What are some factors preventing you from financially contributing to or following lewd games?
I imagine some factors are:
Not liking a game's engine whether it's Unity, Ren'Py, or RPGM
Projects using a subscription model through Patreon and potentially having to track which games have been largely abandoned or are slow to receive updates
Potentially needing to back too many projects
Previously buying into games that have been abandoned and being wary of it happening again
The visual style (ex. Daz3D, Blender, 2D, and so on)
Grammatical mistakes
Preferring a linear or open world experience
A lack of choice or too much choice
Not enough lewd scenes or bad lewd scenes
Lots of text explaining actions and thoughts versus showing it visually
A focus on kinks you aren't interested in
Being concerned your friends will see it even though Steam recently started letting people hide games from their public library
There could be all kinds of reasons. I'd like to hear what people value the most and some examples of what made you stop playing, following, or financially contributing to a game.
For example I stopped playing Being a DIK during season two because I made the mistake of sleeping with a character locking me out of interactions with another character. I didn't realize until later and felt like I'd need a game guide to get the maximum sized harem and all the associated scenes.
Subscription model/ abandonment is probably the biggest one for me. Speaking as someone in the software space, I totally understand the benefits of continuous development and iteration. However as a consumer I'd much rather pay for a completed game once, than get burned shoveling money at something that'll never have a proper ending.
I think a lot of games on Patreon seem to be asking for rather outlandish prices. A new beta version of the game for about the same price as a subscription to some streaming services.
I'm also frustrated at the lack of sub-focused stuff. If there is kink, it's usually dommy slave owner stuff. Or breeding; that seems to be a surprisingly common theme in furry stuff at least, and it's something I'm just not into.
Your first point is super accurate ime. I've definitely seen instances where a dev is asking for $15-30 monthly just to have access to an EA or beta version that might take anywhere from six weeks to six months (or more) to arrive.
Like I get that game dev isn't easy, and I definitely wanna support you, but my dude, I'm not paying you hundreds to (potentially) thousands of dollars over the years to play an incomplete game that's still gonna take you seven more years to complete, if it ever even gets completed.
Then there's the fact that a huge number are incomplete and end up being abandoned. This is a bigger issue when there's a story involved. Ooh you got to halfway romance your target, look forwards to getting to second base in the next update!
An alternate title to the post could have been What are some elements you consider when looking for a lewd game to play? But I feel like that ignores the financial aspect
I'm too broke to contribute so these are reasons I won't follow/play them:
RPGM games have gotta be extremely interesting for me to bother. Generally I find basically any RPGM game clunky and ugly as hell. You can do a lot of the same things, basically, with Ren'py or Unity so I just don't understand why people bother with RPGM. Maybe it's very easy to handle from dev perspective? I remember reading somewhere that it can be difficult to do combat in Ren'py, but frankly that's generally not why I'm playing these types of games.
If a game has too much lead up to the nsfw scenes, it better have very interesting characters/plot because otherwise I will probably drop it. I have a pretty limited attention span so you gotta get me interested quick.
There's a couple kinks that I'm just flat not into to. I generally will just attempt to ignore or avoid them, but if that's the whole game.
Mostly the last bullet point you listed, I already had a friend comment when I played a lewd game and forgot to go offline on steam before hiding it was an option, kinda scared me away. Also, I'm pretty sure I'd get endless shit from my husband if he saw what I was playing lol
I do contribute to a handful of lewd games in development. I'd contribute to more if I had more money, so its mostly an "I'm broke" thing? Aside from that and whether I acually like the game, the only other factor I generally consider is whether it has good representation or not.