Do you ever wonder how big the eroge industry really is?

[marquent]

Talking mainly about Japan and maybe China and Korea, do you people know of any estimates of how many people are making a living out of working on or around the games that are shared here?
I know there are actual pretty long standing japanese companies like alicesoft, like these guys seem to have a full on office where people work on eroge which is pretty funny to think of, and makes me wonder if the adress of it could be found on some kind of national company register since they have a pic of the office here

You must be registered to see the links

But anyways, this thread is really meant as an invitation to think about this idea, try and imagine what the lives of people who's job making computer porn, and those who aren't actively making it but work for those eroge companies (legal services, accountants etc..), how do they present their job to their friends, family, strangers, how they truly feel about it all. It's always interesting to hear about people with atypical jobs like that.

Now that i think about it the names of those eroge company employees are probably public in some way and they could be contacted

 

[Qahlz]

makes me wonder if the adress of it could be found on some kind of national company register since they have a pic of the office here

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It's a lot easier than that. Their adress is listed here:

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[desmosome]

Adult industry is normalized to a degree in Japan. I don't know personally, but it seems to me that there isn't a huge stigma associated with it. A jobs a job.

Hardcore porn is straight up illegal in Korea. That said, there is some room for interpretation as it's an archaic obscenity law. Showing genitals is a nono, so Korean porn movies basically are all camera angle trickery. As for porn webtoons and such, a straight up mindless porn would be pornography, but if it has some kind of plot... it could be argued to be art. That's why Korean pornhwas all have actual plots. Then again, I know there are Korean artists that release short porn comics similar to typical hentai doujins, so i dunno how they get around that. In truth, they don't really ever go after individuals for watching. Distributors could have problems, but I mean, everyone jerks off and watches porn, and korea is no exception. Also, the ban on porn in Korea is really much more of a ban on accesibility of it to minors. They crack down hard with age verification and SSN verification for basically all account creation for online sites and services. Adults have easy access to porn, and even celebrities joke about watching videos on prime time TV variety shows, so there isn't some gestapo threat that will catch people for simply watching porn. But as a superficial culture that's always chasing clout and climbing the social ladder, I'd guess that most people don't announce their involvement in the porn industry.

I have no info on China. Maybe someone else could chime in. Chinese porn was almost never a thing until recently, in my personal experience as a consumer. Since a few years ago, Chinese porn became quite visible in pornhub and other porn sites. I just figured that maybe porn was illegal in China but they relaxed the law recently? Not sure.

 

[MarshmallowCasserole]

Talking mainly about Japan and maybe China and Korea, do you people know of any estimates of how many people are making a living out of working on or around the games that are shared here?

That's an interesting question, and it would be great if someone fluent in Japanese could google a good, not terribly outdated article on eroge industry revenue estimates, or some major distribution channel stats, like dlsite.

But for western scene, the revenue is very small. Public adult gaming is around $2M on patreon (monthly). Let's be very generous, and double that on the account of other platforms. Let's also ignore the pareto distribution. So if we have $4M monthly, and (again very generously) you need $1k in a LCOL country, that's 4000 people self-employed. That's tiny, and I must stress this rests on several incredibly generous assumptions. For realistic figures you can safely slash a zero.

 

[NeonSelf]

Why limit the scope to just China\Korea\Japan, when adult games are actually made globally in any country.

I'd start to count adult games in groups, so its easier to get into specifics later. It should be games that are made to earn money, instead of just exploring some weird fetish as a hobby project.

1 - I've seen alot of super casual adult games on steam, like jigsaw puzzles, that are easy to make with a few sexy images.
2 - There are real-porn games, made with real actors. They are played as a movie with some choices inserted to pick the next scene.
3 - There are games with complex mechanics, that are made like modern idle games for cash grab. You may call them "Pay to skip the timer". They are made by professionals in both programming and manipulative gamedesign.
4 - Games that heavily rely on supporters, through Patreon or something else. These seem a minority among others, because they are mostly made by individuals without solid business plan or marketing.

But anyways, this thread is really meant as an invitation to think about this idea, try and imagine what the lives of people who's job making computer porn, and those who aren't actively making it but work for those eroge companies (legal services, accountants etc..), how do they present their job to their friends, family, strangers, how they truly feel about it all. It's always interesting to hear about people with atypical jobs like that.

If anyone is working for a company - everything they make is under NDA, so its not a problem to hide your actual role in making any game. And if some of your relatives found your game and start asking questions - I think they are fine with it, because they intentionally looked for an adult game on a specialized site. So they are into this stuff too.

If you are working as a hobbyist - its completely different. Not only you have to hide your work. But you also have to explain where are the money coming from, while you seem to have no regular job.

 

[morphnet]

Talking mainly about Japan and maybe China and Korea, do you people know of any estimates of how many people are making a living out of working on or around the games that are shared here?
I know there are actual pretty long standing japanese companies like alicesoft, like these guys seem to have a full on office where people work on eroge which is pretty funny to think of, and makes me wonder if the adress of it could be found on some kind of national company register since they have a pic of the office here

You must be registered to see the links

But anyways, this thread is really meant as an invitation to think about this idea, try and imagine what the lives of people who's job making computer porn, and those who aren't actively making it but work for those eroge companies (legal services, accountants etc..), how do they present their job to their friends, family, strangers, how they truly feel about it all. It's always interesting to hear about people with atypical jobs like that.

Now that i think about it the names of those eroge company employees are probably public in some way and they could be contacted

It also depends on if you are going to limit it to games only or are looking into the whole market? Remember Eroge is a lot more than just games as we are used to. Even if the conventions are not included, there is the merchandise section which in and of itself is huge. From figurines to clothing to body pillows and accessories to tapestries etc., all need designers and companies to produce them, market them etc. Then there is advertising and sales. In Japan alone they have whole shopping districts that make money from eroge.

So that might help with the search for information and data too.

 

[marquent]

Why limit the scope to just China\Korea\Japan, when adult games are actually made globally in any country.

I'd start to count adult games in groups, so its easier to get into specifics later. It should be games that are made to earn money, instead of just exploring some weird fetish as a hobby project.

1 - I've seen alot of super casual adult games on steam, like jigsaw puzzles, that are easy to make with a few sexy images.
2 - There are real-porn games, made with real actors. They are played as a movie with some choices inserted to pick the next scene.
3 - There are games with complex mechanics, that are made like modern idle games for cash grab. You may call them "Pay to skip the timer". They are made by professionals in both programming and manipulative gamedesign.
4 - Games that heavily rely on supporters, through Patreon or something else. These seem a minority among others, because they are mostly made by individuals without solid business plan or marketing.



If anyone is working for a company - everything they make is under NDA, so its not a problem to hide your actual role in making any game. And if some of your relatives found your game and start asking questions - I think they are fine with it, because they intentionally looked for an adult game on a specialized site. So they are into this stuff too.

If you are working as a hobbyist - its completely different. Not only you have to hide your work. But you also have to explain where are the money coming from, while you seem to have no regular job.

the reason i was limiting the scope is because western eroge is mostly just one or a few dudes working from home on those projects often with a job on the side, which is an interesting lifestyle to talk about but what truly fascinates me is the idea that there are some dudes in their 30's-40's, maybe with a family, waking up at 6-7am, putting on a formal attire and going to an office to work on a project with a team, and that project is some shit like hentai labyrinth for the next few months

 

[NeonSelf]

the reason i was limiting the scope is because western eroge is mostly just one or a few dudes working from home on those projects often with a job on the side, which is an interesting lifestyle to talk about but what truly fascinates me is the idea that there are some dudes in their 30's-40's, maybe with a family, waking up at 6-7am, putting on a formal attire and going to an office to work on a project with a team, and that project is some shit like hentai labyrinth for the next few months

I've worked on an online pay-to-win startegy games for 8 years. Even those were hard to explain to my parents, since they never played anything except simple games like '3 in a row'. At first, making games was seen as temporary hobby, before finding 'real job'.

Also, the dresscode on my jobs as dev was almost non-existent. I dont meet with clients, so the main requirements were to wear something clean and nothing semi-transarent (when nipples are seen through fishnet T-shirt). It gets hot here in summer, so alot of people are wearing shorts and flippers.

 

[marquent]

I've worked on an online pay-to-win startegy games for 8 years. Even those were hard to explain to my parents, since they never played anything except simple games like '3 in a row'. At first, making games was seen as temporary hobby, before finding 'real job'.

Also, the dresscode on my jobs as dev was almost non-existent. I dont meet with clients, so the main requirements were to wear something clean and nothing semi-transarent (when nipples are seen through fishnet T-shirt). It gets hot here in summer, so alot of people are wearing shorts and flippers.

that is pretty interesting, how was the atmosphere in the office?

 

[NeonSelf]

that is pretty interesting, how was the atmosphere in the office?

It was great, actually. We had a PS4, ping pong table, fruits and sweets for everyone. When you dont have tasks to do - it was ok to play games at the office, alot of people had steam and battlenet installed on their work machines. Sometimes we stayed at the office after work to play casual tabletop games. I've seen a few people bringing their Warhammer 40k armies, I have no idea what are the rules there, but it was cool to look at.

 

[Wankstaindeluxe]

Talking mainly about Japan and maybe China and Korea, do you people know of any estimates of how many people are making a living out of working on or around the games that are shared here?
I know there are actual pretty long standing japanese companies like alicesoft, like these guys seem to have a full on office where people work on eroge which is pretty funny to think of, and makes me wonder if the adress of it could be found on some kind of national company register since they have a pic of the office here

You must be registered to see the links

But anyways, this thread is really meant as an invitation to think about this idea, try and imagine what the lives of people who's job making computer porn, and those who aren't actively making it but work for those eroge companies (legal services, accountants etc..), how do they present their job to their friends, family, strangers, how they truly feel about it all. It's always interesting to hear about people with atypical jobs like that.

Now that i think about it the names of those eroge company employees are probably public in some way and they could be contacted

I think their industry is more akin to indie game development, but like, 80s-90s indie devs.


I did a bit of research on one company, Atelier kaguya(

You must be registered to see the links

), and found somethings interesting.

it mentions "It is one of the most popular brands because of its stable content and lack of problems that often occur in adult games, such as delayed release dates and the presence of bugs."

Sound familiar? Yeah, apparently Japanese adult games suffer the same problems american games due.

And while Atelier Kaguya is really popular, it also mentions they have yet to make a game that has sold more than 30,000 units. Which while good, (They're games typically cost around 60 USD, so at 30,000, they'd have made around 6 million dollars.), does put it into perspective.

These games don't really sell that much in the grand scheme of things, and that's assuming they make just under 30,000.

One of their brands specifically (Honky-tonk Pumpkin) used to sell games every 3-4 months and all costed 60 dollars. I'm going to guess they typically sold around 5,000-10,000 units per game, earning around 300,000-600,000 dollars per game.

So im gonna go on a limb and say it's similar for the other companies.

 

[NeonSelf]

And while Atelier Kaguya is really popular, it also mentions they have yet to make a game that has sold more than 30,000 units. Which while good, (They're games typically cost around 60 USD, so at 30,000, they'd have made around 6 million dollars.), does put it into perspective.

These games don't really sell that much in the grand scheme of things, and that's assuming they make just under 30,000.

Its sad that there is no centralized marketplace like Steam, but for adult games. Thats why they barely make any profit while being pirated. I dont mind paying for a good game, but I have no idea where to look for one.

Subscription model is unfair to the consumer, since game development may take years, and even at some basic price of $3 per month it gets over $60 really quick. While no content is guaranteed, you just hope the dev adds something good every few months.

 

[Wankstaindeluxe]

Its sad that there is no centralized marketplace like Steam, but for adult games. Thats why they barely make any profit while being pirated. I dont mind paying for a good game, but I have no idea where to look for one.

Subscription model is unfair to the consumer, since game development may take years, and even at some basic price of $3 per month it gets over $60 really quick. While no content is guaranteed, you just hope the dev adds something good every few months.

Doesn't steam allow adult games?

 

[NeonSelf]

Doesn't steam allow adult games?

Yes, but have you tried navigating there? Every game is marked as just 'sexual content' or 'nudity'. Also I believe it has alot of restrictions, since alot of games require uncensor patch downloaded from somewhere else.

 

[Qahlz]

Also I believe it has alot of restrictions, since alot of games require uncensor patch downloaded from somewhere else.

That's usually the case when the developer publishes the game without the porn content (e.g. Nekopara). I think that many of them may still be from when Steam didn't allow porn games, as they got around that restriction that way.

 

[Wankstaindeluxe]

That's usually the case when the developer publishes the game without the porn content (e.g. Nekopara). I think that many of them may still be from when Steam didn't allow porn games, as they got around that restriction that way.

That does make sense. Koikatu couldn't sell the school part of the game (The main part of the game) cause it seemed underage.

Shame...

 

[marquent]

I think their industry is more akin to indie game development, but like, 80s-90s indie devs.


I did a bit of research on one company, Atelier kaguya(

You must be registered to see the links

), and found somethings interesting.

it mentions "It is one of the most popular brands because of its stable content and lack of problems that often occur in adult games, such as delayed release dates and the presence of bugs."

Sound familiar? Yeah, apparently Japanese adult games suffer the same problems american games due.

And while Atelier Kaguya is really popular, it also mentions they have yet to make a game that has sold more than 30,000 units. Which while good, (They're games typically cost around 60 USD, so at 30,000, they'd have made around 6 million dollars.), does put it into perspective.

These games don't really sell that much in the grand scheme of things, and that's assuming they make just under 30,000.

One of their brands specifically (Honky-tonk Pumpkin) used to sell games every 3-4 months and all costed 60 dollars. I'm going to guess they typically sold around 5,000-10,000 units per game, earning around 300,000-600,000 dollars per game.

So im gonna go on a limb and say it's similar for the other companies.

well depending on the amount of people working that might still be good numbers for those companies, there are probably some people working there who live very comfortably and can provide for their families off of eroge