Whats happening people to the gaming industry

[TheSmokeGuy]

I started to get involved with F94zone, and it's list of games, a fair few years ago. A time when game makers took pride in their work and produced some very high quality games. But I am finding that over the years this trend of slapping a few frames together using an off the shelf "coding" program, placing it on F95 and then expecting people to join and pay for any updates to be produced. When people don't, most likely you then hear at a later date the game has gone into the abandoned status.
Don't get me wrong, Not with all games this happens, but it seems to be a trend that it is happening now.
Another trend is this placing a paywall within the game to open up other parts of the game. Like most people, I try the game, find the "wall" and then delete the game never to be seen again. I understand all the reasons people write about as to why it happens, but it always comes back to the inescapable fact that they want money, or you have to be happy with an inferior game till the next patch comes out to be behind within the game. Some of the games are good to play, but the "nag" is a put off. This never used to happen.
Please, before the flamers start, I pay up to about 100 dollars a month to various games makers who I think deserve the payment for their games. Games ranging through all topics and types. One may take 6 months for the next episode, but the game is worth waiting for.
I could go on about game quality, playability, visual content etc etc. Just wanted to say my piece about what I see here and what I believe is happening to this industry.
It's a money game for sure which is no big drama if you deserve it.

 

[Count Morado]

People had the same gripes before your account became active on F95. It's not the industry. The industry is the same as it was... For years.

 

[anne O'nymous]

People had the same gripes before your account became active on F95. It's not the industry. The industry is the same as it was... For years.

I'm less affirmative here.

Yes, at all times people had the same gripes, but I disagree for the industry being the same.

Having been here in the early age of F95Zone, I remember that eight years ago the percent of low effort games was really higher than this. But I totally understand that you can feel differently. Not because you weren't there at those times, but because there's a perception bias in play.

What happened is that, slowly but surely, the average quality have increased. A dev came, raised a bit the bar, and a part of the new comers felt that they need to at least come close to that bar if they want their game to have a chance. And in eight years, it happened a lot. Therefore, everyone have a different definition regarding what "low effort game" mean, this depending on what the average quality was when they registered here.
For me, it's a half bugged games with a CG every now and then; CG that where often full of noise, and with many meshes collision making the hair poke through the skin, or the skin poke through the clothes. But I guess that for you such game would looks more like "negative effort game", mostly because you almost never seen such game. There's time to time a small bit of skin poking through clothes, but it's exceptional, where it was really frequent in the past.

 

[Sunday95]

People had the same gripes before your account became active on F95. It's not the industry. The industry is the same as it was... For years.

Game's the same, just got more fierce.

 

[Hagatagar]

Repeat after me:
There is no western porn game industry.

Just random people making random games with sex content.
Most of them barely as a hobby or like a kid selling self made lemonade on the street.
If there was an industry, they wouldn't have to use piracy sites to find donors for their patreon.

Also there are no real quality standards, because the penis and sometimes the pussy dictates how "good" or rather successful a porn game is. As long as it makes you horny and gets you off, it might be successful, no matter of any objective critique about its quality.
You could draw some wonky tits like a horny fifth grader and some people will upvote it.
I the end it's the sex that sells, not the game.

 

[Count Morado]

Repeat after me:
There is no western porn game industry.

Just random people making random games with sex content.
Most of them barely as a hobby or like a kid selling self made lemonade on the street.
If there was an industry, they wouldn't have to use piracy sites to find donors for their patreon.

Not because you weren't there at those times, but because there's a perception bias in play.

I was here as early as spring 2017. Just not this account.

But I do agree there is strong perception bias in play. A lot of people are looking back on the past with rose tinted glasses about how great it was back then. Which is what OP was putting forth and I was disagreeing with. Games were just as bad, and I wouldn't disagree with you that there were a lot worse out there. But people want to think back to the games that got them here and they think those were 5 stars... Unless they got lucky, they weren't. They were just good enough and novel enough to players that they hooked the players. But they weren't any better than what is being out out now. There are still a lot of hobbyists, a lot of newbie developers, and a few with experience making games.

 

[TheExordick]

You also have to factor in the lower barrier of entry for creating a game in general:
- easier and more focused game engines
- easier programming languages
- lots of free assets
- lots of good tutorials
- higher and higher computing power

making a "game" has never been easier, though making a GOOD game is a whole different story. From outside it looks easy to make a game and so many people jump in thinking they can make the new sexy skyrim or sexy dark souls, but then the reality hits hard: free assets and good engines alone are not enough to make a good game, there is a lot of knowledge required in many different fields.

Add to the above the increasing trend of people that want to profit from porn (in general) and you get the marvelous scenario you described.

I personally don't know if it has always been like this or if it is a recent years phenomenon, but it sure is increasing. As others have said, though, the average quality of the game is also increasing (thanks to the same reasons) and so increase our acceptance bar.

 

[Crimson Delight Games]

There is no western porn game industry.

It's growing tho, give it a few more years.

 

[anne O'nymous]

But people want to think back to the games that got them here and they think those were 5 stars...

Personally, I ended modding the game that got me here, so I'll clearly not give it 5 stars. But Yeah, you're right "it was better in the past", is another strong bias at play here.

It's growing tho, give it a few more years.

How many studios is there in the adult gaming scene ? And I mean real studios, like Winged Cloud, not a group of friends working on the same game.
And how long is "few more years" ? Knowing that in the 90's the scene was mostly filled by games coming from porn movie studios and Japan, and that indie devs have taken over when the scene collapsed in early 00's.

It's been ~20 years that the adult gaming scene exist in its current form, ~10 years that Patreon turned it into a possibly profitable business, and it still needs few more years ? This while almost all the companies that existed at the glorious Flash stupid porn era have disappeared and haven't been replaced.

For an industry to exist, it need professionals filling it, and when it come to adult games, less than 5% (yet I'm surely nice) of the creators are doing it professionally.

 

[Geigi]

Oversaturation.

 

[sanahtlig]

The Western scene has actually improved significantly over the past 10 years. The rise of Patreon funding for and the opening of Steam to adult games has greatly improved access to funds, which has led to a growing number of increasingly high-quality projects. Adult projects need no longer just be hobbies of passion but can also be a viable way of making a living. That means more interest from experienced developers, as well as from opportunists who just want to make a quick buck.