Is that true it's hard to earn money from Lesbian protagonist games?
- Thread starter Volcanoid
- Start date
Lesbians make up 1.2 to 6.8% of the population according to the first google result. Now let's add some straight people that are unreasonably drawn to lesbian fetish. A generous 10-20% extra. That cuts down the potential player base by like 80%. Now is lesbianism a fringe tag with a cult like following where few individuals could do the bulk of the financing? I don't know. Probably not.
Lesbians aren't the target demo for a lesbian protagonist game.
The target demo is guys who like soft, cozy, pastel erotica with absolute certainty they will never have to look at another man's dick.
But your barometer for success is Large Battleship Studios.
They make 200$ a month and have multiple very high quality RPGmaker games.
The target demo is guys who like soft, cozy, pastel erotica with absolute certainty they will never have to look at another man's dick.
But your barometer for success is Large Battleship Studios.
They make 200$ a month and have multiple very high quality RPGmaker games.
As the developer of a lesbian protagonist game: probably.
While I disagree that there's a small market for lesbian content ("lesbian" is consistently a top-3 [2019] if not overall top search term on PornHub and other aggregators), I do think that the primary base for lesbian content mixes enough with hetero content that most of that base views it as a supplementary focus rather than a primary one. For example, you'll see lots of male protagonist games that feature some lesbian content here or there, or even a female protagonist game that is at most a 50/50 split between lesbian and hetero content.
Why? Well, easy: most of the audience for lesbian content is also interested in hetero content and they get more variety out of both. Plus, you'll attract that arguably larger core audience that's NOT interested in lesbian content (who will find a way to bypass that part). I'd further argue that most of the audience that isn't interested in hetero content have gotten good at training themselves to ignore it for lack of alternatives. So you get two otherwise exclusive audiences, plus the combined audience, for the price of one.
From a data standpoint, I think there's also a lack of good comparators since there just aren't many lesbian protagonist games. Maybe Large Battleship is the most successful developer of lesbian-only games to date, but I wouldn't say any of their games have taken off the way any of this site's trending games have. I'd probably argue that the most successful games with a lesbian focus belong to LessonOfPassion and VDateGames (Chaotic) - and there's no Patreon data to those two (though I'm certain both take in more than $200/mo). But, even there, both mix hetero and lesbian content and have much wider selections of games available.
tl;dr - if you're in it for the bucks, boy-girl focus will probably earn more. Even more if you focus on fetishes people seem to lose their minds over (*cough* incest *cough*). I really hope there are some lesbian-exclusive games that start to break out, though, since they're my favorite and I would LOVE to see more.
And on a personal note, money's not involved in my game - so I'mma just keep making the all-girl game I want to play!
While I disagree that there's a small market for lesbian content ("lesbian" is consistently a top-3 [2019] if not overall top search term on PornHub and other aggregators), I do think that the primary base for lesbian content mixes enough with hetero content that most of that base views it as a supplementary focus rather than a primary one. For example, you'll see lots of male protagonist games that feature some lesbian content here or there, or even a female protagonist game that is at most a 50/50 split between lesbian and hetero content.
Why? Well, easy: most of the audience for lesbian content is also interested in hetero content and they get more variety out of both. Plus, you'll attract that arguably larger core audience that's NOT interested in lesbian content (who will find a way to bypass that part). I'd further argue that most of the audience that isn't interested in hetero content have gotten good at training themselves to ignore it for lack of alternatives. So you get two otherwise exclusive audiences, plus the combined audience, for the price of one.
From a data standpoint, I think there's also a lack of good comparators since there just aren't many lesbian protagonist games. Maybe Large Battleship is the most successful developer of lesbian-only games to date, but I wouldn't say any of their games have taken off the way any of this site's trending games have. I'd probably argue that the most successful games with a lesbian focus belong to LessonOfPassion and VDateGames (Chaotic) - and there's no Patreon data to those two (though I'm certain both take in more than $200/mo). But, even there, both mix hetero and lesbian content and have much wider selections of games available.
tl;dr - if you're in it for the bucks, boy-girl focus will probably earn more. Even more if you focus on fetishes people seem to lose their minds over (*cough* incest *cough*). I really hope there are some lesbian-exclusive games that start to break out, though, since they're my favorite and I would LOVE to see more.
And on a personal note, money's not involved in my game - so I'mma just keep making the all-girl game I want to play!
- Jun 10, 2018
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You haven't played many lesbian games, have you? Cause otherwise I'd have no idea how one would type such bullshit and be serious about it...
One thing is true though, I wouldn't expect a lesbian only game to be a big money maker, on the other hand I can tell you that a lot of male player like lesbian stuff, and a lot of actual lesbian player ache for a good lesbian game, so it's definitely not impossible.
Probably the majority of players wouldn't mind SOME lesbian content, but would skip only girls games.
The lesbian tag here mostly describes that heterosexual game have a scene or two of girls licking each other before inviting the player to join them.
But if we're talking about proper lesbian content, it's a niche and niche games are always less popular.
Volcanoid but don't get discouraged. Yes. You'll have to work harder. But if you do well, you'll attract some audience. Don't expect big numbers, but at least you'll be enjoying your work.
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- May 10, 2017
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More like a lot of guys pretending to be lesbians, am I right.
- Jun 10, 2018
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That too, yes xD
But honestly, you'd be surprised about how many guys play lesbian only stuff.
The last part is certainly an advantage. I'd gladly take the pastels if that goes with it. Hmm, that seems like an oxymoron... But I never played anything by them so I don't know.
Anyway, from a business perspective it's like this:
There is a large market (e.g. male protagonist hetero) with a lot of competition. The pie is larger but it get's shared by more eaters. Some exceptionally greedy eaters get a large chunk of the pie.
There is also a smaller market (e.g. lesbian) with much less competition. The pie is smaller but there are also less people that you need to share with. If you manage to take a large chunk, that chunk will still be relatively small-ish.
So I'd say it may be actually easier to make some kind of income with a lesbian game, but it will most likely not make you rich.
Historically a dev like Bright Sun Studios tried and somewhat failed (IIRC the income was not that bad, around $1000-1500 or so, more than a lot of hetero devs make) but not enough apparently. Pity because they made some good and enjoyable games.
- Jun 28, 2017
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Lesbian relationships need masculinity to be interesting, power games with dominating one vs sub one, reluctance and overcoming it. Games with those elements are possible interesting while pure vanilla romance ones aren't. Games with former elements likely have hetero stuff too increasing their overall appeal.
A female mc game where the typically straight girl is persuaded to break taboos by a dom lesbo girl is easy to make appealing to straight men, but female mc game where she talks about feeling with her long term partner shes going to marry and has boring sex with isn't.
Men are the ones putting most money into the industry. Even gay furry games are being pumped out regularly because while straight men don't care someone still pays for them.
A female mc game where the typically straight girl is persuaded to break taboos by a dom lesbo girl is easy to make appealing to straight men, but female mc game where she talks about feeling with her long term partner shes going to marry and has boring sex with isn't.
Men are the ones putting most money into the industry. Even gay furry games are being pumped out regularly because while straight men don't care someone still pays for them.
- processing fees
- taxes
And you get way less than Patreon projects. I see how dev just burned out by making several games.
On the other hand, I see like 5-6 abandoned games by him. Was he working on 5 projects at one time?? That surely won't bring much credibility and support.
Obviously there are costs involved, that should be part of the business case.
In the end only the dev can decide how much money they need to make to be sustainable.
In the end Bright Sun got a bit desperate and, even though in my opinion they made pretty solid, even innovative, games, apparently none of them brought the financial success that was necessary. In the end the model seems to have been: start a new game, let it run for a couple of updates and if financial support was found lacking, kill that game and proceed with the next idea. But that pissed off some people as well, as you may imagine...
I think it's tough because many people play these games where the MC is a 'self insert' type of character. And since the lesbian population is relatively small there isn't much overlap there and so those people move on. For people who don't self insert, lesbian content can be widely appealing.
Porn games is already a very small niche, I wouldn't go for a even smaller one when it's still easy to have some success with more popular fetishes.
Watching lesbians in video is very different from playing as a lesbian in a game.
I'm sure you can make decent money from any fetish if your game is good enough though.
Watching lesbians in video is very different from playing as a lesbian in a game.
I'm sure you can make decent money from any fetish if your game is good enough though.
- Jun 21, 2017
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