Will we ever see big money production in the adult game industry ?

[fake.name.again]

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.

First, thanks for the thoughtful response, and historical knowledge you put into it. You certainly point to interesting facts and for example your descriptions of what's happening on OnlyFans seems to better correspond to what I was observing so far. Because even if OF is paywalled, I would fully expect them to leak all over porn sites if their content was of particularly high quality. What both you and VS1995 are describing certainly seem to be space that some degree of competition, especially on top would make sense, but my impression is, it is mostly personality based with para-social being a very important factor rather than production focused. In other words, repeated long term interactions are the model, rather than focused, purposely made and produced content. But I will still leave a bit of a question mark for myself on the end, that I'm happy to leave unanswered, since I am not interested in OF.

OP pointed to PureTaboo as an example of higher quality effort in the main stream porn industry, and I have certainly seen some effort in these directions. For me, the first time when it really was striking was some early X-Art vids. I know that this whole company went up in flames, suing everybody for piracy and such (YouTube lawyers were commenting it extensively at the times). But wow, did I see the difference in quality... The lighting, camera work, locations, and most of all girls didn't seem to bored out of their skulls like in mass-produced Brazzers or whatever crap and seem to show something that looked like genuine passion. Even if it was very vanilla, and I'm into some kinkier stuff. And where X-Art can be seen as an example of overspending that was unsustainable by the business model, I think others are continuing in similar fashion with better success. So some improvement is probably possible but staying frugal, knowing how much you can spend and on what is still essential.

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.

Here I don't know if I'm missing something? I have been modding my BSG games since Morrowind, sometimes spending more time preparing the game and downloading mods, sorting mod orders and cooking compatibility patches then playing afterwards. And I actually didn't find porn experience there very interesting/rewarding. Admittedly, I'm more familiar with Nexus side of things and Loverslab might have treasures I didn't find during my search, but I mostly found half-baked systems that didn't even integrate themselves in some kind of storyline and game-wide mechanics. I had some fun making all female NPCs hot and running in skimpy outfits or naked, but this got old really, really fast. For me, games here on this site are more interesting and offer more role-playing of sexual fantasies. But if you have some good recommendations, I would be interested to hear them.

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.

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.

Ach, actually not necessarily. The abilities we have today, that result in so many one man operations to be able to create games on this site, are results of technological advancements and existence of tools like DAZ and somewhat beginner-friendly engines like Renpy. And some pioneers creating first experiences that ware really engaging and showed how it can be done for others to iterate. So better, more accessible tools with more modules or templates how to structure the game would help a lot IMO.

Personal example: I dream of a game with turn based team combat on some kind of grid, with an obligatory RPG like backbone of stats and special powers (superhero setting). And I'm sure you vaguely know what I'm mean because games like that exist for decades both in strategy/tactics (X-Com, Heroes of Might and Magic) or RPG (Fallout 1&2) co it can be applied to different genres. Art assets can be done in DAZ I believe, sprites and all, especially if we do it without animations. Special effect like energy blast or power shields are a bit of an issue, as library of things like that in DAZ seem to be limited, and some are very basic which might be technological limitation. Support for VDBs was added some time ago, that improved the situation somewhat, but I'm still hoping for more. And yes, on he engine side, I'm sure It can be done in Unity or Unreal (so I'm thinking Unity, Unreal being too much of overkill for a 2d sprite based game), maybe even Renpy. But I'm not sure if it can be done well enough by a beginner.

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.

I'm half tempted to try this Sakura Dungeon, problem is, cutsy child-like manga characters are rather major turn-off for me (so is futa), but I am genuinely interested what type of gameplay you can achieve.
For me, Superpowered is one of the better examples of a game that can push system drive gameplay and have half decent combat. And I still have quite a lot of games on my list to play, and some of them are promising to have such systems. Fully agree that difficulty of expanding teams and actual abilities of people making games is one of major issues here. And doing coding and writing and art is quite a lot (usually learning as you go I suspect), so I do understand the argument of just skipping silly ideas like complex gameplay with proper game-loop, since it is not essential.
To be honest, I actually don't know how actively Renpy for example is developed. It's not a bleeding edge tech, so Digital Foundry does not do analysis of new features, I sometimes see that games are updated to new versions, but even then they stay mostly the same. Unity is of course quite mainstream, and even more so Unreal, but the tech they are developing are not exactly all that well suited for porn games. Even if for example Unreal 5 procedural city generation is targeted exactly to reduce cost for developers of creating game worlds.
So I really do believe that tools could be improved, but not necessarily have the answer who could improve them. Because yes: costs. So I'm hoping, but I don't pretend to really know.
Of course, one possibility is AI. People are experimenting with AI assisted programming, we're not there yet, but progress seem to be very real, and so is art generation. I've been slowly exploring and learning DAZ and gathering assets, so I rather stay with that, and while there are some promising games done with AI art It doesn't seem to result in the ability to create consistent art style in larger quantities. At least, I'm not convinced yet. If we're talking locally rendered, not paywalled by large corporation and not pre-censored by moral busybodies, could be a huge boon to small creators.

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 ?

Yeah, hard to code, and writing and art are their own challenges. So even if I have my dream project in my head, this is certainly one of the big questions that I need to answer to myself before I can truly commit. And I'm not even talking money in my case, but if I even can sustain enough passion to work hard for hours to achieve enough of an effect. And yes, I have a day job, and want to play some games for myself too.

 

[anne O'nymous]

And where X-Art can be seen as an example of overspending that was unsustainable by the business model, [...]

For their business model, therefore online content based solely on subscription. But there's still few old studios, or new ones operated by old stars, that cover the whole market and achieve to find a balance.

Here I don't know if I'm missing something? I have been modding my BSG games since Morrowind, sometimes spending more time preparing the game and downloading mods, sorting mod orders and cooking compatibility patches then playing afterwards. And I actually didn't find porn experience there very interesting/rewarding.

I didn't said that it's interesting or rewarding. But the fact is that, globally, it's what an AAA adult game would looks like. Either you would have romances (sex included) with specific NPCs, or you would have sex possibilities all over the table.
They are making action games, reflection games, strategy games, they don't know how to make "are you ready for an interesting story" games. Not that the story behind their games aren't interesting, but they are behind the game, not the game itself.
Let's take Watchdog by example, because it's the one I remember right now. The story talk about revenge, but 80% of the game is move around and fight. They wouldn't know how to do differently, and anyway no one would believe that it's an AAA game if it looked like an advanced interactive VN, even one in real time 3D.
Therefore, in the end it wouldn't be this different from modded Fallout/The Elder Scrolls. Just something of better quality and with a better integration of the lewd content.

Admittedly, I'm more familiar with Nexus side of things and Loverslab might have treasures I didn't find during my search, but I mostly found half-baked systems that didn't even integrate themselves in some kind of storyline and game-wide mechanics. I had some fun making all female NPCs hot and running in skimpy outfits or naked, but this got old really, really fast.

God, my memory is a mess I've been part of this scene, and the only mod that achieve to cross my mind is Willow (Fallout New Vegas), that isn't even effectively a lewd one, but that you can turn into it by using a lewd companion mod.
There's also one, on Loverslab, that turn you into a pimp, one that turn you into a slaver. And there's some on Nexus that are highly story based, but I'm totally unable to remember a single name
This said you're not totally wrong, quality mods are limited in numbers. But it's more the combination that is interesting. Take a lingerie shop (or did I modded a shop mod ?), some clothes/lingerie mod, get Willow as companion and, as I said, use a lewd companion mod, and you get something interesting.

But if you have some good recommendations, I would be interested to hear them.

I want, really, but between my fucked memory, my age and the heat, as I said no names cross my mind.
Don't age people, don't age...

Ach, actually not necessarily. The abilities we have today, that result in so many one man operations to be able to create games on this site, are results of technological advancements and existence of tools like DAZ and somewhat beginner-friendly engines like Renpy.

Yet as I said when a studio hit the jackpot with a game like this (Sakura Dungeon), it don't do it twice. And still it was a 2D game relying on a limited number of sprites and really small lewd. So something far to be as difficult than a game that would rely on Daz Studio for its CGs.

And some pioneers creating first experiences that ware really engaging and showed how it can be done for others to iterate. So better, more accessible tools with more modules or templates how to structure the game would help a lot IMO.

And then we would have games that would be all the sames, while having really low interest, like 90% of the western production using RPG Maker.
But anyway, in a way those templates already exist. Ren'Py sources are available, if a game mechanism please you, you can copy it... Assumed that you've effectively the needed knowledge to understand, then adapt the code.
But in the end it wouldn't be different for a template, because your needs would never exactly match it. I answered enough, "I found this code, but when I change it to do this, it don't works", to know it.

Personal example: I dream of a game with turn based team combat on some kind of grid, with an obligatory RPG like backbone of stats and special powers (superhero setting).

What need that you define an AI-like module to handle the opponents. Something way more advanced that what is made for the usual combat system. And also something that can't be done as template because there's too many variables in play depending on the context.

Special effect like energy blast or power shields are a bit of an issue,

It's the easiest part of what you're describing. No, really.

But I'm not sure if it can be done well enough by a beginner.

I can't even be done badly by a beginner.
Not that it can't be done at all, but it needs time, a really big amount of times.

I'm half tempted to try this Sakura Dungeon, problem is, cutsy child-like manga characters are rather major turn-off for me (so is futa), but I am genuinely interested what type of gameplay you can achieve.

Then do like almost everyone probably did, play it as a game, not as a lewd game.

For me, Superpowered is one of the better examples of a game that can push system drive gameplay and have half decent combat.

Well, it have a good idea as base, it's all I'll say about it...

To be honest, I actually don't know how actively Renpy for example is developed. It's not a bleeding edge tech, so Digital Foundry does not do analysis of new features, I sometimes see that games are updated to new versions, but even then they stay mostly the same.

The engine is in constant development since more than 15 years, with on average a never version released every three months.
But it doesn't really matters how active an engine is if people don't know how to use it. There's by example, to my knowledge and from memory, around 40 games who reinvented it's native translation feature, making the game being a pain in the ass to develop, just because they guy(s) didn't cared to look at the doc. Around half of the games with free roaming use a half broken hack in place of something that exist ; yet this trend seem to decline.
There's so many things that can be done with this engine, but it need a base knowledge that few creators have. And generally those who have it totally miss it and build something that already exist natively.

 

[fake.name.again]

Therefore, in the end it wouldn't be this different from modded Fallout/The Elder Scrolls. Just something of better quality and with a better integration of the lewd content.

To a degree, better integration and quality is what I'm asking for. Beth game for example had always had an absolutely awful animation engine, already in Morrowind it was not great, and from Gembryo into Creation Engine it improved very little until Fallout 4. And even there it was mostly the same, better, but compared to wide use of motion capture and context aware movement that are standard in most games very basic. Starfield seems like a huge leap forward from what I see, still mostly looks procedurally generated, no motion capture, but at least combat looks like a fun experience at last, after all these years. And how animations would be necessary for porn I suspect does not need explanation.
But it is a bit more than that, I already mentioned aspect of role-playing fantasies. You can become a vampire in Skyrim, why can't you be a horny vampire with mesmerism powers? Let use and abuse my powers a little, or a lot. You can be absolutely destructive force from nightmares (in Pathfinder WOTR for example) but building a harem or being pervert is out of the question.

There's also one, on Loverslab, that turn you into a pimp, one that turn you into a slaver. And there's some on Nexus that are highly story based, but I'm totally unable to remember a single name

Yeah, I think I have seen most you mentioned. Probably the slaver ones was most interesting, but as I said, not all that well integrated or polished for me, so I also barely remember it. I believe there was some lather large quest one for Oblivion, with some secret society or something, but again, not remembering much either.
Companions in Beth games ware newer really fully cooked, and some of the mods ones ware in fact more developed than original ones, but still, the whole companion system was rather basic and not all that interesting in these games, without big impact on either story or gameplay. It's actually one of the pet peeves of mines, how little RPGs these days even try to develop companions into a proper part of the game. How much more interesting experience it would be in Cyberpunk 2077 if you could Judie or Panam accompany you on the mission, and it would add a whole another layer, how their skills could compliment yours, so you could specialize as solo but still have hacker with you or the other way around, what a wasted opportunity. And even Bioware, absolute king of this hill, made fucking Anthem FFS.

And then we would have games that would be all the sames, while having really low interest, like 90% of the western production using RPG Maker.

I find the idea behind RPGM interesting, just execution too basic. Yes they are similar, almost identical in basic gameplay loop, but more than that, this loop is pretty shallow in the first place. I actually am considering if finding some sprite based RPG, like Shadowrun, that have the ability to create your own campaign, might be an interesting option. But since I haven't seen anything like it, I'm doubtful. Anyway, I believe that having multiple templates would benefit, especially if they would be flexible, modular. RPGM is such a template, but not a very good one IMO. Renpy I believe have few templates already, like for VN and sandbox stuff. Unity has some modules too, from what I researched, like dialogue one. There are quite a few management games, but I’m not sure if all of them are build these systems from the ground up. And if there was a template to somewhat easily build old school dungeon crawling of the type found in classic Might and Magic (or first two Elders Scroll games for that matter), as I believe Sakura Dungeon done, it would probably increase variety, not decrease it. Some people would be still using the easiest to use option, and others would still be experimenting and pushing boundaries.

What need that you define an AI-like module to handle the opponents. Something way more advanced that what is made for the usual combat system. And also something that can't be done as template because there's too many variables in play depending on the context.

Not an expert, but from what I understand about coding such things, yes, it will be become more complex more characters would be fighting and more possible variety of action each of them would have. But As I said, turn based combat is in games for decades (centuries really, since, you know: chess) and it actually simplifies things, since at any given time only one character must make the decision of what action to make. And grid based is as simple as it gets also, even simpler than hex based. But coding it from the ground up seems like a quite a lot of work, possibly more than I can or am willing to put into it. But man can dream.

It's the easiest part of what you're describing. No, really.

Then why nobody is doing it? I'm into SF and superhero stuff, and I'm checking new games updates page daily on this site, and where I see quite a lot of games, where characters look fantastic, with nice expressions and posing, locations look good too, and costumes, and props, like cars and weapons, generally lighting on basic level since it is path-traced, but I'm yet to see particle effects or FX that would match this quality. I actually thought a lot about it. Downloaded huge library of very nice looking effects, but they are in .mov format (so video) and can't be used inside DAZ. I don't think moving to some professional grade big-movie and expensive as hell 3d graphic application would be an option for me. And while I am considering photoshop - probably at least some effects could be done in post - I don't really want to pay for it, especially a monthly subscription. And while I have seen some tutorials that teach how to do neat tricks with composition, haven't actually seen much in terms of impressive FX.

 

[anne O'nymous]

[...] and from Gembryo into Creation Engine it improved very little until Fallout 4. [...]

Creation Engine is just a fork from GameBryo, and it wasn't used before Skyrim.

And even there it was mostly the same, better, but compared to wide use of motion capture and context aware movement that are standard in most games very basic.

Motion capture is just a way to get the animation data. All it suffice to use it with GameBryo is to convert the acquired data into the right format.

But it is a bit more than that, I already mentioned aspect of role-playing fantasies. You can become a vampire in Skyrim, why can't you be a horny vampire with mesmerism powers? [...]

Because it's a bit too much works for the size of the possible user base, or too much constraints in terms of dependencies.

You need to code the power, and to extend the companion code to meet the harem requirements, or build your own one.
Then you need to build a house that looks good enough for a harem, or make a house mod as dependency. You'll also need to code the idle parts for this house, for the girls not to be static and act like they would do if in a harem. And you'll also have add some dialog lines that fit the harem context since they aren't just random NPCs.
For it to not just looks like a harem, but feel like a harem, you also need to code some basic interactions in top of the idle ; like the girls greeting you when you come back, or showing respect when they cross your way, by example. And to be able to fit the player spirit, for this and the dialog lines it would be a good idea to make variations depending if you're a loving master, a neutral one or a dominant one.
After this you need to build the sex module core, or make one as dependency, and then all the sexual interactions, or make a lot of sexual interaction mod as dependencies.
And finally, on top of this, you'll need to build an in game configuration menu, to get back the girls you lost, free some, define what relation you want with each girls, which one will be the main girl of the harem, and possibly more. Ideally, all this (except the "get back" one) should be done through the interactions with the girls, what mean more interactions choices and dialog lines.

It's why the interest of modded Fallout/The Elder Scrolls isn't in the mods by themselves, but in the combination you build with them.
As I said, my memory is a bit blurry, but there's surely a harem mod, there's some really good house mods, as well as some interesting idle mods. There's of course sex module cores, and sexual interactions mods. You get the ones that fit your needs and built a better things through their use.

I find the idea behind RPGM interesting, just execution too basic.

The one generally can't goes without the other.
The instant you build a template, even more if your engine is a whole template, you accept the fact that those who will use it will be limited in what they can do. Of course, it's always possible to extend the code, but it generally need a bit more knowledge to do this, than it need to write your own code from scratch ; this because you firstly need to understand the code you'll extend, and find the right way to interact with it.

Not an expert, but from what I understand about coding such things, yes, it will be become more complex more characters would be fighting and more possible variety of action each of them would have.

The number of characters isn't a problem. One or a hundred do not change much, except of course the computation time. It's more the wild variety of context.
Imagine whatever Fallout and The Elder Scroll in map turn based mode. The whole combat system would be radically different. Firearms have way more variety, in fire range, damage power, and aim, than a bow. Magic fit more this variety, but it's in the result of its use that radically differ ; globally all bullets leads to the same result, but a fireball and ice projectile don't.
Then there's of course the characters stats. While it would be possible to add some for other use, the whole combat system would be based on frozen stats that would be the same, with the same effect, for all games. Same for the possible perks.

Not that it's strictly impossible to make something more universal, but it would then be a canvas, not a template. In a way, it's would be like a Lego set, except that there's just the instructions and you need to provide the bricks.
This would probably already help many creators, but in the same time for most of them, if they have the knowledge to write the missing parts, then they have the knowledge to write the code you provide.

But As I said, turn based combat is in games for decades (centuries really, since, you know: chess) and it actually simplifies things, since at any given time only one character must make the decision of what action to make.

Yes, but the problem is that the biggest part of the decisions are made by the opponent, and therefore by your code. You can go for the basis, "attack who's the closest", but it would be really quickly boring and easy to beat.
Put your healer at its maximal range plus the movement range for your slowest character. Put your tank in point, everyone else at healing range. Then switch character when the one in point need to be healed.
The opponent need a more advanced decision tree. And once again this decision tree would be frozen for a given set of weapons and stats.
You can eventually let the user define the damage caused by each weapon, but you at least need to code constraint for this. It would be ridiculous if you write the combat template with the laser rifle as the more powerful weapons, and the guy using your template make it one of the weakest.
Your decision tree would be something like "he's far and seem really resistant, I'll use my best weapon, the laser rifle one him to weaken him before he reach close range", and the result would be the opposite.

In the end, and for Ren'Py, it's too much works for something that would be just a template. If someone build this, it will be because he need it, and therefore it will write it to fit really specifics needs, not as a template. Especially since this person generally have limited coding knowledge, and therefore wouldn't really know how to make it as template.
For Unity it's different, because the engine needs more knowledge, therefore there's more people able to do it. But, yeah, for Ren'Py it need to be a bit crazy to double (or more) the development time just for your code to also act as template.

Then why nobody is doing it?

Because people don't know it. Even people who have advanced coding knowledge, or who claim to be professionals, do not take the time to fully read the doc and to reflect on the offered possibilities.

Want a realistic laser beams, something that extend in grow then shrink, and that slowly extend to the target, before moving to it ?

image laserBeam:
    Solid( "#00ff00" )
    width 1
    length 1
    xoffset 0
    yoffset 0
    parallel:
         linear 1.0 width 10
    parallel:
         linear 0.5 length 100
         linear 0.5 xoffset 100 length 1

And it's done. At least modulo the surely necessary adjustments because I wrote it on the fly and it surely don't works as it. Just display the image at the right position every time your laser rifle fire. And you can goes further, changing the transparency to make it a bit more realistic, even changing the color with the correct shader.
But to know this you need to read the doc, and think about the whole world that hide behind the simplicity of the language.

 

[fake.name.again]

Creation Engine is just a fork from GameBryo, and it wasn't used before Skyrim.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant, Creation is expanded and updated Gembryo. It has a huge upside in modding terms, since in knowledge base is in large parts transferable to the next game. And where you actually cannot just copy assets from one to another (you can sometimes convert) file format and data structures are very similar. On the other hand, some of the technologies it is using are quite antiquated.

Motion capture is just a way to get the animation data. All it suffice to use it with GameBryo is to convert the acquired data into the right format.

First part is true, second not sure if I fully understand. But animations In Beth games (reserving judgement on Starfield for now, seem better, but I'm afraid to be disappointed) has at least three problems: first connected to motion capture: libraries of animation are rather limited. And creating suitable animations on amateur level does not seem to be as easy as textures and models, even the whole quests. It is connected to the second problem: the engine does not seem to support much in terms of variations or more complex reactive behaviour. You can swap .kf file to swap for example walking animations, but then everybody uses this one animation. Remember mod creators with new weapons explaining difficulty of adding ones with different layouts (like bulpup rifles), because animations don't match for them. There are no cinematic sequences, when you talk with companions, like in Mass Effect 2, where they can move around, and gesticulate and be expressive in this manner, not even much of camera work. And since in un-moded games there are no body-type variations (don't think I have seen any fat or slim people in Starfield either), you can really notice how same-ish everything start too looks like. And it leads to the third and final point on the matter: movement can and usually is both functional and expressive, and in BSG games is just barely enough to be functional, not even trying for expression. This is one of the major reasons why combats (and dialogue too) feels so stiff and unresponsive in these games.

Not that it's strictly impossible to make something more universal, but it would then be a canvas, not a template. In a way, it's would be like a Lego set, except that there's just the instructions and you need to provide the bricks.
This would probably already help many creators, but in the same time for most of them, if they have the knowledge to write the missing parts, then they have the knowledge to write the code you provide.

Maybe template isn't the best word for what I mean then. Canvases, bricks or modules, even code exaples can work for me too. Or think f it as mini-game, since that's what boxing is in BaDIK. And you may be 100% right, that building if from scratch would be a better idea, but when I'm thinking about what it would require, I think all the stats would/will be easier to manage than tracking positions, movements, perspective etc and creating even a very small game-world where action take place. Maybe there are some visual programming tools that would help to create blocks, but I don't know. But I haven't put enough effort into it to offer more than question or suggestion. You gave me some things to think about at least.

If someone build this, it will be because he need it, and therefore it will write it to fit really specifics needs, not as a template. Especially since this person generally have limited coding knowledge, and therefore wouldn't really know how to make it as template.

Yeah, that's where I see the problem. We have a lot of small creators. If they actually are able to offer new kinds of gameplay types is to their credit. But they often by their own admission create spaghetti code, and are not probably all that good on commenting and describing code extensively (even for their own benefit later). So someone with some resources/knowledge base could benefit the whole scene. What incentives would he have to do such work? Not sure. Best I came up with is cooperation, sharing and exchange of knowledge. Doubt enough of them would be willing to pay. Just not convince entirely, that this almost entirely fragmented landscape is absolute best we can ever expect for the scope of the projects and their quality.

And it's done.

Well, first of all thanks. Could be useful inside Renpy, sure, if ever start building combat. But was mostly writing about art part of the equation when it comes to FX. because coding is one thing, creating gameplay, but by necessity a lot of what's happening will need to be shown in the form of rendered frames.