What do you think should be in a commercial VN?

[Itwasneveradream]

So, it's always been my dream to create a commercial VN, so I just wanted to know, what do you think should be in a commercial VN?

[DaFool]

A commercial VN is probably one that I will never make, the rate I'm going. Even if I pour money and hire professionals, for some reason I always end up making something like Barkley Shut Up and Jam or Envirobear 2000, and those are actually good. It's like I'm Uwe Boll and no matter how much German taxpayer money is thrown my way I end up making shit.
(Anyways that was my rant since I keep on looking at my Nano13 project and going "Why the hell am I even making this?".)

We have some great artists and writers here and could probably bankroll (typical kickstarter ~2000-5000 USD) some of them but I'm back in debt after bankrolling some failed experiments.

Oh yeah, a commercial VN will stress out the artists a lot. People expect 100CGs or something. That's why I'm not making VNs anymore... I'm just using Ren'Py to make python gameplay things.

[Nuxill]

A commercial project doesn't automatically NEED anything, but in order to have people consider buying your product it should be good quality. Polished art, snappy music, interesting characters, solid writing, and if there's any gameplay elements they should feel fun to play. You don't need to have all of those things to create a hit (especially for free games, since most people are willing to overlook a few things for something they didn't have to pay for) but in order to get more $$$ you'll probably want to have every part of the VN be as high quality as you can muster.

[Omnificent]

I think the best way to know what to include in any VN is to finish a free one first.

If you have a finished, free VN, then anyone can download it and give you feedback on it. You'll also have the experience under your belt to know what you're getting into, how long the development process is, what might need fine-tuning or improvement for the next time, and how much work it takes to bring a project to completion. If people like it enough they might even be willing to lend you support for your future works.

It's also good to examine why you want to make a commercial VN as opposed to a free one. If it's to make a career as an indie game developer, just keep in mind that it's not going to happen overnight. Even if you pour every waking hour into your work, expect it to take somewhere in the ballpark of 2-3 years minimum to gain recognition. And recognition's not a sure thing even then. In the end, you have to dedicate yourself as much as you can to it because it's what you want to do, without expectation of reward.