Is there marketing potential in adult oriented games?

Sex related games aren't made often even though pornography is a booming industry. Shouldn't games covering the same themes be just as successful? Would making a well designed sexual game have monetary rewards?

 

I feel like they don't appear to be prevalent because many stores like Steam are not accepting them. If I recall correctly @Ony (who I haven't seen on here lately) was making adult themed games and was fairly successful at it.

 

I can barely find anywhere that sells quality adult games. So many are free but that's not exactly what I'm looking for. Would it be viable to have a censored version of the game to pair with it? Same gameplay and mechanics but the sex is an optional component.

 

Well, mature games have their own audience (which isn't restricted to merely pornography btw. but that's beside the point).

Regarding what @Ryiah said:
It's not that Steam doesn't sell adult-only games, it's just that the conditions aren't really clear. Hatred was rated AO and is available on Steam. HuniePop is an adult game and is available on Steam (and GOG).
I really wish Valve would do something to clear this up. (Ideally resulting in adult-only games generally being allowed on Steam.)

@Tsukubane :
I think that the best option would be to do it exactly as the HuniePop developers did it. The Steam version is censored, but they offer an official uncut-patch through their website which is also linked in the Steam community's FAQ.
The best of both worlds so to speak.

Is there money in it? HuniePop is a very good example in more ways than one. The game is basically bejeweled with sex. It's a casual game being sold on Steam, a store mainly for core games. With that in mind, the game...

• ...made it into Steam's top 10 at launch
• ...has - at the time of this post - sold 326,573 ± 12,317 copies (according to SteamSpy)
• ...has a user rating that's 96% positive

All of that despite...

• ...getting flak from the progressive dipshits because of "muh representation of women" (even though the development team was 50-80% female depending on whether you count voice actors or not)
• ...not getting coverage from Kotaku, Polygon and the other usual suspects

So, is there money to be made? Of course.
It's a niche market though. So the two most important aspects are to a) deliver quality and b) budget your game accordingly.
I haven't played the game, but I know that it's a high quality product. Simply adding tits to a cheap game won't cut it.

Hope this helps.

 

Also worth noting that there's a pretty significant range in what's "adult" - all the way from PG-13 to XXX. Each of those audiences have very different kinds of requirements and boundaries.

There is a tremendous amount of money to be made with adult games. But I wouldn't suspect it either easy to do, or easy to learn to do.

 

Huniepop is either an outlier or the start of a trend to which there has been no follow up, and I don't know which. The adult games "scene" has been around for a while, but outside of Japanese eroge, there really hasn't been much of an english speaking market for it (not that eroge has had much of a market either). That leads me to think Huniepop is either a freak of nature that will never be repeated, or the gaming populous is now mature enough that we can now talk about porn without giving a S***.

 

iOS (and google) doesn't allow sex/adult-ish stuff (but hey sorry, I think it's clear)

IDK, but to add something to the discussion, I would say something that is original, something that manages it to satisfy (hehe) many players/customers wishes, fetishes etc. in a way, that doesn't feel ..ridiculous, or makes the audience more like feeling ashamed than having fun, could be successful. Sure this genre will stay in a niche market, but I can imagine that this could change (a bit!).

and more open minded, I think that counts for Asia, europe, north america...etc.

 

USA has strange stance on all things sexual and is part of gaming market.
You could make the games, but you'd have hard time getting them known. Steam, gog and google play don't accept that kind of content.

Japanese markets.

People don't like buying "incomplete" content.
And if adult content is so optional that it can be easily removed with zero impact, why bother putting it in to begin with?

 

I think that the answer is, of course you could make a boat load of money. But sticking naughty bits into a game doesn't make it a good game or good adult entertainment.

People do make this stuff, and it has been around a while, but it obviously hasn't caught on in any mainstream way.

You still would need to make a good game, and most people can't do that much. So, adding AO content will just further limit your audience. The adult entertainment audience is extremely well served as it is.

Also, as someone who prides himself on knowing a little about games... what about a game can make it specifically sex-related? Seems to me like you got your wires crossed on this one.

 

Maybe he's making an adult version of ring toss?

 

The game I'm thinking is an RPG that has sex as a plot, and as a reward in the game. Censoring the game isn't hard to do, lots of games do it in small ways. Rewarding a player with something more conventional like a weapon or cash seems fine. Changing the plot seems tough but it could be possible to make two parallel stories if it's planned at the beginning.

I hate the thought of it, but I want to make the game I want but I also want to make money.

I've played a few adult games and most are simple or copies of others. While their are a few that are just good game designs, that I'd love to see a full game of. Even a non-adult equivalent would be nice. Adult games are more of a novelty than anything.

The adult content could bring in players interested, and solid gameplay will let players enjoy themselves. A combination of sex appeal and gameplay has been used to sell games before, but usually by lying through their teeth with empty promises of sexual content that gamers obviously want.

 

I guess that's the difference between an adult themed game & a straight up XXX game.

 

I think you're not very familiar with existing products in this part of the industry. Also, you expect to profit from it, seem to think that sexual content is an easy way to do it and it appears to be your first project?

IMO, the best idea would be to either do it for fun (forget about money), or drop the idea completely (forget about project).

Adult-themed or not, an RPG, requires massive amount of content. Adding adult themes will require more content and better artists.

 

Seriously, track down @Ony and ask her for her thoughts. This is totally her domain, she made a couple of very successful games in this area. Even going through her post history will give you some insight into that market. From memory her comments were that the area had been very lucrative in the past. But it is now becoming a saturated market. As such its becoming less profitable then it had previously been.

I haven't seen her around for a while. But she shared her twitter details in this thread. http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/twitter.12003/page-8#post-2242303

 

Do you like and play adult themed games? If not, how do you think you could make a good one? Do you have a top notch artist for this kind of art, or an art budget that allows for at least a 5-figure sum spent on freelancers? Do you have a writer that can write erotic fiction on a level that doesn't make people cringe?
To me the whole thing sounds like you are looking for a magical get-rich niche that just no one has thought of yet, but I'd rather consider it an unpredictable market where you can't start out with low production values, so it's a high risk investment or you better don't even start, if it is financial success you are after.
You would probably be better off producing straight up porn videos and trying your luck in that market. At least I'd imagine the financial risk to be way lower.

 

Spot on.

The difference between adult and non-adlult RPG is that "adult" version will require several dozens additional high quality 2d art stills and more text.

Also, typical decent visual novel (regardless of having or not having adult content) takes about 40 hours to finish it.

So, it is not a "magic shortcut to fame and riches".

 

Sex changes your audience. My app, Good Sex, Great Marriage, has a sexy title, it discusses sex, and yet, is completely safe for children. Sort of how National Geographic can cover it. As such, it has large possible audience, specifically couples looking to improve their relationship.

Most times, 'sex' actually shrinks the audience, particularly in America. At the same time, the audience that remains is more likely to be interested in your game. So you get a more motivated niche audience - which from a marketing perspective, is a great place to be. Quality still matters.

Gigi

 

I think the majority opinion has already been expressed, but I'll throw my two cents in as well.

There's quite a difference between the game you seem to describe in your first post vs a few posts later. First, let's discuss the second version (Sex-themed RPG)

Consider Leisure Suit Larry (the newer ones) and The Witcher.

Leisure Suit Larry has never backed down from the subject of sex, but it approaches it in an infantile manner. This approach is generally targeted towards your recently pubescent males or adult males with... impaired social skills with the opposite gender. Flashing breasts, potty humor, sexist undertones... All accompanied by generally poor quality all around and questionable taste in the first place.

The Witcher, on the other hand, is a finely-crafted RPG intended for audiences who want a more mature take on fantasy. Everything from the visceral and graphic violence (that still isn't over-the-top or overly glorified) to the nudity and sex scenes (albeit, only nude women as far as I ever saw) suggests the experience is targeted at adults. While the peeks of areola and camera pans to women's backsides are still intended to be titillating, it's handled in a manner closer to cinema than that of a poorly produced pornography.

My wife loves watching me play The Witcher 3, and while she's commented on some of the sillier or unnecessary nudity occurrences, it never felt trashy or pornographic. Conversely, I'd be very embarrassed to play a Leisure Suit Larry game around her (or even by myself, for that matter).

In summary, quality and intent makes a world of difference when approaching sex as a subject of a game.

 

I'm surprised no one's mentioned this yet, but from a purely business perspective look into VR. Early adopters of VR hardware have proven they'll spend money, and in terms of VR content in general there's more demand than supply.

 

I read something about porn/xxx/adult stuff being the biggest area of software developed for VR once oculus & Google cardboard started gaining traction. It wasn't an area that received a lot of publicity, maybe because people were worried that it would become the main story & detract from the technology gaining wide acceptance.

 

Porn's always been the secret driver behind technology -- storage, broadband speed, video compression, etc. VR won't be any different; porn will secretly drive its adoption and technological improvements.

 

Plenty of psychologists who will tell you that sex drives pretty much every human behaviour. Porn is one of the more obvious ways. But its present across everything.

 

Hunie Pop is a fantastic game. Probably the best match 3 in existence. If there is any lesson to take from Hunie Pop it's that you better have a good game first before you go about adding 'adult' content.

 

Dem's strong words.
Gigi

 

I don't think you're going to find many people who can refute it outright though. Maybe some will hold other titles in higher regard, but there is nothing that's wrong with it that isn't related to it being a match 3 game with anime boobs.

 

My wife and I have been making our primary living as independent developers of sex games for about 15 years. As sex has become less of a taboo over the past 3 or so years, the number of openly sex-focused games has massively increased. That's a very short time. It was incredibly difficult to find traffic and customers for most of the time we were doing it, and now it's changed and somewhat easier, but... Competition has increased, and profits have dropped. Your mileage may vary.

If you plan to get involved in making sex games, I highly recommend that you be up front and honest about what you do from the get go. We weren't. We hid it from friends and family up until less than a year ago. That's a long time to keep your main job so secret, and believe me it has its costs.

Also plan on never being taken seriously, unless your sex game has a "message". If the message is "sex is depressing", or "dangerous", or "empowering as long as we cry afterward" then yeah, you might get some coverage, apparently because in order for people to talk openly about sex, they must be discussing the serious side of it.

If your sex games are about getting people aroused and thinking about sex and yeah, doing something about it, then you're going to be laughed at and get hardly any coverage, unless that coverage is a joke review about how ridiculous your game is. If you can take that, then you might make some money. All traffic can be good traffic, after all. But mainly, don't expect anyone to talk about your game. Your user base will be a closed group of people who don't often spread the word or let it be known in public that they play games that are purely about sex. People, for some reason, don't want anyone else to know that they like sex. It's bizarre, but it is a thing, at least in the USA. As a result, anything related to sex in games, etc. is usually accompanied by snickers and giggles and "oh no, I don't like the sex, I just think it's a ridiculous game".

Don't make sex games because you want money. That ship has sailed. Do it because you like sex and you want to make games about it.

With that said, I originally made sex games because I wanted the money. And damn we made a lot of it. That was a different time, though. Again... that ship has sailed.

Honestly, I've never actually even played other sex games more than a few minutes. I've probably played about an hour or so of sex games in the past 15 years of making them. It's not my thing. I'm into simulation. Yeah I love sex, it's awesome, but... yeah. Early on we figured out some sexy things that people were looking for, and we kept adding those things to each new game, and we've been successful by doing that.

There are sex game genres now that people will spend mucho deniro on, such as furry sex games and things like that. Literally I think it goes like this: "oh, you are making a furry sex game? Here, take my wallet and everything in it." Those aren't really my thing, though, so I'm leaving a ton of money on the table. These days I'm not so focused on the money as I am simply making a good simulation that our users enjoy.

Figure out what you are into and what you want to spend at least the next year or so staring at and dealing with. If you're not comfortable making sex games, then think long and hard (I said long and hard) about whether you want to go down that road. It's a lonely road, I can promise you that. Profitable? Maybe? But then again these days there's no telling what's going to work or not. Best to just do what you want to do.

 

So a safe sex (sex kills you) clone of flappy bird with d**ks instead of pipes & a virginal/halo enshrouded teenage girl might succeed?

Or was flappy bird already a metaphor for that? Strive to elevate yourself above it all but it is easy to fall so you have to keep trying, but if you fall to far or impale yourself on a pole you will die?


Edit: I think I've just read far to much into flappy bird. I may need help

 

I think you've all brought up a lot of interesting points. Some I don't agree with but definitely interesting.
Making things I find interesting that I want to make is my main concern. Marketing is part of planning and building a game (or so I've heard). I'll try making a good game before I try making money off it. It would be nice to have a game that lots of people play though.

I heard the word quality bounce around a few times. It confuses me since quality can be irrelevant. Quality of art and animation has a wide range of things that acceptable. This is especially true for porn. I've drawn, animated, and seen a lot of porn art. The range of what I think is good isn't the same as others if popularity and traffic indicates that.

 

Having a game that lots of people play and making money don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. I'd recommend focusing on the former early on, with the latter gaining some consideration towards the very end of development and post-release.

 

What's confusing about 'quality'? The definition goes: "the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something." This touches on all things like music, UI, aesthetics, style, content, game mechanics, story, game play, tasks, rewards, and flow. Nowhere in the definition does it say high-fidelity, 3D, vector-art, animation, or the like. Those are things we read into quality. Quality is quality, and customers know it when they see it.

Gigi

 

@Ony - The honesty, story, and depth of your response truly rocks. Thanks for sharing.
Gigi

 

I forgot I meant to respond to this, too.

As always, I agree with @Gigiwoo. Quality is everything. Consider a rough doodle of a big floppy penis in the margins of your class notebook. Is it a form of pornographic art? Sure. Is the quality something your average pornography consumer would be interested in spending any money on? I'd say no.

Now consider a 4 foot wide painting by David Choe of a blue, stylized phallus in his famous style, painted on heavy canvas with a heavy frame encasing it. I imagine he'd have no problem selling it for a few thousand dollars, and prints of it for a couple hundred. That's the difference between quality that consumers recognize.


Also, just want to throw out a bit of praise for @Ony and thank her for sharing.

 

My mum would definitely ask to have a go on it, bless her.

There's nothing incredibly serious about spraying fluid and flappy bits banging away with strange pained noises.

Sounds like hardship.

But I agree, sex is too political. I think it's really something that should be just personal instead.

 

Quality is everything. So you're saying just make it better than the rest. There's a bunch of preference and opinion related things I think I'm not getting across. I forget I'm not as smart as I think I am.

Wouldn't having it on market bring it to a wider audience and is a good strategy to show your game to as many potential players as possible? What are some other ways you advertise a game other than marketing it.

 

Showing your game to people is the best (only?) way to have it be discovered and played, and similarly, purchased. Having a sex-themed game may limit your potential avenues of doing so, though, as Ony covered pretty well. You're probably not going to get a booth at a games expo with kids walking around if you've got characters having sex on your displays, right? Similarly, many publications will choose to not cover the game due to its content. You will not be releasing on Apple's app store.

A game doesn't have to be better than every other game in its genre to be critically or commercially successful. I think what people are trying to say is that if you're going to target such a niche market, quality is going to be more important than doing, say, a casual infinite runner.

I believe you're getting caught up on the wrong points. If you want to make a sex-themed game, you absolutely should. But you shouldn't really be thinking about how you're going to make money off it yet, especially if you haven't even completed and published a single game of your own yet. Do it for fun, and find your own way to measure success, like sharing it with a partner who will give you a nice bed romp for your efforts or something.

 

@Schneider21 Nailed it! +1
Gigi

 

Or maybe, they like it so much and it's so personal, they don't want anyone else to be a part of their secret world.

 

If you make a sex game with micro transactions does that make you a pimp?

 

Great thread gang. @Tsukubane there is an app store made JUST for adult apps including games. Its called MiKandy (.com) and has some interesting games like FapNinja. Check that out maybe? Get with other devs.

 

There's a forum called "gofuckyourself" (not kidding) where marketers for adult stuff of any kind can exchange marketing services. It's vast - probably the biggest board for such stuff, so if you're gonna market adult games, that's where you should hang around and network.

(btw adult marketers are remarkably nice & generous when it comes to exchanging marketing services and the guys on the forum never seem to run out of humor )

 

Haha my profile on that board goes back to 2003, and that was the second profile I set up there since the first one was banned (hah! very easy to get banned there back in the day). Quite a few of the clients I still work with were people I met on that board. I don't visit so much anymore but yeah it's a decent place to network.

 

Pssst - quiet! There's minor Unity devs here!

 

Don'ty worry, they are busy trying to create FPS MMOs.

 

LoL, probably - hell that reminds me of how everyone had his LinkeX script set up, posting a campaign on the board every week - everyone used to have S***loads of links in the footers of their websites...

 

Yup, and adults as well. This is a discussion about adult game development. If someone doesn't want their minor child reading about certain things, they should pay attention to the threads and sites their kids are on, just like I did with my children.

 

??? In total fairness @Ony is typically very discrete. You can't accidentally stumble across her games without looking for them.

This post on the other hand leads straight to adult content:

I don't really care myself, a quick Google search on some obvious terms will put a minor in reach of whatever content they want. But if you are going to pull up other people on the content of their posts, please ensure your own stuff is clean.

Something or rather about glass houses.

 

The internet. Jokes are not always obvious. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

true...

 

Hi all. Anyone here maybe have some insight into this question. Basically, is there any info stored in projects (your source folder, and/or the projects after they're built) that is tied to the creator of the project? I plan to use Unity to make some nsfw stuff on the side under a pseudonym, and don't necessarily want my professional email, my name, or anything else tying those projects together, and I want to avoid switching logins (and I can't afford two licenses) every time I'm switching between nsfw and sfw content.