Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

[FruitSmoothie]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

Yeah, unless the entire or a big portion of the game is focused around a certain fetish, I think most people can easily ignore a cg/animation or two that they aren't into. Fairy Fighting is a great example for me. A few parts I really dislike but it's easy enough to avoid and one of my favorite H games of all time still. "Just pretend it's chocolate."

An H developer should know what their target audience wants, and what they don't want, and make the don't want content easily avoidable or easy to get through. It doesn't mean you need to exclude it or put it in a separate DL altogether, but you also shouldn't force people through a gauntlet of vomit/piss/scat/guro/whatever else without warning as well.

But hey if you're into the less popular fetishes and enjoy them enough that you want to put them into games, shouldn't you just try to build a following off of that instead of separating it from your main games? That's basically what I'm trying to say.

 

[TentacleZombie]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

This is so blatantly false I don't even know where to begin. There are games that are exceptional because of how much content they have. It makes the entire experience all the more deep and enjoyable when a world feels alive with new experiences, even if you don't go through all of them.

"[...] as other good hentai games."

It's not blatantly false if I say there's nothing wrong with a game being well-priced with decent content and your counter argument is to raise the bar to exceptional. If every game had to be bloody exceptional then you'll be disappointed a lot and there will be a lot fewer game makers. I don't know about you, but I would rather have a large selection of decent games to choose from than a small pool of exceptional games that I might not like.

Actually yes, you can. It would be neigh on impossible for that not to happen. Finding the right balance isn't difficult when you have years worth of data in the very place you would be selling the game. Marketing companies wish it was this simple when dealing with mainstream products.

Would be relevant if DLSite (or any other online store) was a developer or shared this information with developers. Do they? I wasn't aware they do, but if they do that would be great. If not then it would be neigh on impossible for an developer to know.

Those people are few and far between when compared to the masses of people who are starved for the fetishes they're looking for, and are willing to make compromises to find it. Hell, if I excluded every game with piss fetishes, I wouldn't have much to play.

Based off your own assertion, right there we have "masses of people who are starved for the fetishes they're looking for, and are willing to make compromises to find it". Buying DLCs is a compromise too, one that trades content you don't like for a premium.

Argh, I keep editing this post because I don't feel like I properly address your last point, so at the risk of sounding rude I'm just going to throw this out: I said "the problem is nobody knows what percent of potential customers base their purchasing decisions on those factors, so we have no idea if expanding the number of fetish genres in a product will bring in more people than it turns off" and you countered with an assumption. That doesn't disprove my point. If I had to go and make my own assumptions I could point at poor sales or the apparent unwillingness of many people not to pay for a product at all as possible indicators that there is a vast, untapped market of potential customers out there who don't buy precisely because there's a fetish in some product that makes them violently ill, but I would be wrong (not saying you're wrong, I'm just illustrating unfounded assumptions don't help). This is pretty much related with the previous point that the only party who might know is DLSite, who doesn't share this information with developers (again, if they do, I welcome any developer to come in and correct me, but to my knowledge they are not involved in the creative process at all).

That being said, I made that argument not to talk about actual numbers, but to express that this is one of the concerns that a developer would have to consider when putting out a game in a niche market. It's easy to talk about theory and make assumptions about numbers when it's not your money and time on the line.

Hell, look at the mainstream gaming market: the most popular games aren't the ones that try to cover multiple genres or attract more customers with a lower price point/more content, they're prettier clones of last year's games peppered with lots of DLCs. I'm not condoning this absolute lack of creativity or the abusive take on DLCs, but if we're going to argue profitability as well I would like to refer to that sad state of affairs as being suggestive that charging a premium on specialized products is the de facto "safe" way to go.

 

[azurezero]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

i'm quite pleased with the way this thread is turning out

the main reason my game doesn't work as a sequel is because its an adventure game like witch house or ib but as a gor game

my particular idea for dlc was in line with some of the things i heard from extra credits in regards to choice, where you can choose to go down a particular route, and have that choice acknowledged down the line, and i can acknowledge it in the golden ending in hentai form which also serves as a nice reward for the player

because of the way persistent data works, scenes will be permanently unlocked in the gallery once obtained and the gateway scenes into the dlc quests/trials should be accessible at any point in the game (though you may have to backtrack for some), well, later on anyway but you wont have to restart from scratch if you have a save on track for the best ending

 

[Judael]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

i'm quite pleased with the way this thread is turning out

the main reason my game doesn't work as a sequel is because its an adventure game like witch house or ib but as a gor game

my particular idea for dlc was in line with some of the things i heard from extra credits in regards to choice, where you can choose to go down a particular route, and have that choice acknowledged down the line, and i can acknowledge it in the golden ending in hentai form which also serves as a nice reward for the player

because of the way persistent data works, scenes will be permanently unlocked in the gallery once obtained and the gateway scenes into the dlc quests/trials should be accessible at any point in the game (though you may have to backtrack for some), well, later on anyway but you wont have to restart from scratch if you have a save on track for the best ending

Never played witch house. I just found a wiki here

You must be registered to see the links

Is it a sprited adventure game?

 

[TentacleZombie]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

i'm quite pleased with the way this thread is turning out

the main reason my game doesn't work as a sequel is because its an adventure game like witch house or ib but as a gor game

my particular idea for dlc was in line with some of the things i heard from extra credits in regards to choice, where you can choose to go down a particular route, and have that choice acknowledged down the line, and i can acknowledge it in the golden ending in hentai form which also serves as a nice reward for the player

because of the way persistent data works, scenes will be permanently unlocked in the gallery once obtained and the gateway scenes into the dlc quests/trials should be accessible at any point in the game (though you may have to backtrack for some), well, later on anyway but you wont have to restart from scratch if you have a save on track for the best ending

Honestly, that seems dangerously close to "removed content" style of DLCs despite not actually being removed content; unless you do a good job of disguising the DLC's entry point (unlike a certain Bioware game that had a man in distress ask for your help then demand five bucks) that creates a perception that you're gating content that should have been there from the start.

That aside, definitely wish you luck on that. Player agency is rarely easy, even moreso when you can't fully test it due to missing decision branches you haven't implemented yet.

 

[azurezero]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

Honestly, that seems dangerously close to "removed content" style of DLCs despite not actually being removed content; unless you do a good job of disguising the DLC's entry point (unlike a certain Bioware game that had a man in distress ask for your help then demand five bucks) that creates a perception that you're gating content that should have been there from the start.

That aside, definitely wish you luck on that. Player agency is rarely easy, even moreso when you can't fully test it due to missing decision branches you haven't implemented yet.

it was content that i only thought up as a result of thinking about dlc, otherwise one overarching bad guy would be fine...and i just meant that actual rpgs are easier to deal with sequels, in an enclosed adventure game like this there's not really much point...cause



may as well divulge a few details, the set up of my game is as follows,
the protagonist is a rogue who attempts to kill the demon lord (beegirl), but she is defeated, molested, and thrown into a cell to await transfer to the manufacturing plant where women are kept in constant extacy to generate large quantities of "honey"...there's another girl in the cell with you, and she befriends you...while a guard is taking you to the place, she tackles him and you both escape, but are separated...

after this the game begins properly, your choices in the game affect your chances of escaping successfully (some lead to dead ends) and also affect whether the other girl escapes with you, or is turned into a sex beast/futa/something that is made to chase you down later in the game... you can also discover extras (via smart decisions and finding more puzzles that were hidden) that lead you to the golden ending, where you also get revenge on the demon lord by releasing a mass of tentacle monsters in the facility and preventing beegirls escape, and also having to escape within a time limit...hmmm probably inspired by the good old resident evil games...

some choices are explicit, others are implicit, the only big essential one i've planned so far is when the player comes to a crossroads of corridors, and sees the other girl being dragged off, if the player ignores her and goes straight, then she's automatically doomed and the door locks behind you
but going left means you can cheat...because if you'd followed immediately you'd have had to sneak back through an area, go to the left path, solve a puzzle, and sneak back through the area, with a time limit to save the girl who is strapped to a fucking machine...going left first means you allready have the item (might make it add a doom counter to the friend still but not damn her automatically)

oh...and going forward adds a message saying you should go help her, but you can ignore it


gameplay wise, the stealth segments work like this, enemies will hear you run, but otherwise patrol randomly, if seen they all get alerted and try and capture you, but if you find a weapon, you can sneak up on them and hope they dont turn around, theres percentage odds of successfully stealthkilling, unless you are cloaked, which can be done for 6 seconds at the cost of mp, and mp recover items are scarce, so it's best to avoid guards where possible... item puzzles are done in the same manner as witch house, where pushing a button brings up items and you can choose to use them, and you have to be in the right place with the right item , there'll also be logic puzzles

 

[freeko]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

Well, I broke down why DLC even exists in the first place. This seems like that exact situation that I brought up before. Azure has an incomplete game in their hands. Azure looks for ways in which to "finish" the game. DLC is the convenient excuse now since everyone seems to do it.

It is clear that Azure wanted the community to give the ok, even if it is only somewhat so for DLC, so the costs of finishing the game could be justified. In the end it will remain to be seen if this does not make the whole thing implode in on itself as people will not buy an incomplete game knowing that there is more that will be needed to bought to experience the full game.

Azure certainly is not a monolithic corporation with a megamillion dollar development budget game. Then again, I almost think more money is sunk into marketing than anything else. This is probably the one thing I think Kyreriu gets right, because it baffles me how those games made by him sell at all. (I tried to set aside my personal opinion, but meh long rant is long). Last I checked there is only a limited amount of people that you can market to in the first place. So, why even bring a polarizing point like DLC into the mix and limit the potential market even more?

Lets go full devil's advocate now. Azure makes a game, and irrelevant of DLC, it inevitably ends up on the pirate sites. Now what? Spend more to stop the piracy? Good luck with that. Eventually people will break any method that is put in place to stop piracy. Again, this will limit sales as people will just wait for it to show up on a site able to be downloaded. This will be magnified more so when people look at this game, get semi-interested, then realize there is planned DLC for the game, and just pass on it as a whole.

I guess in the end it will be a neat little experiment as to if it works or not. It looks pretty obvious to me that Azure was trying to gauge backlash from having DLC in the game. I think the decision has already been made, even though the most likely outcome of this should be NO. Even if another choice wins (Notice how no one is definitively saying Yes?), it is only because people want to evaluate what they are getting for the cost of getting it first. So you could have another situation where the DLC is overpriced, and you end up with the same backlash from the DLC even after the community gave you the false hope that they would at least consider the possiblity. For a planned 2 hour long game that will cost 4 dollars in the first place, what can you really provide in DLC for a cost relative to the original product? Since that is the only other option that seems to be possible to win this poll, may as well lay out your plan for the DLC.

 

[Kyrieru]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

"[...] as other good hentai games."

It's not blatantly false if I say there's nothing wrong with a game being well-priced with decent content and your counter argument is to raise the bar to exceptional. If every game had to be bloody exceptional then you'll be disappointed a lot and there will be a lot fewer game makers. I don't know about you, but I would rather have a large selection of decent games to choose from than a small pool of exceptional games that I might not like.

My point was that a small amount of added content could be what makes a game exceptional, and that having a superior base product would be better than $10 dlc.

Would be relevant if DLSite (or any other online store) was a developer or shared this information with developers. Do they? I wasn't aware they do, but if they do that would be great. If not then it would be neigh on impossible for an developer to know.

I mean sales figures. Any time a game comes out I look at the sales, how fast it sells, how many, the game's rating, the pricepoint, the type and amount of content, it's all important and useful information, and you start to see obvious patterns pretty damn quick.

Based off your own assertion, right there we have "masses of people who are starved for the fetishes they're looking for, and are willing to make compromises to find it". Buying DLCs is a compromise too, one that trades content you don't like for a premium.

...And? I never said that people won't buy dlc, my point is was that people shouldn't have to, and would prefer a free in-game compromise to one that costs $5-10$. Also, "our customers are starved for a small amount of content so we can charge them a premium for it" is not a healthy thing to think as a developer.

the problem is nobody knows what percent of potential customers base their purchasing decisions on those factors, so we have no idea if expanding the number of fetish genres in a product will bring in more people than it turns off[/I]" and you countered with an assumption. That doesn't disprove my point.

There is no 100% in business, you make business decisions based on the best info you have. In my case, the best info I have is successful and failed H-games on DLsite, and a community of people who are essentially 50% of my target audience. I wasn't disproving your point objectively, but making it equally invalid as an argument for why DLC would be the "better" option than the alternative.

 

[Judael]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

I mean sales figures. Any time a game comes out I look at the sales, how fast it sells, how many, the game's rating, the pricepoint, the type and amount of content, it's all important and useful information, and you start to see obvious patterns pretty damn quick.

Just to quote this. Thi is the best/fastest way to recognize a good game on dlsite (for almost 90% of the times)

 

[freeko]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

Just because a game is good or bad does not relate directly to sales. I could think of a good deal of factors that go into if a game sells well or not. Most of which are a random element. Does the game show up on the bottom row when I am looking for similar games. Lets say I bought a game, and I might be more inclined to look at games that are suggested on the bottom. More so if the icon looks like it is made well. The preview images are the next thing I look at. If I like what I see, then I look at the demo. Finally I make a decision on do I want to buy this game? (I then promptly say NOPE! and go looking for it elsewhere, but thats not the point being made here.) The point being, unless people know about your game, and are expressly looking for it, it is possible that someone could encounter your game by random (or not) and decide to buy it.

The next element is clearly price. This the person selling it has control over. If I make a game that is awesome, but costs $25-30, do you really expect that game to sell as well as the $5 game that is not as good but is similar? Of course not. I could go on and on analyzing almost every factor, but I prefer to do that for paid clients instead of random people.

 

[OnyxShadow]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

I like DLC when its adding to a complete game some time down the road. It sucks when its just something that's intentionally left out on release. I can think of a number of H-games that I'd love to see some DLC for.

DLC has a bad rep because of how game makers have abused it.

 

[ThisNeedsMoreFel]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

Though it depends on content which is being added, i generally think its just a way to rip some cash on a thing that is less than a game.
Simple example -
WH40k:Space Marine - 29,99$
All DLC's - 44,87$
And to add to that point, those DLC doesn't change much, besides, most people dont buy them or dont use them.

However if one would consider Blizzard games, its a bit another story. In case of WoW, it adds massive(in terms of content) add-ons, which are worth their price.

So, in my opinion, when you mean "DLC" it should be worth its money.

 

[TentacleZombie]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

My point was that a small amount of added content could be what makes a game exceptional, and that having a superior base product would be better than $10 dlc.

Not saying exceptional games aren't better (or worse), I'm saying the DLC model isn't inherently bad. We can still have good games with optional DLCs, we can also still have exceptional game with free content, they aren't mutually exclusive.

I mean sales figures. Any time a game comes out I look at the sales, how fast it sells, how many, the game's rating, the pricepoint, the type and amount of content, it's all important and useful information, and you start to see obvious patterns pretty damn quick.

Okay, so you're arguing that a developer should do their own market research before making and pricing a game, which is fair. If a developer has to spend $20~$50 per CG on commissions, they might be able to estimate how long it would take for them to recover that expense based on comparable works (either by finding something similar to what they want to do or chasing popular trends, I hope it's the former rather than the latter), which is a lot more sound than just the general advice to lower the price or increase content.

...And? I never said that people won't buy dlc, my point is was that people shouldn't have to, and would prefer a free in-game compromise to one that costs $5-10$. Also, "our customers are starved for a small amount of content so we can charge them a premium for it" is not a healthy thing to think as a developer.

"Premium" was a poor choice of word on my part, because it's not actually a premium; just look at my example, I'm not saying "charge x for y amount of content, then charge x+1 for y amount of content we know people are starved for", I'm saying "charge x for y amount of content and offer additional z content for x/y*z price". This is a fair pricing scheme. You're not being charged $1 for a single lousy skin that doesn't represent 1/60th (assuming $60 game) of the content, you're being charged additional content at the same price/content ratio that you initially paid.

In fact, this isn't even incompatible with your exceptional game argument. A developer can still make an exceptional game with all the extra free content and come up with new ideas a couple months down the road and release it as a DLC. That's extra work they did, you can't honestly expect them to provide that for free just because you paid them for their previous work (well, not unless they had a "I will release additional DLCs for free if certain sales targets are hit" thing going on).

There is no 100% in business, you make business decisions based on the best info you have. In my case, the best info I have is successful and failed H-games on DLsite, and a community of people who are essentially 50% of my target audience. I wasn't disproving your point objectively, but making it equally invalid as an argument for why DLC would be the "better" option than the alternative.

Well, in my case the information I have is based on the mainstream gaming market proving the DLCs are a viable business model and that DLCs are simply paid (and sometimes free) mods, which can improve a game's experience, its longevity, and popularity if done correctly.

I want more developers to be financially successful, because that means they'd be motivated to make more games and take more chances, which gives everyone more options, and I want them to be able to offer content and price flexibility because (for me) it's preferable to buy one $20 game with five $5 DLCs featuring content I really like than six $20 games each with only a little bit of the content I'm really looking for and a mix of other stuff that I either find boring or simply don't like. People will still have the option of buying six $20 games without having to buy the DLCs, there is no loss of options and nobody's going to be forced to buy DLCs for every game.

 

[TentacleZombie]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

Though it depends on content which is being added, i generally think its just a way to rip some cash on a thing that is less than a game.
Simple example -
WH40k:Space Marine - 29,99$
All DLC's - 44,87$
And to add to that point, those DLC doesn't change much, besides, most people dont buy them or dont use them.

This is why I did a little dance when I heard THQ was going under. Their DLC model was well into abusive territories before WH40K: Space Marine came out (also their co-op "campaign" was shit, a chain of horde mode maps does not a campaign make).

 

[azurezero]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

unless i can find some more talented spriters, i doubt i could ever make a game i would think 20usd is a fair price for... even this game idea with an estimated paypal price came to something like 8usd total (with the dlc option)

replacing the initial demo file on my drop box is a much simpler method than having to wait for bloody curious factory to respond to my emails...

dlc ideas in this case= too linear to fit into base game(which is fairly exploratory), to short to be made as their own games.


anyone here seen or played skuld? was good rpgmaker game


EDIT- AND EVEN IF I DID, I STILL WOULDN'T CHARGE 20 USD FOR IT (unless dlsite prices)

 

[TentacleZombie]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

unless i can find some more talented spriters, i doubt i could ever make a game i would think 20usd is a fair price for... even this game idea with an estimated paypal price came to something like 8usd total (with the dlc option)

replacing the initial demo file on my drop box is a much simpler method than having to wait for bloody curious factory to respond to my emails...

dlc ideas in this case= too linear to fit into base game(which is fairly exploratory), to short to be made as their own games.


anyone here seen or played skuld? was good rpgmaker game


EDIT- AND EVEN IF I DID, I STILL WOULDN'T CHARGE 20 USD FOR IT (unless dlsite prices)

Heh, yeah, I'm just throwing $20 as an example.

 

[azurezero]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

Heh, yeah, I'm just throwing $20 as an example.

it's always strange though, i mean, people don't really put much value in games do they...it's a really happy feeling when someone validates your hard work by paying for it and implicitly saying i think you're worth the price...


and heartbreaking when people openly pirate when they can easily afford to buy it... really hope people keep it out of my sight...

 

[TentacleZombie]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

it's always strange though, i mean, people don't really put much value in games do they...it's a really happy feeling when someone validates your hard work by paying for it and implicitly saying i think you're worth the price...


and heartbreaking when people openly pirate when they can easily afford to buy it... really hope people keep it out of my sight...

To be perfectly honest, I've pirated plenty of stuff, so I can't throw stones. I buy what I keep, but that still doesn't change the fact that I'm being a selfish bastard who is disrespecting the efforts of all the other developers I've "dined and run" on.

You're definitely going to still see people openly pirate your game here, I think the best you can hope for is some of them come back and explicitly go "I liked your game enough to buy it".

 

[azurezero]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

To be perfectly honest, I've pirated plenty of stuff, so I can't throw stones. I buy what I keep, but that still doesn't change the fact that I'm being a selfish bastard who is disrespecting the efforts of all the other developers I've "dined and run" on.

You're definitely going to still see people openly pirate your game here, I think the best you can hope for is some of them come back and explicitly go "I liked your game enough to buy it".

I've only had one guy do it openly, i wouldnt even notice someone sharing my game if he hadnt waltzed into my thread and announced it to the world, the idea here being out of sight out of mind

 

[herfmat]

Re: Dlc in hentai games, Yay or Nay

I'd say it certainly depends on the scope. For instance, say you have a base game framework with some pretty standard stuff in it, you could then create content packs for specific kinks, for instance, if someone doesn't want tentacles, they don't need to pay for the tentacles(Although, I'd think this would be one of the more generic options)

Certainly niche things like guro content could be made optional and thus, I'd think sales would improve across the board.