Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

[Humlebien]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

When dealing with piracy, you also need to take into consideration 2 Things:

Proof of loss of sale.
Some people just don't want to spend a penny. They will not buy it anyways. Some what to test it out first, to see if they actually get their Moneys worth. They may buy the game if they deem it worthy.

Anti-piracy measures:
While for most pirates, this will be a roadbump, to a minor issue, for the legit buying people, it can be outright gamebreaking. (Always online DRM a prime example). While everyone wants to protect their game somewhat, you can drive away customers, with a too rigid/troublesome approach. And may lose more Money this way, than to piracy.

 

[goduranus]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

DRM has come a long way since the olden days. There wasn't any real inconvenience caused by BMT's authentication system when I played those games.

The number of net sales recovered by DRM is probably dependent on the ease and cost of purchasing the legit copy. If the game only sells at some Japanese website and costs more than 15 bucks, then DRM probably won't help much for sales.

 

[rtkamb]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

I did read everything, but I think we missed something here. A lot of these games are illegal outside of Japan (depending on your country), and nobody wants a paper trail. I couldn't, legally, buy most of the games I like, so taking action to make them more available to me isn't worthwhile.

 

[goduranus]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

Wait, are they banned by the country or by the developer?
I thought porn games would be treated the same as porn movies?

 

[Visqaron]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

- Buying H-Games is complicated
- Buying H-Games comes with legal issues (regarding country)
- Buying H-Games wich seem to be fine to purchase (from content, gameplay, legal issues)
- Buying H-Games for the Story / Background / Gameplay are mostly not RPG-Games and or are disappointing
- Buying H-Games with complicated activation measures (DRM)

- H-Games with no content / environment. Default Maps. Lack of "world environments" (clutter, space fillers)

- H-Games creators are not true to them self
- H-Games > missleading and false advertisement of content that is non-existing
- H-Games with astonishing bugs, random rolled script functions who are not working / are not optimized

 

[Visqaron]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

Wait, are they banned by the country or by the developer?
I thought porn games would be treated the same as porn movies?

The content is in general banned by the law of the country where your residence is. You're not allowed to be in possession of items in text, pictures, videos or what ever. (H-Game with Loli as example - even if the story says the displayed actor is 121 years old - the actor is displayed as under-aged and as such forbidden if there is sexual relation) - as example for germany. If I did understand your remark correctly. The law don't care for "porn movie, game, cards - as long as the actor that is displayed is not under-aged in context or as displayed)

 

[Soljer13]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

Majority of H-games don't have the level of quality that is rightly associated with a 10-15 dollar non-H game. 90% of stuff on DLSite is shit.

Those 10-15 bucks I spent on a derivative H-platformer, that is boring after an hour or two is better spent on an indie title on steam that will have me playing for days.

 

[Conundrum]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

When you're looking at piracy of H-games, I think you need to clearly differentiate between Japanese and Western produced games.

Japanese games are pirated a ton in the West for a few reasons, some of which have already been mentioned:
-Lack of purchase options, anything that's not on Eng-DLsite is an absolute pain to buy
-Unwillingness of some devs to officially sell their products outside of Japan
-Some laws making certain content outright illegal (Loli anyone?)
-Different stance on buying porn

The last one is the biggie of course, just compare Shinobi Girl by Koooonsoft, it's one of the most popular games of all time on both EN and JP DLsite (#7 on EN, #6 on JP), has a full english version, is easy to play, nice enough fap material, costs about 20$ on both sites.
EN sales: 2013
JP sales: 25249
No one in their right mind would hire a translator for such a tiny boost in sales, especially when the game is text heavy.
And since there's only a tiny niche of people who'd buy untranslated games, they're only sold in Japan, any one else pirates it and the devs pretty much ignore it, because it's not a lost sale when you're not actually selling anything.

Now, Western produced games...
Before Patreon got popular, these were just small games, usually flash games, most of them produced for subscription based sites.
Nothing on the scale of Japanese VNs or say Illusion games.
Of course these were pirated, hell I've never bought access to Hentai Key, but I've seen every single Zone game and animation.
The question is, do these sites actually give a fuck?
Zone is still being employed by HK, Vanja is still working for... whatever that site is called, so the profits must be good enough despite the piracy going on.

Creating more complex games has only started to become popular relatively recently, especially after Patreon took off, allowing a bunch of creators to earn a good amount of money.
Of course many Patreon devs offer a free version either alongside the subscriber one or plan to make their game freely available when it's done, which means piracy isn't really a concern.

So only games that won't be free after release could be affected, but how many potential customers will they have left after a long running Patreon campaign?
I guess HentaiWriter and Eromancer are in a good position to find out soon enough

 

[Omnikuken]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

The whole stigma around sex in the west is probably a bigger problem than the actual content of the games at this point. The only big distributer is dlsite which imposes a horrendous markup on games and a lot of people just can't use it for whatever reason. Paypal is no go, I doubt most people are fine with cryptocurrencies, and even Nutaku has self censored to avoid problems. The only workaround I've seen is selling unlock files through paypal, but I'm not sure that's ok so much as the developer just getting lucky and sneaking by. No distribution, no sales. It's crippling for new devs.

At this point we can jump on the patreon/crowdfunding campaign bandwagon, but as others have pointed out those methods are based on trust. It's hard to trust anyone to finish a game without a history of completed projects, community membership, and content to back them up. Even more crowdfunding means backer rewards, less development time, and possibly compromising their creative vision. It's not uncommon to see projects fall apart under the bloat of stretch goals or catering to backers, even for the experienced teams. The people who can handle crowdfunding don't need to be told about it. Everyone else should avoid it.

If getting hentai games were as convenient and trustworthy as buying normal games on steam or amazon a lot more people would be doing it. Once we cross that hurdle where developers have options or even a reliable promise of getting paid and consumers won't get ripped off/annoyed we'll be able to push into better content/early access/whatever. Until then it's just a risky market.

Just pointing out that you can buy h-stuff with Paypal on english Dlsite, you just need to pass a few hoops that aren't that hard once you know the way ....

 

[FinalCloud]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

Honestly I would say a major barrier for actually wanting to purchase a large number of the games available is that they are (often, unless they are very popular) only available in Japanese, people do not want to pay for an RPG (i.e. a game with a rich story, theoretically), that they can only get a somewhat jumbled machine translation of. Plus I would guess that the main selling time for these games is within say 3 months of their release? In which time an English translation for even a very popular game is unlikely to be completed.

 

[Keyen]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

Seriously, among the Hgames I played (i'm not speaking jap, so only translated games), only few titles deserving to be called "games":
-Kamidori Alchemy Meister (Incredibly good imo)
-Yumina the Ethereal
-Sengoku Rance (But a whole world behind the other two)
-Honorable mention for MGQ since the fights are not that bad and I loved the game.
-Other honorable mention for Ariadne and its turn based fight system.

The rest is just meh gameplay wise.

I don't mind paying. But I want a game, not hentai with a bit of gameplay. Even known companies like Alice soft don't understand that. Beat Blade Haruka was a huge disappointment. Sengoku Rance was okay, but the other Rance weren't.

 

[BlueBurn]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

It doesn't really help that many people don't want interesting gameplay or gameplay that makes you think or work towards a goal. Many just want easy gameplay and to get as quickly as possible to the hentai part.

There are a lot of people who want gameplay, and a lot of other people who want fap material. It is only a problem when the dev attempts to cater to both at once. It leads to a confused, mediocre product that nobody really feels like buying.

There are also people who want lots of hentai tied into a bunch of good gameplay, but that's actually an entirely different group than the other two.

 

[Ericridge]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

For Sale Only in Japan = Not my problem. Its not like that I can just teleport over to Japan across the pacific ocean every weekend.... Until this teleportation problem gets resolved, Piracy is the only option. Short of taking a vacation.

And that comment about Shinobi Girl by Koooonsoft, I checked out. Looked nice, Disliked the girl and most of enemies that she fights therefore no buy. Deleted the trial and moved on. I must actually like the game to buy it. If its not fappable, well, i don't care. I won't even buy just to support the maker.

This presents a rather significant obstacle that games must make me like it to buy it. Just like normal non-hentai games! I dislike call of duty and their ilk therefore I will never buy any of their games no matter how hard they try short of doing something that blew my mind. Such as shoehorning arpeggio of blue steel into a call of duty game will make me consider. But it's more of the merit of arpeggio of blue steel successfully making me think about buying a game I would never ever buy unless someone is pointing a gun at my head to make me buy it.

And then those games where they try to please every single category tend to fail to me, Because if I only like fighting one lewd enemy in the game and i hate 9 other lewd enemies in the game then I will not buy. I do not want to pay twenty dollars for a single scene.

I've bought few truly shit games that made me think twice about buying first without trying a full game before. Trial would be excellent but in the game where trial don't let you advance any further, game turns into trash. I had quite a few of this. >< Pirating a game is a way to protect myself from this kind of scam.

A tentacle hentai game would be incredible and awesome, and have billions of purchases, and I still won't buy it because solely on the one and true fact that I dislike tentacle hentai. I find them simply unfappable to me. Only way I would buy this kind of game is if there were a mod that replaced all the tentacles into my preferred type of lewd enemy.

If my post angers you, well, sucks to be you.

 

[Nytemare]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

I pirate because most of these games are hit or miss. It's hard to tell what will actually be good. There's very few games are something I'd want to spend money on. But the ones I find that I would spend money on, I'd be willing to spend a good amount on them.

I'm not a huge fan of the crowdfunding because I've never actually seen anything get finished. And the English game demos I've seen have not really been very well made. In some cases, we have writers who are not fluent in English writing the story, so it's full of text, grammar, and story errors. There's also times when the writing is just bad in general. Then there's times when the games are just buggy as fuck, or not balanced properly at all. Or then you have games that have bad artwork. Or you have games that move at a snail's pace even when they have a huge crowdfunding backing, like more money coming in than a regular 9-5 job and they release nothing...

Though, I would be willing to buy more games from DLsite if they had legit translations on their English site. It would make the whole thing more enjoyable rather than having to hope I can link a translator to it, or waiting for somebody to make a partial translation.

Sorry for the rant, just my 2 cents.

 

[BlueBurn]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

Now that I think about it, I think most of the "I only pirate because ..." posts are really just excuses. You'd pirate regardless. I admit, I would too. I only buy games that I want to get immediately rather than wait for the pirates to share. Somebody earlier in the thread said that 97% of people surveyed said they'd pirate if given the choice.

That's the unfortunate reality. People pirate because they can. There are no consequences, they aren't directly harming the dev (unless they actively distribute it), so they don't really care.

It's not like people should be blamed for it. It just means that the business model isn't viable. That holds true for games in general which is why recently we have seen new business models that include a free option.

The delayed free version we see on most patreon supported H games kinda works but I think the only thing keeping it working is the unspoken agreement this community has to not pirate games made by devs within the community. It probably can't last if the community grows large enough.

 

[Nytemare]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

Now that I think about it, I think most of the "I only pirate because ..." posts are really just excuses. You'd pirate regardless. I admit, I would too. I only buy games that I want to get immediately rather than wait for the pirates to share. Somebody earlier in the thread said that 97% of people surveyed said they'd pirate if given the choice.

That's the unfortunate reality. People pirate because they can. There are no consequences, they aren't directly harming the dev (unless they actively distribute it), so they don't really care.

It's not like people should be blamed for it. It just means that the business model isn't viable. That holds true for games in general which is why recently we have seen new business models that include a free option.

The delayed free version we see on most patreon supported H games kinda works but I think the only thing keeping it working is the unspoken agreement this community has to not pirate games made by devs within the community. It probably can't last if the community grows large enough.

I don't really need to excuse myself though? I went to an anime convention recently and I spend like $200 on H-games because they were translated and released in English and they were of decent quality. If I'm going to spend my money, please give me a reason to do so. Make me a game that's worth spending money on.

 

[Balmunk Fezarion]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

Now that I think about it, I think most of the "I only pirate because ..." posts are really just excuses. You'd pirate regardless. I admit, I would too. I only buy games that I want to get immediately rather than wait for the pirates to share. Somebody earlier in the thread said that 97% of people surveyed said they'd pirate if given the choice.

That's the unfortunate reality. People pirate because they can. There are no consequences, they aren't directly harming the dev (unless they actively distribute it), so they don't really care.

It's not like people should be blamed for it. It just means that the business model isn't viable. That holds true for games in general which is why recently we have seen new business models that include a free option.

The delayed free version we see on most patreon supported H games kinda works but I think the only thing keeping it working is the unspoken agreement this community has to not pirate games made by devs within the community. It probably can't last if the community grows large enough.

Agreed. The excuses are usually "only available in Japan", "don't know if the game is good" and stuff. Well it is like going to a restaurant for the first time and steal their food because you can't be sure if their food are good, so you don't wanna pay for it.

It is technically impossible, or very difficult to find a game that matches your taste 100%, same for every other commercial product in the world. If you bought a new drink and realized you don't like it, you just never buy it again.

"It is only available in Japan, so I can't help but to pirate it" is not a valid reason to justify pirating either. If you own a commercial product that is not essential for other's daily life you have every right to keep it to yourself or define who has the purchase rights.

In the end it is just everyone trying to make themselves feel better for doing wrong stuff. I won't stop you from pirating games, probably nobody will, but at least be aware that you are wrong while you do it, and be appreciative to game developers instead of blaming them for your pirating, this is fucking ridiculous.

 

[BlueBurn]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

Agreed. The excuses are usually "only available in Japan", "don't know if the game is good" and stuff. Well it is like going to a restaurant for the first time and steal their food because you can't be sure if their food are good, so you don't wanna pay for it.

It is technically impossible, or very difficult to find a game that matches your taste 100%, same for every other commercial product in the world. If you bought a new drink and realized you don't like it, you just never buy it again.

"It is only available in Japan, so I can't help but to pirate it" is not a valid reason to justify pirating either. If you own a commercial product that is not essential for other's daily life you have every right to keep it to yourself or define who has the purchase rights.

In the end it is just everyone trying to make themselves feel better for doing wrong stuff. I won't stop you from pirating games, probably nobody will, but at least be aware that you are wrong while you do it, and be appreciative to game developers instead of blaming them for your pirating, this is fucking ridiculous.

Well it's not really that simple. There are a ton of devs who false advertise or just don't include nearly enough content. There are also games that can only be obtained by piracy. There are also games that are simply too expensive to be reasonable. And finally, there are devs that straight up don't want our business. So a lot of the excuses are legitimate depending on which game we're talking about.

What I was trying to get across is that even in cases where the game is easy to obtain and reasonably priced, most people would just pirate it anyway. So the cases where piracy is justified aren't very important, although they do reinforce the tendency for people to justify their piracy in other cases. What is important is whether the business model of B2P is viable, and my argument is that it isn't viable.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

I'm not entirely certain whether hentai games actually DO get pirated more often than other video games. Of course, there aren't any reliable number on piracy(how could there be?), but what numbers there are seem to usually be around 90%. And if you look at this forum to see the rates of piracy on hentai games, the forum culture we have here is rather biased towards it, so obviously you're going to see more incidents of admitted piracy than you usually would.

 

[Lord Arioch]

Re: Discussion - why I think hentai games often get pirated and potential solution

The delayed free version we see on most patreon supported H games kinda works but I think the only thing keeping it working is the unspoken agreement this community has to not pirate games made by devs within the community. It probably can't last if the community grows large enough.

I dunno, I think most people contributing to games with staged releases are doing so because they want the game to be made, and the 2-4 week early thing is just an added bonus. Look at Akubar, Gold was uploaded to torrents sites about ten minutes after he posted it to his patrons, but it didn't really hurt him.