Creating a game with Incest and the pitfalls that come with it.

[LadyLilith-3D]

Incest is one of the main taboos that gets frowned upon by basically anything mainstream (unless you're a popular movie or TV series like Game of Thrones I guess). I'm in the early development stage of a game I'm creating. The story plot is revolved around incest and I'd rather not budge from that. The issue is generating funds. Patreon states that's a big no go and that's the biggest name out there right now to use. I've made a list of some ideas along with the pros on cons. I was hoping to start up an open discussion on what our choices are as Devs to deal with all this. I see this question get asked around here and there and wanted to really break it down if we can. Feel free to add to the list and add in any comments/discussions related to the topic.


Using Patreon

Pros:
-The most popular subscription-based platform for devs which means a sense of security for subscribers (use of paypal as well)
-Easy platform to use and get content out to subscribers
-No need to mess with billing/payment as it's all through Patreon

Cons:
-No mention of incest whatsoever on the Patreon page or websites directly linked to your game (so on your game's website, etc). This means not being able to advertise that your game includes incest or give any kind of that content to your subscribers.
-Must create some type of alternative patch for the game to include incest. Must distribute that anonymously to 3rd party websites.


Using Patreon Alternatives (like Subscribestar)

Pros:
-Not having to filter your content
-Easy platform to use and get content out to members
-No need to mess with billing/payment as it's all through Subscribestar
-Lower fees than Patreon

Cons:
-Not as popular as Patreon. Top 1% have vastly lower income compared to Patreon
-Harder to get members to subscribe through Subscribestar which will most likely mean less game funding


Personal website/membership

Pros:
-No worrying about filtering your content
-No worrying about getting your funding cut off by a 3rd party
-Direct control over subscriptions which means fewer fees

Cons:
-Can't use Paypal and must use a payment merchant that is okay with adult content
-All subscription and billing are in your hands (this means disputes, etc).
-Website security is a must
-People less willing to put in credit card info on your website which means less funding


CrowdFunding (ex: Kickstarter)

Pros:
-With the right marketing, you could drive a lot of traffic to the site and get some upfront funding
-Funnel backers to your website to sign up
-Gain a lot of exposure, interest, and members fast

Cons:
-Not 100% but I don't think you're allowed to mention incest. (On the flip, you can market it as such and push that type of traffic to the Kickstarter, maybe?)
-Not a constant review stream
-Takes a lot of marketing work to make a successful campaign
-Kickstart takes 3-5% fees

 

[Holy Bacchus]

I'd say it depends on how integral the incest is to your story. This isn't to say you should remove it, but it's about whether or not the story could be ambiguous enough to allow for a patch and for both versions to still make sense. If this is the case, then I'd go down the route of a patch and either do it yourself but release it under a pseudonym, or have a well-known modder either make the patch or claim to have made the patch. The reason being that you don't want anyone to be reporting you to Patreon for making your own patch. Selectable relations is always an option too, i.e. "This character is your [insert relationship here] (default is best friend)".

If however the story simply can't work without incest, well then it becomes trickier to do a patch. You might be able to survive for a while, perhaps even a long while before Patreon's Moral Police come down on you, and you can try to plead your case but it might not work. So that would leave SubscribeStar as the best option, and sure, it might not seem quite as lucrative as Patreon because it's still relatively unheard of and does have some issues, but some devs can do quite well on it. An incest game called Proud Father, which is all but banned on this site because of characters who appear underage, is only on SS and the dev is making just over $8500 a month off of just over 1000 subscribers, so they're doing pretty good.

Lastly, I want to address what Patreon says about incest content:

"We understand that some topics on this list such as incest or rape are a little bit more complicated because these situations are, unfortunately, part of real life. As a result, when reviewing these types of creations, the Trust and Safety team will take into consideration context including personal, historical or educational narrative. For example, survivor stories or fiction such as Game of Thrones or Lolita are allowed on Patreon."

The wording of this makes it sound like, if the incest content is contextually appropriate within the story, then it's OK, but this is something that applies to many games and yet they have had to change their games or risk being booted from Patreon. Sure, a lot of games do it for the titilation factor and that's it, so maybe that's why Patreon isn't so lenient since these games are not really trying to make some serious, hard-hitting, philosophical point about incest, but if a game wants to make it into something that takes a serious look at it and handles it like a serious drama piece of drama, then it should be allowed.

So, if your planned game is one that wants to deal with incest in this way, then technically, according to their own words, it should be OK, but unfortunately it seems that no incest is OK with them. In any case, if you aren't able to take that out, patch it, and still have the game make sense without it, then SubscribeStar is probably best.

 

[kytee]

You could probably pull off some shit like what Alorth and SirDammed do for Radiant where you be as vague as possible on your Patreon as to what product you're producing and trust that people know where to find your game after they subscribe.

 

[DownTheDrain]

Can't be much of an issue considering the constant stream of new incest titles here that all have Patreon links. I suppose you could just check what the competition is doing and then copy the most sensible approach.
Patreon and Subscribestar with the usual patch would be my guess. A personal website with billing function only makes sense if you're already very much established and hugely successful. Never heard of anyone crowdfunding an adult fetish game so I'd probably stay clear of that.

 

[LadyLilith-3D]

Never heard of anyone crowdfunding an adult fetish game so I'd probably stay clear of that.

Fenoxo, the creator of the text-based game "Trials in trained space" raised over $125,000 from (offbeatr) I think it was. It was like kickstarter for porn stuff years back. His game had multiple fetishes (one of which was incest when it was first being made before he stripped it all clean due to Patreon). Not saying any game would be successful but it does show there's a chance.

 

[DownTheDrain]

Fenoxo, the creator of the text-based game "Trials in trained space" raised over $125,000 from (offbeatr) I think it was. It was like kickstarter for porn stuff years back. His game had multiple fetishes (one of which was incest when it was first being made before he stripped it all clean due to Patreon). Not saying any game would be successful but it does show there's a chance.

I wasn't aware of that.
Then again that was after the massive success of CoC so it's still not something I'd recommend unless you've already made a name for yourself.

 

[megaplayboy10k]

I would just do it by having selectable relationships, and write the dialogue and story to heavily imply the family relationship. Any time the characters who are obviously attracted to each other not only have reservations about entering into a relationship with the MC but also even about just feeling attracted in the first place, it's pretty heavily implied anyway. No single woman is going to agonize that much over entering into sexual relations with a younger man just because he's young or because he's "her best friend's son"(not for weeks and weeks, anyway).

 

[User4862]

I would just do it by having selectable relationships, and write the dialogue and story to heavily imply the family relationship.

i cant remember which game, unfortunately, but i do remember reading about one that had a feature like that, but the dev had to remove it from their game because patreon, because it could be used to set incest relationships. ive also seen other games on patreon that have incest within the game itself (no patch needed), and are still there. i guess its a matter of whether or not it gets reported.

 

[Cokane0]

Would be a shame if you released your game with your lovely landlady and roommates and some evil people on a forum somewhere made an incest patch for it that is not endorsed by you.
What a terrible crime that would be.

 

[kytee]

Would be a shame if you released your game with your lovely landlady and roommates and some evil people on a forum somewhere made an incest patch for it that is not endorsed by you.
What a terrible crime that would be.

Don't say that, it might actually happen. And we don't want that.

 

[K.T.L.]

Funny world we live in. If you're a major studio with ties to Hollywood, you can make a mainstream film about incest and nobody bats an eyelid. Otherwise, making such a film or game is the epitome of evil, the end of the world as we know it.

I'm in a similar situation, still wondering on the best way to deal with it. Probably the easiest way is to *not* explicitly have incestuous activity in the game at all and just let someone else create a patch - which they will if the game becomes popular enough and they like it.

Based on the ease with which renpy games can be decompiled and the code examined, it would probably not be a good idea to simply try to hide the incestuous activity behind a codeword or something like that. I don't know if the likes of Patreon would go that far but someone else, on some sort of moral crusade, probably would and they'd submit the code to Patreon who would then have to act on it.

 

[Cokane0]

I'm in a similar situation, still wondering on the best way to deal with it. Probably the easiest way is to *not* explicitly have incestuous activity in the game at all and just let someone else create a patch - which they will if the game becomes popular enough and they like it.

Cough* somebody else makes the patch Cough* cough*

 

[Laikhent]

The creator of "Dating my daughter" has about 2200 subscribers on subscribestar. He also has a patreon, which he seems to use for another game and it has around 3150 subs.

It's definetively possible to get a good amount of subs on subscribestar, but as you said, the tendency will be to get less. The question is, would you really get more subs on patreon when you can't even advertise your game is about incest to the ppl that are looking for incest? Look at the title of the game "Dating my daughter", anyone into incest that is browsing games and see that title is immediately compelled to try it, and you could never use that title on patreon. So, it's a really hard decision there.

Edit: if you are going to analyze successful incest games on patreon, be sure to consider that some of them marketed their games as being incest before the patreon anti-incest rules took place.

 

[woody554]

as you're in the early stages, I'd design the story in a way that allows making two parallel versions with a boolean switch. then make a patch to change that boolean on/off.

this allows you full control without having to restrict yourself in ways a simple 'mom=landlady' name change does, as you can write out relevant problem events as differently as you like. maybe you want to first show a childhood intro where you live with you sister, which would be bannable even in the non-related version because it would count as step family. so you write the incest one as family, and the noncest one with them never even having lived together. the amount of additional work you get is decided by how far YOU wanna take it. and after you set up the backstory you probably rarely need more than name swap anyway, maybe a sentence or two here and there if you want to get the noncest writing less awkward.

then just do patreon as usual. and even if you one day somehow get burned, you already have a patreon fanbase which will make switching to another site much much easier. people would already know you, you wouldn't be starting from zero on a new site trying to make your game known on a much smaller platform. even in the worst case you could look at your time on patreon as a marketing campaign to make your game known.