When should you charge money for a visual novel?

[Mimic Fox]

I've been debating whether or not to charge a small amount, (probably $5) for the visual novel I'm making. The story is about 14 hours with 4 endings.
There seems to be good reasons for and against making it cost money. The most obvious one being, actually getting paid for the work I'm putting in. But I'm also cautious about the paid option because people may not be interested in giving money to an internet stranger with no professional body of work, for a game they may or may not like.

On the other hand, making it free would immediately increase the size of the audience. And despite the fact that I'm not making any money, they may be interested enough to check out whatever I create next.
The main problem I see with this is, honestly it would be kind of difficult to give away hundreds of hours of work for free for the small chance that some of the people who play it would pay for whatever I make next.

Sorry if I came across as money-hungry. I just really want to make a career out of my passions and this is a tough first step.

[fleet]

You don't appear to be money hungry to me.
I don't want to discourage you, but you should be aware that making a career out of being an indie game maker is not going to be easy. If you have a 'day job', keep it.
I assume this is your first visual novel.
You might want to consider issuing a free demo version of the game. Since the story is about 14 hours, the demo could be up to an hour of game play, and would end with a link for the player to purchase the 'full' version.

[gamerbum]

It's imperfect, but there is a middle ground. You could offer a pay-what-you-want model with a link back to the game's main page to donate after the credits/on the title screen. You could also offer paid extras for certain tiers, like a game guide for $1 donated and some other digital extras for $5/$10. You aren't going to make a ton of money off of your game this way, certainly not enough to cover your own hours put into it, but it's something to consider.

On a side note, people will be more willing to pay for visual novels with high-quality artwork especially (it's their first impression of your game, after all). If you're using free/stock assets--ones they recognize as such, anyway--people will be less likely to want to spend money on it. So if you've invested money into artwork/music/other custom assets, I would go with a paid product. If you're using Public Domain/CC0 assets, I would consider a PWYW or free model instead.

[SupersizeMyHeart]

That's not money hungry at all. I don't understand why so many visual novel creators feel obligated to give their work away for free. You wouldn't put time and money into creating a restaurant just to give away free food because you're worried people won't want to give money to a stranger. Making games is a business just like that. If you've put hundreds of hours into creating a well-written, attractive, and most importantly ENJOYABLE product, then you absolutely deserve to charge for it. If people don't think you deserve money for that, then that's fine. There's plenty of people that personally wouldn't pay money to read the stories from any number of famous authors, like Stephen King, because they don't personally value his work. That's fine -- they just don't receive the product in return. It's simple as that.

Charge for your game what you feel is a fair price.

[Critical Deluxe]

Honestly, making your game free might have the opposite effect of attracting more people. There's a TON of free games out there, but most of them are pretty bad, made casually or to test a feature and quickly forgotten under the next wave of free stuff. It's also a real pain finding a free game that's good because the standards are set so low. Seeing a game with a pricetag is like the developer telling me "My game is high quality enough to be sold." Lets me cut through the riff-raff and seek out the people really trying. Attaching a free demo is even better, and you won't have to worry about people taking a chance on you.

Personally, I plan on charging for my VN because it's worth it. I'm spending a lot of time and putting a lot of passion into it to make sure it's a quality product, something I would pay for if I didn't make it. If you want to make money, ask yourself what level of quality you need to get to before you feel comfortable charging for it.

[Ameru4]

You can make demo out of it, for people to tested it and see if the game worth their money or not. You can also upload it on itch.io where people can donate you money whatever they want (for the demo). Is this game already finished by the way?

[vapidrabbit]

While not scientific, I heard some person talk about if you think your product is worth one price, try charging 2.5 times as much and people still could want to buy it. My vote is to charge $12.50. 14 hours of visual novel takes awhile to make, and that price could be acceptable in my opinion especially if you put extra capital into paying artists for artwork.

[hiko27]

Add a demo if you’re worried people might not buy from a “stranger on the internet.” Everyone starts off not having any VN release history. I personally think $5 is a good price (idk about other countries, might be high for them?). Or you can do a pay-what-you-want model. But I feel you really only get money with that model if they love your game enough.

[ichfly]

You can go different routs depending for monetization. IN addition to the models already sad you can go free game but DLC cost --> most of the game is free but ~30 min are behind a paywall. Or some options are behind a paywall like a hat for a certain character (I think that is not a good model for VN but some use it).
You can also use Advertisements in your VN or making pools while developing a game that can only be accessed with money.

[SinaAzad]

I think if you have made your game thinking it is gonna be free, the let it remain free if you want to get money out of it, put artworks and music as purchasable items, having a 30 min paid DLC for a game that is 14hrs long is like an insult IMHO. by doing what I suggested you are not pushing anyone away from your game, paywalls are generally a bad thing but sadly they have become very common. either get a full price for the game, (don't sell it cheap) or make it free with extra content that is not directly related to the game itself.
If I see a VN on steam at 5$ I would think that that's all it is worth, I'd rather buy something around 25$ BCS probably they have put more effort into it, had better artists and in general have produced a higher quality game compared to a game that is asking for 5$. on the other hand if it is free you may think that the reason for the game has been nothing but LOVE, something like katawa shoujo.