Working on a game, considering finding a writer

[shapersoul]

So I'm working on a game and should have a demo showing off it's unique feature in about a week or 2. I can do the programming and artwork myself and have an overall story and character back stories planned but I think a competent dedicated writer will really bring it to the next level.
If I were to offer a % of patreon income what do you guys think would be a fair amount?

 

[Snarkfu]

These are just my thoughts based on bringing people in on projects and being brought in by others.

Also take into consideration that I'm holding off on working on my own idea for a game because I'm not sure how to write it, so salt by the barrel.

I'd hold off on bringing anyone in for now, porn games aren't really known for their story lines and while it's more important here than in the movies you can get away with quite a lot if the rest of the game really draws people in, as long as your writing isn't bad enough to actually stop people playing your game then I'd wait and see what the uptake is, it might be that bringing in a writer will have minimal impact.

If you do decide to bring someone in then discuss how much they're going to actually do and base it on that, if you treat it as three separate jobs (art, programming, writing) you're going to be responsible for two thirds of it anyway so unless they are really going to up the amount of money you're bringing in I'd have 30% as a hard upper limit though it depends entirely on what you and they decide they're worth.

You need to consider their skill level, the impact the writing has on the game itself and how much that impact reflects in patreon income, there's no point in cutting someone in for 20% of your income if they only increase the take by 10% .

On the other hand if they increase the amount of money you're bringing in more than the gameplay and the art you might want to consider bringing someone in on one of those as well as writing really isn't likely to be the biggest draw and you may be bottle necking somewhere.

Sorry, that got rambly.

 

[shapersoul]

yeah that is pretty much what I was thinking myself, just needed some outside input to be sure. As for writing not being a big part of the income, my game features the ability to customise the body of yourself and your companions so being able to change a character to your personal preference means thier personality is a bit more important. tbh it would also be nice to have someone to bounce ideas off too

 

[DarthSeduction]

I'd hold off on bringing anyone in for now, porn games aren't really known for their story lines and while it's more important here than in the movies you can get away with quite a lot if the rest of the game really draws people in, as long as your writing isn't bad enough to actually stop people playing your game then I'd wait and see what the uptake is, it might be that bringing in a writer will have minimal impact.

If you do decide to bring someone in then discuss how much they're going to actually do and base it on that, if you treat it as three separate jobs (art, programming, writing) you're going to be responsible for two thirds of it anyway so unless they are really going to up the amount of money you're bringing in I'd have 30% as a hard upper limit though it depends entirely on what you and they decide they're worth.

I understand why you don't see this, as the first quote shows, you lack appreciation for writing in the first place, but what the writer brings to the table is a lot more potent than you claim.

And this brings me to you, @shapersoul When you're bringing on a writer to your game you need to be wiling to sign over a large measure of creative control. Art should be made in a way that it enhances the story, gives life to the words. As a result, your portion of the job as the artist comes from the direction of the writer. Now, that isn't to say that you wouldn't have any input, they could submit work and you could nitpick and work together to optimize it as you see fit, but, you won't have complete control.

If you're comfortable with that then you should absolutely think about finding a writer. I'd suggest that if you are doing that though, you give some idea of what you have in mind already. Doesn't have to be the whole plot that you want. Just an idea of the game design you're looking for and what the writer would be working with.

Also, usually, the writer will be doing a large portion of the code as well. It's probably best not to treat your writer as a lesser member of the team and to simply collaborate with them as equals. Even though we have a professinal programmer on our team for Seraphim Academy, I write all my scripts in Ren'Py code, with variables, menus, and conditional statements all handled on my end. Our Programmer, Rich, is responsible for the interface stuff, and checking my code, as well as getting the images and transitions working properly.

The same is true for Babysitter, though I haven't pried into how they split the proceeds, T4bbo handles the art and has some say in the final story product and it's direction as it was his project to start, his writer, who sometimes bounces ideas off me and thus has shown me his scripts, does a good portion of the code himself, and then the programmer they hired a while back goes through and cleans everything up making sure it runs smoothly.

 

[shapersoul]

Working together and letting the writer give direction on where the story goes sounds good to me, that and having the dialogue taken care of. I will have think this over. No dialogue really needed for the demo so I'll focus on getting that done for now. thanks for your input.

 

[Snarkfu]

I understand why you don't see this, as the first quote shows, you lack appreciation for writing in the first place, but what the writer brings to the table is a lot more potent than you claim.

Also, usually, the writer will be doing a large portion of the code as well.

I can appreciate good writing as much as the next guy, I've worked on games where it absolutely made the experience.

It's normal to see your own area or the one you enjoy most as being really important but you have to look at the actual requirements of the sector you're operating in, within adult games the writing generally isn't all that great, you only actually need to be as good or better than most of your direct competition, this is especially true when you're just starting out and your income is going to be severely limited.

This might just be a difference between the games industry and the porn counterpart but unless you have a writer that is fully invested in the project they cannot be the driving force, that is down to the project lead who will usually also be the narrative designer. They work with the programers and artists to determine what is possible and the writer works within those bounds.

Also a writer should absolutely NOT be responsible for a large portion of the code. Ideally they will not even be touching the code base, that is asking for trouble.

 

[DarthSeduction]

It's normal to see your own area or the one you enjoy most as being really important but you have to look at the actual requirements of the sector you're operating in, within adult games the writing generally isn't all that great, you only actually need to be as good or better than most of your direct competition.

Your direct competition is, then, Babysitter, the third most liked game on this site, and one with good writing. Or the growing in popularity Depraved Awakening, or the early in development but already on the first page of the liked games The Deluca Family.

Even Milfy City shows a change to the norm by giving importance to story and character development in a Life sim, now the top game in terms of popularity. Harem Hotel and Mythic Manor also present as story driven Life Sims.

The old games, the ones with poor writing are losing their status the rise of good writing is pushing down the bad games.

All 3 aspects of the game are required to make a truly great game. Personally I'm more willing to sacrifice in art quality, however, than writing quality.

This might just be a difference between the games industry and the porn counterpart but unless you have a writer that is fully invested in the project they cannot be the driving force, that is down to the project lead who will usually also be the narrative designer. They work with the programers and artists to determine what is possible and the writer works within those bounds.

Babysitter, Dreaming of Dana, Milfy City, Intimate Relations. Just a short list of games that have separation of powers and people all working on different aspects of the game together.

Yes, the writer is bound by what's possible, but I don't often have to consult too heavily with FunFiction, who was the one who decided to look for people to work with to make Seraphim Academy, with the initial premise of an all girls school being his. In fact, the most I've had to ask about possibility was whether or not his beach assets allowed for swimming. Yes, if he'd have told me no I'd have had to do that scene differently, but I'd have still gotten my scene.

Also a writer should absolutely NOT be responsible for a large portion of the code. Ideally they will not even be touching the code base, that is asking for trouble.

The base? No, why would the writer touch the base? But the interactive elements within the story? You bet your ass that they're handling that. After you have your base code most of the code you should be doing between releases is mostly menus, conditional statements, scene jumps, new variables, etc. They aren't touching the menu or the UI, but again, unless you're improving those, the only things being done to UI elements are adding new information, like Rich has to do if a clue element progresses in Seraphim.

 

[HopesGaming]

Times changed. What worked before doesn't necessarily works now.
People are less lenient than they were back 1 year ago.
I am not aware of any new game that does well without a somewhat decent story.
People are used to pretty daz graphics by now. They seen all the tropes and eroge scenes in the 3d world. Now they want to be engaged. Have a good connection with the cast.
Especially now more and more games are getting in depth stories. And becoming better at it.

A good writer should get half of the patreon income.

 

[Snarkfu]

Your direct competition is, then, Babysitter, the third most liked game on this site, and one with good writing. Or the growing in popularity Depraved Awakening, or the early in development but already on the first page of the liked games The Deluca Family.

Even Milfy City shows a change to the norm by giving importance to story and character development in a Life sim, now the top game in terms of popularity. Harem Hotel and Mythic Manor also present as story driven Life Sims.

This is only true if you're creating something akin to a CYOA style game though many do have a bit more depth, if you go and look at the top patreon earners they've either been around for years or they are creating games with new mechanics or technologies. Even those with more plot aren't that well written for the most part and that is what you'd want if you were paying up for a writer, it's been a while since I played Babysitter or Milfy City but I don't remember them being particularly spectacular in the writing department, not to say they're bad or anything but it isn't the main draw of those games.

The old games, the ones with poor writing are losing their status the rise of good writing is pushing down the bad games.

All 3 aspects of the game are required to make a truly great game. Personally I'm more willing to sacrifice in art quality, however, than writing quality.

Babysitter, Dreaming of Dana, Milfy City, Intimate Relations. Just a short list of games that have separation of powers and people all working on different aspects of the game together.

Yes, the writer is bound by what's possible, but I don't often have to consult too heavily with FunFiction, who was the one who decided to look for people to work with to make Seraphim Academy, with the initial premise of an all girls school being his. In fact, the most I've had to ask about possibility was whether or not his beach assets allowed for swimming. Yes, if he'd have told me no I'd have had to do that scene differently, but I'd have still gotten my scene.

If you're on the same page as your lead then it won't be a problem but if you're handing over control of your game that is not a guarantee.

The base? No, why would the writer touch the base? But the interactive elements within the story? You bet your ass that they're handling that. After you have your base code most of the code you should be doing between releases is mostly menus, conditional statements, scene jumps, new variables, etc. They aren't touching the menu or the UI, but again, unless you're improving those, the only things being done to UI elements are adding new information, like Rich has to do if a clue element progresses in Seraphim.

Sorry I should have been clearer on this, the codebase isn't a particular aspect of your code, it's everything that you as a developer write not including generated aspects of it.

I think we're working on very different types of games, I've never worked on anything where the majority of code updates is menus, conditional statements, scene jumps and new variables, on everything I've done mechanics have been king followed by graphics followed by story (not to be confused with plot which is usually decided first by the project lead) then again I've not really done episodic releases, mine have all been full development cycle games and applications so there may be some difference there.

Unless you're writing is also a competent programmer it's not a good idea to have them fiddling with your code, they need to be read into your design patterns, systems and version control and most writers I've known don't have the skills for that, it usually boils down to creating tools that allow them to build scene interactions outside of the engine that are then read in separately to avoid them borking your gameplay loop.

Times changed. What worked before doesn't necessarily works now.
People are less lenient than they were back 1 year ago.
I am not aware of any new game that does well without a somewhat decent story.
People are used to pretty daz graphics by now. They seen all the tropes and eroge scenes in the 3d world. Now they want to be engaged. Have a good connection with the cast.
Especially now more and more games are getting in depth stories. And becoming better at it.

There's a world of difference between a decent story and good writing, plenty of games have a decent story whereas very, very few have actual good writing.

A good writer should get half of the patreon income.

Unless you're a 2 man team or they are absolutely making the game this is just utter madness.

 

[HopesGaming]

@Snarkfu

And which games are considered good writing and which games are considered decent writing?
Who determines what is good and what is decent? The two words are so subjective as it can become. Seems like you have taken on that mantle. But what experience do you have, if I may ask?
I consider my game to be decent writing. It has to be. Since the first part of my game is to flesh out the story. It's the only selling point at the moment.

I do follow your thoughts process. But you cannot use old games as an example. As I said - what worked before does not work now.
People want good writing. Give me a new game (past 6 months) which does not have very good writing and is doing well.

And I'm not talking about a strong story plot as the focus. Even I know that I am in a niche market with that.
But strong dialogue, believable characters, characters with depth and personalities, well-written events. That is what people want. That is good writing.

Unless you're a 2 man team or they are absolutely making the game this is just utter madness.

I am basing that on today's standard of writing. In my game, I do every process myself (except for translating). Art - script - coding - music.
And I can promise you - making the script is top of the line of hardships. And the writer deserves to get paid the same as the rest of the team.
The only time that is not true is if the game is just a sex feast with some generic story added and some fast words here and there. But that style of gaming simply won't work today.

 

[Snarkfu]

@Snarkfu
And which games are considered good writing and which games are considered decent writing?
Who determines what is good and what is decent? The two words are so subjective as it can become. Seems like you have taken on that mantle. But what experience do you have, if I may ask?
I consider my game to be decent writing. It has to be. Since the first part of my game is to flesh out the story. It's the only selling point at the moment.

Honestly I've yet to see a porn game with what I would consider good writing, there are many that I haven't played though so there may well be exceptions. To me good writing would work as a story without anything else, you could write it out in script or book form and it would hold up on it's own, decent writing drives the plot and compliments the art and gameplay mechanics.
My experience is as a game developer working on publisher backed and freelance projects, I'm a programmer rather than a writer though so I'm basing all of this on what I've seen happen around me and working along side writers rather than directly experienced.

@Snarkfu
I do follow your thoughts process. But you cannot use old games as an example. As I said - what worked before does not work now.
People want good writing. Give me a new game (past 6 months) which does not have very good writing and is doing well.

And I'm not talking about a strong story plot as the focus. Even I know that I am in a niche market with that.
But strong dialogue, believable characters, characters with depth and personalities, well-written events. That is what people want. That is good writing.

I am basing that on today's standard of writing. In my game, I do every process myself (except for translating). Art - script - coding - music.
And I can promise you - making the script is top of the line of hardships. And the writer deserves to get paid the same as the rest of the team.
The only time that is not true is if the game is just a sex feast with some generic story added and some fast words here and there. But that style of gaming simply won't work today.

Older games are still the most popular though, just looking at this site is a mistake as it's a niche of niche, it doesn't take much for a single community to change their minds as to what's popular. Looking at graphtreon the only game in the top 50 released in the last year is Hardcoded and I've not played that so I don't know what the writing is like.

The games that seem to be pulling in the most new cash are those that are taking their cues from normal game dev, this does go back to your comment about people being used to pretty daz art but writing is only one way in which games are making themselves stand out, people are doing VR, real time interaction, open worlds, 3d models and that type of thing. The Twist is a good example of this though it's older, the graphics are terrible and the writing isn't great but it was an early adopter of 3D work with camera control which set it apart, Rack 2 is a bit more recente and doesn't even have a story last I checked and that's really popular because it's using physics and brings in real interactions with characters. Wild Life and Fallen Doll are both raking it in while having little story to speak of as of yet, again this is done by getting closer to the sort of gameplay you'd find in a... need a better term for this... standard game the likes of which you could pick up at your nearest game store.

Team members deserve to be compensated fairly for their work, if you're covering three roles and someone else is only covering one then a 50/50 split isn't fair unless the work they are doing is important enough to be worth two other team members.

It's entirely possibly we generally agree and I just have a different idea as to what constitutes good writing.

 

[HopesGaming]

Honestly I've yet to see a porn game with what I would consider good writing, there are many that I haven't played though so there may well be exceptions. To me good writing would work as a story without anything else, you could write it out in script or book form and it would hold up on it's own, decent writing drives the plot and compliments the art and gameplay mechanics.
My experience is as a game developer working on publisher backed and freelance projects, I'm a programmer rather than a writer though so I'm basing all of this on what I've seen happen around me and working along side writers rather than directly experienced.



Older games are still the most popular though, just looking at this site is a mistake as it's a niche of niche, it doesn't take much for a single community to change their minds as to what's popular. Looking at graphtreon the only game in the top 50 released in the last year is Hardcoded and I've not played that so I don't know what the writing is like.

The games that seem to be pulling in the most new cash are those that are taking their cues from normal game dev, this does go back to your comment about people being used to pretty daz art but writing is only one way in which games are making themselves stand out, people are doing VR, real time interaction, open worlds and that type of thing.

Team members deserve to be compensated fairly for their work, if you're covering three roles and someone else is only covering one then a 50/50 split isn't fair unless the work they are doing is important enough to be worth two other team members.

It's entirely possibly we generally agree and I just have a vastly different idea as to what constitutes good writing.

I do agree with you on many aspects.
A good story should be able to hold on its own. Even if you take out the adult content the story should be good enough that people would still playthrough it.
A good way to gauge a game's story is imagining taking out all the sex scenes and then ask yourself if you still want to play on.

Focus with my game is the story. There are no sex scenes yet. Design choice from my side. The story is the focus. If the story is not good enough my game will fail. Luckily amazing people out there showing they care for a decent story.
Second in rating in the site and 250 patrons in 3-4 months. That is an immense success on my own standard and a huge boost on confidence.

It just shows that writing is not as meaningless (or of little importance) as you are making it sound.
Where I agree with you is that it's not the only selling point. VR, AR, open world 3d game and so on will be a huge success once it's out there. Since it's new and will be a novelty.

Point is that the old ways of sex feast games with generic stories and tropes will have an extremely hard time reaching for success.
And as open world 3d games (with walking around etc), VR, AR and stuff like those are not that easy to do - writing should be something that should not be neglected.

Hence my stands on writers should get an equal amount is not changed.

 

[Snarkfu]

I do agree with you on many aspects.
A good story should be able to hold on its own. Even if you take out the adult content the story should be good enough that people would still playthrough it.
A good way to gauge a game's story is imagining taking out all the sex scenes and then ask yourself if you still want to play on.

Focus with my game is the story. There are no sex scenes yet. Design choice from my side. The story is the focus. If the story is not good enough my game will fail. Luckily amazing people out there showing they care for a decent story.
Second in rating in the site and 250 patrons in 3-4 months. That is an immense success on my own standard and a huge boost on confidence.

It just shows that writing is not as meaningless (or of little importance) as you are making it sound.
Where I agree with you is that it's not the only selling point. VR, AR, open world 3d game and so on will be a huge success once it's out there. Since it's new and will be a novelty.

Point is that the old ways of sex feast games with generic stories and tropes will have an extremely hard time reaching for success.
And as open world 3d games (with walking around etc), VR, AR and stuff like those are not that easy to do - writing should be something that should not be neglected.

Hence my stands on writers should get an equal amount is not changed.

I'm not saying it's meaningless or of little importance, what I actually said was that OP shouldn't jump to bring in someone to do the writing for them until they see how their games is recieved with the work they can do themselves.

Sure, if your game is a dilaogue tree with some images on it you're going to have a hard time getting anywhere without good writing but that is something we've been moving away from for a while and will continue to do so.

Adult games are doing the same thing standard games did, back in the 80's one guy in his bedroom could create a game on his own, it had little story and basic graphics. As time goes on available resources and team sizes increase until it's difficult for a single developer to do everything they need to create a succesful game and it'll all crash back down leading to an indie explosion leaving us back where we started just with better tools, it'll be interesting to see how that works here if it continues on the same path.

The main point is, if you want to make money as a developer and given that we're discussing patreon here that is the main point then you can't afford to be giving away profits that you don't need to and bringing in people who aren't necesarry is a big part of that. This is obviously something you yourself see as you're doing all of it, I'm guessing you're not a master of every aspect of game development so you could probably get better work out of a dedicated programmer, artist and writer than doing it all yourself but it obviously isn't worth it to do that.

If you need a writer than you should absolutely be paying them fairly but you need to look at the amount of work actually being done, it's easy to split payment between people rather than roles but you can end up underpaying people hugely (I've been that guy more than once and it sucks balls).

 

[HopesGaming]

@Snarkfu

First impressions are important. If he delivers a product that is not received well then it'll be too late to get in a writer. Not many people will be clicking to check again.
It all depends on OP's own writing skills. Of course, if he is sufficient enough in that department than it's not necessary.
And yes, not saying it's wrong. If the game receives praise at the start then there is no need for a writer. But that judgment can only be done by the OP. And he is not asking if he should do it or not. But a fair %. And if the writer is doing all the script he should get the same amount.

Adult games are not even close to being a mainstream AAA thing. That discussion is only in the far future.
(Name me one AAA adult game. Can even be a work in progress AAA game.)

The reason why I am working alone is that I simply do not work well within groups. Never have and I like having full control. Not about the money. But it should never be about the amount in the start. Alone or in a team. The money will be low and hence not a motivation. You work together to create something that in the future can be a good profit. Not thinking about it this early.
And I may not be a master of every aspect. But to be pretty blunt - I do all aspect pretty well. No crazy bugs in my game. The coding I do fine. The story is the focus and I do the script fine. Art has only received praise.
So no, it's not because I want money I work alone. It's because I like working alone and I feel I cover all the aspects well.

If you need a writer than you should absolutely be paying them fairly but you need to look at the amount of work actually being done

Do not underestimate the work it takes to write a good script. The actual amount of work they do is a lot.

 

[Snarkfu]

@Snarkfu
First impressions are important. If he delivers a product that is not received well then it'll be too late to get in a writer. Not many people will be clicking to check again.
It all depends on OP's own writing skills. Of course, if he is sufficient enough in that department than it's not necessary.
And yes, not saying it's wrong. If the game receives praise at the start then there is no need for a writer. But that judgment can only be done by the OP. And he is not asking if he should do it or not. But a fair %. And if the writer is doing all the script he should get the same amount.

Adult games are not even close to being a mainstream AAA thing. That discussion is only in the far future.
(Name me one AAA adult game. Can even be a work in progress AAA game.)

The reason why I am working alone is that I simply do not work well within groups. Never have and I like having full control. Not about the money. But it should never be about the amount in the start. Alone or in a team. The money will be low and hence not a motivation. You work together to create something that in the future can be a good profit. Not thinking about it this early.
And I may not be a master of every aspect. But to be pretty blunt - I do all aspect pretty well. No crazy bugs in my game. The coding I do fine. The story is the focus and I do the script fine. Art has only received praise.
So no, it's not because I want money I work alone. It's because I like working alone and I feel I cover all the aspects well.



Do not underestimate the work it takes to write a good script. The actual amount of work they do is a lot.

Adult games don't have the same first week release spike as normal games, the audience is built over months which allows a significant amount of leeway in terms of first impressions, most people won't even know your game exists when it first comes out.

Take your numbers as an example, 250 patrons in 4 months, if that was a standard released game it would be an absolute flop but within the adult community on episodic releases it's not bad because you build over time rather than pulling everyone in at the start.

Adult games are moving quickly, far more quickly than normal games ever did and they have an example set by the games industry to follow and all the tools therein, I wouldn't be too sure in assuming that you have time to wait before considering where the industry is going because it may well sneak up on you.

It depends what you mean by AAA, it doesn't translate that well to adult games because it's based on the size of the publisher and the budget of the game and we can't really use that here as there are few publishers within the adult games industry and it doesn't account for crowd funded content.

The way I see it is that one of two things is going to happen and both have already started happening to one extent or another.

Option one: a team from normal games is going to move into the game sapce and suddenly everyone else is in the dust and has to play catch up, this happened once with Dark Silver who was an industry artist and it looks like it's happening again with Wild Life (which is the closest to a AAA grade product so far) as they are both ex-industry and are building their game in the same way that an actual studio would. Fallen Doll is also looking to have AAA grade aesthetics with full interaction.

Option two: individuals within adult games start grouping together to create games, this is already happening as well with the groups like @DarthSeduction is part of, as those teams get better the games they make improve and the harder it becomes for individuals to keep up. If this continues to be the main method by which things change then it will follow the same path that normal games did, if the first comes to pass instead then it's going to be much, much faster.

Covering aspects pretty well will do for now (that's sort of been my point from the start) though I should point out, you know you can contract stuff out while maintaining control right? You're not limited to bringing on full partners, you can just pay someone to do some work for you.

I know it's hard to write a good script, that's why I'm holding off on creating my own game until I have built up the skills required to do it myself, it's how much work they do relative to the total amount of work done, if it's 50% of the work they get 50% of the money, if it's 80% of the work they get 80% of the money, if it's 10% of the work they get 10% of the money, it's pretty simple.

 

[DarthSeduction]

To me good writing would work as a story without anything else, you could write it out in script or book form and it would hold up on it's own, decent writing drives the plot and compliments the art and gameplay mechanics.

This is incredibly fallacious. No game, which is a visual medium, can be directly translated to a book. If it can be you're writing it incorrectly. And this is the kind of things you're not taking into account.

For instance, no Life Sim, like Milfy City, Harem Hotel, Mythic Manor, or because you have a love affair with the old stuff, Big Brother, Man of the House, Summertime Saga, can be directly translated to a book because a life sim is telling several stories which sometimes interlock. The best you could hope for is a graphic novel or television series type adaptation of them.

Games like Hopes' The Deluca Family probably could be adapted to a novel, but the change in format would requires some major reworking and in particular, the removal of aspects that are simply there for gameplay purposes. My own Seraphim Academy is intentionally written more in an episodic fashion, as if it were meant to be a mini-series or comic book series, and my art direction is very much like stage direction given in a screen or stage play.

Take your numbers as an example, 250 patrons in 4 months, if that was a standard released game it would be an absolute flop but within the adult community on episodic releases it's not bad because you build over time rather than pulling everyone in at the start.

You kinda acknowledge that this is a silly argument to make, but I want to nail home why that is. You are comparing two markets that behave in completely different fashion. First of all, the potential audience of a patreon funded adult game is many magnitudes of order smaller than even an indie game if it gets released on steam. Patreon hides our games from searches, the sizes of the communities which know we exist and seek to play our games is very small, and so any exposure is coming from strategic exposure on sites like this and good word of mouth.

The fact that 250 people have decided that his indie game which isn't complete is worth paying for in 3 releases is fucking amazing. For comparison, in the same amount of time seraphim attracted 10% of that number.

Adult games are moving quickly, far more quickly than normal games ever did and they have an example set by the games industry to follow and all the tools therein, I wouldn't be too sure in assuming that you have time to wait before considering where the industry is going because it may well sneak up on you.

No it won't because the financial people don't want to be associated with it. Adult gaming is older than us and this industry on the internet. Custer's Revenge, and the like existed on Atari. The thing, in the west, is that the financial institutions don't want their image tarnished by it, and moreover, don't want to take on the high risk that adult content entails.

It depends what you mean by AAA, it doesn't translate that well to adult games because it's based on the size of the publisher and the budget of the game and we can't really use that here as there are few publishers within the adult games industry and it doesn't account for crowd funded content.

Pedantic confusing of terms. It's pretty obvious that what was meant was putting adult gaming on the world gaming stage. Life is Strange, for instance, while made by a smaller developer was picked up by Square Enix to market, making it a AAA title, even though it isn't at all what people normally picture when they say AAA. Games like the Deluca Family aren't there, yet, but we also don't have that level of funding yet.

Option one: a team from normal games is going to move into the game sapce and suddenly everyone else is in the dust and has to play catch up, this happened once with Dark Silver who was an industry artist

Covering aspects pretty well will do for now (that's sort of been my point from the start) though I should point out, you know you can contract stuff out while maintaining control right? You're not limited to bringing on full partners, you can just pay someone to do some work for you.

At this point I have to ask. First, what kind of game are you making, and second, what do you think the writer does?

 

[Snarkfu]

This is incredibly fallacious. No game, which is a visual medium, can be directly translated to a book. If it can be you're writing it incorrectly. And this is the kind of things you're not taking into account.

For instance, no Life Sim, like Milfy City, Harem Hotel, Mythic Manor, or because you have a love affair with the old stuff, Big Brother, Man of the House, Summertime Saga, can be directly translated to a book because a life sim is telling several stories which sometimes interlock. The best you could hope for is a graphic novel or television series type adaptation of them.

Games like Hopes' The Deluca Family probably could be adapted to a novel, but the change in format would requires some major reworking and in particular, the removal of aspects that are simply there for gameplay purposes. My own Seraphim Academy is intentionally written more in an episodic fashion, as if it were meant to be a mini-series or comic book series, and my art direction is very much like stage direction given in a screen or stage play.

I'm not saying you could just copy and paste the script into a word file and publish it, it should be able to work on it's own without other elements if you want it to be considered really good, this stuff does exist there are loads of text only games out there.

You kinda acknowledge that this is a silly argument to make, but I want to nail home why that is. You are comparing two markets that behave in completely different fashion. First of all, the potential audience of a patreon funded adult game is many magnitudes of order smaller than even an indie game if it gets released on steam. Patreon hides our games from searches, the sizes of the communities which know we exist and seek to play our games is very small, and so any exposure is coming from strategic exposure on sites like this and good word of mouth.

The fact that 250 people have decided that his indie game which isn't complete is worth paying for in 3 releases is fucking amazing. For comparison, in the same amount of time seraphim attracted 10% of that number.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here.

No it won't because the financial people don't want to be associated with it. Adult gaming is older than us and this industry on the internet. Custer's Revenge, and the like existed on Atari. The thing, in the west, is that the financial institutions don't want their image tarnished by it, and moreover, don't want to take on the high risk that adult content entails.

That is disingenous, Custer's Revenge was an extreme outlier at the time, there have been adult games around for the last two decades or so that aim to give an actual erotic experience but nothing LIKE what we're getting now, this current run is unique due to how open the industry as a whole has become to new talent. What is acceptable changes, you'd never have had loot boxes up until a few years ago.

Pedantic confusing of terms. It's pretty obvious that what was meant was putting adult gaming on the world gaming stage. Life is Strange, for instance, while made by a smaller developer was picked up by Square Enix to market, making it a AAA title, even though it isn't at all what people normally picture when they say AAA. Games like the Deluca Family aren't there, yet, but we also don't have that level of funding yet.

That's not what I took from it at all, when talking about AAA games we're generally talking quality not scale that's why I responded the way I did, it's important to know what terms you're using.

sigh

At this point I have to ask. First, what kind of game are you making, and second, what do you think the writer does?

I'm working on the base of a game of intelocking stories that the PC steps into to change.

That depends entirely on the size of the team and the skillset of the other team memebers.

Everything I've worked on had a vision holder who was not part of the writing team so they'd be given an overall layout and work within that either working on dialogue, quests, item descriptions depending on the requirements.

If you want to discuss this we can but please try to be slightly more mature about it, you started this off with a confrontational tone and I'm not particularly interested in carrying it on if you're just going to carry on being churlish and confrontational about everything.

 

[shapersoul]

Times changed. What worked before doesn't necessarily works now.
People are less lenient than they were back 1 year ago.
I am not aware of any new game that does well without a somewhat decent story.
People are used to pretty daz graphics by now. They seen all the tropes and eroge scenes in the 3d world. Now they want to be engaged. Have a good connection with the cast.
Especially now more and more games are getting in depth stories. And becoming better at it.

I think that the recent games with alot more focus on story have filled niche that was lacking but I highly doubt that the adult game audience as a whole have raised thier standards towards quality writing. Still, having a good story is only going to improve what ever type of game you make so its worth putting some effort into it.

I know it's hard to write a good script, that's why I'm holding off on creating my own game until I have built up the skills required to do it myself, it's how much work they do relative to the total amount of work done, if it's 50% of the work they get 50% of the money, if it's 80% of the work they get 80% of the money, if it's 10% of the work they get 10% of the money, it's pretty simple.

I think you've also got to consider ther value added by a good writer. If people are coming back because they want to see where the story is going they're likely bringing in alot more patreons. I think theres a balance and it will depends on the type of game you're making.

This has been a interesting disicussion but I think Im gonna just do the writing myself. After a few hours looking through tons of games here and checking their release dates and patreons it looks like best all types from text based to sex feast have a good fan base and patreon support. So I'm gonna take DarthSeductions advice from another thread and just make the game I would want to play.

 

[Snarkfu]

I think that the recent games with alot more focus on story have filled niche that was lacking but I highly doubt that the adult game audience as a whole have raised thier standards towards quality writing. Still, having a good story is only going to improve what ever type of game you make so its worth putting some effort into it.

I think you've also got to consider ther value added by a good writer. If people are coming back because they want to see where the story is going they're likely bringing in alot more patreons. I think theres a balance and it will depends on the type of game you're making.

This has been a interesting disicussion but I think Im gonna just do the writing myself. After a few hours looking through tons of games here and checking their release dates and patreons it looks like best all types from text based to sex feast have a good fan base and patreon support. So I'm gonna take DarthSeductions advice from another thread and just make the game I would want to play.

Oh certainly a good writer can improve pretty much anything, I don't dispute that at all.

That's really good advice, if you like it someone else will too.

 

[DarthSeduction]

I'm not saying you could just copy and paste the script into a word file and publish it, it should be able to work on it's own without other elements if you want it to be considered really good, this stuff does exist there are loads of text only games out there.

No, writing written with the intention of the visual medium cannot "work on it's own". That's what you're failing to understand. At best, my scripts before I've taken the notation out and plugged the images in could work as screen or stage plays, but never as novels, because the medium is that different.

When you write a novel it's on the writer to mold the images into the person's mind through words. You don't actually see things, so in order to get a feel for things they have to be described in often lengthy segments of narration.

In a visual medium the goal is to reduce the amount of narration to a minimum. Telling as much of the story as you can visually becomes key. And here's where you seem to lose sight of what the writer is doing. The artist answers to the writer because the writer is deciding what's going on in the scene. They're directing it all. It's still a collaborative process, but for the most part, art direction is handle by the writer because the writer is the one designing the scene.

I've written the other way around, the artist designing the scene and me sculpting the script to fit it, it comes out stilted, forced, and lifeless. Knowing what the character says or feels in a particular scene is required to know what expression is on their face. Sometimes, the art direction I'm giving has no dialogue attached to it at all. Writing shapes the emotions, the writing is what gives you a connection with the character and what they're feeling. Without it you get the old guard of games with crap dialogue, no character motivation, and weak repetitive art.



Show me, where in Dating My Daughter or Big Brother are you going to find art with that level of emotion? Because I've played big brother, in fact, the artist who did this is a big fan of it and we did a spoof game of Big Brother meaning I had to replay it to really get acquainted with it. Never, never in all the game is that level of emotion conveyed through the art. Why? Because the game was made without a writer. Funfiction didn't make this shot and ask me to write around it, I wrote this shot and asked him to bring it to life.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here.

That you were being fallacious in even attempting to compare adult gaming to the regular market.

That is disingenous, Custer's Revenge was an extreme outlier at the time, there have been adult games around for the last two decades or so that aim to give an actual erotic experience but nothing LIKE what we're getting now, this current run is unique due to how open the industry as a whole has become to new talent. What is acceptable changes, you'd never have had loot boxes up until a few years ago.

Wrong. This is a completely new industry that has started up on its own due to a consumer demand for such products without a capitalist who is willing to actually make them. We are all indie developers. Even the few groups that have some small amount of money now are indie. There is no adult game market in the west. There is a consumer demand. The only reason that that would be is if the people with the money and power to decide chose not to. The fact that as you pointed out Custer's Revenge was an outlier is my point. It isn't normal. It isn't something that the existing corporate power structure is willing to fund. The worst they'll do is Duke Nukem or Conker's Bad Fur Day. Hell, even in a post Witcher society, devs like Ubisoft fade to black in spite of attempting to add adult romance elements to their games.

That's not what I took from it at all, when gamers are talking about AAA games they're talking quality not scale that's why I responded with games that were aiming for that.

And yet here you are admitting it's about size of the developer and the budget of the game.

it doesn't translate that well to adult games because it's based on the size of the publisher and the budget of the game

If you want to discuss this we can but please try to be slightly more mature about it, you started this off with a confrontational tone and I'm not particularly interested in carrying it on if you're just going to carry on being childish.

Aww do the emoji make the "big mature man" uncomfortable. You changed it, but I did see you question my age, and here you're calling me childish.

I'm confrontational with you because you have been dismissive of the person who, without which, I wouldn't even play adult games. Do you think people have a fetish for the Uncanny Valley? That we are here because we really want to fuck Victoria 7 one more time? Because we just love the character design of Sameface Saga?

Without story, without characters to get invested in, games offer me nothing. I play games for the connection between myself and the character. Because I'm able to form some sort of feelings for and investment in the outcomes. If I don't have that then there's nothing in games for me and I immediately stop playing. Porn doesn't have the problem of sameface, doesn't have the problem of uncanny valley. If I just want a quick emotionless fap I'll go to pornhub. I come to games for something I can't get there, and that is all the job of the writing.

but I highly doubt that the adult game audience as a whole have raised thier standards towards quality writing. Still, having a good story is only going to improve what ever type of game you make so its worth putting some effort into it.

That's kinda an oxymoron. If better writing makes a game better then the audience is going to acknowledge that it is better than another game. They're going to, when playing a new game, give the game that they find better their support. If you put your game out with less quality writing than the other guy who puts his out the same week, who's going to get funding?