So who here is making a commercial game?

[sno-dove]

I rather play a game that's commercial than something that's free. I think people who say they rather play free games are either cheap or bias since they're part of the lemma soft forum.

Play Ori, Ochi, Onoe. Then tell me if free games = bad.

Play Fate/Stay Night then tell me that commercial games usually don't do better. How many fanart are there for Ori,Ochi,Onoe, compared to Fate.
You named two games that did well as compared to tons of successful commercial games that have tons of rabid fanboy and fangirls.

It's like being a manga artist. They don't work for free. If they could, they would. They need to pay their staff. It's called earning a living. There's no such thing in life as free. Everything has a price.

BTW, I didn't mean to offend you ShiraiJunichi. But let's be honest, if commercial games were free and free games was the other way around, you would say the commercial game would be better.

[Enerccio]

I rather play a game that's commercial than something that's free. I think people who say they rather play free games are either cheap or bias since they're part of the lemma soft forum.

Play Ori, Ochi, Onoe. Then tell me if free games = bad.

Play Fate/Stay Night then tell me that commercial games usually don't do better. How many fanart are there for Ori,Ochi,Onoe, compared to Fate.
You named two games that did well as compared to tons of successful commercial games that have tons of rabid fanboy and fangirls.

It's like being a manga artist. They don't work for free. If they could, they would. They need to pay their staff. It's called earning a living. There's no such thing in life as free. Everything has a price.

BTW, I didn't mean to offend you ShiraiJunichi. But let's be honest, if commercial games were free and free games was the other way around, you would say the commercial game would be better.

All games can be free, when food, housing, rents, cars, fuel and other this will be free. And that is only in Utopie...

[monele]

There's no such thing in life as free. Everything has a price.

This can be kept true if you consider "effort" as a price the author pays, but other than this, you can see, here, that there are games... free games... Anyone can get them. The author pays the price(effort) of making them and distributing them (server costs for our dear hosts). The price paid in return is not taking the form of money but that of comments. Knowing that someone liked what you did is usually enough "payment".

You named two games that did well as compared to tons of successful commercial games that have tons of rabid fanboy and fangirls.

Our games lack exposure. Because we're hobbyists not making advertisement, because we're not japanese people making japanese games (rabbid fans aren't rabbid because they have to pay).

Fate/Stay Night is not popular because of its price... it's popular because it has a well written story with great characters and a neat gameplay concept. All of these only requiring a good author/game designer. That's the core of the game. That's what makes Fate/Stay Night a game that will stay in people's memories.
What they did, then, is have a good artist to back all this up. This ensured that people would look at their product and keep looking after the first glance because it was pretty. It's shallow, but it's how things work. Now, if you keep looking but realize there's nothing inside the pretty shell, you won't remember it for a long time. Just look at all those First Person Shooter games : they're all prettier and prettier thanks to money poured into them... but only a select few stand out... and it's because they added new interesting gameplay elements. Why do we still talk about Doom and Quake? They're ugly now, but they still have the core that made them famous and fun.

I think you need to understand this if you want to make a successful commercial game. Know what your strengths are and how to use them.
Also, realize that you're asking for people to participate on these very forums... people who have probably already worked for free on some projects. Do you think they'll suddenly be better at what they do because they're paid? ô_o... So don't diss their work just because it's been released for free.

[DaFool]

I'm not sure why you'd make physical proximity rather than money/time the kill factor. Most indies work with contractors for art/music, not in-house. Part of the skillset of the professional artist is being able to understand what the client wants. (Of course, it's the client's responsibility to pick someone suitable for the position in the first place.)

I guess there is this optimal scale where you can just subcontract without seeing your subcontractor personally. But in my experience one usually sends someone from your own company to supervise them in their own office to make sure they don't mess up.

I rather play a game that's commercial than something that's free. I think people who say they rather play free games are either cheap or bias since they're part of the lemma soft forum.
...
Play Fate/Stay Night then tell me that commercial games usually don't do better. How many fanart are there for Ori,Ochi,Onoe, compared to Fate.
You named two games that did well as compared to tons of successful commercial games that have tons of rabid fanboy and fangirls.

It's the small market. The visual novels are already the most otaku-centric niche market in Japan. Visual novels besides text adventures barely exist outside. In Japan you have to sell the things for up to 80 bucks a pop. The reason many westerners get to play them is because of bittorrent.

Then you only have a few visual novels getting translated into English. Then you have even fewer English-speakers inspired to make their own visual novels. I won't be surprised if the number of English visual novel projects is less than 1000, and even the active announced projects are less than 100.

The commercial issue is one in which one realizes that the amount of effort to put into the work takes up more than ones day job / studies, so then it makes sense to earn a living from it.

Sometimes, with commercial you have to hold back stories a bit for a wider audience to accept, that can be a problem for creators who wish to express their games their way.

Yep, so that's why some here have decided to go all out (not just in ecchi but in themes), it's going to be free anyway.

It's like being a manga artist. They don't work for free. If they could, they would. They need to pay their staff. It's called earning a living. There's no such thing in life as free. Everything has a price.

But we here are like "Rising Stars of Manga" competitors. We don't have contracts yet with a publisher to help us pay the bills. Because there isn't even a publisher for visual novels quite like Tokyopop, and even it is derided for releasing OEL stuff. Also remember the relative markets (size of audience):

Manga Market >> Anime Market >> Visual Novel market

But I like the Lemmasoft free game community because it has pushed me to discover and exercise talents I didn't know I had...like scripting in python, intensive photoshopping, even music composing. It's bias towards freeware games comes with the requirements that it needs to have open-source / creative commons resources. If you don't want to be using the same stuff anyone else is using, then you just make your own. And that's the beauty of it.

I hope I'm not coming off as too harsh. You have talent, and your screen name is familiar, maybe coming from other forums focused on art or visual novels. But spending time discussing on this forums with veteran gamemakers and first-timers and absorbing what they have to say, I tend to become a little jaded also.

[sno-dove]

There's no such thing in life as free. Everything has a price.

This can be kept true if you consider "effort" as a price the author pays, but other than this, you can see, here, that there are games... free games... Anyone can get them. The author pays the price(effort) of making them and distributing them (server costs for our dear hosts). The price paid in return is not taking the form of money but that of comments. Knowing that someone liked what you did is usually enough "payment".

You named two games that did well as compared to tons of successful commercial games that have tons of rabid fanboy and fangirls.

Our games lack exposure. Because we're hobbyists not making advertisement, because we're not japanese people making japanese games (rabbid fans aren't rabbid because they have to pay).

Fate/Stay Night is not popular because of its price... it's popular because it has a well written story with great characters and a neat gameplay concept. All of these only requiring a good author/game designer. That's the core of the game. That's what makes Fate/Stay Night a game that will stay in people's memories.
What they did, then, is have a good artist to back all this up. This ensured that people would look at their product and keep looking after the first glance because it was pretty. It's shallow, but it's how things work. Now, if you keep looking but realize there's nothing inside the pretty shell, you won't remember it for a long time. Just look at all those First Person Shooter games : they're all prettier and prettier thanks to money poured into them... but only a select few stand out... and it's because they added new interesting gameplay elements. Why do we still talk about Doom and Quake? They're ugly now, but they still have the core that made them famous and fun.

I think you need to understand this if you want to make a successful commercial game. Know what your strengths are and how to use them.
Also, realize that you're asking for people to participate on these very forums... people who have probably already worked for free on some projects. Do you think they'll suddenly be better at what they do because they're paid? ô_o... So don't diss their work just because it's been released for free.

Post your game in 4chan and get an honest feedback. Seriously, you live in a bubble . I'm not dissing anyone. It's my honest opinion. I respect you guys since you're doing this in your free time and introducing Visual Novels to the world but try to advertise in 4chan and they're probably say something like "fail" or "GTFO". Renpy games has no love there.

Money motivates people to make the game better. The ones that actual have skills. They can quit their job and concentrate on making their game. But I'm not suggesting anyone to do that.

It's like if your good at drawing and your friend asked you to draw something and you do. What if though he/she paid you a large amount of cash? The quality would be better But if you suck at drawing, no amount of money would make the quality of the art great.

Fate stay/night became popular because of the writer but also the quality.
Quality as in professional staff were paid.

Like I said, it takes money to make a great game and you using Fate as an example proves my point.

[Jake]

Post your game in 4chan and get an honest feedback. Seriously, you live in a bubble . I'm not dissing anyone. It's my honest opinion. I respect you guys since you're doing this in your free time and introducing Visual Novels to the world but try to advertise in 4chan and they're probably say something like "fail" or "GTFO". Renpy games has no love there.

I think Monele covered this one already -

because we're not japanese people making japanese games (rabbid fans aren't rabbid because they have to pay).

We're still talking about the same 4chan who thinks all American manga-style art is crap just because it isn't Japanese, right? The same 4chan who collectively seem to think that "NO U" or whatever drivel they're pushing these days is the height of comedy?

If you want honest feedback, find some gaming journalist with some integrity and ask them to look at your game. Asking 4chan for an objective opinion on English-language versions of media which originated in Japan is like trying to hold an objective discussion on gun control at an NRA rally. You might get a couple of guys who can put forward reasonable arguments in favour of their position, but fundamentally pretty much everybody there has already made their mind up on the issue and isn't going to listen to any opposition.

Money motivates people to make the game better.

Money typically actually motivates people to make the game more popular. Has money motivated Hollywood to produce fine literary stories with complex plots and deep, involved characters? No, money has motivated Hollywood to produce shallow glitzy tripe which appeals to the lowest common denominator, from Die Hard 15 to Matrix Revolutions.

It's like if your good at drawing and your friend asked you to draw something and you do. What if though he/she paid you a large amount of cash? The quality would be better

Speak for yourself - some of us have some integrity. Frankly, I'm most likely to cut corners if I'm working under a tight deadline, which is far more likely to happen on a commercial project. I write better code, on average, when I'm at home coding for myself or my friends for free than when I'm at work getting paid to do it with all the constraints that come with that.

Fate stay/night became popular because of the writer but also the quality.
Quality as in professional staff were paid.

Like I said, it takes money to make a great game and you using Fate as an example proves my point.

OK, leaving aside your inadequate understanding of the concept of 'proof', really it seems to me that your belief stems from the belief that people cannot do good work unless they are being paid for it. There are so many counter-examples to this that it seems ridiculous to even try and suggest it - are you telling us that the only people on DeviantArt who are producing decent art are the ones being paid for it? That high-quality videogame mods like Counter-Strike or Desert Combat - both of which were unpaid fan works for ages before going pro one way or another - only exist because of some prescient undrestanding that in the future their work then would earn them money? That high-quality open-source software only ever comes out of corporate interest? Who paid for the original BSD TCP/IP code which got everywhere? Who paid who for GCC?


I don't play a large number of Japanese VNs, but I get the distinct impression that Fate/Etc. is the exception rather than the rule; wasn't it produced by a small independent company who was contentedly releasing small independent games when they got lucky with one release and found they suddenly had the money to go over-the-top on production of their next title? Smalltime/indie developers don't need to pander to the mainstream because their market is necessarily not the mainstream, which means they're more likely to make quality games rather than populist drek. Because they're not so dependent on huge profits, not despite it.

[monele]

As Jake said, since when has 4chan been ruling over the opinions of people? Actually, given the overall level of 4chan, I'd rather go for things they shun than things they acclaim. 4chan likes eyecandy, not depth (to the 4channers out there, I know not *all* 4chan is like that, thankfully ^^).

Money is just something (most) people happen to need to survive. It's not a 1:1, give:receive ratio formula. In my job (programmer), I'm paid at the end of the month the same, whatever I do (as long as I do what I'm asked of course). Does this mean I work exactly the same way all the time? Nope. Some projects will be more interesting, others less. Some clients will prove genuine interest in what we do and make us more motivated. I do my job because of the money, yes... I do my job *well* because of my motivation.
If I didn't *need* the money and didn't get any I would do it the same (I admit I might bitch more about bad clients though).
Depending on the person, money will be part of the motivation. Some people have a 100% money motivation and would do anything for money... others will need something else.
And about quitting a job to take the one of making games... I've personally avoided that. While I'd take a lot more pleasure working in art or game making, I also know that *working* in a domain means you get less and less to say about what you work on. Either because you work for someone, or because the market/clients decide in the end. When it comes to programming web applications, I don't care much. When it comes to anything artistic, I think it's an inspiration killer.

It's like if your good at drawing and your friend asked you to draw something and you do. What if though he/she paid you a large amount of cash? The quality would be better But if you suck at drawing, no amount of money would make the quality of the art great.

If it's a friend, no amount of money should change the quality. Maybe it's just me but I'd do better at doing something I want to do for a friend than something I don't really want to do for some client, money involved or not.

Has money motivated Hollywood to produce fine literary stories with complex plots and deep, involved characters?

As Jake says, Hollywood is a good proof of what too much money can do. The current video game market is one too. Instead of doing things they want, the authors are forced to do things the clients want. Hence why we get clones after clones with almost nothing new to chew on. It's prettier. That's it. Quake 3 is still Quake... Half Life 3 will still be Half-Life... Command & Conquer 3 is still Command & Conquer. Etc...
There's no risk anymore. Something works? Let's make more of it until people choke on it. Original games and movies are becoming rare.

If you want something fresh, you'll have to go underground. Hollywood's money is actually invested in unknown authors (or so I've heard) in hope of getting something new. Basically, the main Hollywood generates sure-hit money while it's invested into risky attempts. One of these attempts will work and make a huge hit... probably be cloned for some time, generating money for the next new thing. It's a bit mechanical, but at least it does not forget about the amateurish core.


About Fate and Type Moon... if I'm not mistaken, they were first a small doujin game making group which became successful with Tsukihime which is still said to be not so well done in graphical terms. But it was well written and has a deep plot. After that, Fate/Stay Night came up, with the same core quality but with added graphical quality since money was there.
(again, that's how I understood it, I might be wrong)


In any case, I don't mind commercial games since I still buy a lot of them (yes, even those darn clones), but I'm a bit scared (empathically so) that you think money will make everything better. Putting a price on a game makes it commercial, all right... but it doesn't make it professional and popular.
I was reassured seeing you were going for a $10 price which is quite acceptable. But you'll still have to go through the same things as if you made it free (deal with a team and so on), yet, might make people expect something.
If I play something for free and it's not great, well... too bad. I might have lost of a few minutes or hours of my life, but hey, at least I didn't pay to lose them. Now if I have to pay for it, it better be good. Even the simple *fact* I'll have to pay, even if it's $1, will make things different. Instead of appreciating the game for its core value, the price will always be there, influencing. If your game costs $50, I'll expect quite something. If it costs $10 I won't expect much but I might also think it's not worse my time if it was deemed only $10 worth. Money makes things complicated in that regard :/.
If a game is free, I'll enjoy it for what it is, for what's there... and I won't be comparing it to the amount I paid.

[ShiraiJunichi]

*grabs fire extinguisher* Ummm... There's no reason to attack someone just because you disagree.

BTW, I didn't mean to offend you ShiraiJunichi. But let's be honest, if commercial games were free and free games was the other way around, you would say the commercial game would be better.

I don't believe I ever said that I prefer free games over commercial games. I said that it doesn't matter. You play the game and if you like it, then to you it's good. Whether or not millions of other people play the same game isn't important. Whether or not you had to pay to get it isn't important.

I rather play a game that's commercial than something that's free. I think people who say they rather play free games are either cheap or bias since they're part of the lemma soft forum.

I think the problem with this statement is that it's too absolute. To me, it says that any commercial game is better than any free game. Or, perhaps more blatantly, all free games are worse than the worst commercial game. I disagree with this. And I think this interpretation of what you're saying is the reason why not a single person has agreed with you.
Now, had you said, "In general, I think commercial games are better than free ones", I probably would've agreed with you, and others might have as well. Had you gone even farther and said "In general, I think commercial games have a higher production value than free ones", probably even more would've agreed. In fact, I don't know if a single person here would refute that last statement. But production value is only an indication of quality- it doesn't guarentee it. And some people (surprised mikey hasn't said anything) appreciate the short comings of low-budget (or no budget ^_^ )projects.

You probably didn't mean to offend anyone, but I think you did. "I don't want to play your game- it can't be any good because it's not produced by a big company"- that's quite discouraging for someone who's sacrificing their time and energy to work on their project. And it's compounded with the fact that it was posted on the same forums that are meant to help and encourage game makers. OELVNs are a very small niche market- and we all understand that the majority of people won't be interested in playing our games. So I'm not really offended if the 4chan community says that games produced here are crap. But when the same sentiments appear to be coming from within our own community- well, it's bad for morale.

[DaFool]

It's like if your good at drawing and your friend asked you to draw something and you do. What if though he/she paid you a large amount of cash? The quality would be better But if you suck at drawing, no amount of money would make the quality of the art great.

I don't know, but the feeling I get from this statement is that if you're already good, money makes you better, but if you're not good, you suck anyway so don't even bother.

It reminds me of one of my bigger regrets in life, not applying to art school. All along I had the impression that there were these untouchable masters of craft that can let you in or strike you down on something so subjective as art, without giving you a chance to at least improve the technical aspects of your skills.

That's why I went instead into engineering, the objective nature of the field meant that usually the amount of success you get is proportional to how much butt-busting one does.

Now, as to free games, the completion rate is still pretty low. We barely even know the completion rate of OEL commercial games (Is it just Hanakogames?) It's a bit easier now because of more resources and the popularity of microgames, but it's still tough.

I would rather challenge myself to see if I can make a reasonable-length free game of near-commercial quality (this doesn't always mean quality in terms of only production values). If I can't make one in my free time, why should a promise of profit be enough motivation to consider the possibility of making a living out of it?

In all honesty, I'd love to do something like what Hanakogames is doing. But I'm living in a country where 99% of software is pirated, customs officials are assholes, majority of pc users use internet cafes, and using a credit card is more hassle than its worth. So if one can't be an online customer, how can one be a distributor (of downloadable or shippable products)? And where else would you sell these games...conventions?

I might get a chance to prove this wrong though...while I am critical to operations, the company might actually be gone in a year or two, so I might get time to actually do commercial work.

But as for now, I am doing the best I can to make the best free game I can do, and it's not because I want to impress 4chan nor even visualnews. I don't care about those markets anymore precisely because of their attitudes, whereas if I were commercial I'll really need to pander to get those sales, as they (including hongfire) are the biggest visual news 'customers'.

[mikey]

I use the example of a badly baked cookie prepared for you by someone who likes you. It may be objectively bad, even burned in some parts, but then when you filter out the edible bits, it starts to taste like nothing else. It's hard to explain if you don't know a similar situation, but maybe when your first game is completed and the first idea you really care about is materialized, you'll be able to see the point of the long responses of the people above.

[Rika-chan]

sno-dove, are you a troll? Because you're acting like it. It's rude to come to a hobby forum, then tell us that our hobby is worthless because we don't charge money for our games. So, you insult us, and in another thread, ask for help for your commercial game. The mind boggles.

[PyTom]

I'll also point out that there was some vandalism (in this vein) by an anonymous IP on the Ren'Py wiki. It was reverted by a good samaratin. If people could keep an eye on the wiki while I'm travelling, I'd appreciate it.

[lordcloudx]

lol well I don't think anyone is going to change anyone else's mind here (especially if it was already made up in the first place). So let's quit with the personal attacks.

I personally disagree with sno-dove as well, but voicing out my opinion here seems totally pointless so I'll leave it at that. You know what they say about people who are brutally honest...

btw, about Pytom's last post: (that's just plain immature GTFO whoever did that.)

I use the example of a badly baked cookie prepared for you by someone who likes you. It may be objectively bad, even burned in some parts, but then when you filter out the edible bits, it starts to taste like nothing else. It's hard to explain if you don't know a similar situation, but maybe when your first game is completed and the first idea you really care about is materialized, you'll be able to see the point of the long responses of the people above.

for the sentimentalists, I believe what mikey is saying here is heart. Commercial games will never have the heart that the ugliest looking free game could offer. It's like a crayon drawing of a flower done by a four year old for his sick grandmother compared to a building plan drawn by an architect or engineer for a proposed building.

[PyTom]

I don't think it's necessary to try to distinguish between commercial and non-commercial games. There are good commercial games (Ever17, Kana, Hourglass of Sumer, Private Nurse, etc.), and bad commercial games (X-Change, X-Change 2, Doushin, etc.) Similarly, there are good and bad free games.

I'm odd in the way I subjectively evaluate games. I sort of do it by a quality / (time + cost) metric... I'm more willing to overlook flaws in short, cheap games then long, expensive ones. If I'm going to invest large amounts of time and treasure in a game, it had better be really good.

I look forward to the day when people stop lumping OELVNs together, and realize that as a community we're united by medium and little else. VNs should be judged independantly, like one would judge other creative works. I don't go around saying "The Incredible Hulk" sucked, therefore I should stop watching American movies.

I think we're slowing getting there, as occasionally I see blog posts like: "I know all OELVNs suck, but I played xxxxx and really liked it." I'm hoping this sort of thing attracts new creators, who create more games, attracting more creators... in a virtuous cycle. I think the bigger the pool of talent, the more good games we'll get. (The more bad games we'll get, too... but Sturgeons' law applies here. I'd rather have 100 good games and 500 bad games, then 2 good games and 1 bad one.)

I'm wary of the semi-commercial model, where people do not get paid until some indeterminate time in the future. (The "share of the profits" model.) The big benefit of the commerical model is that artists are paid for their work, and therefore can devote time to it that they'd otherwise have to devote to making money. The semi-commercial model increases game cost without the commensurate increase in game quality.

Finally, there are rewards other than money. I make Ren'Py because I find it interesting, because I like the medium, and because I get something of an ego boost from seeing something I made used by dozens of creaters, and tens of thousands of end users. I see Ren'Py as a hobby. I actually spend quite a bit of money on it, but I think it's worthwhile in order to be able to see what people create.

[F.I.A]

Wow, just after I went away for around 2 days, such thing sprouted out....

:clears his throat:

Money does not really mean everything about games we like. Sure, I like Kanon for example, but try and convince me to buy a commercial yaruge.

FSN vs O3? You know what drives those fanart productions? The existence of fans the who love it. Not because it is a commercial game.

Want some examples?

Try Simgirls. While Simgirls is if anything, the sim dating game based on DNA, it got a group of fans who love it and devote their free time for the fanarts, and sometimes for coding for the game.

Another example will be a non-game, that is Megatokyo. Sure, the whole merchandizes it has need to be paid, but what about the real meat(The comic, duh)? It's free as long as you got a bearable modem to download them. Oh yea, as if it does not have enough :cough: rabid :cough: fans as Final Fantasy.

As for no fan works for OELs over here? Okay, this game is not a fanwork over Ren'py. And these comic strips[Warning: Shameless plug] is not a fanwork. True, I don't have an 03 fanstrips yet, so sue me, Mikey(And give me some inspiration for a laugh subject on O3).

I am never a 4chan frequenter, but as far as I can see, most of them are worse than generic NG, DA or MT junkies. You do not need to force your idea(the game) on a crowd which never welcomes such thing.

If anything, I think most members will agree that we make games not for the popularity factor or to go commercial or something later on. Me? I make only to tell stories.