cookie.
- most important TIME AND COMMITTMENT: as has been mentioned above, unless you live alone and have no other job, it's hard to get the time in the day to spend the hours and hours needed to make progress above a crawl. And keeping up your enthusiasm for months-to-years to complete a project... very difficult.

It is a rare individual who can do all of these things - and perhaps this is similar to many other endeavours. There's a clear line between "artist" and "dabbler" - artists complete their works and move on, while dabblers are never finished making minor changes on their baby.

 

[The Rogue Trader]

It would probably be good to gather around more exemples like this, of games that succeeded when they didn't look like they should have, of games that succeeded and look like winners, of games that failed while looking like they were winners and of games that failed and also looked like failures. Otherwise, there is the issue that these exemples might not be representative of the whole.

We'd be able to gain a lot of understanding about what it is that makes an adult game succesful if we compare a lot of data. If it's possible to make sense of it, then we'd have our answer, and god forbid if we can't make sense of the data, then I'll be, albeit reluctantly, ready to accept that adult games succeeding is just like rolling a die.

This sounds like a lot of work. We should find an univeristy to back a large project like that. The results might be interesting.
But ultimately, what we should take a moment to think about is that f95 isn't the world.
Many of the adult games floating around (and I'm strictly speaking of non-japanese ones) haven't been developed by members of this community. Many developers don't even post here, others don't even want their game pirated and posted here.

So, a succesful game could be successful because the developer posted it in 50 different forums (and Steam too), lobbied it with the specialized press, made youtube videos about his game...
Of course, if you have this level of commitment, it's quite likely that you also have a good idea about how to playtest and polish your game before releasing the demo, making the point a bit moot (or at least OT).

 

[Ambir]

This sounds like a lot of work. We should find an univeristy to back a large project like that. The results might be interesting.
But ultimately, what we should take a moment to think about is that f95 isn't the world.
Many of the adult games floating around (and I'm strictly speaking of non-japanese ones) haven't been developed by members of this community. Many developers don't even post here, others don't even want their game pirated and posted here.

So, a succesful game could be successful because the developer posted it in 50 different forums (and Steam too), lobbied it with the specialized press, made youtube videos about his game...
Of course, if you have this level of commitment, it's quite likely that you also have a good idea about how to playtest and polish your game before releasing the demo, making the point a bit moot (or at least OT).

I think it's the biggest platform, at least I haven't ever seen anything bigger than it. If we couple data from f95 and steam, we'd probably get something interesting.

Also... I'm not certain that many universities would accept a research project about porn games

 

[Alcahest]

2) Battle for Luvia is a complex and very mature game with a deep setting, political intrigue (where you, the player, make a difference), unique mechanics and lots of sex.
Art was unique and ratings were enthusiastic (4.5 stars). I'm playing it and enjoying it a lot and agreeing with the hype.
The game had mediocre to bad financial backing, and ended up being abandoned.
Since I'm writing a game that has much in common, at least in the concept, I had to comb the reviews very carefully to find ones that are critical and see what caused the game to fail.

You should have checked Patreon too. It's not abandoned.

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