Payment Processing: Tips and Advice Requested

[Obscura]

Hi all,

I'm wondering if there are any words of wisdom from devs here with regards to vendors and/or payment processors for a commercial VN. I've looked at/signed up for a couple of different services, and though I'm strongly leaning towards BMT Micro (due to the fact I have such a high percentage of European customers), I'm wondering if there are any last minute things I should know about the tremendously fun stuff that is payment processing.

Facts about my game which are probably relevant:
- Erotic, with penis (meaning it's banninated from Steam and most other gaming portals and Paypal is a no go.)
- Most of my audience aren't really visual novel players per se. To clarify...most of the players who find COOT are actually finding it via gay-themed websites or gay-erotic blogs/sites/tumblrs.
- It doesn't have Japanese style art so I don't think it would do well on places like mangagamer
- I was considering gumroad but they do not like adult content, so I've heard.

Any sage words of advice or warnings are appreciated. This game is in a very odd, platypus-like category, but hey, life of a visual novel maker.

[jack_norton]

Using BMT is a good move IMHO, is the same one I use.
It gives you the non-trivial advantage of being able to accept affiliates for your games. I think just my site could bring you several sales since I have some yaoi fans already thanks to Loren

I don't have any particular advices on the vendor itself, I suppose you use fullversion download, so BMT already provides a way to resend the game to people who lost the email with download links (it always happens!!).

I have advice on the site instead. You never know what's going to happen, maybe your site will receive 10 visits, but maybe 1000 at once in the same hour. Use a CDN for the images and also for downloads since downloads slowdown a server a lot. I'm assuming you have a game demo of course - if you don't have it, then is another thing

Well that's it, good luck with it! I'm doing a yaoi-exclusive dating sim as well (albeit not so erotic ) and I'm curious to see how yours will do.

[Obscura]

Thank you so much for the advice, Jack! I don't think I'll be using a vendor at the moment. With a game that appeals to 5% of the gaming population at most (and that's an insanely hopeful estimate), I figure it's probably just better to hunt out the audience on my own. ^^

All of your tips are plenty appreciated. Thanks much! I'm sure I'll have more questions closer to December.

[planktheory]

It seems Patreon might be a worthwhile look. This other visual novel is being made also with RenPy and is geared toward the Furry Audience.

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... te#p341301

The lady doing Oh Joy Sex Toy comic is another that allows for adult themed patronage.

[Obscura]

Thank you for the tip, I'll check it out!