next »

[Geoff Moore]

I've been discussing the merits of developing a 2D story-based erotic game with an artist friend, the conversation threw up a bunch of questions and I was wondering if anyone here can offer advice, objective or otherwise, on the following:

-Are there erotic games out there with great storylines, art and music? If so, which? And if not, why not, and do you think one could do well?
-Would there be an more interest in an erotic game that has strong female characters and positive representation of them?
-Would making the relationships purely lesbian make a big difference to the game's success?
-Do people still like playing explicitly erotic PC games? How is the market for them compared to other genres?
-How and where do you market such a game?
-Can you host them on Kickstarter etc and are they likely to do well?
-Can you sell them on Steam and other platforms?

I've done some research but not really answered these questions to my satisfaction. For example I know at least one sexual game was removed from Greenlight but I don't know if that's a blanket policy, if it depends how the greenlight page is set up etc. Also I'm sure I've worded these questions horribly and we missed all the important points. All opinions are welcome. Thanks!

[Dacke]

The YouTube series MetaDating looked at a bunch of different games with dating/romance as a theme. Which I assume would be central themes in a game that is erotic fiction rather than porn. The most "erotic" game they played was probably Katawa Shoujo. I think the game is a bit problematic but it has quite a few positive aspects.




I think strong characters with a positive representation is completely crucial if you want to create something other than porn. Especially with regard to female characters.

edit: There's also the old TIGS Adult Compo, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

[gimymblert]

Also if you don't know and follow the work of christine love you have made a bad research

[airman4]

I've been discussing the merits of developing a 2D story-based erotic game with an artist friend, the conversation threw up a bunch of questions and I was wondering if anyone here can offer advice, objective or otherwise, on the following:

-Are there erotic games out there with great storylines, art and music? If so, which? And if not, why not, and do you think one could do well? Tokimeki memorial ?


-Would there be an more interest in an erotic game that has strong female characters and positive representation of them?
-Would making the relationships purely lesbian make a big difference to the game's success?
-Do people still like playing explicitly erotic PC games? How is the market for them compared to other genres?
-How and where do you market such a game?
-Can you host them on Kickstarter etc and are they likely to do well?
-Can you sell them on Steam and other platforms?

I've done some research but not really answered these questions to my satisfaction. For example I know at least one sexual game was removed from Greenlight but I don't know if that's a blanket policy, if it depends how the greenlight page is set up etc. Also I'm sure I've worded these questions horribly and we missed all the important points. All opinions are welcome. Thanks!

For selling sexual games on steam , seems risky
i saw that in steam selling policy , they dont seems liking those kind of themes
Maybe some games managed to avoid this

I suggest to do a game erotic wich doesnt say so : Make a game , and put some hot moments and that's it  , no need to go far or if you want put the non censored version on your website and put that link on the store of steam (not sure it's gonna work )

The removal on greenlight is not a good vibe for you but make a censored version and sell the uncensored one somewhere else

[Boreal]

HuniePop managed to skirt around Steam's anti-H policies by "forgetting to disallow" users to disable the censoring with an easy INI hack.

[ProgramGamer]

^ That sounds awesome. Remind me to do that in the future.

[Anarkex]

Also if you don't know and follow the work of christine love you have made a bad research

I know that Christine Love makes Visual Novels, but I was under the impression they mostly aren't erotic. As for Katawa Shoujo... bleh. Maybe it's just not my thing.

I think the trouble with making an erogame is that, if you'll excuse me for getting real in here, getting off is pretty firmly rooted in the realm of reality and it isn't something you can simulate from within a game alone. You kind of need the player's... uh... input to get it to work, which is always going to break immersion in some way.

I always kind of felt like it was a waste. When I'm trying to... find erotic material, I don't usually want to scroll through literal hours of dialog for it (I don't usually want to pay for it either, but that's another story). Huniepop was a good puzzle game that kind of had the ero- theme pasted on, and even though the art wasn't very consistent and the writing was absolute schlock the excellent voice acting and solid puzzle gameplay won me over in the end. But it was only really erotic in as much as it was pornographic, and there's surprisingly little actual pornographic material in the game.

A distinction should be made between an erotic game and a pornographic game. A pornographic game can be any kind of game, as long as it has porn in it. On the other hand, a really effective erotic game requires a specific kind of player, and I think it is always going to wind up in the realm of kink, because (at least at our current technological level) it requires the player to be submissive in order to avoid breaking immersion. This might not really be what you signed up for when you made this thread, but it's something to take into account when developing and marketing the game as it's always going to be an extremely niche market (especially in the west). It also kind of goes beyond/doesn't need to be in the scope of a video game, since the player's actual controller-input is less important than... the other kind of input.

But try True Love, it's ok.

[Jordgubben]

-Would making the relationships purely lesbian make a big difference to the game's success?

Is this game intended for a hetro cis male market? Or a more broad market?

Or in other words: Is the purpose to to improve diversity in media? Or is it to protect the viewer/reader/player from people of their own gender? Or do you as an author want to be less constrained by traditional gender roles?

None of the above motivations are more or less "right" or "wrong". But like in all other things, how you go about this has a lot to do with what you are trying to accomplish.

For selling sexual games on steam , seems risky
i saw that in steam selling policy , they dont seems liking those kind of themes
Maybe some games managed to avoid this

Can someone please explain this to me? What's the big scare any way?

I get that they may not want it on their store front page. I don't get a total ban. Amazon (arguably the worlds biggest book store) has loads of both porn and erotics if you just look for it, so why is Steam (arguably the worlds biggest game store) the last loyal outpost of the puritans in this particular field?
 
Also.
Searching for "porn" on steam yeld 3 results: Postal III, Killing Floor - Harold Lott Character Pack and Steam Greenlight Submission Fee. The last one made me chuckle.

[Cobralad]

I dont think its Steam problem.
They have plenty games with boobs and sex scenes in them.
The problem is showing explicit sex act constitutes A rating, which is big no-no for all retailers.

[Sik]

*AO.

And if I recall correctly, the issue is that you can't let AO games mix with other games in any form. Sounds easy, until you remember the way Steam recommendations and such work (or the rest of the UI, for that matter), which would automatically break the ESRB rules as it will inevitably show AO and non-AO games together in the same screen sooner or later.

[jamesprimate]

idk about your content obv, but patreon has been a haven for h-games and erotic games in general. sometimes to disturbingly high degrees of funding: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=108351&u=108351&ty=h

i've had a few game music commissions come from that scene, so learned quite a bit about the landscape. if you have any specific questions about that scene, sites, etc., PM me and ill tell you what i know.

[gimymblert]

Breeding Season is a free adult game and a labor of love. Harvest Moon meets Hentai, the game tasks you with raising and breeding sexy monsters for sale to adventurous clients. We put a lot of work into making the game into more than just a vehicle for erotic animations: we want to make a game that is so fun and addictive that you'd want to play it even without all the fucking. That said, the fucking is pretty important to us too.

7531 patrons
$32,379.05 per month

  The thirst is real

[Nillo]

Yep. I support a number of erotic creators on Patreon so I can say they are more open to sexual content than you would expect. Their guidelines say that "Patreon is not for porn" but in practice they allow almost any sexual content as long as it's not real photos or videos.

[Jordgubben]

*AO.

And if I recall correctly, the issue is that you can't let AO games mix with other games in any form. Sounds easy, until you remember the way Steam recommendations and such work (or the rest of the UI, for that matter), which would automatically break the ESRB rules as it will inevitably show AO and non-AO games together in the same screen sooner or later.

Can it really be THAT hard to keep AO and non-AO separate?

Code:

if game.rating == AO then recommendAoGame() else recommendFamilyFriendlyGame() 

Maybe it requires a lot of design rework top support a complete isolate AO-section.

Added:
But that can't be the whole story because "Hatred" is AO, and it's on Steam.
http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/16/7557639/hatred-esrb-ao-rating

[Geoff Moore]

@Dacke - interesting points of reference there, thanks. That comp had some weird entries to say the least! Yeah, we're both very keen on having awesome female characters in the game, even if it is considered porn.

@Jimym GIMBERT - My research is the worst, I hadn't heard of her work, so thanks!

@airman4 - Tokimeki Memorial isn't erotic, is it? We might well make an censored version as well, good idea.

@Boreal - Well, we certainly won't be doing anything as heinous as that!!

@Anarkex - Appreciate the in-depth thoughts. I think on your definitions we'd be going more pornographic than erotic, probably RPG and puzzle elements with a bunch of sex thrown in for good measure.

@Jordgubben - I prefer writing for female characters, my friend prefers drawing for female characters, so it seems a natural choice. However if it was going to stunt sales considerably we'd have to think about this seriously, as we would like to profit from the game.

@jamesprimate - Woah! Patreon it is, then. That's super encouraging. I know it's an exception, but nice to know what's possible...

Interesting info on Steam, maybe a censored version is a good way to go.

Thanks for all the helpful advice and thoughts, people! And please, do keep it coming.

[Jordgubben]

@Jordgubben - I prefer writing for female characters, my friend prefers drawing for female characters, so it seems a natural choice. However if it was going to stunt sales considerably we'd have to think about this seriously, as we would like to profit from the game.

Please do not make a male protagonies motivated by "sales". 

The assumption that only male main characters sell has been debunked in al major media except possibly video games. There are to many dude-bros in video games. If you make a game without dude-bros than it most likely bost your sales.

Make the game you want to play. If you do not want to make it, then why would any one else want to play it.

[ProgramGamer]

Uhm, but this is about how relatable relationships are, not main character gender. The main character could still be female while having a male partner. The question here is about wether or not it will put off people to play a game where two girls are in a couple. I, for one, think that they will put off every/most heterosexual female by making the lesbian choice, but that's just my oppinion, and I don't know of that was a significant part of the market in the first place.

[Jordgubben]

Good point. Didn't really think of it that way.

There is a danger in trying to appeal to a wide audience in the same game. Especially for an indie game that by definition has niche appeal as it's only strong point.

If the artist prefers to draw women, then he/she is probably also a lot better at the female anatomy. So straight women will probably not be the audience for this game. But considering how popular BL is these days, I really don't think  a "GL" game will have a problem finding ít's market.

Just don't make your GL game it in Direct X. (Ok, terribly sorry about that one. Could not help my self  )

[Aik]

If you haven't heard of Embric of Wulfhammer's Castle, go play it now. It does the whole great storyline, strong multifaceted female protagonist, with lesbians and sex scenes in an RPGish package exceedingly well. Not sure I'd call it 'porn' (I don't think you're meant to sit there wanking to it), but it's a least fundamentally erotic.

But yeah, pretty sure there's a big, rather quiet market for this sort of stuff.

For your sake, I ventured into 4chan's /u/ board and confirmed there's an ongoing thread series for video games. I'll leave finding the thread an exercise for you, but here's their pastebin: http://pastebin.com/qtVMqLiW