The State of the Western Porn Games Industry (Self Posted)

[Gmod4ever]

[QUOTE=Thlis;52396806]I didn't say reusing assets. I said reusing properties. There's a big difference with that.

The point is that SFM porn is almost entirely dependent on pre-existing properties to an absurd extent.

It outright hampers creativity, and even "industry" growth when the only things made are things that barely skirt parody and have a high chance of being shut down when profit is involved.

I'd argue that this is a weakness when it comes to the western porn game market as well.[/QUOTE]

That's a fair point. I read property as meaning more concrete property (as in assets), not intellectual property.

I can't argue with that. There are a few (very, [b]very[/b] few) original models made explicitly for use in SFM, and they have their fan bases (to the point of other people drawing fan art of them :v:), but it is by and large existing IPs.

I'd strongly argue the "hampers creativity", though. If anything, I would argue it [b]encourages[/b] creativity. Random character with absolutely no canon or strings tied? You can get away with anything with them, no one cares. But a character with established canon and personality? Sure, some people just give that the middle finger and do random shit with them, but for others it's a challenge to find nuances and niche in the canon to make their scenes seem, even if only loosely, appropriate to the canon. And that requires some creative thinking.

[ironman17]

[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;52396899]I'd strongly argue the "hampers creativity", though. If anything, I would argue it [B]encourages[/B] creativity. Random character with absolutely no canon or strings tied? You can get away with anything with them, no one cares. But a character with established canon and personality? Sure, some people just give that the middle finger and do random shit with them, but for others it's a challenge to find nuances and niche in the canon to make their scenes seem, even if only loosely, appropriate to the canon. And that requires some creative thinking.[/QUOTE]
I imagine another reason people may think it "hampers creativity" is because there's a lot of porn of established characters, and it stands out more than pics of some random purple fox-boy that no-one knows jack about, beyond the fact that he's apparently made of rubber and is somehow bigger on the inside if the dicks he takes are any indication.

After all, if it's a character you know well getting bummed, it's more likely to catch your eye and cause you to utter "what are they DOING to you, 2B?", while Jerome "Rubber-Guts" Jackson isn't someone most folks know about, so he won't turn as many heads in that regard. Mostly because he doesn't exist and is a placeholder example created for the sake of this presentation, as well as being a parody of furry porn logic.

[Metist]

[QUOTE=elitehakor;52395849]holy fuck, someone is actually getting 30k per [i]month[/i] for making porn games???

i'm in the wrong field[/QUOTE]

It's even more funny when you realize the game that was making that much was a text adventure game

[laserpanda]

[QUOTE=Gray Altoid;52395577]Re: your point about the uncertainty of steam selling adult games.

[url]http://store.steampowered.com/app/644570/Material_Girl/[/url]

[t]http://i.imgur.com/Kq7rUCm.png[/t]

It has already begun.[/QUOTE]

Pornographic games are still against the ToS as far as I can tell. This is probably more for games like the Witcher that aren't pornographic but have nudity/sexual content.

[Sillypiggy]

[QUOTE=Gray Altoid;52395577]Re: your point about the uncertainty of steam selling adult games.

[url]http://store.steampowered.com/app/644570/Material_Girl/[/url]

[t]http://i.imgur.com/Kq7rUCm.png[/t]

It has already begun.[/QUOTE]
That's great news. Now I wonder how sexual Steam allows.

[Metist]

[QUOTE=Annoyed Grunt;52396277]I find the western ero game scene to be very interesting mostly because of how differently it is developing compared to the "normal" indie game scene. They both start from the same place, shitty flash game websites during the first decade of the 21st century, but then for obvious reasons they diverged greatly. The greatest difference between the two is that indie games prefer using Kickstarter to fund, and Greenlight to publish, while porn games prefer using Patreon both for collecting funds and as a publishing platform.

As noted by the OP video, there is this strange phenomenon where paying for porn is unheard of, but paying for its development is a pretty common thing. This mirrors the normal drawn porn scene, where pretty much nobody buys the comics when they're easily available online as long as you look for them a bit, but there is a large circle of money on commissions. So it basically seems that people are not interested in paying for porn unless they are able to control what kind of porn it ends up being. I have no idea why this is the case, and I can just assume that fetishists are absurdly specific in what they want to masturbate to.

But what is even more interesting is that the combination of Patreon + Undignified Industry creates scummy practices that normal people would not even imagine. People often complain that Greenlight is used as a way for developer to push shitty ass early access games that they can abandon the instant the initial cash flow stops. With Patreon it is the complete opposite, the cash flows stops when you stop, and not viceversa. This means that porn game developers are encouraged in working slowly. Remember that one webcomic you like but it updates one page every month? Apply that to a videogame. Now imagine that people pay for that one page a month, and if they don't, puff, no more pages at all. I could (but I won't) list you a large number of porn games that are currently being developed and that use Patreon as their main source of income and you would notice that every single one of them is something like "Game Title, version 0.0.1.2" or something like that. People just develop a quick demo (and considering most of these are just visual novels, demo = a few translating images and some badly translated cyka text), release it online, and then veeeeery slowly update it.

Let's also not forget that many of these games are not made using hand-drawn art (which, you know, does take a considerable amount to time to make) but rather premade 3d models that are just posed and rendered (badly).[/QUOTE]
This is so true it's sad. Princess Trainer is like the only case I can think of off of the top of my head where a creator finished the game then instantly went on to make different games. Breeding season died after like 2 years of development but was still barely in Alpha.

Also if Steam ever sold porn games how many people would actually buy them or be scared of having people potentially be able to see that they are playing a porn game?

[editline]24th June 2017[/editline]

[QUOTE=elowin;52396770]As games became more mainstream they had to become less risque at the same time.

It's something that's especially apparent if you compare something like say, The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall with the more modern entries.[/QUOTE]

[img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/89/Elder_Scrolls_Arena_Cover.jpg[/img]
Imagine if The Elder Scrolls games still looked like this but with high res graphics.

[Gmod4ever]

[QUOTE=Metist;52397558]This is so true it's sad. Princess Trainer is like the only case I can think of off of the top of my head where a creator finished the game then instantly went on to make different games. Breeding season died after like 2 years of development but was still barely in Alpha.

Also if Steam ever sold porn games how many people would actually buy them or be scared of having people potentially be able to see that they are playing a porn game?
[/quote]

I do wonder how much of an impact that stigma would have on people. Honestly, I think Steam would need a way to add a sort of "incognito" mode to the Playing mode.

I know there are SFM artists who use Source Filmmaker's "-nosteam" flag to circumvent Steam picking up they're playing Source Filmmaker, to avoid people asking what they make in it.

And that's just with something as neutral as SFM. I can only imagine what it'd be for full-blown porn games.

Then again, I suppose you can just look at how many people play HuniePop, since that's effectively a porn game anyways (complete with the developers officially supporting and encouraging people to install their porn content add-on for the game :v:)

[QUOTE=Metist;52397558]
[editline]24th June 2017[/editline]

[img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/89/Elder_Scrolls_Arena_Cover.jpg[/img]
Imagine if The Elder Scrolls games still looked like this but with high res graphics.[/QUOTE]

It does. It's just called Nexus / Lovers Lab now. :v:

[Sillypiggy]

[QUOTE=ironman17;52396958]I imagine another reason people may think it "hampers creativity" is because there's a lot of porn of established characters, and it stands out more than pics of some random purple fox-boy that no-one knows jack about, beyond the fact that he's apparently made of rubber and is somehow bigger on the inside if the dicks he takes are any indication.

After all, if it's a character you know well getting bummed, it's more likely to catch your eye and cause you to utter "what are they DOING to you, 2B?", while Jerome "Rubber-Guts" Jackson isn't someone most folks know about, so he won't turn as many heads in that regard. Mostly because he doesn't exist and is a placeholder example created for the sake of this presentation, as well as being a parody of furry porn logic.[/QUOTE]

What really surprises me are the lack of Cease and Desists. Think about it, someone makes a star wars multiplayer game for fun with his friends and EA makes them stop while Akabar is making a game where you fuck Princesses Jasmine and he gets paid for it and yet Disney hasn't stopped him.

[Duckmaster]

[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;52397811]What really surprises me are the lack of Cease and Desists. Think about it, someone makes a star wars multiplayer game for fun with his friends and EA makes them stop while Akabar is making a game where you fuck Princesses Jasmine and he gets paid for it and yet Disney hasn't stopped him.[/QUOTE]

I think its probably that Disney doesn't even want to recognize that that exists.

[Thlis]

[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;52397811]What really surprises me are the lack of [B]Cease and Desists[/B]. Think about it, someone makes a star wars multiplayer game for fun with his friends and EA makes them stop while Akabar is making a game where you fuck Princesses Jasmine and he gets paid for it and yet Disney hasn't stopped him.[/QUOTE]

There has been a fair number of them. Usually it just results in name changes.

[Tamschi]

[QUOTE=laserpanda;52397231]Pornographic games are still against the ToS as far as I can tell. This is probably more for games like the Witcher that aren't pornographic but have nudity/sexual content.[/QUOTE]

I'm pretty sure there's some boundary regarding how explicit they can be.
The game Gray Altoid linked there is definitely a porn game for example, but it's a censored version according to the community hub.

[Sillypiggy]

[QUOTE=duckmaster;52397851]I think its probably that Disney doesn't even want to recognize that that exists.[/QUOTE]

So what you are saying is that if we want Nintendo to stop C&Ding fan games we need to make them more sexy.

[DrBones]

[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;52397958]So what you are saying is that if we want Nintendo to stop C&Ding fan games we need to make them more sexy.[/QUOTE]

That won't work either. Anyone remember the "Faithful Tepig" C&D thing a while back?

[Dr. Kyuros]

[QUOTE=eatdembeanz;52398109]That won't work either. Anyone remember the "Faithful Tepig" C&D thing a while back?[/QUOTE]

While I might likely regret asking, some context would be nice.

[ironman17]

[QUOTE=Dr. Kyuros;52398440]While I might likely regret asking, some context would be nice.[/QUOTE]
Presumably it involves Pokemon. Which has a pretty fucking big presence when it comes to Rule 34, funnily enough. Gee, can't imagine why though...

[Sillypiggy]

[QUOTE=Dr. Kyuros;52398440]While I might likely regret asking, some context would be nice.[/QUOTE]

From what I remember Nintendo threatened a hentai artist because he was making hentai involving pokemon and had to cancel its sequel last minute.

[Gufu]

[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;52398907]From what I remember Nintendo threatened a hentai artist because he was making hentai involving pokemon and had to cancel its sequel last minute.[/QUOTE]

I thought there was a sequel. Not that I would know. :thatwasfunnyright:

Although that's surprising, considering that the Doujin culture is rather omnipresent in Japan.

[Pseudonym]

[QUOTE=gufu;52398966]I thought there was a sequel. Not that I would know. :thatwasfunnyright:

Although that's surprising, considering that the Doujin culture is rather omnipresent in Japan.[/QUOTE]

There were already 2 and a third on its way. I'm not sure if Nintendo was trying to just stop the third one from being made or if they just wanted to make an example.

Either way it's a rather strange case because there's tons of Pokemon-related pornography out there and to my knowledge Nintendo has never acknowledged any of it before or since.

[Metist]

[QUOTE=Aredbomb;52399046]There were already 2 and a third on its way. I'm not sure if Nintendo was trying to just stop the third one from being made or if they just wanted to make an example.

Either way it's a rather strange case because there's tons of Pokemon-related pornography out there and to my knowledge Nintendo has never acknowledged any of it before or since.[/QUOTE]

I heard that nintendo once bought the rights to a Mario themed porn parody to stop it from being released but considered I heard that on Youtube I have no idea if it's true or not.

[UprightBlue]

[QUOTE=Vodkavia;52396258]Honestly I don't think ero content is going be fat pickings for long. The biggest reason that artists are able to make so much money is because there's a scarcity to their services. Few people would dedicate the time and energy to teach themselves to learn how to draw competently enough to sell. But increasingly there's more and more people creeping into the business, I can only imagine over time the situation in the west will mirror that of japan; artists, who are skilled workers having their craft being cheapened to the point that they make utter pittance despite working their asses off.

It's silly to mention how cheap animators are in japan and neglect how awful that is for the animators.[/QUOTE]

Nah, I doubt it will ever hit the level of hell that Japan's animation industry has due to the rather unique circumstances that birthed it. Even then, the anime industry in Japan is actually incredibly niche outside of a few major studios. You have a few exceptions like Kyoto Animation and P.A.Works who pay their animators salaries instead of per-cel to encourage higher quality work, but most studios are niche production houses who produce advertisement shows for light novels and manga with small budgets and incredibly close margins.

And you're right, quite a few people are starting to pick up a pencil and make an attempt at drawing and game development due to what they hear about the success stories like Sakimi-chan and Cloud Meadow. Thing is though is that these people rarely get off the ground due to finding out the sheer level of work it takes to learn how to draw competently, let alone produce a game. It takes several years of hard work to get good enough at drawing to be able to sell yourself beyond drawing incredibly niche fetish stuff that's so obscure, only you and one other guy draw it.

For game development though, it is incredibly hard it is to find other developers who would be interested in the same fetishes as you to help you produce a game. Even if you find someone, you still need to be able to reliably contribute and manage the project for it to have any chance of success. Pornographic animation/game development is gonna remain a niche for the foreseeable future due to the skills one needs to develop to get into the field alongside finding like-minded developers.

[Metist]

[QUOTE=Overworld;52399279]Nah, I doubt it will ever hit the level of hell that Japan's animation industry has due to the rather unique circumstances that birthed it.[/quote]
I think America would first have to see animation as an adult thing. In japan while watching anime as an adult is considered a nerd thing at least it is considered a thing, on the other hand very few studios are making cartoons for people over the age of 11 that aren't comedies. Finding a not real drawing sexy is considered "strange" to most Americans as well.

[Griff]

[QUOTE=Whomobile;52396761]Isn't the top paid Patreon for Furry porn?[/QUOTE]

it's Philip DeFranco iirc

[Senn]

[QUOTE=Whomobile;52396761]Isn't the top paid Patreon for Furry porn?[/QUOTE]

No, that would be Phillip DeFranco, the highest in the nsfw category would be Fenoxo Fenfen, being in 16th position in the all time patreons list

[editline]26th June 2017[/editline]

[url]https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators[/url]

[Crimor]

[QUOTE=SenhorCreeper;52402546]No, that would be Phillip DeFranco, the highest in the nsfw category would be Fenoxo Fenfen, being in 16th position in the all time patreons list

[editline]26th June 2017[/editline]

[url]https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators[/url][/QUOTE]

That's ranked by amount of patrons, not how much they earn.

[BrandoJack]

[QUOTE=Crimor;52404688]That's ranked by amount of patrons, not how much they earn.[/QUOTE]
And Philip Defranco's page doesn't even show how much he's making.
But the #2 spot is surprising- $66k a month, or at least $792k a year if they keep a consistent patreon following, for the Chicago Trap House Podcast. Their wikipedia entry says there's 6 hosts, so if they're evenly splitting it 6 ways, they're still making at least 3 times the average radio host salary (which is $40k), each.

Clearly podcasts are the way of the future, so if porn video games fail in the western market, readings and discussion of porn as a podcast will replace it.

[Fire Kracker]

[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;52397811]What really surprises me are the lack of Cease and Desists. Think about it, someone makes a star wars multiplayer game for fun with his friends and EA makes them stop while Akabar is making a game where you fuck Princesses Jasmine and he gets paid for it and yet Disney hasn't stopped him.[/QUOTE]

imagine the news coverage that would get tho lmao

that's probably why tbh

[Gmod4ever]

[QUOTE=Fire Kracker;52405562]imagine the news coverage that would get tho lmao

that's probably why tbh[/QUOTE]

My own personal opinion is it's a three-fold reason:

The first reason is [b]popularity[/b]. Despite what Patreon counts and such may suggest, porn artists [i]in general[/i] have an extremely niche fanbase, and by extension, exposure base. It's just that porn consumers have a higher likelihood (citation needed) to donate money to porn artists, than their non-porn-consuming compatriots are to non-porn artists. This all leads to the fact that, by and large, a [i]lot[/i] of people don't know what the porn artists are doing, specifically. While their projects may be all the rage within the porn-consuming circle, at the end of the day, that circle is pretty fucking small.

I don't know about the Star Wars multiplayer game being cited, but consider AM2R - that project was pretty hugely popular, to the point that quite a few people outside of the Metroid fanbase knew about it and what it was and what the author was doing.

The second reason is [b]potential brand conflict[/b]. I'm sure you've seen this argument before, of companies needing to exercise their copyright against others who are making products that can be mistaken as official, or else they lose that copyright. The aforementioned AM2R is a [i]perfect[/i] example of this, especially since Nintendo have since announced their [i]own[/i] Metroid 2 remake: to anyone who was exceptionally oblivious to the Metroid games (think grandma buying the first videogame she's ever held in her life, for her grandson's birthday), then it is [i]entirely[/i] possible they could have mistaken AM2R as being an official Metroid game. Similarly, with a Star Wars multiplayer game, it is possible for someone who is exceptionally oblivious to Star Wars to mistake such a game as being an official Star Wars game.

Compare that to a game where you have Chewbacca and Han Solo spitroast a nude Leia with 40DDD tits while Luke plows R2D2 in the exhaust port. I don't think there's much risk that grandma is going to mistake [i]that[/i] as an official Star Wars game.

The third reason is [b]image[/b]. In a nutshell, for Disney to publicly shut down a game where Chewbacca and Han Solo spitroast a nude 40DDD Leia, they'd have to first publicly [i]acknowledge[/i] that there exists a game where Chewbacca and Han Solo spitroast a nude 40DDD Leia. And, despite what some companies may have you believe, many legal terms are acutely aware of the reality of the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect]Streisand effect[/url]. The last thing most companies want to do is bring into public knowledge the existence of porn parodies of their IP, and they [i]especially[/i] don't want to bring into public knowledge the existence of [i]specific[/i] porn parodies.

I'm not a lawyer, nor am I particularly well-versed in this particular subject. But these are my personal suspicions as to why, in [i]general[/i], porn parodies are given [i]extreme[/i] berth when it comes to C&Ds, in comparison to more innocent creative endeavors with companies' IPs.

[JesterUK]

Meanwhile, in Japan...

[CruelAddict]

I really liked the video.

Just a bit of tiny criticism: do the background music lower. Your voice isn't quite developed/outlined yet and it gets mixed in like it's a random noise.

[EIREXE]

I always thought it would be nice to make a porn game, if only I was good at drawing anatomically correct characters.

[editline]27th June 2017[/editline]

[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;52405611]My own personal opinion is it's a three-fold reason: The first reason is [b]popularity[/b]. Despite what Patreon counts and such may suggest, porn artists [i]in general[/i] have an extremely niche fanbase, and by extension, exposure base. It's just that porn consumers have a higher likelihood (citation needed) to donate money to porn artists, than their non-porn-consuming compatriots are to non-porn artists. This all leads to the fact that, by and large, a [i]lot[/i] of people don't know what the porn artists are doing, specifically. While their projects may be all the rage within the porn-consuming circle, at the end of the day, that circle is pretty fucking small. I don't know about the Star Wars multiplayer game being cited, but consider AM2R - that project was pretty hugely popular, to the point that quite a few people outside of the Metroid fanbase knew about it and what it was and what the author was doing. The second reason is [b]potential brand conflict[/b]. I'm sure you've seen this argument before, of companies needing to exercise their copyright against others who are making products that can be mistaken as official, or else they lose that copyright. The aforementioned AM2R is a [i]perfect[/i] example of this, especially since Nintendo have since announced their [i]own[/i] Metroid 2 remake: to anyone who was exceptionally oblivious to the Metroid games (think grandma buying the first videogame she's ever held in her life, for her grandson's birthday), then it is [i]entirely[/i] possible they could have mistaken AM2R as being an official Metroid game. Similarly, with a Star Wars multiplayer game, it is possible for someone who is exceptionally oblivious to Star Wars to mistake such a game as being an official Star Wars game. Compare that to a game where you have Chewbacca and Han Solo spitroast a nude Leia with 40DDD tits while Luke plows R2D2 in the exhaust port. I don't think there's much risk that grandma is going to mistake [i]that[/i] as an official Star Wars game. The third reason is [b]image[/b]. In a nutshell, for Disney to publicly shut down a game where Chewbacca and Han Solo spitroast a nude 40DDD Leia, they'd have to first publicly [i]acknowledge[/i] that there exists a game where Chewbacca and Han Solo spitroast a nude 40DDD Leia. And, despite what some companies may have you believe, many legal terms are acutely aware of the reality of the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect]Streisand effect[/url]. The last thing most companies want to do is bring into public knowledge the existence of porn parodies of their IP, and they [i]especially[/i] don't want to bring into public knowledge the existence of [i]specific[/i] porn parodies. I'm not a lawyer, nor am I particularly well-versed in this particular subject. But these are my personal suspicions as to why, in [i]general[/i], porn parodies are given [i]extreme[/i] berth when it comes to C&Ds, in comparison to more innocent creative endeavors with companies' IPs.[/QUOTE] You can't lose copyright from not enforcing it, just trademarks.