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I always wondered as a reader of visual novels, how can the reader best support the visual novel creators? Is there a huge difference between support for free and commercial visual novel makers? As a reader, I'd like to know what the community thinks is best.

On a personal side note: if a commercial visual novel maker could inform me the best way to support them (i.e, would buying from their site or an affiliate site differ in any way), I'd really like to know. Since I always spend a lot on visual novels, I'd like for the money to go to the creator instead of some secondary party ^-^.

Confession: the personal side note is my main purpose of making this thread. But I'd like to know how to be a supportive member of the community as well

Well, you can always donate money.
But the obvious aside, probably the best and easiest thing you can do if you really like a visual novel is recommend it to someone else. The more people know about it, the more people will buy it (and subsequent works). If you're an artist, you can make fan art. People will see the characters and get curious. If you have a blog, write a review. If a creator advertises his own work, that's one thing, but when fans start popping up and gushing about it, that is quite another.

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If you buy a game from an affiliate site, generally the money is split between the creator and the affiliate. This rewards the affiliate for having taken the time and effort to advertise the game to you. If you buy directly from the creator's site it will probably give a larger share to the developer, but if you were linked to the creator's site from an affiliate site that affiliate may still get the credit and get a share of the profits because of cookies being set.

We wouldn't offer affiliate relationships if we didn't want our affiliates getting any benefit.

In general the best way to support most creators is to help spread the word to people who've never heard of them before. There's lots of people out there who have no idea what VNs are, and others who do but have never tried ParticularGameX.

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The easiest and most obvious way to support (commercial) creators is to buy their products. After that you also can spread the word about them, from mouth-to-mouth advertisement (or post-to-post, email-to-email, whatever), writing a review and post it on-line, and so on. I know lots of obscure interesting games made by Indie creator from small reviews by a local newspaper.

At least you could also post encouraging post in their forum or directly to the creator. I think everyone would feel accomplished when they're being praised by others for the work they did.

To support free creators, it's more or less the same (instead of buying, you could donate... or buy something for them).

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For free developers, I think the best way to support our work is to write in depth feedback.

Well, we'd be happy if the feedback is positive, but hearing your honest impression of the work is the most important. We're making works to leave an impression on the reader. Feedback which is very in-depth, which raises beyond the level of just a pat on the head or a "I didn't like it," would definitely be encouraging.

Good feedback is your subjective opinion backed by objective reasons. Simple feedback is either subjective opinions backed by subjective opinions, or objective opinions backed by objective reasons. The former is just an emotional reaction the story elicited in you, and the latter means you're not grasping the emotive meaning of the work. What's best for a creator though are the reasons, which are common and understandable to most people, why you felt someway about a work.

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If you maintain a website or blog, writing an article about a VN is a wise choice. And if you're a member of active forums (especially ones where content does not vanish within a day or two), then be sure to write about a VN. It will benefit everyone if your writing is concise and coherent.

Provide private feedback where it's appropriate, and public feedback where it's appropriate. In other words, if you have general comments, praise, and criticism, then post it in relevant places where everyone can see it. But if you have personal questions for the creators, then you should ask through email or private messages.

Rude, uninformed, and irrelevant feedback does not help anyone. It draws ire, and does not improve your reputation.

If you are buying a retail game, then you should strive to do so in the first two weeks of its release. By the time a game is being discounted, the publisher is probably trying to cut its losses.

It's always good if the first few search engine results are relevant and useful. Therefore, you want to provide content which search engines will find and appreciate. ...I say this because I remember doing a web search for the indie game Fading Hearts not that long after it was released. Three or four of the top results were genuine. But I was surprised to see unauthorized download sites on page one, and irrelevant results on page two. Fortunately, when I searched for Fading Hearts today, the results had improved substantially.

Thank you for asking.

For free games, like Samu-kun said, in-depth feedback is most appreciated, even if it's not all positive. Unlike commercial games, nothing is gained at all when a freeware game is never completed, while a lot of time and effort is lost for nothing. For unfinished commercial games, at least the artist or musician have food to put on their table.

Commercial games can be vindicated by sales numbers, even if hardly anybody talks about the game, it will still please the creator. While download numbers might give an indication for freeware games, the creator made the free game to spread a concept, story, or idea, and it would be a shame if nobody reacted to it.

I am however against donations for freeware games, since those games often have off-the-shelf CC-licensed assets where the original creators were not compensated. It's not good to just give the money to people who put them together*

*granted, the whole is often more than the sum of the parts.

Yes I think spreading the word (if you liked the games) is one of the best ways (I think for both commercial/free ones).
Also starting a blog to review games is a nice way, since many people could be interested in trying a game demo if they see a good review (by good I mean unbiased, not necessarily positive).

About where you buy the games: if you buy from other affiliate indies, it's good Karma since you help indies anyway. I'd say the only case is when you buy from a portal, since in that case the author doesn't get much out of it (really small % of the money, no customer email to add to his newsletter, and in many cases you don't even know who made the game since portals ask to remove the logo/links). Luckily, at least for now, VNs aren't popular on portals

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There is a small difference for the creator and a huge difference for the affiliate site. If creators wouldn't want you to support the affiliates, why would they sign up for an affiliate program in the first place?

I think that having an affiliate site, like a VN review blog, is one of the best ways to support creators. Of course not every affiliate site deserves support. With spammy looking sites, auto-blogs and similar crap that doesn't offer any value, you may want to think twice, if you want to give your support to them.

I'm building a VN review blog. I'm willing to dedicate time and effort to produce quality content. But, if the readers will not buy at least 1-2 products a month - using my affiliate links, I'll be forced to abandon my blog. Not only because, I expect my blog to earn $1-$2 monthly, which will cover the basic costs (domain name and hosting), but also because I have no way to see, that my support to the creators is working at all (bringing them sales).

If you buy from an affiliate site, instead of directly, you are supporting the creator in the long run much more, because you are also keeping alive a site, that may potentially bring much more sales to the creator.

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