The Influence of Players on Content, Good or Bad?

[Zippity]

There is a trend I tend to see with the world of Erotic/Adult Visual Novels and/or Games that has me worried sometimes about the influence of Players on content as these things are being developed...

On one hand, it is great for a developer/author to get feedback on how their work/s are progressing... And with the introduction of sites like Patreon and their like, which is intended for general Artists and Creators to help finance their works, a lot of the times the dev/author like to give back to their fan base by offering up voting, perks, and sneak peaks... This is all intended to help the devs/authors to work on a better VN/game or perhaps produce it faster, because now they have money to do so...

On the other hand, you have some financial supporters of a developer/author who sometimes feel that because they invested money, they have a stake in pushing a developer/author in a direction that perhaps the dev/author did not plan to take their creation... This might occur either because the dev/author requires influence due to lack of experience, or because the dev/author feels financially obligated to follow the will of their backers, or because the dev/author is insecure about their plans for a project and thinks that suggestions are the best way to create a better project (even if they are contradictory to their own original plans/ideas), or because they just want to make a product that makes them look good in the eyes of their financial fan base...

On another hand, you may just have someone who wants to make a bunch of money, and they don't really care about the direction of their product, as long as it keeps making them money... Or maybe it's a mix...

What I tend to see with the better erotic/adult visual novels and/or games available right now, and I don't necessarily mean the most popular due to replies and download numbers, is that there has been an explosion of different quality levels of products available... Quality does not always mean quantity... Just because something is looked at a lot, or spoken about a lot, or downloaded a lot, doesn't necessarily make it a Quality Product... Popular maybe, but just because it's popular doesn't make it good...

Good and Bad is subjective, and depends on the view/s of the individual readers/players... And the biggest issue with influence, is that not everyone who uses/reads/plays a product speaks about their experiences, or is open to listening and understanding others points of view... So you tend, not always but most of the time, to see a narrow view of folks attempting to influence devs/authors this way or that way... And I tend to find that Authors and Developers that stay true to their vision and use feedback subjectively rather than as dogma to influence their products, you sometimes tend to get a higher quality product... Will it be good or bad? That depends on so many more factors, other than just influence... That is, unless the dev/author allows influence to rule all their decisions... And 9 times out of 10, allowing influence to have too much control, usually leads to lower quality and/or failed products...

Many of the highest quality erotic/adult visual novels/games available right now, are not necessarily the most popular... And you can usually tell when a product is of higher quality, because they tend to make more sense, show consistency, flow well, have good balance, and the list goes on... You can never please everyone, and to even attempt to do so, is folly and a waste of time... If you are talented at what you do, don't allow your self to be influenced too much by what is popular, and have the dedication to do the work without letting money guide your every decision, then you can shine and be creative and be known for your quality of work...

 

[Ignazzio]

For me that's probably the biggest problem with development method we have due to the way Patreon works. In mainstream gaming it would be impossible for a team to reach success if they would listen to their fanbase on monthly basis and allowed them to control base design. It's well-known fact that players rarely think about what's good for a game as they tend to think about themselves. But with Patreon it's normal and even worse cuz playerbase consists of horny guys looking for a quick gratification. You can't develop your VN game following one route cuz those who don't like it will moan. Usually you can't create an adult game without erotic scenes early in a build as people will demand it or leave. In normal situation you could develop your game for years and with finished product no one would say anything about milking as whole concept would be finished. Right now most games are trying to copy those who started earlier and were succesful partially to avoid risk of being attacked. Everyone on this site knows BB which is a flagship example of such an influence. Haters and fans of different elements can easily agree on this one that if it was developed for year or 2 and presented as a finished product it would be completely different game than it is now. It's rather drastic (and quite obvious) example of how base design can be destroyed by players. Even putting every plot element aside game mechanic doesn't work anymore (skills, money system, relationship system) changing semi-sandbox (as it is stated on its site) to a weird VN (as dev said himself).
In my opinion Patrons' influence is simply harmful for our market. I do appreciate we have so many games now with much more content than we had before Patreon, but at this point I'm honestly not sure if that's worth it when quality drop is so significant with this method of development. There are devs who stay true to their ideas but majority is sadly just following trends when it comes to themes and updated content and that's nothing positive.

 

[Goatface]

What's missing in this type of system is that there are a lack of "authors" telling a great story. When devs create these games, they fall back on their patrons for what to put into the story, instead of putting their heart into it. While these games will never be the next Bioshock: Infinite or Fallout 2, they still could be a lot better if they each had a good author who stuck to their own story lines. Pretty soon, all that's going to be left is a homogeneous group of stories with different rendering programs.

 

[Ignazzio]

What's missing in this type of system is that there are a lack of "authors" telling a great story. When devs create these games, they fall back on their patrons for what to put into the story, instead of putting their heart into it. While these games will never be the next Bioshock: Infinite or Fallout 2, they still could be a lot better if they each had a good author who stuck to their own story lines. Pretty soon, all that's going to be left is a homogeneous group of stories with different rendering programs.

Main asset of mainstream games like Fallout isn't only their vast choice of different themes but also different gameplay mechanics that can attract attention. Right now if you see new developer you know that most likely it's incest themed game and you wonder if it's renpy style VN or RPG Maker game. Very few devs tried to create something else. Summertime Saga is one of the few games that's different as well as Big Brother tried to implement different gameplay mechanic. While SS didn't change its basics and it's still pretty unique, BB following Patrons' request changed into another VN as they just fit monthly updates mechanic. Market is changing rapidly and even the greatest new devs can't achieve anything easily right now but it's still moment in which we can just wonder if this new game we see is about father banging his daughter or brother banging his mother and innocent sister.

 

[Zippity]

What's missing in this type of system is that there are a lack of "authors" telling a great story. When devs create these games, they fall back on their patrons for what to put into the story, instead of putting their heart into it. While these games will never be the next Bioshock: Infinite or Fallout 2, they still could be a lot better if they each had a good author who stuck to their own story lines. Pretty soon, all that's going to be left is a homogeneous group of stories with different rendering programs.

That is definitely one example where player influence is not necessarily helping the Erotic/Adult Visual Novel and Game industries... It really comes down to the developers/authors... How much do they want to allow others to influence their work/s? Is the influence from a broad spectrum of players, or a small sect of players? What is the dev/author trying to get out of allowing players to influence their work/s? What is the dev/authors driving force that makes them allow player influence to alter their work/s? Does player influence really help a dev/author make a higher quality product? Should player influence be used during development as a tool, or just be used as feedback for future projects? Does fear of player feedback truly make a difference, or is it used as an excuse to save face by allowing it to influence current development?

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[Goatface]

That is definitely one example where player influence is not necessarily helping the Erotic/Adult Visual Novel and Game industries... It really comes down to the developers/authors... How much do they want to allow others to influence their work/s? Is the influence from a broad spectrum of players, or a small sect of players? What is the dev/author trying to get out of allowing players to influence their work/s? What is the dev/authors driving force that makes them allow player influence to alter their work/s? Does player influence really help a dev/author make a higher quality product? Should player influence be used during development as a tool, or just be used as feedback for future projects? Does fear of player feedback truly make a difference, or is it used as an excuse to save face by allowing it to influence current development?

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Maybe it's only about money to them... but how do you attract great story tellers into this genre?

 

[User_215882]

How Summertime saga handles patreon polls is fine. Every update is something DC wants to put in, but lets the patrons choose what to see first. That's not bad at all. Its a fine way of doing a poll just fine. But devs who are constantly posting polls about change x character or what do you want to see in my game kind of ruin it for me. It just seems like the dev is out of ideas and the updates tend to be bland.

 

[Zippity]

Maybe it's only about money to them... but how do you attract great story tellers into this genre?

I'm sure in a lot of cases, it probably is about the money... For some, it's about truly being an artist... For some, it's about the attention... For some, it's about a mix of some of the above, or maybe all the above...

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[Zippity]

How Summertime saga handles patreon polls is fine. Every update is something DC wants to put in, but lets the patrons choose what to see first. That's not bad at all. Its a fine way of doing a poll just fine. But devs who are constantly posting polls about change x character or what do you want to see in my game kind of ruin it for me. It just seems like the dev is out of ideas and the updates tend to be bland.

Polls, when used in moderation for things like art, character names, hair styles, clothing choices, border colors, etc, when already pre-made, is a great tool, because you've already made most of the decisions yourself, but just want to offer a tiny amount of decision making to your fans, typically as a reward for being fans... But when you use it for story direction, art not yet made, personalities not already established, story elements not already included, art style to use, and so on, when not already pre-made or established by the authors/devs themselves, that basically puts the voters into the seat of co-author/co-dev... Then you run the risk of harming and/or killing your work, because you gave away too much creative control...

And it is true, sometimes authors/devs run out of ideas... And that is a failure of not already establishing the story progression from beginning to end, before beginning the work... Do you think most movie productions begin without an already established script/story board? Nope, even if they need to do some re-writes to fix holes half way through, the overall story (progression from beginning to end) is already established... By piece mailing production together on the fly, you run the high risk of an overall flop... Especially with the complexity of a game and/or visual novel that allows player choices during play/read...

 

[9thCrux]

In my humble opinion the player's influence can be both good and bad, is more about the specific case or game.

I have seen some game developers that put the supporters in charge and they add tropes and fetishes to their games based on who pledged the most money or they tell the players that if they want their opinion to be considered they should be in a higher pledge rank.

So you can find OK games that went bad because in their polls a few people "voted" for extreme fetishes while the vast majority voted against them. The, maybe, nine people who wanted such things in the game are happy but the rest of the players and supporters (hundreds if not more) say FTS "I used to like this character now I fucking hate her/him" and they stop supporting the game and are reluctant to support any other project from the same developers.
This kinda makes player influence a really bad thing, I mean if its used like in the example above.

After whoring away their skills they have a sudden drop in their overall income from pledges and then they turn to make fixes to the plot holes they dropped in the game and to add more choices to make some content optional, then they focus on attempting to get back the supporters they lost.

That is almost always the case when the whole point of making a game is to profit from it.

Some people would argue that a game needs to have the most weird, crazy, and over the top tropes and fetishes to be interesting and they would expect things like guro, snuff, bestiality, child-like characters, NTR, mutilation, amputees, shemales, scat, gang rapes, and all other kind of extreme things to call a game interesting but that is their view and opinion. Most of extreme fetishes are not the norm and most people stay away from such things. So the vast majority would play and support games that are not over the top and the people that would support extreme things is just a few, meaning that if you make a game to appeal to the few you will get support in the same amount.

If a developer's objective is to make a profit then the most logical thing to do is to appeal to the majority so their chances to get pledges can increase, this makes the players influence and opinion very important because the developers can get a general idea of what most people actually want to find in a story or a game.

Hope my opinion was delivered and understood, I'm not a native English speaker :coldsweat:

 

[Zippity]

Some people would argue that a game needs to have the most weird, crazy, and over the top tropes and fetishes to be interesting and they would expect things like guro, snuff, bestiality, child-like characters, NTR, mutilation, amputees, shemales, scat, gang rapes, and all other kind of extreme things to call a game interesting but that is their view and opinion. Most of extreme fetishes are not the norm and most people stay away from such things. So the vast majority would play and support games that are not over the top and the people that would support extreme things is just a few, meaning that if you make a game to appeal to the few you will get support in the same amount.

If a developer's objective is to make a profit then the most logical thing to do is to appeal to the majority so their chances to get pledges can increase, this makes the players influence and opinion very important because the developers can get a general idea of what most people actually want to find in a story or a game.

Hope my opinion was delivered and understood, I'm not a native English speaker :coldsweat:

Understood it perfectly...

I see your point, if the purpose was purely profit driven... But if the dev/author was experienced in the genre, then they really wouldn't need to give away creative control to the few outspoken and/or highest paying players... They would already know what works based off the hundreds and hundreds of examples already out there... I think it is a more recent phenomena that we're seeing, where dozens of newer projects are being developed by folks who want to cash in on the perceived cash cow, but because either their experience is lacking and/or they don't have any real passion for it (outside of making money), they rely more on player input then their own creativity/ability... Hence we see a market saturated with more and more poorly created works...

I agree, there are a few moments, now and then, when giving more power to players has worked out ok, but I firmly believe that in a majority of the cases, it's not worked out all that well and/or has hurt the genre more overall then helped it... And that happens with many different industries, this one isn't unique in that sense... And just like in any industry/genre you will always have those passionate few that follow even a flop, because we're all different people...

 

[Goatface]

How often do you see authors and movie script writers asking public opinion before writing a film or book? Once, maybe, with Snakes On a Plane? At what point are you sacrificing your creativity for a few bucks?

 

[Ignazzio]

I would argue about those potential bucks. In my opinion listening blindly what people demand make dev lose more money in a long-term than he would gain in a short-term. Design flaws are more visible later in development

 

[anne O'nymous]

How often do you see authors and movie script writers asking public opinion before writing a film or book?

Almost all of them do it. But they do it differently than the game creators we are talking about. Firstly they only take the opinion of a small number of people, which will have the chance to read the script/book, sometimes just part of it, other time the totality, before it's even submit to the producer/publisher. Secondly, when they start to have some reputation, they will talk with the public and influence the discussion to reach this or that subject, and so hear what they think about it.
But anyway, the result of all this will not determine how it will be wrote. It will influence the way the writing will goes, but not the core of the story. By example, perhaps that a character will finally survive, but it will still disappear from the story.

 

[wewlad]

Almost always bad.

Here's my reasoning.

1. The developer usually has a mindset and a goal during development. His goal and tone set up in the early releases might be completely out of line with added fetishes recommended by the public because those guys have zero input on the original planning process and therefore, cannot maintain the same tone that the developer originally intended. Case and point, My Sister Mia. It's a complete shit show right now.
2. Popular fetishes might not be fetishes that the developer has, so for him to incorporate fetishes he does not like/is not familiar with, will not feel like natural inclusion of said fetish.

For instance, a developer who hates Incest and thinks it's disgusting, will not know how to handle the incorporation of that fetish, case and point - any modern incest game that completely misses the point of what makes the fetish good (usually build up).

Messing with the developers vision is almost always bad.

 

[Zippity]

Almost always bad.

Here's my reasoning.

1. The developer usually has a mindset and a goal during development. His goal and tone set up in the early releases might be completely out of line with added fetishes recommended by the public because those guys have zero input on the original planning process and therefore, cannot maintain the same tone that the developer originally intended. Case and point, My Sister Mia. It's a complete shit show right now.
2. Popular fetishes might not be fetishes that the developer has, so for him to incorporate fetishes he does not like/is not familiar with, will not feel like natural inclusion of said fetish.

For instance, a developer who hates Incest and thinks it's disgusting, will not know how to handle the incorporation of that fetish, case and point - any modern incest game that completely misses the point of what makes the fetish good (usually build up).

Messing with the developers vision is almost always bad.

I get what your saying... And I agree, 9 times out of 10, allowing players too much influence over the creation of content tends to be harmful... I can understand why some folks do it, but I just wish it wasn't becoming so much more prevalent in the new stuff coming out... I'm beginning to suspect it is really the money that is driving that trend the most... Because of the high success of a small handful of Visual Novels and Games, there is suddenly a gold rush occurring in this genre... Tons of folks wanting to cash in on the same concepts and ideas that made those few big hitters so good at bringing in the cash flow... Diluting the waters, because for whatever reasons (and there are many), they allow the more boisterous players or players with cash to burn, to dictate and/or influence their creativity too much...

 

[ChaosOpen]

The concept that someone has a complete and "best" version of a game in their head when they start and everyone who suggests ideas is taking the author off the path of the game they wanted to make is complete fiction. Authors tend to start with an extremely basic outline of the plot and look to feedback to try and come up with ideas on how to fill his game with interesting ideas and characters.

That being said, the author always has the final word, so if the whole fanbase is crying out for something and the author doesn't agree he isn't going to add it, but if a single person suggests something and the author likes the idea then it is most likely going to end up in the game. Authors rely upon their fanbase as a brainstorming system and for feedback on how he could improve the game. Authors who don't do this tend to write some pretty terrible games that nobody likes.

The problem you seem to have is when the majority of the fanbase is crying out for a feature and the author likes it too it, it APPEARS as if the fanbase put pressure on the author to include something and the author capitulated. That is simply not the case, the author very much enjoyed the idea just as much as anyone in his fanbase.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Necroing a more than five years old thread, to say that...

The concept that someone has a complete and "best" version of a game in their head when they start and everyone who suggests ideas is taking the author off the path of the game they wanted to make is complete fiction. Authors tend to start with an extremely basic outline of the plot and look to feedback to try and come up with ideas on how to fill his game with interesting ideas and characters.

It's not because this is what you are doing, and to be fair what half authors on the scene are doing, that it apply to everyone.

There's a really easy way to differentiate between the two. An author who know his story anticipate it.
Event always starts in the background, and can be seen there, or in the behavior of the characters who are already aware of them, way before they reach the MC, and therefore the player. Their characters also tend to have a stronger, and deeper, personality, and this personality match the scenes they'll be involved in.
Things will happen and, even when you haven't see them come, you'll not be totally surprised because suddenly everything make sense.

Authors rely upon their fanbase as a brainstorming system and for feedback on how he could improve the game. Authors who don't do this tend to write some pretty terrible games that nobody likes.

Hmm, really ?

The DeLuca Family, Where the Heart Is, Karlsson's Gambit, Bad Memories, Fetish Locator, to just name five that cross my mind right now, all bad and not loved games without a single doubt. And what about Love and Submission, still loved and missed so many years after shit hit Veqvil life, forcing him to abandon it.

The fact is that games have more chance to succeed when the author know precisely what story he is telling. By itself this improve the inherent qualities of the game, make the writing more coherent, and contribute to the interest players will have for the game. You started playing out of curiosity, you continue to play because you are, consciously or not, teased about what will be coming next.

Edit: Too obvious typo.

 

[ChaosOpen]

Necroing a more than five years old thread, to say that...

Ah, I clicked on one of the threads in the "similar threads" and posted without thinking about the date.

 

[Dantaylion]

As long as they are into what I'm into I don't have an issue. lol just kidding