Why don't people create more [ACT] games?

[notatempromise]

This is just a rhetorical question, but it's something I've thought about more than once while navigating through DLSite and here. What do you guys think causes the endless stream of still-image, "role-playing" games, when people could be making action games?

 

[Allard]

Ressources.
May it be knowledge, time, assets, etc. Making a visual novel is way easier than having to deal with gunplay, movement, map design, and and and. Most of the people here are hobby developers with full time jobs who already invest a lot of freetime in their games, even without all the fancy gameplay.

 

[TessaXYZ]

This is just a rhetorical question, but it's something I've thought about more than once while navigating through DLSite and here. What do you guys think causes the endless stream of still-image, "role-playing" games, when people could be making action games?

Ah yes, why would a solo adult game developer create a VN that can be reasonably created by one person instead of choosing to work on a game that realistically needs a team to accomplish and won't have nearly as much sexual content as a VN would?

Truly a mystery.

 

[notatempromise]

Ah yes, why would a solo adult game developer create a VN that can be reasonably created by one person instead of choosing to work on a game that realistically needs a team to accomplish and won't have nearly as much sexual content as a VN would?

Truly a mystery.

You're saying visual novels have more sexual content than action games? Isn't that completely independent of the style of game, and more up to the developer? Besides that, I created this thread with a full understanding that action games require much more effort and time than visual novels do (generally), but that doesn't mean it requires a team of people to do it. You could watch an hour long video on youtube that fully explains how you could make a simple side-scroller in unity, which is extremely short (in regards to game development) and requires practically no effort. Obviously, this game would be devoid of lots of detail, but that's what "simple" means. My point is that, no, it wouldn't suffer from not "having nearly as much sexual content", and it's not a task that requires a team of people.

 

[notatempromise]

Ressources.
May it be knowledge, time, assets, etc. Making a visual novel is way easier than having to deal with gunplay, movement, map design, and and and. Most of the people here are hobby developers with full time jobs who already invest a lot of freetime in their games, even without all the fancy gameplay.

Apart from knowledge and assets, time is not a good reason for a (subjectively) bad game. What I mean is that, even if a dev has a tight schedule and doesn't have a lot of time to work on their games, they also have no deadline. They could spend months or years on a game, and put in a bit of time on it every few nights. I don't feel like a shortage of time is something many hobby devs suffer from.

 

[Meaning Less]

It is harder, simple as that.

There is always more of what is easier..

 

[TessaXYZ]

You're saying visual novels have more sexual content than action games? Isn't that completely independent of the style of game, and more up to the developer? Besides that, I created this thread with a full understanding that action games require much more effort and time than visual novels do (generally), but that doesn't mean it requires a team of people to do it. You could watch an hour long video on youtube that fully explains how you could make a simple side-scroller in unity, which is extremely short (in regards to game development) and requires practically no effort. Obviously, this game would be devoid of lots of detail, but that's what "simple" means. My point is that, no, it wouldn't suffer from not "having nearly as much sexual content", and it's not a task that requires a team of people.

Yeah, I know how to make a side-scroller in Unity and I know what it takes to do it. When you're talking about a full action game built from the ground up, with new gameplay added with each update, it's undeniable that you're going to spend a larger fraction of development time on the gameplay features relative to the sexual content, when you can be just as successful in this niche of an industry developing a robust VN that spends much more time purely on producing sexual content (and relatively little on gameplay features).

 

[TessaXYZ]

Apart from knowledge and assets, time is not a good reason for a (subjectively) bad game. What I mean is that, even if a dev has a tight schedule and doesn't have a lot of time to work on their games, they also have no deadline. They could spend months or years on a game, and put in a bit of time on it every few nights. I don't feel like a shortage of time is something many hobby devs suffer from.

You should probably recognize that most developers will release early and start a Patreon so they can (A) get some return on their time investment, and (B) find out quickly whether the game is going to be successful or not. The vast majority of games here never pick up traction, so it's unreasonable to expect there to be any significant number of developers willing to take that sort of risk. And once the Patreon is up, deadlines are absolutely a thing if you intent to maintain income.

 

[notatempromise]

It is harder, simple as that.

There is always more of what is easier..

Yes, unfortunately true.

Yeah, I know how to make a side-scroller in Unity and I know what it takes to do it. When you're talking about a full action game built from the ground up, with new gameplay added with each update, it's undeniable that you're going to spend a larger fraction of development time on the gameplay features relative to the sexual content, when you can be just as successful in this niche of an industry developing a robust VN that spends much more time purely on producing sexual content (and relatively little on gameplay features).

I really don't understand where you're coming from. I'm assuming you are probably biased considering that you are developing a visual novel yourself, so I'll try to keep it in mind, but have you played any of the several side-scroller/platformer games on here? From what I can tell with my experience with them, they only focus on the gameplay features until they aren't buggy (come and go, honestly) or they are happy with their results, then they focus on the sexual content. A percentage of the games don't even have the ability to jump (not criticizing, just emphasizing), yet are fantastic in terms of their sexual content.

You should probably recognize that most developers will release early and start a Patreon so they can (A) get some return on their time investment, and (B) find out quickly whether the game is going to be successful or not. The vast majority of games here never pick up traction, so it's unreasonable to expect there to be any significant number of developers willing to take that sort of risk. And once the Patreon is up, deadlines are absolutely a thing if you intent to maintain income.

I do realize that most devs start Patreons, and I was well aware that it was due to the reasons you listed. I still don't believe that it's an issue, though, as I believe hobby devs will NEVER have deadlines, except those they set for themselves. I understand very well that a consistent schedule is required, but only to those who rely on the income received from the game, which would imply (to me at least) that they do not have a job apart from game development, or that if they do, it's not one that requires all of their time.

 

[TessaXYZ]

Yes, unfortunately true.

I really don't understand where you're coming from. I'm assuming you are probably biased considering that you are developing a visual novel yourself, so I'll try to keep it in mind, but have you played any of the several side-scroller/platformer games on here? From what I can tell with my experience with them, they only focus on the gameplay features until they aren't buggy (come and go, honestly) or they are happy with their results, then they focus on the sexual content. A percentage of the games don't even have the ability to jump (not criticizing, just emphasizing), yet are fantastic in terms of their sexual content.


I do realize that most devs start Patreons, and I was well aware that it was due to the reasons you listed. I still don't believe that it's an issue, though, as I believe hobby devs will NEVER have deadlines, except those they set for themselves. I understand very well that a consistent schedule is required, but only to those who rely on the income received from the game, which would imply (to me at least) that they do not have a job apart from game development, or that if they do, it's not one that requires all of their time.

Yeah, I've played side-scroller adult games. I stand by my opinion about what the average developer experience would be, but I agree with you that it isn't impossible. It's just not going to be common when developer time is a fairly strict zero sum game for most devs who can't spent 12 hours a day on the project.

And I disagree about it only mattering to people who don't have other jobs. I have a full-time career outside of this, but the additional revenue from my VN isn't nothing and I'd like to keep it that way by making sure I deliver within reasonable timeframes. It's quite rare for developers to actually make this their full time job.

 

[anne O'nymous]

[...] but have you played any of the several side-scroller/platformer games on here? [...] yet are fantastic in terms of their sexual content.

I have played many of them, and not once "this game is fantastic in terms of sexual content" was among the thoughts I had.
For the majority of them, at least among those I played, it was just raw sex. Therefore it's both worse than what VN can provide, since there's a total lack of empathy with the characters, and worse than what porn movies can provide, because it's not real characters.
It doesn't mean that I haven't enjoyed playing some of those games, but neither my decision to play them, nor my enjoyment, came from them having lewd content.

Starting there, if you are good enough to make such games, why bother with the adult content ? It will necessarily limit your visibility, when you can make the same game without this content and have 1,000 times more players, and so 1,000 times more support.

[...] as I believe hobby devs will NEVER have deadlines, [...]

They will never have one, yes, but they also don't have the time needed to works seriously on their game.
With a VN, you can works five minutes on a dialog between your shower and breakfast, then 20 minutes again during your lunch break. But for a scroller/platformer game, if you don't have at least hours in front of you, you'll go nowhere.

 

[shabadu]

What do you guys think causes the endless stream of still-image, "role-playing" games, when people could be making action games?

Why would they want to do that?

You put a lot of inherent value in action games over these "still-image, 'role-playing' games" with your phrasing, so I'm going to assume you just have a preference for animated side-scrollers. That's cool, but not everyone is you. Not everyone out there wants to play a RoR game, or a small scale metroidvania with pixel art, and not every dev wants to make them.

Your basic premise is no different than someone asking why developers just don't make more games about NTR, or futas, or high school fantasy harems, and so on.

 

[tsuKamiDev]

I guess it's just not worth. By creating a visual novel, you can basically achieve the same thing as creating a full-fledged action game and in a shorter time. Yes, there are no deadlines and people can develop their game for years, but many people look at profit and how to get it as soon as possible. If you also consider that visual novels are being abandoned, then with full-fledged games, I think it’s even worse, because not everyone has enough patience.

 

[ZoneTan20]

I don't know how's and why's but I for one would love more action games, not talking shooters, but more 2d sidecrollers, platformers and beat-em-ups.

It doesn't have to be particularly deep, but serviceable. Parasite in City, Goblin Walker, Bankrupt Heroines, Strip Fighter etc. I usually avoid all VN, Renpy unless it's waifu/theme heavy to my fetishes.