VN In your opinion, how long a VN should be to warrant a price tag? (hours play time and word count)

KiaAzad · 31.08.2023

I have a couple of days free every other week, and I'm considering writing down the ideas in my head into very short stories. Of course I like to make something out of the effort I'm putting in, even if it's a dollar per sale.
The question is: What's the bare minimum that the player would say, "short game but it was worth the price tag."?

Meaning Less · 31.08.2023

Not everything boils down to playtime, what matters is if there was enough time to tell the story you wanted to tell or show the artwork you wanted to show. For some stories 30 minutes might be enough, for others 3 hours could feel rushed.

Then there is also a matter of perceived quality, if your game looks low budget people expect to pay less for it even if it is longer.

Once you start adding everything that might affect the perception of a price tag soon you will realize that there is no right answer here.

Danv · 31.08.2023

quantity not as important as quality, on steam there are short games (non-lewd) with barely 1-2 hours of gameplay along with 200-400 hours sandbox monsters, and they sells too
still, short 50 renders KN is not something I would priced (or bought), maybe at least hour or two of content as a minimum?

also most of games here are funded on those crowd platforms as they develop, with pay per month, not sold as already finished product and that's whole other topic - selling finished game for $5-$25 vs milking people over the years for a final price around $200-$500 and more ($5-$25 per months over 2-4 years) if one stick around for whole development time

GNVE · 31.08.2023

Don't go into this wanting to make money. Chances of making money are slim. Do it because you like making games/telling stories or don't do it at all. If you can recoup your costs great but most people don't.

There are several ways to go. From what I've seen you need to ask at least a dollar for a game (otherwise the cost of the payment provider becomes to high) but when you have a couple you can bundle them to whatever you feel is the actual amount the game is worth.
You can also go the pay what you want route. Though don't expect to get rich off of it as most people want to pay nothing.

Best bet might be to also crowdfund the games this allows you to cater to both the crowd that only wants to pay once and those that want to fund ongoing development.

Deleted member 5410619 · 31.08.2023

Visual novels are never worth money.
Same thing with porn and music.
I am greatful for the fools who pay for it but i never will.

KiaAzad · 01.09.2023

Meaning Less сказал(а):
Not everything boils down to playtime

True, but once we get past the stock answer, we all have a number that we consider the bare minimum. You might not have noticed it, but yours seems to be 30 minutes. I'm collecting that number to get an average.

Danv сказал(а):
maybe at least hour or two of content as a minimum?

Sounds reasonable.
The patreon model for sure extracts more money out of every single supporter, but we have to consider the bigger size of audience on steam like platforms, and the fact that steam comes with it's own traffic, but in patreon, you are in charge of re-directing every single supporter to your page.

GNVE сказал(а):
Don't go into this wanting to make money. Chances of making money are slim.

Well, I'm already making money out of this exact market, working as a programmer for other projects, but I like to try my hand on something that I can own myself, with a bigger potential than hourly wage.

Malaficus сказал(а):
Visual novels are never worth money.
Same thing with porn and music.
I am greatful for the fools who pay for it but i never will.

The question of worth is directly linked to what you can afford. Of course there are people that have disposable income and can afford paying for those things as a means of supporting the creator, and creators count on that.
Nobody expects people spend money on luxury, when they need it for food clothing, rent and improving the quality of their life.

Meaning Less · 01.09.2023

KiaAzad сказал(а):
True, but once we get past the stock answer, we all have a number that we consider the bare minimum. You might not have noticed it, but yours seems to be 30 minutes. I'm collecting that number to get an average.

You got it backwards, the numbers were the stock element of my comment.

Because in fact most games that are that short often suck hard, I just said that it is possible to make a good game of that size but we hardly see them.

VN In your opinion, how long a VN should be to warrant a price tag? (hours play time and word count)

KiaAzad

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Meaning Less

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Danv

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GNVE

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Deleted member 5410619

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KiaAzad

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Meaning Less

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