The future of professional eroge in the west

[Eliza12]

Most professional eroge developers and publishers seem to rely on Steam way too much, and now they are in trouble because of that.

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As you can see in the tweet above, Steam no longer gives second chances, to make things worse they don't even have proper content guidelines. So developers often have to guess what to cut for the Steam version and if they guess wrong, too bad game over.

Which probably means that they will now focus on shorter titles like this industry veteran say

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Or they will completely leave the industry like Sol Press did

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Now the real question is what can we do to help the industry and prevent companies to leave?
My suggestion is we should stop buying eroge on Steam, and instead start buying on eroge focused stores like

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or

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And maybe organize buy campaigns where we massively buy the same title from one of those stores to show the developers and publishers that there is a market for eroge outside of Steam.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Now the real question is what can we do to help the industry and prevent companies to leave?

Remember them that just one year ago they weren't using Steam to sell their games ?

If they want to quit the business because of this, there's nothing we can do, because it's just the excuse they used ; either to effectively quit, or to use us to put some pressure on Steam and force them to change their rules.
Perhaps that they earned more with Steam, but it change nothing to the fact that they were able to exist without it and could still do it now.

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

Steam isn't the only platform that can be used, there are always other options.

 

[Bueno]

So developers often have to guess what to cut for the Steam version and if they guess wrong, too bad game over.

Eh, that's pretty easy. Drop the loli and incest and you're good. Look at the games available on Steam today. They're pretty graphic, that's not the issue it's the illegal stuff that has to go.

 

[Hadley]

Some random schock-post on twitter isn't a new fucking rule.

 

[Eliza12]

Remember them that just one year ago they weren't using Steam to sell their games ?

If they want to quit the business because of this, there's nothing we can do, because it's just the excuse they used ; either to effectively quit, or to use us to put some pressure on Steam and force them to change their rules.
Perhaps that they earned more with Steam, but it change nothing to the fact that they were able to exist without it and could still do it now.

Most of those companies are new, the only ones that were able to operate before Steam were JAST and MangaGamer. And back then it was exactly what Steiner said in that tweet. We got a lot less releases unlike the monthly releases we get now. And most of them were shorter nukige and one longer VN every now and then which they were releasing at a loss. Back then MangaGamer staff said that it took them multiple years to break even on Kara no Shoujo 2 and let alone turn a profit.

Some random schock-post on twitter isn't a new fucking rule.

Meru owns a localization company, that is the response she got from Steam after they banned her game. So ye its official.

So ye if we want to keep the companies in this industry I believe that we do need to buy more from the publishers websites as opposed to Steam.

 

[megaplayboy10k]

Short of a global ban on purchase or support of adult themed games, the market will find a way to support the industry. Developer overhead is smaller than that for most non-adult games, and money finds a way to get to where it needs to go.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Most of those companies are new, the only ones that were able to operate before Steam were JAST and MangaGamer.

So many wrong in a single sentence. Sol Press started in 2017, so before the date where Steam allowed adult games on their platform, and other publishers, like Seika Project by example, or studios, like Winged Cloud, exist since a decade, when not more.

This isn't the end of the world, just some companies that made the wrong move and now expect us to save their asses.

So ye if we want to keep the companies in this industry I believe that we do need to buy more from the publishers websites as opposed to Steam.

But, do we really want to keep them ?

If they panic and decide to leave just because of "too much uncertainty surrounding [visual novel] publishing in terms of things like releasing on Steam" (to quote the Sol Press' note you linked), are they really professional and reliable enough ? Like I implied above, they are far to be the only publisher, and the others were able to exist before they can use steam to sell their adult titles. So they could do it, if really they wanted, but they don't want it, it's all.

 

[Adabelitoo]

Most professional eroge developers and publishers seem to rely on Steam way too much.

On Steam? Really? The last thing I would buy there so everyone knows what I'm playing is a porn game.

 

[DuniX]

I wouldn't say it's a "West" thing. More of the problems of localization.
I do agree if they are not on Steam they are fucked.
But our cottage industry is pretty much based on Patreon bux and the like.
Steam is great if they can get away with it, but for more niche subjects and fetishes you will have them hidden away in dark corners.

 

[Eliza12]

So many wrong in a single sentence. Sol Press started in 2017, so before the date where Steam allowed adult games on their platform, and other publishers, like Seika Project by example, or studios, like Winged Cloud, exist since a decade, when not more.

Sol Press was doing the all age version + off site patch thing, at the start they refused to sell anywhere else other than Steam. You can find a thread on Fuwanovle about people being mad at that.
Winged Cloud has a Patreon and Sekai relied on Kickstarter which they stopped now because people don't want to support "Kickstarter abuse", and their recent games got banned.

I wouldn't say it's a "West" thing. More of the problems of localization.
I do agree if they are not on Steam they are fucked.
But our cottage industry is pretty much based on Patreon bux and the like.
Steam is great if they can get away with it, but for more niche subjects and fetishes you will have them hidden away in dark corners.

Western developers have the same problem, unless you mean the amateur ones on Patreon. With professional, I mean actual companies. Not saying that the Patreon devs are bad tho, I enjoyed many of those as well.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Sol Press was doing the all age version + off site patch thing, at the start they refused to sell anywhere else other than Steam. You can find a thread on Fuwanovle about people being mad at that.

In short, you're doing that they did a wrong move... Where have I read that ?

Winged Cloud has a Patreon and Sekai relied on Kickstarter which they stopped now because people don't want to support "Kickstarter abuse", and their recent games got banned.

So, you're saying that hey have other ways than Steam to earn enough money to survive... Where have I read that the wana-leave companies could do the same, if really they wanted to continue in the business ?

Western developers have the same problem, unless you mean the amateur ones on Patreon. With professional, I mean actual companies. Not saying that the Patreon devs are bad tho, I enjoyed many of those as well.

There isn't just developers on Patreon, there's also studios. And most of those studios will not suffer from Steam's actions, because they were already relying on multiple sources for their income ; those who didn't at first, learned to do it when Patreon started its own ban.

 

[Eliza12]

They can't rally used Patreon. If you remember Kagura used it for a while when they were just starting, but were forced to stop because it looks unprofessional and Japanese developers refused to work with them because of it. Anyway you can stick to Steam or piracy if you want to. Those who actually want to make a difference should try supporting the developers on those alternative stores. Or if you have any better ideas feel free to post them.

Basically my whole idea here was to show the developers and publishers that they don't need Steam, that the community will always support them even if they can't get their games on Steam.

EDIT:
Here are some stats:
- JAST USA 181.37K monthly visits
- Denpasoft 141.11K monthly visits
- F95zone 18.41M monthly visits
- Steam 146.44M monthly visits
You can check website stats for free with

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According to Steamspy and Steam leaked data from a while ago most eroge on Steam sell around 5k copies on Steam.
According to Arunaru (Former Rance translator) the publisher stores only sell around 1k copies.
To make a difference my guess would be we need 1k or 2k extra sales on the publishers store.

 

[AmazonessKing]

The west reliance on steam was always a problem, eroge or not. Not only with steam, but other alternatives aren't much better, like Epic or GOG. There's always stuff like Gamejolt or Itch.io, but even then there can be a problem. Ideally you should have your game in multiple stores, really.

 

[Eliza12]

The west reliance on steam was always a problem, eroge or not. Not only with steam, but other alternatives aren't much better, like Epic or GOG. There's always stuff like Gamejolt or Itch.io, but even then there can be a problem. Ideally you should have your game in multiple stores, really.

I agree, but the problem seems to be that most people refuse to buy on stores other than Steam. That is why most publishers who do sell at multiple stores always say that Steam by far out shadows the sales they get at the other stores. And that is why I made this thread in hopes of convincing people to try out the alternatives instead of just always using Steam which forces the developers to rely on Steam.

 

[AmazonessKing]

It's the same as the dumb resistance people have when supporting projects in any other place than patreon. I understand why: Both Patreon and Steam are supposed to be "reliable", contrary to give your credit card information to some random sites, specially a big amount of sites. Well, good luck convincing people, really, I try to do the same with people to use SubscribeStar more because of patreon stupid guidelines, and luckily there are more and more people switching to it, until it gets stupid guidelines on itself. Same with using Godot as game engine and not Unity, specially if they are not making 3D games.

 

[redknight00]

Well, I'm a selfish basterd and prefer to buy stuff on Steam (and Patreon to a lesser degree) as a way to incentivize devs/translators to move away from loli and shota games.

 

[Mimir's Lab]

Well, I'm a selfish basterd and prefer to buy stuff on Steam (and Patreon to a lesser degree) as a way to incentivize devs/translators to move away from loli and shota games.

Ah, I see why you became a moderator . Where do I sign up? Lol