Is it worth it creating otome games?

[NemiGal]

Greetings!
I am curious about the indie otome games developers!
i have a few questions if you have time to answer that would be awesome!

☼If you are planning to go commercial in an otome visual novel, is it worth all the hard work?
because i see a lot of otome games getting pirated. (from otomate and some who were indies, i think i saw one once while searching the web, but i don't remember the names.)

☼Is there people who buy indie otome games?
or is that all the audience for those games is too young and does not have money to pay for them?

☼For the indie developers, do they really earn money creating those?

☼so what do you think? ☼ is it worth it going commercial for an otome visual novel?
☼or should they just go free because they will get pirated anyway?

and also!
☼why did you choose to create a visual novel and no a comic?

Thanks for reading!

[runeraccoon]

I don't know if I'm qualified to answer here, because as a creator, right now I'm more interested in making a comic instead of visual novel. However, once upon a time (haha) it was the opposite. As an storyteller, I imagine it's easier to build a library of images for VN to convey a more massive story instead of taking the time to draw each and every scene. It went in the opposite direction because, personally, I feel that drawing comic and adding that screentime of drawing is more beneficial to my skills as an artist as well as honing my storytelling before delving into the real deal.

That's for your extra question. As for the real question, short answer is yes.

That's from me as a customer.

As unethical as it is, I have no problem in playing pirated games in the past from big companies in Japan. My excuse is that I'm not part of their intended market since they never translate them, and they should have earn enough from others. Perhaps things will be different as I can earn my own money now, and big IF I actually live in Japan, since then I feel that the money I spend will go directly to the creators (or voice actors!) that I love.

That kind of distance is what I think makes people want to support indie creators. When the creator is someone I know in the forum, someone I can reach out to in social media, I feel the urge to support them instead with the ways that I can. I imagine a lot of people think the same, as many titles have been successfully funded in Kickstarter and more creators getting monthly support in Patreon. Those are for VN in general and not otome games in specific, though there are several otome games/their creators included in the things I've stumbled onto.

However, not everyone is as successful as they'd like to be. You can get money from it, enough to cover the expenses if you go to Kickstarter route (and successful campaign out of it), but I imagine it's not about getting rich from it. Maybe others who truly develop the indie otome games can give more insight here.

If anything, it's not about younger demography. If you can make something that's really sought out, they will ask their parents to buy from you. If there's anything I learn in deviantart, is that the younger ones are usually the ones with deeper pockets as long as they meet the thing they really want to. Older people tends to look for things with more value and depth instead of decorative ones they can buy on a whim.

[Scribbles]

I think it's worth all the work, but I can't answer that for you. The game I have out right now has been purchased AND pirated, but having earned money from it allows me to move forward and create more projects.

I love otome as a concept, I started making games because I never seemed to come across any that appealed to me 'enough'. I don't care a ton for the translated ones because they do tend to be for a younger audience. I like oelvn's but they are harder to find in that 'niche' that I personally look for. I want a mature story, with grown up characters, and lots of romance. I'm over 30, a 16 or even 18 year old protagonist makes me think of children. (bc I am old).

But I love love, I love romance, I adore the concept of interactive novels with beautiful artwork and other features that comics/prose can't have. I adore video games and combining it all together is just wonderful.

People have bought my game Pinewood Island, and I really hope they buy As We Know It. I know people have pirated Pinewood island, and I expect that people will pirate any game I put out.

But the artists I work with deserve to get paid. The music composers I've commissioned deserve to get paid. People deserve to be paid for their creative work.

They need it to buy food, pay rent, and survive. So I won't condone piracy, or just 'put my game out for free b/c it'll be stolen anyway' because the money I make helps me and anyone I pay do something we love and have passion for.

It's a lot of work, more work that I realized going into it- but I don't care. It's what I want to do. I want to make romantic games for the older romance fans out there. I want to make mature, well thought-out visual novels for people to play and read. I want to create characters that people fall absolutely in love with. And I hope other people will want to do the same so I have more awesome games to play!

Games I love that are similar to what I'd like to make and other people should check out by purchasing with money:
Demonheart
Along the edge
Cinders

more oelvn otome games worth -buying-:
XOXO Droplets
Backstage Pass
Hustle Cat
Seduce me, and it's sequel
Cinderella Phenomenon
RE: Alistair++
Nachtigal
Mizari Loves Company (when it comes out)
Pinewood island (uhh..... shameless plug sorry)

and there are millions more!!! but I'm still a bit new to the VN world and there are probably a ton I'm forgetting about because I've only had 1 cup of coffee today.

also a ton of bxb games totally worth playing too (Let's Meat Adam, Coming out on top, Dream Daddy)

if you can't purchase someone's game, (lots of ppl have sales btw) you can support them by liking/sharing their content, giving reviews when you play (like a free demo or if you can buy a game), telling your friends, telling them you like their work -- this really goes for just about any creative field out there too

[NemiGal]

snip

Oh yeah! the demonheart i bought that one because it used to be a nwn module (another community i belong to) the author of that visual novel released that story first as module for that game later on went to visual novel, and i followed because i knew how she writes.


So thats your first otome? if that so arent you afraid that someone may take your game and sell the art assets in some place, or resell your game?
how do you protect yourself against that?

Yeah, piratery sucks but its also the amount of webpages claiming FREE visual novels as their own or dont let know that they did not create it, just promote it, that kind of people is the worst (i have seen this happen to visual novels in other languages, non english.)

I think writing otome is really difficult, because you have to be romantic smexy but not falling in to cheesy annoying zombies. I admit that i cringe a lot with some visual novels, and i simply dont play them even when the art is good if the writing is bad i just cannot stand them (i am a difficult client XD)

so even with piratery you managed to make money? i tought piratery was worst and nobody would purchase enough indie otomes games. Am glad is not the case.

Good luck with the sales on your visual novels! i hope you get lots of sales.

[NemiGal]

snip

Yes thats the good thing about creating a webcomic you have to draw a LOT, the same character in different scenes way more then in a visual novel, art instant level up with webcomics.

I dont understand about kickstarter|indiegogo, do people need to have money to begin a campain or you can be a poor rat and open a kickstarter?

Thanks for the reply!

[Imperf3kt]

I cannot speak for the indie community, but there have been (several) studies conducted that show piracy has the opposite effect on media. Rather than driving the company to bankrupcy, it tends to increase fandom and awareness, which usually results in increased related sales.
So the game may not sell many copies, but the OST sells 4 million copies.

Googling it may prove more explanatory than I can be.
https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2 ... _study.pdf

[runeraccoon]

Yes thats the good thing about creating a webcomic you have to draw a LOT, the same character in different scenes way more then in a visual novel, art instant level up with webcomics.

I dont understand about kickstarter|indiegogo, do people need to have money to begin a campain or you can be a poor rat and open a kickstarter?

Thanks for the reply!

Yes! I sure feel like I've improved a lot since I started doing webcomics. It's not instant, per se, I feel like you have to be aware of what's lacking in your art and actively try to improve it. But yeah, it happened.

The campaign... Basically it means to ask for financial support from people who can pay only play a little, but made up in numbers. I think some people treat it similarly to preordering your game. However, PO is late in the stage of producing your game, whereas the campaign is there to support you early. With PO, you treat the buyers as customers, but with the campaign, you treat them as a community of followers and thus you maintain interaction long after the campaign is done. You follow up the campaign with the progress of your project until it's done, and even after, to gain a number of loyal followers. (At least you should, anyway.)

Money to start the campaign sure will crank it up several notches. The main problem in crowdfunding campaign is your reliability to deliver a product that's worth their money. The more initial fund you have, the more professional team you can hire in your VN project, especially in the early stage.

However, you can be dirt poor if you have quite a reputation or quality, or both. Reputation means you already have several VNs on your arsenal to show to others, even better if those have made you some solid followers. Quality is about the initial skills that you or your non-paid partners have. For packaging the campaign, I'd suggest focusing on the artwork, but for deliverance of the actual product, I'd recommend having a strong, edited, and polished story that will satisfy the customers.

So, the resource you need is either money, or time. For reputation, you need time to build the portfolio. For quality, you need it to build the actual demo that can whet the visitors' appetite.

You mentioned Kickstarter/Indiegogo. It's another crowdfunding website, but unlike the one-time donation that KS provides, it's there to support you in building your project. Sometimes it means supporting you in a long term. Holding your hand along the way, if you will. If you have time, I'd suggest you visit and go around Patreon to see how much can a team/studio who built VNs gain each month from their supporters, and what kind of rewards they give to have people willingly support them as they work on their project.

I think you should go around and visit some podcasts about visual novel in youtube to gain more information about a lot of things in VN, otoge, or selling them, because it goes beyond the things here.

[NemiGal]

@runeraccoon
Yeah, i bet creating a professional looking visual novels must cost lots of money, between paying musicians, good voice actors, and artists.
I see why people created groups for creating visual novels, if friends dont have same interest in creating visual novels that let only the option to team up with random people on the internet, but is also very risky team up with someone you dont know when there is money in the middle.

That reminds me, i saw once some guys on kickstarter i think it was, that in the end they never developed the otome game they promised in their kickstarter, and far as i know not every person who pledged have had a refund. it happen years before they announced that they where not going to developt the game. (personaly i think the game looked bad, the art was generic like from some porn bishojo game)

I did not know there was videos podcast in youtube about visual novels, i am going to take a look at that! Thank you.

[NemiGal]

I cannot speak for the indie community, but there have been (several) studies conducted that show piracy has the opposite effect on media. Rather than driving the company to bankrupcy, it tends to increase fandom and awareness, which usually results in increased related sales.
So the game may not sell many copies, but the OST sells 4 million copies.

Googling it may prove more explanatory than I can be.
https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2 ... _study.pdf

Yeah i can see that for huge companies, but i dont think its good for begginers developers, indies dont sell much as a huge company also i doubt they have the budget to hire a good voice actor to sing characters song or drama cds.

[runeraccoon]

@runeraccoon
Yeah, i bet creating a professional looking visual novels must cost lots of money, between paying musicians, good voice actors, and artists.
I see why people created groups for creating visual novels, if friends dont have same interest in creating visual novels that let only the option to team up with random people on the internet, but is also very risky team up with someone you dont know when there is money in the middle.

That reminds me, i saw once some guys on kickstarter i think it was, that in the end they never developed the otome game they promised in their kickstarter, and far as i know not every person go pledged have had a refund. it happen years before they announced that they where not going to developt the game. (personaly i think the game looked bad, the art was generic like from some porn bishojo game)

I did not know there was videos podcast in youtube about visual novels, i am going to take a look at that! Thank you.

In my last two paragraphs, I was talking about Patreon lmao. Sorry for not being clear in the subject. You should go and take a look around!

Also, when you decide to start building an otome game, definitely post a thread here in lemma, I'll be following the progress ^^

[NemiGal]

@runeraccoon
Yeah, i bet creating a professional looking visual novels must cost lots of money, between paying musicians, good voice actors, and artists.
I see why people created groups for creating visual novels, if friends dont have same interest in creating visual novels that let only the option to team up with random people on the internet, but is also very risky team up with someone you dont know when there is money in the middle.

That reminds me, i saw once some guys on kickstarter i think it was, that in the end they never developed the otome game they promised in their kickstarter, and far as i know not every person go pledged have had a refund. it happen years before they announced that they where not going to developt the game. (personaly i think the game looked bad, the art was generic like from some porn bishojo game)

I did not know there was videos podcast in youtube about visual novels, i am going to take a look at that! Thank you.

In my last two paragraphs, I was talking about Patreon lmao. Sorry for not being clear in the subject. You should go and take a look around!

Also, when you decide to start building an otome game, definitely post a thread here in lemma, I'll be following the progress ^^

Yep, english is not my first language, i bet that's because i didn't understand.
I must decide first if i want to spend so much time on a visual novel first, when i can do other things that may earn me more money
Thanks for the replies!

[milkteebaby]

I might be a little late to this conversation, but as someone who started developing otome games (wow, last month, I started...), I think I have relevant information.
----

☼If you are planning to go commercial in an otome visual novel, is it worth all the hard work?

I think it's worth the hard work. But it's A LOT of hard work. As an ex-romance author(maybe not ex, but just not focusing on writing novels right now), I thought THAT was hard. But comparing to putting a game together, it's almost a cakewalk. It's not easy and I see a lot of castoffs on the side of the proverbial road, the dregs of dead/dying/never fully formed games that people start but give up because it takes too much effort. As someone who's been in the professional industry, though, I'm not likely to give up. When I go into something, I go into it with all my effort. So far, since starting to develop our game PS I LOVE YOU, of which I am writing the script, drawing the lineart for the sprites/CG/promo images, programming, searching for music, etc etc, I can honestly tell you that I am at the computer from 7AM to at least 9-10PM. It's nuts. I've never spent this much time writing before. But strangely enough, I don't think it's awful. I'm having fun and that's the most important thing. If you're doing something you love, which I am, spending godawful amounts of time dedicated to it isn't all that bad.

☼Is there people who buy indie otome games?
or is that all the audience for those games is too young and does not have money to pay for them?

There ARE people who buy indie otome games...like me. Because there's people like me who grew up playing Neo Angelique/Hiiro no Kakera/Pretear and they're now in their 30s with disposable income. But we don't throw our money all willy-nilly. We want good, developed storylines with hot men and sexy art, of which there seems to be somewhat of a lack of in the Western world. (which is why I started making PS I LOVE YOU because I didn't see the games I wanted to buy that were in English)

☼For the indie developers, do they really earn money creating those?

Yes, but it's definitely not like winning the lottery. There's a crapload of work involved and very little reward. But we do it because we love it and most times, that's better than making tons of money but hating what you do.

☼so what do you think? ☼ is it worth it going commercial for an otome visual novel?
☼or should they just go free because they will get pirated anyway?

Pirates. I faced this problem with my books. Sometimes I'd find books of mine that were on file-sharing sites and they weren't even available for purchase. (ARC readers can be quite unscrupulous) Nevertheless, it's a problem that isn't likely to go away and to just stress about it is no good. It's going to happen and the people who are pirating books/games never intended to buy them in the first place because they don't have the money (for the most part). But, I have seen/met people who used to pirate in the past, due to lack of money, but now that they can afford it, they're paying money.

I think I read about an album by...Metallica? (I could be wrong) Anyways, they put their album on file-sharing sites, tracked what country downloaded the album the most, and then went to that country to play in a packed stadium. They made bank Take from that what you will.

and also!
☼why did you choose to create a visual novel and no a comic?

I'm choosing to create a visual novel/otome game because I find it more immersive and enjoyable than a comic.

[milkteebaby]

As a side note, I've already spent over $300 on my current project, and that doesn't include hiring nostraightanswer from Youtube to compose the OP theme.

[milkteebaby]

I must decide first if i want to spend so much time on a visual novel first, when i can do other things that may earn me more money
Thanks for the replies!

You can do other things that WILL earn you more money. Trust me. Designing otome games are a long-term investment. I would be very surprised to find devs who split even/made a profit off their first otoge.

Make games because you love them. Don't make them because you want to make money. You'll only waste your time.

[NemiGal]

I must decide first if i want to spend so much time on a visual novel first, when i can do other things that may earn me more money
Thanks for the replies!

You can do other things that WILL earn you more money. Trust me. Designing otome games are a long-term investment. I would be very surprised to find devs who split even/made a profit off their first otoge.

Make games because you love them. Don't make them because you want to make money. You'll only waste your time.

Agh! too bad that is hard to earn money with otome games, they seem to be fun to create, but the time they consume to to develop is huge.
Well, good to know that i must forget of being able to quit my job to develop a VNs.
Good to know that there is still a space for indie otoges, you know with all those japanese otoges from huge companies, being traslated.

Thanks for the reply!