Is there a decline in the adult game "industry"?

[HopesGaming]

I do not think it's declining. I believe that devs tend to play it safe.
And when too many plays it safe - the market becomes boring and monotone.

And it's not unreasonable for them to do so. There are top games that have shown what lures people in. The new devs want some of that, so they use those as *template* to make their own. Which usually ends up in the classic
- generic stories, incest, reuse of popular characters (like DmD) and tons of sex without any character development.
And it worked for a time. But then people got tired of it.

If they do go and make something original - then there is no guarantee that is will work. To spend months and months on something unknown and then have it fail and see all your months go to waste - not an easy thing to jump into.
There is a trend you see on the forum when up, and coming devs ask *what do people like ___*, "What fetish would you like ___*" and so on.
Instead of doing what they like and what they envision in a game they want to be sure what they're making is popular and can attract players. And since polls and questions like those rarely can give a satisfactory answer, they go back to the original template of what the big games did.
It's the fear of failing that make them forget any originalities and instead focus on what works.
Sadly, in many outcomes, that tend to end up in an abandoned project.

But I still believe that gamble is necessary. Especially for the marked to keep evolving and attract a bigger audience.
Right now when you hear western adult game, you instantly think of - incest, and/or silly stories.
That image should be changed. The market should be explored.

 

[Joraell]

Back to original post. Everything have two sides. If everybody will do it like you. There will be no new devs and new content, because everybody will play still this same old shit (sorry for that). That old games is not even better at the most, just was there first.

There are good titles, but players is at the most conservative as fuck and giving money still the same developers wich at the most, doing still the same..... If you want better games you need to sponsor better new developers to force old one do better games. This is how this work.

 

[Paranormal erection]

I read every single post and I have another question, mostly to devs. How do you decide when 0.XX part is over and how big should be the next release? Do you finish on something that is important or after something big happens?
I see a lot of games, that ends on the middle of nowhere. Some people bother to put stuff like "Thanks for playing version X.XX" but others don't do it (mostly games with grinding) and I am stuck for 30-60 min (depend on how much time I have) just to notice I am done with the current release. Usually, I never come back to this games. Or dumping the whole story in 1-2 releases and changing it to something else. Like Lida's adventure (not sure about the full name) in 1 moment I am trying to save my home on 2nd I am in a farm...

 

[Joraell]

I read every single post and I have another question, mostly to devs. How do you decide when 0.XX part is over and how big should be the next release? Do you finish on something that is important or after something big happens?
I see a lot of games, that ends on the middle of nowhere. Some people bother to put stuff like "Thanks for playing version X.XX" but others don't do it (mostly games with grinding) and I am stuck for 30-60 min (depend on how much time I have) just to notice I am done with the current release. Usually, I never come back to this games. Or dumping the whole story in 1-2 releases and changing it to something else. Like Lida's adventure (not sure about the full name) in 1 moment I am trying to save my home on 2nd I am in a farm...

My updates is doing like this: My every update needs minimum one long animated sex scene ( about 2 minutes of animations) one secret scene and about half hour of gameplay +-. And Only not storyline updates is named like 0.x1 0.x3 0.x5 (0.15) etc. Storyline updates 0.1 0.2 0.3 etc. Usualy my each update have about 500 renders.

 

[HopesGaming]

I read every single post and I have another question, mostly to devs. How do you decide when 0.XX part is over and how big should be the next release? Do you finish on something that is important or after something big happens?
I see a lot of games, that ends on the middle of nowhere. Some people bother to put stuff like "Thanks for playing version X.XX" but others don't do it (mostly games with grinding) and I am stuck for 30-60 min (depend on how much time I have) just to notice I am done with the current release. Usually, I never come back to this games. Or dumping the whole story in 1-2 releases and changing it to something else. Like Lida's adventure (not sure about the full name) in 1 moment I am trying to save my home on 2nd I am in a farm...

It's different for every game and dev.
The episodic games tend to follow a formula with "start - climax - cliffhanger" for every episode. And have a clear idea how many lewd scenes be in between that.

The sandbox games tend to do it with the progress of the female that is on focus. So once enough progress (and a specific amount of scenes (including animations) have been done. They end it there. (How the stairway system got into play)

Some also do the number of renders. But I am not fond of that system. Since it can vary so much and don't actually give a clear image. One example, you can have 30 renders. In which 5-10 are full renders that can take between 1-2 hours. While the rest 20-25 can be spot rendering (to change expression) which can take a couple of mins.
Another example is the animations. Some animations have 100's of renders. But that is for a 2-sec loop and won't really tell much of the amount of the content the game has.

Since my game is story based I tend to do it by the number of pages and average reading time (wordcounter.com). Once I reach the 10-20 pages of pure dialogue and around 1+ hour average reading time I feel it's good enough.

That is not viable for most, however. Since their game, the story is not the focus and they know people tend to skip it to get to the lewd parts.

As you may have noticed. Many ways and very different depending on style and dev.

*Edit* about the part with not knowing when sandbox games end.
Due to that, I added an event checker that shows all the events in the game. If they have done it turns green.
It is a bit trickier to do it with a sandbox game. But completely plausible.

 

[DarthSeduction]

I read every single post and I have another question, mostly to devs. How do you decide when 0.XX part is over and how big should be the next release? Do you finish on something that is important or after something big happens?
I see a lot of games, that ends on the middle of nowhere. Some people bother to put stuff like "Thanks for playing version X.XX" but others don't do it (mostly games with grinding) and I am stuck for 30-60 min (depend on how much time I have) just to notice I am done with the current release. Usually, I never come back to this games. Or dumping the whole story in 1-2 releases and changing it to something else. Like Lida's adventure (not sure about the full name) in 1 moment I am trying to save my home on 2nd I am in a farm...

I try to treat my episodes like a television episode or a comic book issue. It has a beginning, which is either a continuation from where the last one left off, or a start of some new arc, then it has some sort of progression to its current arc. Progress to the arc can happen in many ways, a completion of or evolution to a goal, a setback from some sort of failure, learning something new and valuable, etc, but it should give the player/viewer/reader some semblance that the story is moving forward. Then it should end with either some sort of cliffhanger, an event that leaves you wondering how it will go on, or with a new challenge, this new challenge can be a part of a list, so if you have to complete these 3 goals to move forward, and the progress completed one goal, I spend this time setting up that goal, or if you had a setback, we'll set up how you might recover for it. Sometimes the setback itself will be a combination of the second and third parts, giving us the cliffhanger.. Sometimes, usually with the completion of an arc, you'll get something that isn't a cliffhanger. When that happens the first part of the next one isn't so much picking up where it left off as it is starting a new arc, so the beginning will be used to present a new problem.

Granted, this is because I'm working on a game that's sort of a combination of a VN and those classic adventure games, though the more adventure elements aren't gonna be a thing till act II I think, but meh. If I were working on a Life Sim I'd suggest the same general idea, but more streamlined. See, with a VN I might work on one major relationship related thing, while allowing something else to develop in the background, in fact, I've spent a lot of time in the last couple dealing with Erin, but I've also subtly moved forward things with Elizabeth, given Alison more screentime to establish who she is, spent some time building up Brooke, and introduced the idea of Eve doing something with a character who she might never have considered if I hadn't done these things.

However, if I were doing a life sim, I'd probably do things in whole arcs. I'd present a problem, have you come up with a way to fix it, and let you fix it and move forward all in one release and likely with multiple characters. This would generally be a lot less involved than with a VN, where there are scenes that are simply world building. You've probably noticed, aside from Long Live the Princess, and The DeLuca Family, world building is almost nonexistent in Life Sims. They tend to intentionally set themselves in mundanity so that they don't have to build anything, letting you do it yourself.

Then, more, if I were doing something more, like the pseudo-VN/RPG/Management game I have plans for in the future, I would probably do it similar to the way the DeLuca Family has, determining an amount of progress that could be made in the rpg side, what things you could manage at that point (if any) and also doing a little of what I do with my current VN projects in terms of creating an episode like feel. That said, with all that going on, the episodes might be shorter, have less time to fill in depth, but at the same time try to find ways to make you relate to the characters in a way that you bring depth to them.

 

[Antiochus]

My 2 cents. Like most endeavors, there are the pathfinders and creators, followers, copyists and thieves. As a market for whatever the product is, be it adult games, music, art, film, books, whatever develops, some roll the dice and create new and wonderful work. If the market discovers them, they are successful and if not, some try again, some give up. Successful creators are copied by others in the hope of cashing in on the pathfinders success. The market will eventually become saturated and stale. The cycle repeats or the market dies when some new innovation bumps it off.

I'm not going to get into the funding squabble as it is the other side of the coin. The creators of old had much the same struggle with those willing to fund them with strings attached or not. Societal norms, no matter how distasteful or onerous are a fact that must be dealt with by the creator. Look at some of the work of Shakespeare. He dabbled around the edges of incest and was successful with it. Dissidents and artists under the Soviets and the Chinese exercised their muse and in some case paid dearly for it. My point is, creative and thoughtful discussion and debate is fine. Lowering yourselves to name calling and worse, is just such a basement dwelling, intertrollian waste of time. Come on folks don't waste the thread space.

 

[Eoin]

Look lads. I'll admit to not reading the full topic, but I don't need to (in this case I'm acting as a Moderator). If someone resorts to calling another names (such as dick, which is against our rules), they have lost the argument.

I'm not as lenient as the others. If ye want to argue, I won't stop you. Just do it civilly, or deal with the consequences.

 

[Quaszog55]

So Sponsorion is Hatreon without bonkers white supremacist and nazis and Patreon without anarcho-leftists and global jihadist? They think about banning political movements and porn? The idea of making a system that operates in the area of the law and not under 'paypals moral guidelines'. well i could get behind this. They even say incest, vore and zoo is okay. Funny that they also ban-hammer the loli-shota but unless there will be a 'japanese sponsorion' i do not see this happening in any case. sounds like an alternative for all those Ecchi-lords out there.
So Sponsorion == Adultreon?

OffTopic:

'see above'.

Your entire argumentation for at least two pages goes 'Ad Hominem' either against Sponsorion or @DarthSeduction. If your entire argument is 'I don't trust Sponsorion' and 'DarthSeduction is a jerk' just skip the 'post reply' button, because I just made your statement for you.

BackToTopic:

As with every new invention, and 'Salami Released' games is one just as are comics. There are the 'Try Hards' at first, the 'Fixer-uppers' second, the 'Copycats' third and the 'Edison-Zerg Rush' last. Adult gaming's 'Zerg Rush' has been diverted by Patreon's moral cock-block, so many creators just dumped their project.
Adult gaming is fetish gaming. I do not live in Saudi-arabia, India or Sahel region. If i want to fuck i ask around or pay a professional to take care of me. So if play a game it better has all the juicy shit i can neither morally ask from a person, nor legally buy, nor join a secret cult for (e.g. cat-girls, sex demons, tinder date with a Disney princess). And fetish is not mainstream, so selling it always comes with problems of humanity.

The reason why games are shit is because good graphic artists are shitty story writers and story writers are shitty programmers. So any Good game needs either a multi-talent or 3-5 people.

 

[Paranormal erection]

I got my answers and if a mods want they can lock the thread. (too much offtopic posts currently)
Thank you!

 

[khumak]

I don't think it's declining. I think it's kind of stabilized based on how much work is required to produce content vs how much revenue that effort produces for the dev. As tools get better and make producing content easier, I suspect the market will expand. Devs will be able to produce better content with less effort which means it will attract a wider audience (some of whom will be willing to pay for it). This will attract more devs, etc. Eventually this sort of thing snowballs.

I doubt we'll ever really see AAA caliber budgets being thrown at adult games unless the porn industry really embraces gaming because brands are too worried about having their image tarnished by association but I do think the indie market will eventually expand to fill a bigger audience.

Pretty much comes down to risk vs reward. If an amateur can make what they consider a worthwhile return on their time then they're more likely to try. If a professional knows they can make X amount as a side project they're also more likely to do it if they know they can clear a reasonable return for their time.

Imagine the sort of game a Pixar employee could produce if they thought it was worth their time to do so? You could say the same for other related industries. What could one of the lead devs from Red Dead Redemption 2 or some other AAA game produce if they thought it would be worth their time? We're not there yet but we could be eventually.

If we get to the point where the sort of money that Summertime Saga is bringing in is "normal", I guarantee we'd be swimming in adult games that put most of what we have now to shame..., no disrespect intended to current devs.

 

[fidless]

Welp, someone brought the thread from the dead. 2 years later and more games just poping up.

 

[Zippity]

Last ~6-7 months I can't find any new game, that is engaging. I play mostly updates of old games, but some of them are already dumped and others went for even lower quality (story mostly, which make me quit them).
Everything looks the same (not like there was a lot of different stuff before) but people using stock Daz3d stuff (they don't even bother to customize them a bit) some blatant story about:
a) you fuck your family
b) you are world stupidest female, which answers on the question "Can I fuck you" with "No" (while undressing pics starts), only to put a "rape" tag on the game.
c) including a) + entire world female population, there aren't any males around (not even Erik, as known as the "Bin Laden" in the adult games)

I know making a good story is hard and a lot of people will skip the story, but how you can keep people in your game only with good renders? Is the "industry" going down?

Alas, that is just the nature of this beast... It is a purely amateur based niche market, so you can sometimes get fluctuations in how many new starters there are mixed with updates... I for one, am always happy when a developer keeps on top of things and keeps coming out with regular meaningful updates (not bug fixes)... Much more so, when it's a good/fun VN/Game...

As to the types of VN/Games... That is just how this cookies crumbles... Been that day since early on... Someone will come out with some theme that seems to be working well and makes bank, and that in and of itself inspires dozens of other new comers wanting to ride that money train... With only the slightest nuance of difference/originality thrown in, so that in some cases it's hard to tell the copy cat from the original... And what is the trouble with carbon copies? They are never quite as good as the original either due to a bad copier or lack of know-how on which buttons to press, in the right order, or perhaps it's the mix of substandard resources mixed with lack of training/skill... Who's to say...

It has been an up and down roller coaster for a while... All you can do is cast out your line, and hope you catch a nice fish rather then an old leather boot...

Zip

 

[Droid Productions]

I do think the market is evolving; where previously games that pushed the story-telling boundaries, like the Last Sovereign and DeLuca Family, were a rarity now you're seeing a lot more games pushing and innovating.

 

[Zippity]

I do think the market is evolving; where previously games that pushed the story-telling boundaries, like the Last Sovereign and DeLuca Family, were a rarity now you're seeing a lot more games pushing and innovating.

In some ways yes, and in some ways no... I think we're beginning to see a rise in projects sticking with it over the long haul... And we're seeing some products take all the prior comments, advice, criticism, and so forth to heart, from older products, and are taking steps to develop more promising products... But the market is just as flooded with the mediocre as it always was... I do see less of a over saturation of certain fetishes and fewer copy cat styled VN/Games then in prior years (such as the bathroom peep due to the lack of locks on doors, followed by sleep perving at night that never seems to wake the one being played with up, followed by hidden video cameras all through the house that never seem to be found out, etc)...

I do think we are seeing some newer takes on old systems, which is a nicety...

In the end, the huge numbers of projects out there, some of which are trying hard to compete for your donation/s, will drive some innovation... If not for variety, then perhaps because more folks are relying on their own creative and skilled prowess over those who just wanna make a quick buck and need constant creative idea input just to continue development (prob because they ran out of ideas and want to milk that donation cow for as long as they can)...

Zip

 

[SecretSal]

Personally, I don't really see any decline as far as my tastes go. Since the volume of new games seems to have increased, there are noticeably more clunkers and attempted cash-ins coming out, but I'm still finding as many interesting games coming out now as I did a few years ago. I see a much more marked decline in the AAA games industry, but maybe both declines could be down to player fatigue rather than actual game quality.