Selling a game

[Nobody Cares]

I am gathering the assets and started to code my next project: turning one of my CYOA games in a visual novel. Unlike my previous work, I actually invested money in it, and I will need money to bring it to completion.

I know that success is a lottery. Can you tell me where I can buy the tickets?

 

[Nobody Cares]

In adult games, "selling a game" is not much related to marketing unlike other game genres.
I will find your game sooner or later if you created a game that focused on my favourite fetishes.

Creating a focused game experience is an important point.
Don't add entire fetish list to your game. You are just making all people equally unhappy.

We already played Summertime Saga, Big Brother, Being a DIK.
We don't need another one, create something unique if you can.
Especially in the story and the art style. I will choose this game's art style against any daz, anime, or koikatsu clone.

I think my best selling point is wholesomeness. I like to make games that focus on character development and romantic relationship, while being very very very filthy. Would that work?

 

[Nobody Cares]

The graphic part is one of the most important parts in any kind of game's advertising. There are tons of sources that explain this, but basically, you can't really know the story, gameplay quality, or 'wholesomeness' just by looking at the 'latest updates' section on this site or in Itchio banners.

Because of that, focused fetishes and good quality graphics are the best advertising methods in adult games.
If it were 2018, things could have drastically changed because there weren't many games out there. But now, the majority of people probably don't even bother to try that game.

Noted. Any advice on how to make a call to action? As of today I never needed money to finance my projects Just time to write, now I would like to hire someone to help me and I don't expect anyone to work for free (I wouldn't let them).

 

[Insomnimaniac Games]

Noted. Any advice on how to make a call to action? As of today I never needed money to finance my projects Just time to write, now I would like to hire someone to help me and I don't expect anyone to work for free (I wouldn't let them).

Could try the recruitment section we have here.

 

[Count Morado]

Isn't this a better conversation for the Developer's forum, since you have access to it?

 

[Insomnimaniac Games]

Isn't this a better conversation for the Developer's forum, since you have access to it?

Yeah, but that place is full of weirdos. Some of them are even futa devs

 

[Nobody Cares]

Isn't this a better conversation for the Developer's forum, since you have access to it?

What? This isn't the development forum? I posted in the wrong section!

I don't understand what you mean

Call to action, you know... when a youtuber goes all "like, subscribe to my channel, join my patreon, etc."
I feel guilty asking for money but I have no other mean to make this happen.

 

[Nobody Cares]

Like a said, if your game is not shining, it's hard to do much for adult games.

In normal indie games, publishers are important for your game.

You must be registered to see the links

one of the best for indie games, but as you can imagine they are also choosing the best of the best to corporate with.

Generally adult game devs create their own discord server, don't know if it's really boosting anything though.

So my best chance at success is making an exceptional product rather than relying on sophisticated marketing strategies? That is... actually gives me hope . I'll get to it and give it my best shot.

 

[anne O'nymous]

What? This isn't the development forum? I posted in the wrong section!

It's the development forum, but there's also a part dedicated to members with "developer" badge that you should see somewhere in the front page.

As to your question, well I guess that no one have the answer, else there would be way more profitable games. Believe in what you do, stay consistent in your personal involvement (posts and all) even when no one is reacting, and it should pay in a way or another.

The last point is important. Too many devs think that if no one reacted to their, let's say weekly informational post, they can skip one, or that they have to wait for someone to react before they can do another. It's not how it should be.
Those posts, whatever their frequency or infrequency, do not exist solely for the public to react, but also to show your own involvement into your project. If you starts to skip some, people will unconsciously interpret this as a sudden lack of involvement, and therefore starts to doubt.
In the end, while it guaranty nothing, it's probably where you can buy a ticket. Be involved and show it. It's what make player decide that your project worth the few bucks they'll put in it.

 

[Tobi/Chaos]

Well...
A lot of good games are not popular games because people simply don't know about them...
"Marketing" of the game can help and will not hurt You, the worst scenario is that Marketing have no effect at all.

So it's either "Good" effect or no effect at all from marketing...
Well... some morons did in history bad marketing but it's really art to make it bad...


Create some "center" for Your game, using Your own website may be bad idea for many reasons like $$$ investment, time needed to develop it and the fact that most ppl not gonna visit You, but there are free alternatives like Discord or Patreon.

Having running Discord and Patreon is first key to gain followers for Your game.
Then You need to build Your own community and keep it on Your Server / Patreon.

You can get Your own Domain, it cost around ~10$ / year and from domain You can redirect people interested in Your game to Your Discord / Patreon, so instead of having "discord.gg/(*N!~$n0`4n0" You can have "MyGame.net" that would lead user into Discord anyway but make it more "PRO"

Building community can be started even before You have game, and it's best if You start doing that even right now...
Ignore things like Forums, I don't understand why some "DEFs" try to post their game on every single possible forum, F95 is one of the most popular Websites but i would not say that F95 have huge range, but well F95 is big enough to be worth at least.

Make Your DevPosts on Reddit / YouTube etc. always lead people to Your Discord/Patreon so there is hope they stay for longer.
- Reddit: some channles have even milions of members, making single post can boom Your Discord easily.
( I have List of 42 Reddit Channels for NSFW Content - some of them already banned xD )

- YouTube: remember to avoid / censore Adult content, YT don't like that, I already got banned 3 times on YT ( on same Account - they had to unban me 3 times xD ) But if You know how to manipulate YT Bot You can get some views.

- Rule34 - They have pretty big count of members, posting Your pictures from game can get You some more followers, remember tho that You need to use Patreon as "Source", Discord will get deleted from Source.
+ Rule34 Discord - They have like 300.000 members there, so it's good to talk there, don't make crap AD tho.

- Pixiv - Same story as R34, just post Your stuff there and give link to Discord in description, remember to avoid very general tags, Pixiv allows You to use only 10 tags so try to tag like "blowjob" etc. instead of "female" etc.

From picture sharing website Pixiv and R34 works the best, they are accessable from the start and provide good amount of members, for more You can google "PornDude.com" It's website where You can find links and descriptions to many websites.

If Your game have IRL Porn Pictures then on PornDude.com You can find list of RedditChannels that allow this type of content.

Ofc. there is many more places where You could share Your game. Just avoid stupid things like small forums etc.


On top of that it's important how You are presenting Your stuff.
For example my Autogenerated Thumb on YouTube got displayed 120.000 times in last 31 days.
But got clicked only 6.500 times, it's 5% click rate.

Other video Thumb I made myself got displayed 80.000 times in last 31 days.
But got clicked whole 21.000 times, its nearly 25% ( click bait )
( YT is good example because You can see all the statistics they collected xD )
- btw. You may already know it but YT is testing with some Content creators feature where different users see different Thumb and YT will pick one that works best ( have better click/display ratio )

That's example from my YouTube Channel so It's very important that pictures You pick, what thumb You pick and how You style Your text under Your game posts, simply if people see some garbage they gonna unlikely download ur game.

Styles in WebDev were made cuz it's pretty important for content
Try to style Your posts in nice way, HyperLinks on Discord You do as:
[ Text ]( Link "Description" )
For example:
[**MyGame**](F95.to/MyGame "Check it out!")

The better Your product ( Game ) look, the better reach it have.
So it's better if You establish some rules to how Your product ( Game ) should look, like all the big and well known companies.

Sometimes changing logo can have devastating effects on Your product so it's better to establish "look rules" early

So well...
You just have to be "ACTIVE" in all kind of different places, for example the ones I listed You above.
Post about Your GameDev every week or day, share pictures on different places like R34 / Pixiv etc.


Hmm...
I just checked Your profile, I just hope Your next game is not HTML because if it is... that's gonna be pretty hard to sell...
But well... You can always change from "Sell Game" to "Make Money on The game"

These two are completly different models Second one is more rewarding and more popular last years.
In order to make money on Your game You don't really even need to have a game ( as examples in history showed xDDD )

 

[Nobody Cares]

Well...
A lot of good games are not popular games because people simply don't know about them...
"Marketing" of the game can help and will not hurt You, the worst scenario is that Marketing have no effect at all.

So it's either "Good" effect or no effect at all from marketing...
Well... some morons did in history bad marketing but it's really art to make it bad...


Create some "center" for Your game, using Your own website may be bad idea for many reasons like $$$ investment, time needed to develop it and the fact that most ppl not gonna visit You, but there are free alternatives like Discord or Patreon.

Having running Discord and Patreon is first key to gain followers for Your game.
Then You need to build Your own community and keep it on Your Server / Patreon.

You can get Your own Domain, it cost around ~10$ / year and from domain You can redirect people interested in Your game to Your Discord / Patreon, so instead of having "discord.gg/(*N!~$n0`4n0" You can have "MyGame.net" that would lead user into Discord anyway but make it more "PRO"

Building community can be started even before You have game, and it's best if You start doing that even right now...
Ignore things like Forums, I don't understand why some "DEFs" try to post their game on every single possible forum, F95 is one of the most popular Websites but i would not say that F95 have huge range, but well F95 is big enough to be worth at least.

Make Your DevPosts on Reddit / YouTube etc. always lead people to Your Discord/Patreon so there is hope they stay for longer.
- Reddit: some channles have even milions of members, making single post can boom Your Discord easily.
( I have List of 42 Reddit Channels for NSFW Content - some of them already banned xD )

- YouTube: remember to avoid / censore Adult content, YT don't like that, I already got banned 3 times on YT ( on same Account - they had to unban me 3 times xD ) But if You know how to manipulate YT Bot You can get some views.

- Rule34 - They have pretty big count of members, posting Your pictures from game can get You some more followers, remember tho that You need to use Patreon as "Source", Discord will get deleted from Source.
+ Rule34 Discord - They have like 300.000 members there, so it's good to talk there, don't make crap AD tho.

- Pixiv - Same story as R34, just post Your stuff there and give link to Discord in description, remember to avoid very general tags, Pixiv allows You to use only 10 tags so try to tag like "blowjob" etc. instead of "female" etc.

From picture sharing website Pixiv and R34 works the best, they are accessable from the start and provide good amount of members, for more You can google "PornDude.com" It's website where You can find links and descriptions to many websites.

If Your game have IRL Porn Pictures then on PornDude.com You can find list of RedditChannels that allow this type of content.

Ofc. there is many more places where You could share Your game. Just avoid stupid things like small forums etc.


On top of that it's important how You are presenting Your stuff.
For example my Autogenerated Thumb on YouTube got displayed 120.000 times in last 31 days.
But got clicked only 6.500 times, it's 5% click rate.

Other video Thumb I made myself got displayed 80.000 times in last 31 days.
But got clicked whole 21.000 times, its nearly 25% ( click bait )
( YT is good example because You can see all the statistics they collected xD )
- btw. You may already know it but YT is testing with some Content creators feature where different users see different Thumb and YT will pick one that works best ( have better click/display ratio )

That's example from my YouTube Channel so It's very important that pictures You pick, what thumb You pick and how You style Your text under Your game posts, simply if people see some garbage they gonna unlikely download ur game.
View attachment 3281224
Styles in WebDev were made cuz it's pretty important for content
Try to style Your posts in nice way, HyperLinks on Discord You do as:
[ Text ]( Link "Description" )
For example:
[**MyGame**](F95.to/MyGame "Check it out!")

The better Your product ( Game ) look, the better reach it have.
So it's better if You establish some rules to how Your product ( Game ) should look, like all the big and well known companies.

Sometimes changing logo can have devastating effects on Your product so it's better to establish "look rules" early

So well...
You just have to be "ACTIVE" in all kind of different places, for example the ones I listed You above.
Post about Your GameDev every week or day, share pictures on different places like R34 / Pixiv etc.


Hmm...
I just checked Your profile, I just hope Your next game is not HTML because if it is... that's gonna be pretty hard to sell...
But well... You can always change from "Sell Game" to "Make Money on The game"

These two are completly different models Second one is more rewarding and more popular last years.
In order to make money on Your game You don't really even need to have a game ( as examples in history showed xDDD )

Lol, thank you. This is all very precious advice. Are you available for hire btw?

In all seriousness, I am at the very early stages of making my first "real game" in renpy, it is still at the very earliest stage but I should be able to develop a first release or demo (how should I call it?), with real visuals. It costs a lot more than all my previous projects and I would not be able to keep up development for long without at least some support.

I should learn how to do promotion on reddit, at the moment I only use it for r/facepalm

 

[Tobi/Chaos]

Lol, thank you. This is all very precious advice. Are you available for hire btw?

Sorry but no, currently I'm working on my own Game and Game Engine.

I should learn how to do promotion on reddit, at the moment I only use it for r/facepalm

You can use that then:

Spoiler: Reddit Channels

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on left You have amount of members but I didnt updated that data for like... 4/6 months...
So some channels can be already banned some other data may be outdated...

These are 25 "Best" in my opinion Reddit Channels, could send You 17 more but I already confirmed that 4 of them are already banned... but well here is 13 more ( I don't have members count u have to check them urself, and I don't know if they are still UP - they also may be banned )

Spoiler: 13 more Channels

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There is ofc. way more channels but I didn't included them in my lists...
Some Reddit channels are actually braindead... especially mods...

I remember once I was uploading Video on Reddit Channel it got deleted because
"My Reddit Post title is not the same as YouTube video title" and Mod wanted post and video title to be exactly the same xD
But well... just need to follow their often stupid rules and u can post easily