Is independent adult game making a European phenomena?

[BrokenDreams]

With the presence of Engrish in most games and many good game developers hailing from Europe, I wonder if this patreon based adult game creation is a European phenomena? Are Americans not interested in creating such games?

 

[tomcire]

Europe is one country

 

[khumak]

With the presence of Engrish in most games and many good game developers hailing from Europe, I wonder if this patreon based adult game creation is a European phenomena? Are Americans not interested in creating such games?

I think it has more to do with the potential earnings for making a game. Most game devs are not going to be the next Dark Cookie (Summertime Saga) and they know it. They're more likely expecting something in the $1000-5000 per month range and probably closer to the lower end of that. In the US that's not very much money. In eastern europe (or some other relatively low cost of living area) that's pretty good money. So I think most people in the US who consider doing it are doing it as a hobby or side job while in places like eastern europe it's more likely to be a full time endeavor and thus more likely to be completed.

I know personally, I would much rather spend my time making an adult game than doing my day job but I don't think I could support myself doing so full time and I know for sure it would be a pay cut.

 

[baneini]

In eastern EU making relatively small amount of patron dollars is way better than working a minimum wage job while in USA the opposite is true. If you're competent writer/coder your career prospects in non-porn industry in USA are astronomically higher while those opportunities might not exist in ex-soviet countries.

 

[BrokenDreams]

I know Europe is a continent. My point is most game devs are from Russia (mostly in Europe) and other European countries.

 

[tomcire]

See, there are very huge difference between any European country, you can with difficulties compare UK with Russia or with Austria.

most game devs are from Russia

As people said before, cost of living in Russia is much lower than US,

10.743,10 USD (2017) per capita

2k USD per month are not bad as salary and Russia is filled with developers. It is not strange for some of them to try fortune with the gambling of working 24/7 (or with great effort) to a product that can make them live very well.

Edit:
Probably Akabur was the first to start the trend, they saw how much money could do him with not so impressive games and followed his example.

 

[おい！]

With the presence of Engrish in most games and many good game developers hailing from Europe, I wonder if this patreon based adult game creation is a European phenomena? Are Americans not interested in creating such games?

You have to look at each country individually and not the continents. I am British and could not live off the money that some devs receive from Patreon. Where as someone from Romania for example can probably live off $600 to £800 a month. It would not be viable for someone like me to give up my time to develop a game for such a small sum of money. I would say that probably goes for those in the US as well.

The good thing with normal work vs gambling, is that with working my pay is guaranteed, where as gambling on developing a game is not.

 

[Volta]

I can say for myself as a Brit who actually quite likes his day job that i would make significantly less working as a dev, most likely that would be the case unless i "made it big" like Philly, Doc pinkcake or similar, but as we all know that is a 1 in 100 game and i'd be unwilling to make the jump because of the risk, i suspect it's not the actual pay difference but the risk that is the big deal here, i can rely on getting my X thousand pounds a year with my current job even if it is a bit repetitive, i know upfront what i could get for switching to another conventional job, whereas being a Dev is simply self employment, it's inherently risky because there is no set paycheck, no one behind you but your customers and a hell of a lot more hurdles to get over to make a profit.

Now if you consider eastern Europe, Turkey, Russia, certain south American countries ect. they are in that middle band where access to computers is not a big issue but jobs don't pay like they do in central, southern and western Europe, north America, Australia, Japan and NZ, therefore the risk and reward comparison changes, more relative reward and less relative risk.

While cost of living is part of that no one wants to take a pay cut, in these "middle band" countries a modest patreon income will be closer to the minimum wage, IE there will be less of a problem during startup in terms of cash flow, meaning you need less savings to make the jump due to less net change in income, at least that's the theory anyway.

 

[Fliptoynk]

(o________o)
ok... time to hit gcc and blender

 

[おい！]

(o________o)
ok... time to hit gcc and blender

Why not take the free route? Honey Select/PlayHome, Renpy and Gimp.

 

[Fliptoynk]

Cus I only have decade old netbook and renpy/mvrpg crawls on it

 

[khumak]

I can say for myself as a Brit who actually quite likes his day job that i would make significantly less working as a dev, most likely that would be the case unless i "made it big" like Philly, Doc pinkcake or similar, but as we all know that is a 1 in 100 game and i'd be unwilling to make the jump because of the risk, i suspect it's not the actual pay difference but the risk that is the big deal here, i can rely on getting my X thousand pounds a year with my current job even if it is a bit repetitive, i know upfront what i could get for switching to another conventional job, whereas being a Dev is simply self employment, it's inherently risky because there is no set paycheck, no one behind you but your customers and a hell of a lot more hurdles to get over to make a profit.

Now if you consider eastern Europe, Turkey, Russia, certain south American countries ect. they are in that middle band where access to computers is not a big issue but jobs don't pay like they do in central, southern and western Europe, north America, Australia, Japan and NZ, therefore the risk and reward comparison changes, more relative reward and less relative risk.

While cost of living is part of that no one wants to take a pay cut, in these "middle band" countries a modest patreon income will be closer to the minimum wage, IE there will be less of a problem during startup in terms of cash flow, meaning you need less savings to make the jump due to less net change in income, at least that's the theory anyway.

Good point about the guaranteed income of a job vs the risk of an unknown rewards from Patreon/Steam/etc for a game. If I knew there was a 100% chance that I could make 50% of what I make at my job doing full time game development I might actually still go for that even knowing that my income would be guaranteed to be cut in half (yes I have a boring job).

Sadly, I don't have that guarantee. It's possible I could make the same or even more than I do at work, however unlikely, but I also might do worse than expected and take say a 90% pay cut. I suspect the bank that holds my mortgage would not be impressed with that decision.

 

[Volta]

Good point about the guaranteed income of a job vs the risk of an unknown rewards from Patreon/Steam/etc for a game. If I knew there was a 100% chance that I could make 50% of what I make at my job doing full time game development I might actually still go for that even knowing that my income would be guaranteed to be cut in half (yes I have a boring job).

Sadly, I don't have that guarantee. It's possible I could make the same or even more than I do at work, however unlikely, but I also might do worse than expected and take say a 90% pay cut. I suspect the bank that holds my mortgage would not be impressed with that decision.

Similar situation here, my rent isn't gonna drop with my income that's for sure, perhaps finding some way to show your abilities before you make the jump, lots of devs start as part timers and only make the jump after a significant amount of time, it's lots of work juggling a job and a what would amount to a pretty time hungry side hustle but you never know ..., Alternatively there is the whole subcontracting thing where you work for a dev for a while as something like a writer/co-writer, something non English Devs often need, i do the script checks for recreation and his game Bad Memories (shameless plug), not that i'm paid and neither would i want to be to be honest, it's a favour for a friend, but what it has done is wonders for my confidence in my own writing as well as giving me an inside view of the process, which is far more important than you'd think.

 

[215303j]

Don't forget that a self-employed person needs to make double the amount of a person on a fixed salary due to the fact that the self-employed must likely take care of his own pension, insurances, etc. etc.

But besides finance, I think another issue is that in several parts of Europe, there is a strong culture of independent artists.
If you look at the comic book scene for instance, there are a huge amount of authors and published books in the French language alone. Whereas in the US, there seems to be only Marvel (which I find extremely mediocre compared to those unknown French / Belgian guys).

 

[anne O'nymous]

They're more likely expecting something in the $1000-5000 per month range and probably closer to the lower end of that. In the US that's not very much money. In eastern europe (or some other relatively low cost of living area) that's pretty good money.

It's not just a question of cost of living, at least not as expected when took literally ; should also be took in consideration things like the health system.
There's probably part of the USA (the rural middle east by example) where you can live with $2500 (to cut your estimation in half) by month. But you can just live, not pay the health insurance that you would have with a regular job. Which isn't this a problem in Europe.
If you plan to have, or already have, children, in the US you'll also have to save money for their schooling, which once again isn't really a problem in Europe.
You'll also be able to receive more help from the government in Europe than in the US. Therefore you can take the risk, if you fail it will be half a problem in Europe, while you'll end in deep shit in USA.

 

[215303j]

With regards to income levels in various countries, you can have a look here:

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There we see that the USA is right in the middle of the developed countries listed:

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But if the minimum wage is compared to the average wage, the USA is right at the bottom:

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So, if we compare the USA to Poland and France:
USA: minimum wage $7.25 / h = $1160 / month (40h workweek), average wage: $4296
Poland: minimum wage $2.91 / h = $466 / month (40h workweek), average wage: $1164
France: minimum wage $12.52 / h = $2003 / month (40h workweek), average wage: $3928
Of course the above is without taxes, pensions, social security etc.

So if we go back to topic, with a $1000 / month Patreon income, an American will make minimum wage, which is probably barely enough for subsistance. A Pole will make a respectable income. A Frenchman will basically be in deep shit.

I do know that there are several French devs participating here. But it will be hard to do it as the main / only job.

 

[jamdan]

With regards to income levels in various countries, you can have a look here:

You must be registered to see the links

There we see that the USA is right in the middle of the developed countries listed:

You must be registered to see the links

But if the minimum wage is compared to the average wage, the USA is right at the bottom:

You must be registered to see the links

So, if we compare the USA to Poland and France:
USA: minimum wage $7.25 / h = $1160 / month (40h workweek), average wage: $4296
Poland: minimum wage $2.91 / h = $466 / month (40h workweek), average wage: $1164
France: minimum wage $12.52 / h = $2003 / month (40h workweek), average wage: $3928
Of course the above is without taxes, pensions, social security etc.

So if we go back to topic, with a $1000 / month Patreon income, an American will make minimum wage, which is probably barely enough for subsistance. A Pole will make a respectable income. A Frenchman will basically be in deep shit.

I do know that there are several French devs participating here. But it will be hard to do it as the main / only job.

A lot of it is definitely tied to the cost of living. in the USA, making 2k a month (24k a year) is still poverty level in most cities but you can make it work in rural areas where its a lot cheaper to live. 1k a month isn't enough for subsistence, you'll need food stamps and welfare nearly anywhere you live. there are also things we have to pay for that other countries citizens don't, like healthcare. healthcare alone can cost thousands of dollars a month for some people. You need to be in the top 5% of devs to make a "middle-class" living making games in the US. Thats not considering making games is an investment, you have to buy GPU's, assets and all sorts of stuff.


For an example. Belle (LLTP dev) makes 3.6k a month on patreon with almost 800 patrons. I think that puts them solidly in the top 5%. But...thats just 43k a year which is below the median salary in the USA by about 10k. So, you're likely looking at a minimum of 1k patrons to be at the median income here, which is probably in the top 1% of devs. and thats still not counting the stuff you have to buy in order to make the game in the first place.

 

[hameleona]

Europeans do pay for health care, ffs, we just do it with taxes. And depending onbthe country up to 50% of what you earn may go for taxes.
Also, depending on the country Patreon income may he taxable, tho I don't think most governments have even learned of the platforms existence.
But wages in some places are way lower, as is the cost of living. Hay, my salary is around 300$ per month and it's enough. Not great, but ok. Than again, mine is one of the poorest countries in the EU.
So yeah, a 1000$ patreon income, even if taxed is way better here, than in the USA, GB and so on.

 

[Fliptoynk]

How about this.... Use the monies ye earned from patron investing on online merch. Or join ebay/amazon affiliate marketing, make a blog of ya games and post the goods yer affiliated with in there.

 

[215303j]

Europeans do pay for health care, ffs, we just do it with taxes. And depending onbthe country up to 50% of what you earn may go for taxes.

Yes, but in a lot of countries there are several steps.
Minimum wage pays barely any income tax, but to "qualify" for the 50% step, you need to make significantly more than average.
The result is that the net income difference between minimum wage (or welfare) and a good salary like a doctor or a lawyer decreases.

Also, depending on the country Patreon income may he taxable, tho I don't think most governments have even learned of the platforms existence.

If you make games to make money on Patreon, you are technically a small company and should be taxed as such.
So if you manage to hide this from the taxcollectors, it is likely illegal and when found out, you likely still need to pay the taxes, plus a fine.