Worth it to put out a fan game?

[ZinkoPoly]

Hello everyone, first time poster, long time lurker.

My question is, is it worth it to put out a fan game?

I'm looking to make zero money from it (no patreon, no sales, no ads, etc) and just want to put it out there and see if people might enjoy it. I've already had a blast making the game so far so I've already gotten tons of enjoyment creating it and thus I'm not seeking validation or anything like that. Even if I never put it out there the whole game design process has been very enjoyable and totally worth it.

My main concern is if putting it out there comes with any drawbacks, and would love to hear about that side of releasing a game. As I'm not doing it for anything but "fun" reasons, if there's a lot of hate or drama involved with putting a game out there then I'd like to know if the positives outweigh the negatives. In my head as long as a couple people really enjoy it I can deal with legions of haters, but I'm interested in the perspective of someone who has gone through with it. I'm especially interested if there were any negative impacts on people's personal lives, which is something I'd like to avoid.

If it matters, the game itself is a fairly derivative Ren'Py game with HS2 graphics moving from location to location where random events happen, like so many games (most of which have maps, but mine happens not to, at least not yet). I'm roughly 80% done as far as having a game I'd be okay having out there.

Also, if it matters, I did have two people play an earlier version with mixed reception. One didn't like it, the other thought it was hilarious but I suspect they only think so because they imagined me personally saying the text of the game. Neither found the characters models attractive, although both are on the LGBTQ+ side of things so I expected different tastes, if that makes sense. I like what I've created, but I bring it up to make sure it's clear that this is a fan-made level of effort, not something professional quality.

Appreciate any insight any of you might have! Cheers!

 

[anne O'nymous]

My question is, is it worth it to put out a fan game?

Since the game is so advanced, why it wouldn't worth it ?

My main concern is if putting it out there comes with any drawbacks,

You'll have people telling you that it's shit. But well, even if you made the best game ever made in the scene and that will never have an equivalent, they would still find a reason to say that it's shit. So, just don't care ; it's not your game they hate, it's their life.

[...] I'd like to know if the positives outweigh the negatives.

It depend on you, and only on you.
Unless it's really a horrible game, but we haven't had a game like that since long, there will be at least few people saying that they liked playing it. And, for some, what seem to be your case, just one person saying that (s)he enjoyed playing your game and had a good time thanks to this, is already enough to outweigh all the negativity.

I'm especially interested if there were any negative impacts on people's personal lives, which is something I'd like to avoid.

Once again this totally depend on you.
If somewhere in your game there's your name and address, or something that can totally identify you, it can possibly have an impact on your personal life. If there's absolutely no way to know who you are, and you don't talk about it to everyone around you, it will have no impact.
So far, the worse I know about, is one guy that have been kicked out by his girlfriend. But well, he shouldn't have worked on an adult game on the back of his girlfriend, especially knowing that she would not like this kind of occupation.
And there's a guy who've been fired because he was working on an adult game. But he was working in a family place, and talked about his game to someone who apparently (the explanation weren't really clear) had all the reasons to hate him and want his death. Again a bad move from the starts.

 

[ZinkoPoly]

That's encouraging to hear, anne O'nymous. I'm not planning on discussing the game with anybody besides a couple of people that I don't work with and there's no personal info in the game, so it sounds like I should be fairly safe. Thanks!