Hours of gameplay

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I think the problem with prices is that a Visual Novel developer needs to balance the cost of developing the Visual Novel with the price of selling it; I see artists offering themselves for $5 to $15 per sprite with 3-6 emotions, one outfit and one pose. Selling one Visual Novel would afford one character's basic set of six. If you have multiple characters, CGs, drawn backgrounds, composed music tracks and more besides, you'll find that it's very difficult to earn back your investment through sales alone!

Still - at that math:
8 Chars (1 sprite set each) x $15 = $120
10 Backgrounds x $30 = $300
Music = $400
All together equals $820, or 41 copies sold at $20 before you break even. That isn't a lot of copies to move. Even at $10 a pop, you just have to sell 82 copies to break even.

From a business perspective I don't see how it's that difficult. Especially if you put any time into marketing and promotion. Now, maybe that isn't enough to live off of, but few people can make a living doing nothing but making games. But it certainly should be easy enough to get SOME money out of the deal with a little patience.

Definitely understandable people'd price the VNs high when selling a few at high cost is less risky than selling a bunch at low cost, given the limited (paying) VN audience... and then worry about piracy!

That line of thinking rarely pays off. Raising prices to cover costs almost never works out well in business. Simply put, your competitors doing better business practices than you are going to under-cut your prices and steal your customers. They'll be able to do that because their market plan and budgeting was more sound.

Pizza Hut is actually a great example of a big company discovering that volume works better. Used to, Pizza Hut sold large pizzas for $16. They were making $8 profit per pizza, and 50% of the take was profit. They ran a deal that was originally only going to exist for 30 days - $10 large pizzas. This meant Pizza Hut was only going to make $2 profit per pizza, and only 20% of the take would be profit. But they discovered they did FIVE times as much business with the deal. So even though Pizza Hut was making less profit per pizza, they were making more profit overall through volume. It has been nearly 2 years now, and large pizzas are still $10, because it makes them more money than selling pizzas at $16.

Finding ways to produce and sell cheaper has always been the path to success in business. The same still applies to game development. Yes, your VN audience is limited, which again, is why the most successful games from the OELVN community are not "pure" VNs. By including actual gameplay that is fun by itself, and THEN adding characters and story on top of THAT, you dramatically increase your audience pool. (Just as an example, Mass Effect is essentially a VN. You listen to tons of dialogue, make choices, and choose from multiple dateable NPCs. But in the middle, between all that, you get to shoot things and blow stuff up.)

And selling VNs at high price gives you MORE reason to worry about piracy, not less.

I think one of the reasons otome games may be so popular is because "date this guy" is a viable gameplay element not found in more traditional games. Whereas heavily plot-based non-romantic stories can viably be executed within the gameplay of other types of games.

I don't know. I think one of the reasons sales for VNs have fallen so sharply in the last decade is that so many OTHER types of games have a "date this guy" gameplay element. Games like the Persona series, Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, Fable, Mass Effect, etc. Some of those games, especially Bioware titles, have romance that is every bit as deep as any in a VN.

I frankly believe VNs are struggling because they have little unique to offer any more.

As a former lone wolf developer I feel I have to latch onto entities with a full-time art staff at their beck and call or else I'll fade out of the scene entirely.

I feel extremely fortunate that I am a professional artist, writer, and that I can program. Especially with art, I can save myself most of the cost of development. (Except on paper, where opportunity cost has to be factored in. But at least I don't have to actually spend cash on artists.) The only thing I can't do myself is compose music.

[Anna]

For it's length it has depressingly few choices (only 4,5, or 6 depending on route). The story was cute enough, but it wasn't 40 dollars cute. Most gamers want to play games, not read novels. I think that is an important distinction VN developers need to remember - when consumers are buying a game, they want gameplay. Most will buy a book or manga if they want story without interactivity.

The reason why most will buy a book or manga is because those are the most known, easily available options without the OELVN bias.

And dear gods, not again. VNs are interactive books at most and not a game, if a gamer sees it as a real game then something went wrong and that's where the flaw lies. The only reason people call it a game next to a VN, is because there's no market category available for specifically VNs and because it's hard to describe decently when promoting them otherwise. Even Umineko is called a game here and there, yet it has barely any choices.

On that topic, choices - it's fine if you use them in a good way and they can improve involvement, but that doesn't mean kinetic novels are bad. That's like saying you can't read normal books because they aren't the 'choose your own adventure' kind of books. Isn't the entire point of a VN its story? May just be me >_>;...

And even with choices there's a lack of gameplay? I don't see how books are fine, yet VNs need more gameplay while they already expand beyond normal books. It's a different way of telling a story than how manga does it too: Books and manga can be just as expensive as OELVNs and they leave out either the graphic and sound aspects or (for manga) the depth of the story and sound aspects, which can all add a great deal to the experience if done well.

If you add more gameplay to a VN so it matches up, what does it become? A game. Then why not make a game from the start?

[papillon]

8 Chars (1 sprite set each) x $15 = $120
10 Backgrounds x $30 = $300

I am extremely doubtful of the ability to obtain that many characters and backgrounds for that price. Yes, people offer prices like that. They then don't deliver, not in that quantity. You want that much art for that cost, you're probably looking at a Fatal Hearts situation with mismatched art all over the place. Also, you haven't included CGs. Or the costs of the time of the writer and programmer. You're not breaking even if you're bankrupting yourself doing this.


(As for number of choices, I think some people would rather play a KN that was clear it was a KN from the start than a game that promises choices and then doesn't deliver. There are many visual novels that have lots of choices and make them meaningful, and use the medium well to explore alternate paths and perspectives. There are others where you would be better off reading a straight book and cutting-and-pasting the chosen romance's description in where necessary.)

[Anna]

Oh holy XD... I didn't even notice until papillon pointed that out. Even if people delivered in those quantities, unless sprites are simple variations of each other (only the face changing), then such prices are hard to get too.

estimate of the bare minimum when hiring professional people:

Sprites - 8 full sprites x $15 = $120 + ((8 x 6 expressions) x $5) $240 = $360
Backgrounds - 10 backgrounds x $30 = $300
BGM - of 1:00-2:00 each, 8 bgm x $50 = $400
CGs - with 3 CGs for 3 routes, 9 x $50 = $450
Script - $10 for every 1500 words, 3 hour game: 250 words x 60 minutes = 15000 words x 3 = 45000 words /1500 words = 30 x $10 = $300
Programmer... no idea haha.
-------------------------------------- +
total = $1810 (without the programmer)

So if you sold it at $15, you would have to sell $1810 / $15 = 121 copies to break even, assuming you do not lose money through affiliates or service costs. Selling it at $10 means you would have to sell 181 copies to achieve the same.

[LeandroP]

A good programmer (I don't know for RenPy or VNs) generallt charges ~$30-$50 the hour of work... And I'm not kidding.

[DaFool]

For reference, a typical shovelware game you see for the Nintendo DS e-shop would cost about $40,000-$50,000 to produce, since the publisher would typically pay $10,000 per man-month (that's the going rate I've researched). Selling for $5, they aim to push at least 20,000 units.

So as we can see, VNs are in a strata even lower than shovelware.

[Anna]

^Well that's kind of an unfair comparison to what I put up there. For a better idea you'd have to look at how a VN company does it in Japan. So, for sake of a better example you could look at this well known post:

http://zepy.momotato.com/2008/09/09/eroge-production/

[papillon]

I'd love to know where you can find artists willing to do decent backgrounds for only $30.

As for music, if you're going for an original song with a vocalist you're not going to get even one for $400, most likely. But few people mind off-the-shelf when it comes to music and OP songs aren't commonplace in EVN yet.

So as we can see, VNs are in a strata even lower than shovelware.

VNs being made primarily by individual project managers who are not counting their own time and equipment as costs are in the strata of crazy indies, who tend to claim lower budgets than even shovelware made by a company which HAS to budget everything and can't just handwave things like offices, computers, maintenance, insurance, and programmer time

[Anna]

I'd love to know where you can find artists willing to do decent backgrounds for only $30.

Hahaha, that was the smallest amount I could think of that might possibly pop up if you want somewhat acceptable backgrounds :D. I've seen some people offer those in a range of $30-$50 on deviantArt now and then, but I highly doubt you can easily find those among professionals.

[Mink]

$15 is now too expensive.

Le Sigh. Especially nowadays when you need a team of specialists to even get acceptable quality.

Eh, that's not at bad as people complaining about $5 being too much for a game (which I've seen). Or any amount of money being too much for a game, and you have people pirating something you could literally pay a penny for (which I've also seen).

Though maybe the reason $15 isn't a lot to me is because a) I can spend more than that at Starbucks a week, 2) I rarely pay more than $20 for ANY game, mainstream/AAA or otherwise.

[LeandroP]

You can sell a game to any price if you hit the right target audience. Now, if you sell a game to $50, the game must have a long play time or at least a really good argument, I don't think anyone would pay more than $10 for a generic BxG, BxB, etc.

[papillon]

I don't think anyone would pay more than $10 for a generic BxG, BxB, etc.

This seems a strange thing to say since as far as I know *every* BxG for sale on the PC is selling for more than $10. Or do you mean something more along the lines of "short and not amazingly flashy" rather than generic?

(I mean, I'd describe Snow Sakura as generic slice-of-life BxG.)

[LeandroP]

I don't think anyone would pay more than $10 for a generic BxG, BxB, etc.

This seems a strange thing to say since as far as I know *every* BxG for sale on the PC is selling for more than $10. Or do you mean something more along the lines of "short and not amazingly flashy" rather than generic?

(I mean, I'd describe Snow Sakura as generic slice-of-life BxG.)

I maybe meant "short and not amazingly flashy", it seems more accurate

Maybe there are many good titles, but most of what it comes out is more of the same... Or maybe is it because I'm waiting to AA5 and everything else seems dull to me?

[jack_norton]

Heh, interesting discussion. I'd like to point out that there is no absolute truth like "$15 is too expensive" or other things I've read. It changes from people to people, result vary a lot. If you ask buyers, and in particular a mainstream public like C.Love target market, they're used to $0.99 games on Steam so of course for them $15 is too high.

Other random fact based on my experience:
- yes pure simple VNs sells less. A RPG or dating sim can sell much more. Even a BxG. I'd say that a BxG RPG/dating sim can still sell more than a otome VN, despite the piracy and even not necessarily needs nudity or hot stuff
- on the other hand, making a RPG WILL take more (a LOT more) time and resources than a VN. So, in the end, if you're lucky to be a native English speaker, could be more remunerative for you to do a VN or dating sim. If I was English, I know I would make mostly VNs since writing wouldn't be a problem!
- last but not least, two very similar games can have very different sales results based on luck, art style, popularity, and any other random factor so even a good game can perform less than it should.

[papillon]

Maybe there are many good titles, but most of what it comes out is more of the same... Or maybe is it because I'm waiting to AA5 and everything else seems dull to me?

I'm not saying *you* should pay more than $15 for what looks boring and generic to you. Just that it's odd to say that "no one" would pay that, because obviously they do... people have different tastes and different price sensitivity.