November 21 Update

BleBle

Hello there!! I hope you are having a nice week. More suicides this week, and not on a psychiatric floor, so sad!! Here is my thoughts about your questions. First I must say that I am talking as a player that didn't play the game, I just know about the trailer, and some opinions from both sides of the coin in differents places. Yes? Then about the prize, I will not judge something that I dont know about how to create, budget you need, time you use, etc, so I dont know if it is just cheap or not. But I can say that I would think well about expending that money on the game. And ofc, if I play the game and I dont like it or ends up being a dissapointment, I will be angry later. About Early Access or no. For that prize I expect a finished game a 1.0.1 or something like that.And you can bet I will wait to that 1.0.1. Achievements or not. Well it can be a incentive. I found it cute and funny on some porn games to have achievements, some games even give "effects" on the main game. But I can live without it, not a need. I think that's all. Buh-bye!

Reddy Bread

As far as games go I want as much content as fast as possible. This is the trend with many markets in todays society especially anything related to technology. So EA seems like a pretty decent Idea as long as like you said it doesn't mess with the algorithms. Im not sure what other benefits come with EA but I like to be the first person to have something whether tangible or not haha. As far as the price point goes $25 seems fair I think most would be willing to pay at least 19.99$ and a little extra is beneficial to you not only sales wise but representing a higher quality then most other games of the same category. I think OEA is a pretty high quality game and although its a new story its still a tale that we can relate with as kids growing up, so it should draw some curiosity of what to expect from an adult version. I expect the demographic of people who are drawn to it will be not necessarily large but definitely diverse.

Johnny Bragas

I'm with Drifted regarding an EA release. It can go both sides and I think the more your developer profile/history shows that you're able to finish a project the more likely it will be for people to buy into the EA. Especially a niche segment like this one has great potential to profit from the "bonus PR" an EA release gives. Word of mouth is a strong sales driver and a developer/product with a good reputation have good chances to build a bigger audience before the actual release. It even might help you grow the community in preparation of the actual release. Of course, there are potential downsides, the split of sales you mentioned probably being the most important one. Another is this: Many developers misused the concept of EA and released a build of their games that was rather suited as alpha than an open beta. This left many gamers skeptical or disappointed of EAs in general. So an EA release might backfire in that sense that people see in this release "just another attempt to a quick cash grab". I think, though, that with enough product page assets and all your references you'd be able to tone down this risk significantly. Although I'm not really interested in OEA (yet), I'd advise for an EA release. Don't forget Steam Trading Cards. They're another reason for buyers to look your way. And I have the impression that they're an even stronger factor in lower price tiers. So this might be a worthwhile addition to the software. I don't have any empiric evidence, I'm afraid, and can only speak of personal experience. But, from what I heard, both, achievements and trading cards, seem to provide a good boost in sales. Plus, there are 3rd party platform that monitor for trading card releases, effectively making them a secondary PR channel. This is what I wanted to share and it might be a something to look into.

Sierra Lee

Oh, this could be what I was remembering, especially if it was lost in Patreon's message system. Do you still have the files? Could you message me with them?

Runcible Technician

I remember that I made a brotherhood of the wolf sprite but the placement on the page was wrong? Something like that.

Sierra Lee

I really appreciate everyone who buys a copy at launch! Please do leave a review if possible. ^-^ Wishlisting now also helps if you haven't already. Anyway, thank you for sharing your thoughts on EA and achievements.

Sierra Lee

You're pretty much describing my fear there, yeah. The question, which I don't really have data to calculate, is whether the increased price point would reduce sales by 25% or more. People who are slightly reluctant but wishlist the game aren't so bad, as they're likely to buy during later sales. I wish I had an updated version of that Valve talk broken down by genre, but I don't think that exists. >Regarding the screenshot, was it possible in earlier releases to hit 200 int? I went for all the sources I could find as of 0.4.5, and I only ever made it as high as 180. It wasn't possible. That was one of the changes implied by the screenshot, as this save involved 99% normal play and little altering variables during testing.

Sierra Lee

Thanks for all your feedback. The potential thing about EA is that the people who saw its EA release and skipped it would then see it again for the actual release, this time with reviews. But it could also just split the potential sales in half and reduce the algorithm boost.

Sierra Lee

Thanks for your feedback on everything. EA: While this would be logical, I don't know whether or not it would happen. The Darkest Dungeon devs gave a talk where they said that they expected EA to be a time for iteration and experimentation, whereas they found that players were more resistant than they expected, expecting stability and polish regardless of EA. That's the primary data point that informs my thoughts, anyway. Bestiary: Almost all features like this boil down to whether or not there's an existing plugin that can handle things, then usually some coding help so that it works with the game smoothly. I do actually see an MV bestiary plugin, but haven't experimented with it. Generally speaking, this sort of thing isn't a feature creep problem because it relies on already completed work.

Sierra Lee

Thanks for your input. Good point about the MV version... I don't know if that would have an effect, but it's something to keep in mind.

Drifted

I will buy a copy of this game on Steam upon release. I can't really speak to price point, as I don't tend to worry too much about price outside of $50+ games. Even if I am interested but not totally sold on a game at a particular price point, typically I would still put it on my wishlist looking to pick it up when it goes on sale. When it comes to early access, I can't speak to any general trends, but I can give you my own personal approach. I rarely buy games in EA in general, and I have basically three exceptions which might lead to do so. The first would be a game that is essentially complete. I can generally cope with bugs here and there as long as the game largely works and is mostly content complete. And I can take advantage of the opportunity that EA games often release at a slight discount. The second situation would be a game being developed by a company or individual who I reasonably trust to complete the game, which typically means a developer who has successfully completed games with relatively similar scopes. The final situation is rare and is essentially when I come across a game that I am so significantly interested in concept/design-wise that I am willing to simply take the risk that the game will never be completed. For me, OEA ticks all these boxes and would be an easily justifiable EA purchase. But it would obviously depend on a variety of factors for others -- even those who share the same EA philosophy as me. My guess is that the game releasing into EA essentially complete would be a good thing for most people, and could well benefit you exposure-wise as you mention in your post. As for achievements: I like achievements, but I will play this game with or without.

Desertopa

Personally, I feel like a $25 price tag is justified for OeA, but there's a big *but* there. There's a huge difference between what I personally think is justified after having experienced a game, and what I anticipate proactively. For me, $25 lies above a transition where I start to feel like I need to be *pretty sure* I'll enjoy the game before I'll commit my money to it. It's not that I expect significantly different things from a $15 versus a $25 game, but it takes less certainty of enjoyment for me to commit $15 than $25. This is just based on my own feelings, so I can't claim it'd generalize to other players, but I think that if I weren't familiar with you as a creator, and had no idea what to expect based on your reputation, I would see the game page and think OeA seemed like an interesting game which might well appeal to me, but I'd be hesitant to buy it at upwards of $20, because that's around the point where I start getting genuinely upset if the purchase ends up disappointing me. I'll still buy games above that price point, but they generally have to be either ones I'm pretty confident I'll like, or ones I suspect I'll be *really* enthusiastic about them if they pan out. So if I were aiming to extract the maximum money from audience members who're *specifically like myself* save for not already being familiar with your work, I'd price it at $19.99. I think a lot of other buyers might have transitional points at different price points, while still engaging in comparable behavior. Regarding the screenshot, was it possible in earlier releases to hit 200 int? I went for all the sources I could find as of 0.4.5, and I only ever made it as high as 180.

>Price point I always tend to side with whatever the data recommends but from a more philosophical perspective I think that it’s better to overshoot your price and maybe offer holiday sales because the alternative is never knowing how much more you could/should have demanded in the first place. Furthermore, seeing it have a non-trivial price tag would inform me that the game is high quality compared to other adult games. I think that lines up with my opinions on the game itself, so in a sense having a higher price can be a positive for how the game is viewed when someone first sees it. >Early Access Generally when I’ve bought EA games it’s either something that has significantly more content coming or that it’s something I can play with friends, but ideally both. If I wanted access to a single player game that isn’t finished, it would have to be from an IP that I’m personally invested in supporting (like your work). For example a lot of people bought the EA Baldur's Gate 3 release despite only having a single chapter of content. People have been begging for that game for a long time and it has been hyped up for a while now. For that release the consumers get the instant gratification of getting to play the new game they’re excited for but they are also guaranteed to get more content in the future. From my experience with OEA I don’t think it would serve the game well to have multiple releases. It’s a unique genre with a look that won’t be outdated by comparison to future games of a similar art style. This last part is just based on my own personal experiences. I’ve never wondered how long ago an adult theme game was released, just whether or not it’s something I can access without much effort on my part. I don’t imagine I would feel much difference between seeing an OEA released 2 years ago and an OEA released yesterday. What matters to me is that it’s easily accessed on steam and that it’s the type of content I’m looking for. If I saw a game like that in early access I might assume that it’s very buggy or incomplete. >Achievements I had no idea that this would be related to sales at all and can’t even imagine what kind of work goes into setting it up. All I can say is that OEA deserves recognition and appreciation and that if achievements can lead to that outcome then it will have been worth it.

Grim8P

Looks like you've been busy! Here are some thoughts on the questions you asked: > Second: did I ask someone to make a sprite for the Brotherhood of the Claw in OEA? I do not recall seeing a request from you on this, but I'm also not a good candidate to help you here. Hopefully someone talented replies on this topic! > Third, look at my progress: Yay for OEA progress! I am looking forward to getting my hands on 0.5.0. > Price Point When I saw this title I stopped reading and thought about what I thought the game should be priced at. My initial impression was $20-30 so $25 feels good. I'd also argue with anyone who thought $25 was too much for what the game offers. There is a lot of game and it is of high quality in many ways. I don't think it'd be hard to see this quality if one was to look at OEA and compare it to other RPGM games. What you wrote about Valve's numbers sounds right at least to me personally. And for me personally, I usually want games over $15 to give me an hour for each dollar I'm spending. This can obviously vary depending on the game but RPGs usually need to adhere to this rule for me. My "100%" content OEA run has ~60 hours although some number of those are needly grinding because I must learn all skills!!! >.< I didn't grind for 30h+ though so I think you're good here. > Early Access This is something I might suggest being more cautious of. I think a lot of people will expect an early access game to have a development process that I don't see OEA having because it is 99% done. Unless you're looking to obtain a bunch of feedback that you're then looking to action, you might get the opposite of what you're looking for. I do understand what you're going for here, but it might have been better done earlier if you wanted to go this route. But this is something I'm less certain of, just some thoughts I have on this topic and only because you asked. > Achievements As much as you're not looking forward to the idea, I do agree that it is probably up there in terms of things that could have a large impact on sales. I have done some achievement hunting before as a way to continue enjoying a game I've otherwise completed, but I don't always do so. Others may have more valuable feedback here. One other idea that you may equally dislike is including a bestiary. For Hollow Knight in particular, before any DLC, I really did not want the game to end, so I hunted achievements and filled the bestiary. Unsure on the work vs. reward here, but food for thought. Let me know if you'd like me to generate other ideas you're equally likely to not want to follow through with! >.> Good luck making these decisions and I shall look forward to next week's post!

Decanter

First-ever Abyssal Wendis lewds, I think, but hopefully not the last. Since gathering data is apparently not helping with this question, I'm going to defer to my gut and say put OEA out on Early Access after polishing up as best as you can so that people play it and say "wow this is really polished for Early Access". It sounds like a plausible result to me, anyway. That cheevo wrapper plugin mentions MV version 1.6.1+ specifically, while I think OEA is based on 1.2 since that was the latest version when the project was started. I dunno how much of a problem that really is, but I think it's worth asking about before you do a lot of draining work.

Sierra Lee

Thanks for your thoughts. Yeah, I hope that others will feel similarly about the price. Because OEA will be significantly polished by the time it arrives on Steam, EA will definitely be redundant in a logical sense (outside of maybe adding achievements or other features). However, having an EA period is the only way of getting any exposure from the Steam algorithm that's under a dev's control, hence the temptation to use it.

Tim

Personally I think the 25$ price point is justified, and doesn't really feel that different from a 15$ game. This is purely anecdotal, but the people I have spoken with as well as my own experience do align with the Valve talk you mentioned. 5$- 10$ feels like a jump, and we typically expect a difference in quality, but anything from 15$ - 35$ feels like a "real game" and is roughly the same. I suspect the early access debate simply doesn't have enough information to be determined before trying it. My personal take is that early access releases that don't have additional content/polish upon full release are redundant, but I don't know if the majority of the community would agree with me. And I hope the full release goes well!