...I think someone said it well before: Passion doesn't pay bills and few will put the effort in.
I can tell you this, with a large degree of certainty, that if there wasn't a way to profit from the amount of work that I had to put into my game, I wouldn't be making a game.
I'd put a lot of that time and effort back into working in my previous fields (like comic book industry, the actual game industry or back to solely writing novels again)... sure as hell, wouldn't be dumping it all into making a game that I can't at least make some kind of return on.
Know from experience from talking with a lot of creators, of whom I am friends with, that they sure as shit wouldn't be either.
Why is it, you think, that so many bail from the original efforts that they put in?
It is a shit-ton of work to craft a freaking game!!!
My first game, I was putting on average anywhere between 8 hours to 12 hours (and sometimes more) a day, seven days week for a little over a year to get my game out and done. And, though, on paper it looked like I made a good ROI (Return on Investment) for that time and effort, when we factored in the time spent versus money earned... I made around $0.53 cents USD an hour for that effort.
Fortunately, in my case, I built my first game using Poser and the assets that I had purchased and accumulated in my time of working in the 3D Industry that I helped to create... but for many of these creators (and myself now), who use Daz 3D, that really isn't an option.
So, far, to date... since my change over to Daz 3D and Genesis 8, I have spent a total of nearly $12,000 USD (maybe a slight bit more now, won't know final tally till Tax time) just on Daz assets... and, yeah, I could be kind of scummy to all of the Daz/Poser Creators by pirating the many objects, props, textures, poses and stuff to make my game, I won't do it... first, because I am personal friends with many of them who are just trying to do the same as me... make a living and second, I try to stay above board to prevent an possibility of entanglements that would just make my effort to make a living myself, rendered useless.
Granted, it's cost me that much for assets, because I hadn't been collecting or purchasing that stuff over time as many others have been or like I had done when using my Poser content.
Then there is the (little less than) $9,000 USD that I spent on my new rig, to be sure that I could render all of those assets to make my upcoming game and be as competitive in the market with some of the other games and graphics coming out in our little 'porn' game industry.
And HOLY HELL, I thought it was a BITCH and HUGE time sink working on and rendering my first game using Poser, doing one in Daz takes a SHIT LOAD MORE TIME!!! Gone are the days when I could render out between 50 to 200 renders a day working in and with super low poly geometry, 512 dpi textures, a dinosaur of a rendering engine to what Daz has and uses, I am lucky if I get 30 to (maybe) 100 renders a day done and that is with my system even chugging them out while I sleep!
Then there are the additional costs of money... the cost for utilities used as your machine(s) chugs and churns out renders, hardware/software upkeep costs as I've already killed one motherboard in the last two years and coolant pump.
And then there is time spent... aside from the time spent assembling scenes and rendering, there is time spent in plotting, writing, advertising (which also incurs financial costs as well, besides just time), time spent trying to figure out and check on line for how to freaking do something that you want to do for the game and have to learn it, time spent running and interacting on Discord (though I suck at that myself), time spent interacting and responding on social media, Patreon and here...
That doesn't even cover the cost in health, which many of us creators are already dealing with and why the majority of us are try to make money doing games... because a lot of us have serious health issues and try to use what we are doing to make supplemental income, because we can't work regular jobs.
Or the cost in health and headaches that can come from individuals that we as creators have to put up with... the 'PORN IS BAD AND WE NEED TO RID THE WORLD OF THEM!' assholes, for which the topic of this tread was created about, having all of our time and effort (and money) suddenly cut off and useless, or necessary to jump through ever-changing hoops...
Not to mention the 'THIS GAME HAS NTR!' bullshit crowd... who usually whine, scream and dump ash upon their heads while they turn themselves into knots... and, many times, calling something NTR when it isn't or thinking that a game that has a dick in it, other then the MC's (i.e.: their own) then it is NTR. *sigh*
Or the wonderful 'WHEN IS THE NEXT RELEASE DUE' or the 'TOO LAZY TO READ OR SEARCH THE FORUM FOR ANSWERS' crowd... etc., etc., etc...
With respect, 'make games just on passion'... most of us are ALREADY making games on 'passion', because VERY FEW OF US even make the money and value back in what we've spent, not to mention there are freaking times when that never seems to be good enough for people out there...
...so, why bother?
I, myself, have no illusions to what I do... while I wish I could score big like some of the top creators, I may likely NEVER truly make what I put in doing all of this back.
That's 'passion', but to not make ANYTHING AT ALL back... fuck that, even I will check out... not worth the hassle that we, as game creators, have to go through.
Just saying.
