i wonder if i pissed people off, way more people answered my poll than bought my game...was £2.80 (4usd) really too much for the game? I suppose it could just be that the people who answered my poll aren't the kind of people who actually buy games, I've seen a few people asking developers for a free share of their game when they release it...or outright admitting theyre going to pirate it as soon as possible... anyway i don't see why theyd bother answering the poll if they actually arent the kind of people who buy games, leaving me with the conclusion they don't like the price...
which worries me, as the next game i want to make is big enough to warrant at least a £6 pricetag, more so on dlsite...I'm trying my hardest here to build up a good business before next year...I want to do this as a career.
does anybody know of any good ways i might better promote my games to the japanese market?
I don't seem to have kyrieru's business knowledge to do that but his game sold a lot on japanese dlsite
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ReplyDeleteKyieru got quite lucky in a way, because his game got featured on Japanese DLSite. Incidentally, I doubt you'd ever be in the same position, if the games you've released so far are anything to go by. The reasoning here? You're games have a lot of English in them. Kurovadis had little English, and was a high quality game that could stand on it's own without the H-content.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with English H-games, especially on JP dlsite, is that in Japan, H-games are much bigger; in fact H-games have been cited as a reason why PC gaming is not particularly big in Japan (because of reputational damage to mainstream PC games - few people will admit to being a PC gamer considering how tied to porn it is). Anyway, the point of this? In Japan, *adults* buy H-games. In the Western world, it's seen as fairly childish, and much of the audience you're targeting will be teenagers, and hence unable to pay. The other problem is a significant number of people are just lazy, and won't go through the DLSite buying process due to the language barrier, and likely won't go through your buying process for some other reason. For example, the reason I chose to buy from DLSite rather than you, despite the price premium, was because I'm confident DLSite will be able to serve me the download, say a year from now. You? No offence, but not so confident...
I will point out the another slight problem, perhaps... only a few 1-man H-games bring in significant sales. To make a living you're going to need to sell thousands of copies of games a year. Few enough Japanese games manage this, and as I detailed above there are significant barriers to entry for foreign developers.
As to things you could do? Well, there's a few actually. First thing would be to improve the blog; just minor things, like capital letters. It makes a big difference to impression, and people thinking that the blog is half-assed (incidentally, proper capitalisation in games also helps). A bigger improvement to the blog would be demos of works-in-progress. I can't think of any successful H-games that didn't release demos.
Another thing I'd recommend is withdrawing from ULMF, and targetting a friendlier community, like Hongfire. I'm not going to win any friends like this, but I honestly can't think of ULMF H-games forum as a nice place in general (a few people are nice and helpful, but an awful lot more are not), but for an H-game creator it's probably counter-productive. The reason for that is because most people are coming to the ULMF H-games section to pirate H-games, or for help on pirated H-games, and not discussing making H-games.
Whoo... long post (the deleted post above had some seriously bad grammar in, and I couldn't correct it without deleting and reposting)
Habisain appears to have it pretty much on target. The truth of the matter is, people often come to sites like ULMF purely to pirate games. As long as it's on the Internet, many people will refuse to pay just because they know they can get it for free elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteTranslate your games to Japanese. Just simple Japanese will do.
ReplyDeleteBecause, as everyone has said, nobody in the English community would really want to buy it. (...Unless your art improves a ton. And your art is actually quite okay but it's not enough to attract english people)
Also, Kurovadis had it's own vore/CG on lose/sprite rape niche, with Megaman-style learning curves/play. You can't really compare your works to his game because it's like putting apples against oranges.
dont beat yourself up pirates will always pirate thats what they do its who they are! your true fans will buy it if they like it.
ReplyDeleteI will what japanese think
ReplyDeleteIf it is interesting they will buy and will become popular.
But your games are neither interesting nor exceeds on art. not saying your art is bad but i am saying that is nothing that impress them
kurovadis didn't catch the people by it's art but by the game style it was interesting, it was something new no one ever did that on dlsite yet.
Also bear in mind that your poll had a clear winner, and you actually ignored that winner. That never tickles anyone.
ReplyDeleteThis game looks okay-ish, but it's nothing super fancy bear in mind, and the simple fact is that people could get better quality games of the same style for the same amount you tried to charge elsewhere, such as mobile apps and Xbox Live, not to mention free sites like Newgrounds.
What I would suggest is to try and find a way to convert this game to Flash and post the demo on Newgrounds, with a note in the description that the full version can be bought. But I can't promise anything.
Love thiss
ReplyDelete