But here is when I think we need to give
VS1995 his due: there exactly where I would expect some investment in quality to make sense: to put you on the top, to differentiate you from others in terms of quality, will help you stay on top.
Except that it's not what happen.
Firstly the investment come after you reached the top, and secondly, since you achieve this without those investment, strictly speaking you don't need them to stay on top.
In fact, when you look at the whole picture among the time, it tend to be the opposite. There's more cases of youtubers or early 90's/00's cam girls, who lost followers due to a bigger investment, and the implied change in the produced content, than case where they reached a new top.
Not that investment is necessarily a negative point, but there's a limit in what you can do with that money. People initially follow you for the spirit you carry. Therefore, while they'll always welcome a better camera or micro, they also will tend to dislike a change in the said spirit. But, how can you not change when you starts to advertise for companies and, globally speaking, not anymore do [whatever you are doing] because you like it, but because you are greedy and want to earn even more money ?
I would suggest here, that we need to refocus, what question are we trying to answer exactly?
None, I just reinstate an obvious fact: OnlyFans can not be used as proof that lewd/porn video games would be successful, period.
And maybe split them a bit. OP was asking about big money production, major league studios developing porn games. And I believe we all mostly agree, that it is highly unlikely to happen.
All except
VS1995...
But video gaming history proved, more than once, that it will not happen.
It didn't happened in the 80's, where the condition were more favorable and
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opened the way. At this time, you could make a game with a small budget, resellers weren't really regarding, and morality leagues weren't really powerful. Yet, the best we effectively got from the mainstream studios was the
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series.
It didn't happened in the 90's/00's, when XXX studios where making their own games. This time, there were money, and the market was already and clearly defined. Any AAA studio could have knocked at a XXX studio's door, saying that they need money to fund an adult game, they would have got it. Yet, none of them did it.
And it still didn't happen nowadays, despite some really successful games making frilly attempt. As I said yesterday, even with a game expected to be as controversial as GTA San Andreas, they finally
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. And like a mod was enough to restore it, they did this at the last second, not having the time to effectively review the code to effectively remove it.
CD Projekt, and now Larian Studios, are the ones who goes the further. yet it still stay secondary, and globally optional, content. It's a plus some will be interested in, but no one will buy the game for this reason. It's games that have sexual content, like there's sometimes sex scenes in movies, but at no time is it a game resolving around sex, or having sex as part of it's main content.
So back on topic: the other question I like to propose is: is any kind of investment in the porn game space viable?
The answer is: maybe.
Illusion closed, but they achieved to exist for a bit more than 20 years.
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are releasing games since near to 10 years, but they are a small company and limits to Ren'Py. Regarding them, it's interesting to notice that
Sakura Dungeon, one of their most acclaimed game, as well as one of their best selling one, is a one time only game.
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, it's their most followed game, and their estimated earning is around US$ 500,000. The only game that did better is their first ever game, and it's obvious when you look at the relative failures that are all their other games, that pure VN isn't the way to go. Yet, it's been 7 years now, and we are still waiting for a second Sakura Dungeon. They know how to do it, since they did it once, and they can expect it to succeed.
But in regard of the selling from their other games, it's a risk they don't want to take. Even with Ren'Py, the production cost would be too high for an earning below US$ 100,000.
Globally speaking, the first A/AA studio that would release an effective adult game, would probably hit the jackpot. But it's a one time thing. In their majority, the players would buy it by curiosity. The real perverts among gamers already have fully modded Fallout/The Elder Scrolls games, it's the players who don't know that adult games exist, that would be the main target here. And those players will not consume those games regularly enough to effectively constitute a market.
It's like the 80's and 90's, before the Internet age. Most couples had one or two porn videotape, and only a really small part of the population was regularly buying new ones.
So, when you compare this small, and partly volatile, market with the production costs, there's not much hope. It's mandatory to firstly reduce to cost, but this will inevitably reduce the quality. Therefore, isn't it defeating the interest to have those games made by A/AA studios ? They'll release games faster than an indie team, but they'll not really release better games ; and those games will cost more than the indie ones.
Can we for example see a bit larger teams developing games, more cooperation?
Not really.
To some exception, like the already named Winged Cloud or Illusion, the model behind the adult gaming scene is really basic: I don't care if I earn money, I have a job.
Perhaps that the top 5 creators have left their job, but anyone else than them would be foolish to do so. It's not because you'll earn US$ 20,000/month for two/three years (what is already exceptional) that you will be able to pass the rest of your life without working. And of course, when you'll stop earning this much and will want to find a job again, you'll have to explain what you were doing during those years...
And this is the main difference between indie games, as they exist on the adult gaming scene, and games made by studios, the costs are limited to the bills. You don't pay your writer, by example, US$ 3,000/month, you pay him X% of the few bucks you'll earn. This reduce considerably the cost compared to the one that a studio would have.
And of course, the said studios need to have the money before it starts the project. You can't hire a bunch of people and tell them that they'll works full time for two/three years, and will only be payed once the game will be released ; yet only if it sell well enough.
Let's say that you have a limited team of five. Between the salary, the professional taxes, and the company expense, you'll need at least US$ 200,000/year. And you need them before you starts.
How much improvement could be made to game engines that are used,
The engines aren't the issue here. Unity is used by big studio, Fallout Shelter is made with it by example, and it can already make great games. And of course there's the
366 games available here made with Unreal. The problem is purely the cost, and strictly speaking you can't reduce them.
Pay your coder at minimum wage, and you'll have one that will need more time to make the game, because less competent. Pay your writer at minimum wage, and you'll have a bad story, badly wrote, that will interest no one. Pay your artist at minimum wage, and you'll face the two issues in one ; he'll need more time to make the CGs, and they'll be of lesser quality.
The only way to reduce the cost is to have everyone working at home. You'll not have to pay for a local and its associated bills. But in the same time, you'll have to keep your employees motivated, what generally imply a better salary.
and if they could potentially develop further to better allow for more complex gameplay mechanics and different kinds of gameplay?
Between Unity, Unreal and Godot, there's already all the possible game mechanisms you can think about.
Even Ren'Py can do way more than what it is usually used for. The already named
Sakura Dungeon have 3D old school dungeon crawling and combat mechanism, while a game like
Planet Stronghold 2 have map exploration and combat mechanism. This while
Lust Hunter is the game that goes the further, with map exploration, combat mechanism and dressing mechanism ; but alas not really done good.
Here, the issue is the coding knowledge, and again this have a cost. If someone have the knowledge to code something really complicated, you need to really make him passionate by your project, for him to accept to works for few bucks. Of course it's not impossible, but it's unlikely. There's more chance that he try to build a team around his own project, than him joining yours.
And on these subject I believe there is some question of possibility, that it could happen. Not saying it's likely, just it is not out of realm of possibility for me.
Look at the three games I linked. It's already done, to some extend in regard of the code quality.
But there's a reason why those games are rare. They are hard to code, whatever the engine, and therefore raise a question: Is it worth it ?
For studios, Winged Cloud answer seem to be "no" since, as I said, they made only one game like
Sakura Dungeon.
As for amateurs, the issue is more on the coding capabilities side. It worth it, since it cost you nothing, but do you have the knowledge to make it, and make it correctly ?
What I've seen on this forum is that there actually are some dedicated creators, and quite dedicated fan base. No, it is not as large as mainstream and never will be (and I even doubt It should, I actually don't want porn everywhere, porn logic invading all my books, games and movies). But a base that is in many cases willing to overpay by a large margin, a last comparing it to value offer that many mainstream games offer, and creators that are willing to create in a space where rewards are more limited on the high end compared to mainstream, and fame and recognition is somewhat of a double-edged sword.
What fallback to my previous question: is it worth it ?
Over the
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, less than 100 make more than US$ 10,000/month, around 75% make less than US$ 1,000/month, with the majority being below US$ 300/month.
Are you ready to come back from works just to pass hours working on your code, this for probably just enough to pay for a beer by week ? Between the bills, and the assets for those who use Daz Studio, most creators are loosing money making their game.
And before you answer the question, keep in mind that the same story, but with more basic game mechanism, would more than probably have the same success.
Of course, when you have the knowledge to do it, it can worth it, as a personal pride. But for their majority, creators don't have this knowledge.
I'm not sure how much awareness is the general public, that games like this even exist?
I guess not much.
I played some of the 90's/00's XXX studios games, and during that period also played a lot of Japanese imports. Yet it's only around 2015 that I realized that the indie scene wasn't limited to stupid flash mini games. So, I guess that people who don't have the initial knowledge I had are even less likely to realize it.
It probably starts to change now that Steam is selling those games, it's still limiting the market. It's again the porn video tape situation. Among the potential public there's people who don't often play games, and that would still punctually play an adult one, precisely because it's an adult one. But those people don't pass their time browsing Steam catalog. Therefore they probably don't know that there's adult games there.
