CHANGE OF TARGET AUDIENCE

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Arcanalogia
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CHANGE OF TARGET AUDIENCE

Post by Arcanalogia »

Well I am a big fan of winter wolves (even if I made my account in forum recently). I love all your games and their uniqueness but I have recently noticed a change. When you early days you were writing games from male PoV (games like summer session, card sweetheart etc) and then started making games which allows one to choose their MC's sex. But recently I have noticed that you have switched to making games with female-only MCs(because your target audience is female as they must be buying most of your games) which I think is a bit reclusive. The main attraction of a interactive game is that it allows you to connect to the character easily, it makes you believe that you are the MC but confining the gender make it loose this appeal and makes it loose it's beauty. I know giving us a choice for MC's sex doubles the cost and number of CGs but YOU CAN MAKE CGs IN 1st person PoV which will allow you to keep cost low. I know this is a trend in market to focus on females as there are way more otome games than male oriented VNs (I am talking about here in a south Asian country which is of course not Japan) and those with choice for gender are making way more female centered games than male centered (CHOICES : Story You Play being a good example) but indies always have the charm to make unique and inclusive game and your tagline in Patreon and twitter makes me believe that you consider inclusiveness as your strength. So I am not asking you to leave making otome and yuri only game completely but just appealing you to have a good balnce of games you make for money( I guess female centered VNs as you make them only when you need higher revenue and keeps them simple for maximizing profit) and for pleasure(RPGs and other innovative game.
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jack1974
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Re: CHANGE OF TARGET AUDIENCE

Post by jack1974 »

No worries, of the 3 games in the work this year, two have male protagonist (Cursed Lands and Love Bites) and only one is yuri-only (Volleyball Heaven).
All the future RPGs currently announced have male/female protagonists as well.
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mastro
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Re: CHANGE OF TARGET AUDIENCE

Post by mastro »

I'm a man but I love yuri games. Much better to see only the bodies of those gorgeous women without any ugly men to ruin the view. Just sayin' not al man want to see men around! :twisted:
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SimonStardust
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Re: CHANGE OF TARGET AUDIENCE

Post by SimonStardust »

mastro wrote: Mon Jan 08, 2018 3:36 pm I'm a man but I love yuri games. Much better to see only the bodies of those gorgeous women without any ugly men to ruin the view. Just sayin' not al man want to see men around! :twisted:
Well, and I for example am sick of everything revolving around female characters.
Every time Jack posts another - more or less - pretty female character everyone is like: "Omg can we romance her?" While I seem to be among the few ones who wish we could play as the aforementioned female (not in all cases though).
As well as you prefer to only look at women, well... I wouldn't mind to ditch them altogether and only look at hot males going for each other. :twisted:
Just saying not all women want to see women around either. :wink:
Beware! Peerons ahead! xD
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jack1974
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Re: CHANGE OF TARGET AUDIENCE

Post by jack1974 »

Well everything I had to say about this topic I actually said already in a blog post a while ago:
http://www.winterwolves.net/blog/2016/1 ... nce-games/
(coincidentally one of my most commented blog post ever!)
You can skip the first part about Never Forget Me and read from "Romance in future games" downwards :)
Also remember that in some cases it's also a "problem" of the artist (some don't do certain things) or writers (some aren't comfortable writing yuri/yaoi/etc whatever). So it's not like I can always decide in full freedom. For games I do myself or with trusted writers like Miakoda,Fen, etc we'll try to do like Cursed Lands - all possible romance combos :)
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anita
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Re: CHANGE OF TARGET AUDIENCE

Post by anita »

Thank you for all your efforts. Are there other indies who let players choose the protagonist? as far as I know, no one. Even the most successful Vn authors mostly go with female main character and then otome or yuri. You're really doing a lot, keep up the good work.
Falchion
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Re: CHANGE OF TARGET AUDIENCE

Post by Falchion »

If I may add: For RPGs like Loren, I think gender choice is a good idea. Gameplay is typically the bigger focus and the story at large shouldn't change, so in theory it's a good way to broaden the audience without too much extra work. In theory.

For standard VNs and dating sims, though, I don't think it's a good idea. In these cases, story and characters are the primary focus, and most players will only be interested in one style, so to speak (GxG, BxB, GxB, BxG). Adding in player gender options can exponentially increase the amount of work and the final cost while players are likely to only be interested in a specific few routes, often less than half of what the game offers, yet you're asking them to pay full price.

Take Roommates, for example. I'm a yuri fan, but why would I want to pay $25 for just one lesbian route? Even if I were a GxB fan, that's still only 3/8 routes, less than half. Not only that, in order to be "fair," you have to properly introduce and give time to all the characters, so I may have to slog through other content I don't care about to see what I actually came for. If the VN had a specific focus, this wouldn't be a problem.

I've been anticipating Nicole yuri for the past 5 years for this very reason; I can buy it and actually enjoy everything it will have to offer. Naturally, I'm also anticipating Volleyball Heaven and Summer in Trigue (And C14 yuri? Was that going to be a thing or do I recall incorrectly?).

EDIT: Also, I think CGs in first person is a cheap cop-out and way too limiting on what the artist and writer are able to do.
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jack1974
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Re: CHANGE OF TARGET AUDIENCE

Post by jack1974 »

As I wrote in that blog you can always wait a sale and instead of paying $25, pay much less.
There can be some middle ground, but while for RPGs generally is worth it, I agree that for dating sim is a lot of work. Love Bites was done like that, but for others I might just go with two options (male protagonist and BxG,BxB, female protagonist and GxG,GxB and so on).
And C14 Dating yuri is no longer a thing, sorry :)

Regarding first person CGs I know many players like them since it's more immersive (assuming you also see the whole game in first person view of course). Once again it depends on tastes.
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BobTheMob
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Re: CHANGE OF TARGET AUDIENCE

Post by BobTheMob »

jack1974 wrote: Wed Jan 10, 2018 7:06 am And C14 Dating yuri is no longer a thing, sorry :)
I know I've already asked, but seeing that I feel like askin again: any possibility of a male version? 'Cause Melissa was really cute. :)

And/or will we ever see anything illustrated by Deji again? Her work in general is really cool stuff.
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jack1974
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Re: CHANGE OF TARGET AUDIENCE

Post by jack1974 »

No male version, and Deji is actually already working on another game, I'll talk about it in public soon :)
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