I should thank Jack Norton now, basically because he was first with the idea to make such a survey and I decided to follow in his steps, so few of the core questions are being basically the same. The survey data was collected from a big range of sites, forums and communities, including http://www.blip.pl (a polish equivalent of twitter), http://anime.com.pl, http://www.gamedev.pl, http://www.visual-novels.pl, jgames.pl, http://mangaforum.dmkproject.pl/forum, http://forum.innerworld.pl, http://www.weryfikatorium.pl (polish fiction writing portal), http://gildia.pl (polish cultural portal) and http://www.lubcon.pl (my region's fantasy/anime/manga club). As you may guess, Circa 60% of surveyed people were anime/manga fans, the rest being from artistic circles, mostly art and writing ones and the rest were polish game developers. The total count has reached 413 responses, though the system did record only full ones, which were 230, and I think this to be a very good result reached in such a period of time, especially when I was supporting this actively only within the first month (that was also the time when I did get like 50-60% of responses), and I haven't promoted it much after that either.
The results of this survey are from now on available publicly and may be found here: http://moje-ankiety.pl/ankieta-wyniki/id-1365.html. I also made the english translation, which I'm uploading here. As a small note, I'd like to say that this survey is far from perfect - after that much time, and so much response from various people I know there's still plenty of space for improvements, some parts weren't written that good as they could, some questions haven't been asked while they could have been and many things might could be done in a better way; I'm well aware of that fact. Yet, if this will still serve you the right purpose, I'll be happy with that.
Judging from the results we can come to a few general conclusions. It seems that fantasy is in the biggest demand now, followed by modern fiction (Kanon, Clannad and Air being the best examples here) with many good responses, but the most interesting thing is that most of people say they don't mind the genre; as long as the story will be decent and interesting, they will read everything - you have us here
. Furthermore, people really seem to like reading alot, even if common opinion is a bit different (they say we're in the middle of a 'reading' crisis now - judging from national statistics, people don't read much, with most not reading anything at all!), and that's good that at least those who are interested want to read very long stories (unfortunately, this also means more work for us, creators); it may kinda reflect our current needs. I was kinda amazed when I saw the number of people that honestly admitted they knowledge about visual novels; it seems that this name isn't a mystery anymore, at least to people that are familiar with anime, manga and japanese culture. Almost half of the surveyed already had some contact with them, and half of those are people that admit to read them actively, wow
.As for the type, again - the male part of bishoujo gamers is the biggest one, but you may also find quite a few otome gamers, yet again - people won't mind reading different types of stories! Well, except yaoi which seems to be the less favorized type
, but it seems we aren't particualry picky on various things. Polish visual novel fans seem to like deep and heavy storytelling where relationships beetwen people play a big role, and characters are well fleshed-out (that's propably why NGE franchise is so popular here). We like adventures, magic and mysteries, and technology (though sci-fi isn't that popular, at least now), and aren't afraid of serious things. We also aren't afraid to read about sex and don't mind anything erotic, as long as it will be done in a good manner. Designing and publishing those would propably be a different matter, knowing what problems may occur and what can be expected from some groups. Still, this would be a good experiment to try - maybe I would even got to the TV with that, haha! Despite all the problems, almost all people do like anime-styled art, be it any type (classic, serious or artistic) very much and would like to see it in a visual novel of their choice; both western and european stylistics seem to be of least interest, and no one was interested in cartoon-styled graphics (which kind of a relief).
Another interesting fact is, while in overall there is a good liking to various add-on game elements, most of people would just like to read a good story, and if they would want to play a bit at all, role-playing and simulation elements seem to interest them the most. Most of people also do think that the idea, followed by writing are the most crucial elements in visual novel developement. The rest and exact number of people said the art and replayability with endings should still take an important role and almost no one cares about voice overs and sound in general (ouch, but then - maybe we are more to the hardcore side?
MUD's and ROGUElike games are still very popular here, especially in some circles).I left the most important things, at least for us creators are at the end. Again, PC users with Windows and Linux systems are the biggest part of gaming community, although there's also a big Playstation circle, and we can already see growing handled communities; it's a pity that there aren't many Xbox users, because it's the easiest market to reach now. Despite many problems distribution could cause, many still yearn for a true, purely physical boxed form and finally, it seems that people are ready and willing to jump into franchise, as long as it will be decent and the prices will remain reasonable (and that's good to hear, because personally, I think this would might become the biggest source of income for every indie dev that has the guts and enough skill to pull it out, especially in this country).
Conclusions? As you can see, it isn't that bad here, although the community still remains tiny (but grows slowly). This is the best time to start thinking seriously about VN developement in my country, and fantasy oriented RPG's are on the rise again (I wonder if people will ever get bored of those
). Going with the fact that most of RPG's utilise a deep told storyline, it would be not hard to make a good game being basically a VN hybrid with complex RPG elements. As for me, I'll stay faithful to my belief, that everything (at least now) has the same, exact chance to rock and fall deeply into the hearts of players, as long as it will be decent and interesting.If there are any polish developers reading this, I'll just encourage to begin. We need more interesting entertainment, we need something new and refreshing. Gameplay and high-end 3d graphics aren't everything. Visual novels are very easy to create from a developer point of view and require much less resources for creation than any other type of game; few people can manage together to make a decent one! They don't need a powerful PC to run smoothly. You have basically a ready-to-go, fully free engine, with no commercial restrictions. Python is much easier to learn than C++. Visual novels are not only games, they can be truly an art masterpieces, as books always were and I know we have many skillful artists and musican willing to participate in such endeavour. There's no competition and the market's a fresh chance for new, aspiring developers! So, what are you wating for?
I leave the rest for personal interpretation; there are many things to discuss about. Feel free to ask me any questions. You can also leave me a PM, drop an e-mail or catch me personally on MSN, AIM, or official Ren'Py IRC for a little chat.
