Should Devs Hate F95?

[dusty stu]

It's a common fallacy perpetrated by the big studios looking for protectionism from politicians that every copy pirated is a lost sale.

If it wasn't possible to pirate things, the vast majority of those people wouldn't bother at all. Instead of the income going up as some of these studios have been told would happen, the actual result is that the number of downloads and thus views of their game, film, music, whatever would go down.

In my most humble opinion, piracy is far less of a threat to a developer than obscurity. How they handle the inevitable, however, is entirely up to them.

Perhaps Another issue stems from this; low barrier to entry means floods of shitty asset flip 'games' that probably deserve to die to make room for better games.

Price is a key factor to tell how good a product is. Instead, on f95, we only have likes, views, and reviews. Which are all very subjective. Price is a hard fact.

 

[rk-47]

idk man it seems f95 gives the devs twice as more patreons, give milfy city as an example if it was never on here then icstor would have about 1k patreons max, not 6k like he does now

 

[Deleted member 1697433]

There are pros and cons to the site.

I highly doubt my game would have gotten nearly as much exposure if I hadn't released it on F95 alongside public platforms like itchio and Gamejolt- and I owe a lot of thanks to them for enabling me to turn this passion into a living.

The pros are that it's amazing exposure and that traffic and viewability here defeat most public gaming sites like, almost tenfold. If you're really looking to get the word out about your product, there isn't a better place to go to in order to do it (Save Steam, but mine and many other games here would be ineligible for hosting on that).

With this influx of traffic comes an influx of people willing to lend their support if they agree with your vision. But this is also where the blessing begins to turn into a bit of a curse.

Once games have already been exposed and built up a following, F95 becomes less of a device to get the name out there but more of a method for people to bypass lending their support. Of course, there are many exceptions to that thought, but the average person will almost always download something for free if it's easily accessible instead of paying even a small sum like $5.

I held a survey a few months ago in an effort to figure out where most of my supporters came from. And I was shocked to find that despite my game receiving the vast majority of its exposure from F95, the amount of patrons it brought in was just about the same that itchio had.

So why is the site where my game has received Over 1 Million views up to this point bringing in the same amount of patrons as the site where it's only gotten 250 Thousand? Again, if something is available for free, people will almost all-of-the-time take it for free instead of willingly paying. Those people are the exact demographic F95 caters to.

Another example of that negative aspect of F95 appeared to me just last month. Typically, my game will leak anywhere from 8 hours after release to 24 hours. But one particular update didn't leak for three days. You know what happened in those three days? The largest spike in patrons the game had ever seen. People were paying to obtain it because there was no alternative available. That was the moment I realized that the piracy-centered focus of F95 could be damaging to bigger games and bigger devs.

Now again, I probably wouldn't be one of those biggers devs if it wasn't for this site. So I've started looking at it as sort of making a deal with the devil. If you want to get your game out there and don't mind a bunch of people asking you when you're planning on adding pregnancy or futas, put your game up on F95. But know that, in doing so, you're opening yourself up to a perpetual future in which people will be stealing from you and you'll be expected to just not do anything about it.

What I'd like to see (And I know I won't because it's antithetical to the site as a whole) is a grace period for leaks that would harken back to that huge spike I mentioned several paragraphs earlier. If there was some unspoken rule about games, big and small, not being leaked until like 72 hours after their release, I'm positive that most devs would see substantial increases in profit as I did.

 

[Joshua Tree]

Selebus Remember with a site such as this and the number of games and updates coming daily. There is a competition going on as well. Our pockets is not endless. I made it a habit long time ago to never pledge to a creator for a extended length of time. I try to spread it around, pledge for a few months here, and a few months there. Then revisit creators later etc.

But, yeah as with any pirate site most of the users out for a free lunch. Until they find something they genuine get interested in, and might start support/spend.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I get the feeling that about 30% of devs consider f95 to be an annoying/illegal shareware/pirating site. I've seen this attitude a few times.

There's idiots everywhere, you know.

They have a point, though. One person buys the Patreon edition and shares it here. Suddenly, users have much less incentive to become a backer.

And then the audience of their game past from few hundreds to 3 millions...
While effectively, few among them will become a backer, they are people who wouldn't have been in the first place, mostly because they wouldn't known that this game exist. This will they'll now gain visibility among people who are ready to financially support them, if they think that they deserve it.

Their consideration regarding this place would be true if it was the only place where you can find games. But it's far to be true. Just type the name of a popular game in google, and you'll see tons of place where you can have it for free. Places where, unlike here, there's generally no links to the Patreon (or similar) account, where people can't talk about the game, therefore places where people goes with only one intent in mind : Downloading the game.
What isn't the case here, where the game is promoted as well as it is shared. Many are the devs who explicitly say that without F95zone, they wouldn't have had such support.

But it's not the only thing that this place do for them. By example, look at the development section, see how many among them solved their issue with the help of the community, and therefore was in position to continue to make their game. The same happen in the games thread, how many among them find a proof reader among the people who were active in the thread ? How many improved in this or that, because of the advice they received ? How many changed a little this, a little that, and made their game better because of the feedback they received here ?

If the dev tries to add drm, then there is almost always a huge backlash. It's a lose-lose, and I'm sure its frustrating to devs everywhere.

So far, all those who tried something like that lost patrons.

The truth is that many among those who don't hesitate to pledge for a dev care first about the interest of the community. They do it because the dev deserve it, but also to offer the game to the community. It's a win-win situation. The dev have the money he need to continue his game, and the community continue to have the game. But once the community can't have the game anymore, what's the interest to support the dev ? Because he deserve it ?
Part of the reason why he was deserving it is because he don't try to gain a lot of money. He can make it big, but it's a consequence of the quality of his works, not the reason why he works. You know, he's the little artisan in your neighboorhod, the one you go when you want a small gift for someone. He's doing good things, and doing them by passion, it's why you buy them to him. But if he start to see big, to buy a shop, he's not anymore this little artisan who's doing it by passion. Then you stop buying him his creation, there's many other shops in the town, and they are selling better things.

What do you think Devs should do to incentivize user to subscribe or buy the game?

Make better games ? Less than 1% of the indie games available here effectively worth to be bought. And it's not just a question of personal taste, it's before everything else a question of quality. Poor English, lame story seen hundreds times, renders that really hurt, writing that feel like a fan fiction wrote by a 12yo girl in love with her favorite actor, there isn't many games that don't have at least one of those, and too many that have them all. Nobody would want to buy them because they don't worth a single buck. What don't mean that their author can worth to be supported, once again because of their passion, but it's not the same thing.
There's also, as said by other persons, the fact to be here, to interact with the players, whatever they are backers or not. But once again this fall back to the passion, because it's what is shown through those interactions.

In the end, those devs look at the problem from the wrong angle, searching ways to limit piracy, when they should search ways to increase the interest for their games.

 

[khumak]

I think most people who come here think of the adult games market sort of like the shareware model that some game companies used to use. I'll "try before I buy". If I don't like it, I don't buy it. Some people won't buy it no matter what but there's no way around that. You could add DRM, but it'll get cracked so why bother? You're just providing an annoyance to the people who DID buy it and now have the crippled, non cracked version. Make a good game and a reasonable percentage of the people who try it will support you. If you don't get any support then your game is probably not as good as you think it is.

Also I think F95 is pretty effective at marketing new games that people would otherwise never hear about. I can't support it if I never even find out about it... The dev section of this site is also something that I think a lot of people overlook. I would bet a lot of devs get their start playing around with stuff they learn in the dev section and would never have produced anything without F95 to get them started.

My mod certainly would never have been made without this site and I never would have learned enough to even consider making my own game (which I'm in the process of working on now).

 

[Baka plays]

Well that is the thing with Patreon. They don't market your creation. How good you are at market yourself and your creation is the deciding factor. Plaster your creation on every adult site you can find on internet, even a trailer on pornhub, whatever.. would go a long way.

I´ve been thinking about putting a trailer together but didn´t had the time yet. Maybe in january. I made let´s plays with adutl games on pornhub before and making a trailer shouldn´t be much different.

 

[obibobi]

What do you think Devs should do to incentivize user to subscribe or buy the game?

Show that you are capable of making and maintaining a good game for about a year

If erotic games where made like traditional games, made in one go and then sold, then I would think this place is bad for devs, but with the current model of games being made piecemeal, this site serves a function, I would never think of joining a patron unless I knew the game was good.

 

[aattss]

Imo choosing to pirate something over paying for it is wrong, but choosing to pirate something over ignoring it altogether is sort of a victimless crime. So if someone can't buy some game because they need that money to spend on food or because their parents can see what they buy with their credit card, then I'm not sure there's anything wrong with pirating. And people who pirate content can still contribute to the community around that content, or support that content in the future after they've grown attached to it and gain the means to do so. There are reasons why some creators offer demos or even free versions of their games that are just a couple weeks out of date.

There's also the angle of, if there's no way to prevent piracy, then accept it instead of trying to implement DRM and stuff that doesn't work and just makes everything more painful for everyone else.

 

[Saterios]

Now for porn games in particular, the question is how would you even market it otherwise, like this site and the other piracy sites are kinda your most prominent option for marketing, because on big sites you get thrown to the side or in steam, the user has to check the option to show erotic content, for your games to even show up, also not everyone likes to have porn games in their libary and see friends see that you played them. If you just release you game on Patreon or Subscribestar, nobody will find it, because Patreon in particular, doesn't really like your games, because they see it as iffy.
As Newell said, piracy is always foremost a service problem, if nobody knows about your game, nobody plays it and you don't see a dime. And here on F95 the user has a very good portfolio, a fairly easy user interface and so they can always find new games they might enjoy. Also the userbase doesn't seem to be bad, I mean compared to other porn game sites, the people here are really nice, helpful and constructive.

Piracy has always helped games, especially now, where games are mostly unfinished, so the pirate has to go to a more or less safe site, has to more or less download an safe file, in hopes that he didn't download more then he asked for for every update of the game or spend the dimes so they know that at least the game is to be finished and they have faster updates. DRM's were always bad, because often they broke the games for the customer, while the pirates cracked it and even had a better game then the paying customers most of the time.
Because porn games are literally games as a service, as triple A publishers want their games to be, you will always get new customers from every update, as long as they can find your game and like it.

Also an idea for marketing your games, if you've a finished game already on your patreon, put in the end card of your current game, where you present your patreon, hey if you liked this game, maybe you like my past game, ten bucks on patreon and it's yours. So the player knows about your past work, has the choice to either pay for it or search it up on some porn game site, maybe here or somewhere else. So often you will get ten bucks for your old game and maybe they even continue to support you.

Lastely, you're not rockstar, you don't make GTA, you're not CD-Project and you don't make Cyberpunk, don't expect millions, don't even expect to live of your porn game development. At the end of the day you're basically the same as the rock band the street down, doing it for fun. The same as web comic artist and writers, who often don't see a penny for their work. If you're lucky and manage to make ends meet with it or even more, cool, but until then it's a hobby, and most hobbies consume money, they don't generate it, they however always give you some kind of experience. So you at least learn a bit of coding, a bit of asset management, writing skills, etc. Make a fancy non porn prototype and put it on your resume, if it doesn't work out with your game.
I mean there is a good chunk of money to be made in this niche, but don't expect it and it certainly doesn't come towards you, if you're a dick about it.

 

[3VOL]

I used to pledge. A lot. Had like 10 subs for $5-15 each. It wasn’t long until I found that most devs ain’t no saints themselves, as they tend to feed you those promises and renders but won’t do shit. Why? The steady money flow and the devoted fan base keep them going. I know that it starts when a dev reaches like two grand income, but still, I found this way too much for me. Besides, this particular Christmas left me broke. That’s when I found F95.

The truth is that this forum got me acquainted with plenty of titles that neither myself nor the reddit knew about (e.g. Sunshine Love, a hell of a ride, got me hooked right away), so I might understand if I really wanna pledge or is the project alive/good (rip Polarity) so I know pledging is worth it.

 

[Asia Argento]

The discussion in here pretty much goes hand and hand with the discussion in this thread. Plus this dev could've acted a bit more mature about it all.

If you are making an H game, why arent you posting here? It just makes the most sense. It's what F95 exists for. Selebus's game looks top quality (havent personally played it, but i am watching) and on Itchio, it's buried under 500 games. Same with Futadom World (good one) and a few others... buried. Also the format here is MUCH CLEANER than Itchio.

 

[DiddlerGames]

Piracy can be good for games. It's just more exposure and can earn devs more. Devs should be understanding of it. Not every pirate is a person who is out to get everything for free, and sometimes want to just try out the software before buying it. Or in the case of devs like Icstor, you can see what people think of him. You'll notice the thread often brings up other devs a lot, and talk about the lack of content he puts out. That is probably more important than the piracy in all honesty.

 

[Diconica]

First, you need to understand there is no such things as software protection that can't be gotten around.
I had this discussion the other day with my son. Who was wandering what we could do to protect something he was working on.

I could go to this point as an example. Have the person buy the software or license it from a server they create an account and login. When they do it generates a hash code that gets embedded with the software when it is downloaded. When they go to run it they have to log into the software. The software uses a public key method to validate the hashed value at the same time it could then provide the server notification that that user wants to run it and the server responds back with a hashed data set allowing authorization. Which it validates and lets the game run.

What that would do is ensure if I see more than one copy of it running I know who exactly it is that provided other people the copies. I would then have a legal cause to use in court to sue them for damages. Because they would have had to provide CC and billing information to make the purchase I have them dead to rights.

However, I have enough skill also I know I can easily defeat such software with a hex-editor.

I could however go a step further. I build the program using a state system such as in C++ and C using a switch statement. Then require the hashed code is tied into the logic of switch system for the time. If the wrong code is entered for that time then it would go to the wrong part of the program. While it can still be fixed over come with a hex editor it is a bit more difficult.

Basically the best DRM lets you know who shared software and effectively forces someone modifying the machine code to rewrite all the address locations to get away with it.

In the end it comes down to how much effort and time someone is willing to put into cracking your game or not. The most full proof DRM is create a game no one wants.

 

[Joraell]

I think best answer here give Domiek He nailed it pretty right.

Devs don't have reason to hate F95. Just to hate few anoying people. BTW the base of anoying ones started to grow reaaaly quickly during last year.

One of the really anoying resons are the people thinking that they will have full comfort and privileges as paying customer or supporter.
Nope. It's still just pirate site. So you have only that what uploader do for you, and if anything more, it's just on the dev, if will add there something extra.

 

[Hadley]

Devs who hate F95 didn't fucking understand it. This site is probably the best thing Devs could hope for.

 

[TheDarkOne]

They should love it, to be honest there are many games i've looked at and not been interested until I played them, that has in turn led to some people getting support and others not (wouldn't have supported either otherwise).

Its the same with big game devs like CDPR going all DRM free, the idea is if you do good work you'll get paid regardless and it seems to be working fine for them..
Also the devs that actually make an account on here and bother to interact with the community are doing themselves a hige favor by reaching out to a hell of a lot more people than they otherwise would through their patreon page updates

 

[Alcahest]

F95zone is a great place for new developers to reach an audience. The biggest issue, as I see it, is that if you don't have many trustworthy beta testers to try out an update before releasing it on Patreon, a seriously buggy version can be leaked to f95zone and suddenly you have potentially thousands of players running into problems. I tried to mitigate this by releasing the beta to my $20 tier for a few days, which resulted in a surge of $20 supporters and me earning a lot more money, but the leak of buggy updates happened anyway.

 

[desmosome]

It doesn't matter if they hate the site. Piracy won't ever go away. There is a case to be made for traditional indie devs being overly hurt by piracy, but porn devs using patreon model are not really selling a product. They are selling their talents and time working on the game and supporters are just enabling them to work on the project.

 

[Chaiba]

Because of f95 i actually support some devs. Bought some games here and there and pledges a few times toward a game/version of the game, i liked. Like some already mentioned, this cuts both ways i believe. If your game gets an audience it gets pirated anyway so i guess it is best to embrace it on f95?