Harlowe's Eve (BL Yaoi 18+ Victorian)
Here's what I've discovered as an adult BL game developer on Itch.io (Viewership)
A number of days ago, I stumbled upon a community discussion about why a lot of games on Itch.io seem to be gay. The thread-starter accused gay game publishers/developers of abandoning platforms such as Steam, which they also claim has heavily censored such games, to come on here to post adult-oriented games of the same genre, but as a developer and publisher of that particular genre on here, I've discovered that this isn't exactly the case.
First of all, Steam doesn't censor BL games nilly-willy. Yes, I do understand that it may have double-standards as many who have left the platform have reported, but as far as I know, Steam doesn't get rid of games for simply being gay or adult-oriented gay. If it does, feel free to correct me - but so far, I've seen game developers who still have their BL games on Steam and are doing fairly well. DRAMAtical Murder, as we all know, is very, very gay - and also very, very adult. And viola - it's still there, along with a bunch of other adult-oriented BL games.
One reason I can think of as to why gay games seem to be more prominently featured here may be due to the fact that independent developers tend to churn them out faster than distributors on Steam do (there aren't as many BL games on Steam as there are on here, so I've noticed; it's why I don't have an account there LOL) - which in turn may have attracted a larger userbase to browse Itch to find them. I personally believe that that's what propels these games to the top.
Look, I get a lot of single-star, comment-less downvotes on my games; at one point, more than half of the ratings I got were all low ratings (and they still persist, even on my non-adult ones) - but Itch's algorithm doesn't seem to focus on pushing only five stars to the front or landing pages to be found. Rather, it seems to focus on how many views you get as well as how many downloads and browser plays you do, among a few other things.
Most people who play and enjoy games on Itch don't leave ratings or reviews; even less so consumers of adult-oriented games. It's the same when it comes to stuff like fanfiction or novels too; I publish those so I can see a trend in the analytics. The site developers probably realized this early and adjusted the system to feature games where true popularity lies - by consumption count. This means views and downloads - lots of views, and lots and lots of downloads, speak the loudest.
So what does that mean? That the games people click on a lot and download here are, as you've guessed, games tagged as adult-oriented gay games, which is why the algorithm is told, "people generally love these types of games, so let's suggest them and make them easier to find so more people who like these sort of games will visit our site". Or, as I've also discovered via another of my games, furry gay games.
From looking at my game's stats, furries appear to make up a large viewership on this site, and looking at their participation as I browse through their tags, they post quite a number of comments, sound genuinely appreciative of the games created for them and seem rather community-oriented, which probably leads to a higher amount of furry game developers being encouraged into putting more out. You can see quite a number of furry gay games on the top shelf of popular game landing pages. So yeah, Itch.io may or may not have become the new game-based FA, and for good reason too. In general, they seem like the verbally thankful sort of consumer a game developer would want to have.
So if you haven't thought about making any furry games, try giving it a go. It's probably a step forward in getting some encouraging feedback.
Anyway, moving on... with the tagging I use, how many views do I get? Pretty alright by newbie standards:
You might probably notice here that my 18+ BL games have double the views my teen/G (non-adult) games have. So yeah, I have indeed learned that if you wanted more viewership, it might work better if you also made them adult-oriented. It might do just as well, if not better, if they were bara games too. Bara games seem to also have less competition - from a simple search, I've found 200++ yaoi games... and only 64 tagged bara.
Horror-based games such as yandere games or jump-scares probably do better that other tags in general. You see quite a number of "Horror" and "Creepy" tags touted to you upon hitting "Browse Games" - this may be caused by the algorithm automatically suggesting the site's most popular tags on Itch. So if you're not looking to make sexy, sexy games, it's not a bad idea to make creepy games if viewership is a large part of what you're looking for.
Anyway, if you're reading on and wondering why my adult games are getting double the views, apart from there being more people specifically looking for NSFW games, it may also be due to less competition in general. Case in point - my newer, SFW game was published about a month or so later than three of my other adult-oriented BL games. It's right now under a heap of other BL games, both SFW and NSFW, while my older ones are still on the first page of newest NSFW BL games.
Fewer other NSFW games makes it easy to find the adult BL games compared to the regular BL ones. When there's fewer of something out there it also means more demand as opposed to supply - what this means is that people have more time to try our games out than when there are many other games out there of the same type, or, well, they just get tired of waiting for something new to come out and try your game anyway.
Having your game on the front page of the site itself doesn't always mean you'll get the most plays per views either, sadly. For one thing, I don't really look at the games on the front page of the site - it's generally the tags I'm interested in that I click on to find a game I'd actually play. It happens in fanfiction too - I filter by pairing. I don't even sort by views or kudos, but by newest first. I have a feeling quite a few people like myself who're into niche stuff like BL tend to do the same - too much of the ordinary is at the front of the site to bother with!
This isn't to say that it's not useful to have a game of yours at the "New and Popular" or "Popular" tabs of BL games, though. If you're making a BL game, you do want to be on the front page of the Yaoi tag if you can help it; it does get you extra eyes on your game by being on the landing of a searched tag. But getting there really depends on the site's algorithm too - until today I don't know how that works, and that's a very good thing since it means people can't game the system easily.
Anyway, this post has indeed gotten long. In short, what I've learned is that there are quite a few people looking for adult-oriented BL games here - so much so that these games do seem to be getting more views in general whenever you look at your stats. It also doesn't seem as if the site has many NSFW games being released even in a month.
It doesn't mean you should post too regularly either though. From what I've personally experienced, releasing three similar games in the same month wasn't too good an idea. It's probably better to store them up and release one a month so people get to pace themselves and your games don't compete against each other for views - and you can get fresh views from people new to the site looking for new stuff in a month or two's time.
So yeah, if someone says most of the games here are gay, try not to believe them too easily. There aren't actually that many NSFW gay games compared to regular types of games such as farming, FPS or simulation games. It's probably because there are so many regular types of general games that are getting released daily that their views have become very, very saturated compared to niche genres who have fewer of them released, so it's hard for regular stuff to get a lot of views per game.... or consumers here are just looking for niche or adult-oriented games in general.
Such is how indie nests are! Niche consumers like us tend to always be looking for something different that suits our palates after all. What better place than a pokey indie site to find our muscly gay romances?
Cheers!
EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention... my Wuxia/Xuanhuan/Xianxia games don't seem to be faring better than my western ones. Even Douya, which is one year old, has been beaten by Harlowe's Eve in the month since its release. If you're thinking of making Chinese fantasy games a la Untamed just to get views.... good luck. It's not an easy niche to invite people into trying since it can be difficult for them to grasp things such as immortal cultivation.
Comments
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I just found of your game recently and I'm glad I stumbled into this devlog since this is a topic I'm also very interested in.
It really is true that there are barely any r18+ BL games or just BL games in general on steam ;o;.
It's not that I'm looking for anything that is a full on game with cg art and high production value or such in the games I enjoy either. By chance last year, I stumbled onto text-based RPG games and especially r18+ text-based RPG games that I really ended up enjoying but most of them just have M/M option as a very small percentage of the game's experience so I found myself going through the games stepping around a lot of scenes just to find crumbs of those kinds of content but nonetheless I enjoyed them so I ended up trying to look for more and I was happy to find that itch had so much more options.
That being said, there's still not that many here that are exactly what I'm looking for which did end up making me want to get into game development although I'm very much an amateur at the moment. Itch really does seem to be a more welcoming platform for a newbie developer to just upload a game and test stuff out and every time I come back here to play games, I get inspired by other people's creativity and storytelling that I want to keep trying to get better at writing and making games.
Anyways, one of my main goals for making games is to make a danmei(?)-inspired BL game one day. I always find that the setups of Chinese BL novels to be really unique for genres other that the cultivation ones like zombie apocalypse and interstellar settings. I think it'd be interesting to have a text-game that sort of worked like how the plot develops in danmei but like more sus content bc those are usually mostly (creatively) censored out in Chinese novels.
Getting into danmei has made me want to learn Chinese despite not being very interest despite having Chinese classes for nearly half of my life lol
I'm not too clear on the mechanics of Wuxia/Xianxia/Xuanhuan setting so I felt too insecure to finish the twine game I tried to make before since I always find myself getting confused by cultivation terms but Amazing Cultivation Simulator helped supply a lot of my lacking knowledge so maybe i will give it another shot bc I still want there to be more games in those kinds of settings haha.
Thanks for making this log. It was a very interesting read!
Now I shall go play your Wuxia/Xianxia/Xuanhuan games now that I found out about them ^^
Aha! Thanks for the interest!
Yeah, I'm not surprised to hear Steam doesn't have as many R-18 BL games. As for regular BL games, I don't really see too many anywhere else either. We do seem to have a slightly larger amount of it on Itch that has a BL main plot, fortunately!
I know what you mean. Sometimes it's not a bad idea to start developing our own stuff when we can't find the content that we're looking for. The best part is that you don't need to censor them here.
I don't think you need to adhere 100% to existing cultivation terms - a lot of novels have settings that differ from others, including world rulesets. So you probably don't need to worry about it. Just go with the flow and enjoy the process and I'm pretty sure you'll be fine. If you need a glossary, you can always add one to your game's page.
No problem! I like writing journals anyway. Let me know what you think of my cursed cultivation games, the more cursed you feel, the better hehehehe
I believe that it looks like there are more BL games on itch than on steam is partly because...it's fairly easier to post games here than on steam...like posting on steam is more formal, and itch may be more casual, so there are quite a few short BL games here, which you can't see on steam. Idk, just a feeling.
And as for your edit...I think that's true xD as I am Chinese too, I often notice games made in or featuring Chinese elements. I don't know if this is because I only check out the Gay tag or not, but the popular ones would mostly be fangames of Chinese works (like Genshin or MDZS). Original BL games that are really popular and is purely about a Chinese topic, well...I haven't found one yet. The concepts are pretty hard for foreigners to understand I guess :P
A possible way to solve that is to simplify the terms, and add original ideas into it, for example, Genshin Impact again, or Qiu in Our Life Now & Forever. But then again, you can't say these games are completely 'Chinese' as well.
When I make games myself (currently just ideas), I would like to put some Chinese characters/elements in it, but that's all. Introducing traditions and cultures is too hard a task for some regular student like me xD
Ummmmmm and why didn't I just use Chinese in the first place???
总之加油，我们都有光明的未来，以及难道写论文一般的长感想是中国人特有才艺吗xDDD
Yeah, Steam seems a lot more formal and "curated". You'd definitely feel the pressure of having to put out something longer and of a higher quality, and that leads to more time sunk into developing a game. More time sunk into development means less of a churn time... meaning less games being published. It's just a vibe difference, not a censorship issue, imo.
Aha, so you've noticed the fan games huh? I've noticed a handful too, so maybe we can exchange notes on observations here. Fan games probably do well thanks to Twitter and Reddit, where most of the MDZS fan communities reside. Not sure about Genshin, though, but it's a good idea to promote your fan games on social media if you're posting them here.
A number of foreigners seem to have gotten into Xianxia and Wuxia, thankfully, and appear to be looking for more material, at least in the form of translated novels. The eastern English-speaking ones seem to come from the South East - likely from Singapore and Malaysia, like myself. I can't speak for the others from my region, but I can only speak my family dialects and not actually read and write formally in Mandarin. That's probably why I need translations like the Western fans do..... but the upside is that I can communicate very easily with them and bridge our differences. I've noticed a few translators are from Singapore, so that has helped with bridging.
It's nice to see people from all over the world come together to enjoy culture. I'm a fan of Victorian and English stuff myself, so it's been very lovely to be able to share, give and receive, and not just be confined to the latter.
Design-wise, Wuxia/Xianxia long hair and dress-like costumes may put off a number of BL fans on this site. Bara games seem naturally more popular here. Perhaps we might get more clicks if we added more muscles... but long flowing robes generally hide muscles anyway.
Ahaha yeah, agreed, don't make games just to introduce a culture, it's extremely difficult. You'll probably end up worrying more about the mechanics, promotions or translations instead of just enjoying the process. It's not a bad idea to just post games in Chinese, though, if you find it easier. There are a number of games that are just in Korean, Japanese or Chinese only. Just be sure to add your main language as the Supported Language in the Metadata tab so your game can be found by the folk who are looking for it.
If you ever make games, I'm sure they'll be very welcome! Diversity means having different flavors, never confined to one type of offering. You'll never know who'll enjoy your game!
Thanks for your encouraging words! In fact each of IDV, MDZS and Genshin have multiple fan games here, and that's why I noticed the games in the first place. Judging from the number, Genshin seems to be liked among western gamers?
And I agree that bara games are more popular here xD there are tons of bara/furry/bara plus furry games on itch, that's probably because the gay audience's more interested in those kinds of games... But Japanese kimonos are to the liking of many people as well, so I guess it's not just about muscles. Maybe the art style isn't...idk, manly enough??? Besides that, Asian clothing can show muscles too, like this game I recently played called NU:carnival...the characters' clothes have exposed skin here and there, and even have their suits torn during battles...
Another thing, I don't know if anyone mentioned this before, but your art style seems more western than eastern. Your western games' art just look more appropriate, although I don't really know the reason...
As for the fan communities...we couldn't really get access to most foreign websites like Twitter and Reddit due to region restrictions (yeah, China), and itch is one of the few sites on which I can directly communicate with ppl from other cultures. If I make games solely in Chinese, I could just post them in Chinese websites, there's certainly more people who understands the language there - unless the game has some 'unmentionable' contents, if you know what I mean. Itch is an international platform, which is more open and more...free, especially on LGBT topics, I love the discussions here. So if I am to put games on itch, maybe I would first finish it in Chinese (just because it's easier writing in your mother language lmao), then translate it into English.
Wait, are really there that many MDZS games? I've only found five so far, excluding the fanzine. But then again, I'm only looking for English language games to link to in my socmed, so there may be a limit as to what I'm seeing. A number aren't tagged, so I have had difficulty finding them.
It's a bit odd that you don't have access to Reddit and Twitter because I know a number of mainland Chinese people who're on both these platforms. I've got a number following me and interacting with me on both platforms so I know they exist. Perhaps try a VPN or look up ways to circumvent the block? There are folk from China offering to translate my fics and post them on Lofter, so I know it can be done because AO3 is blocked in your country and they've been able to send me messages.
Not really that many, very few in fact, compared to the mass of other BL games, but more than one is victory(?)
And yes, it can be done, there are pretty many folks who own VPNs in China, but I'm not one of them. That thing is banned in our country so it isn't too easy to find, and when I do find one, its price drove me back to not using VPN at all...Although I feel like everyone has one but me...I've been looking for ways, but haven't found one yet. I can visit AO3 too tho, we've got quite a few mirror websites, it's just there may be security problems.
That's was a great write up! I believe there's plenty of Wuxia fan in the western world, but it's unfortunately still a niche in a website like itch.
I noticed your game seem to be using quite a few customary words of the genre that a lot of people won't understand. I also enjoy reading the genre, but can't quite understand some phrases you used in English, because I read it in our own language ( Our language has some root in Chinese, so direct machine translation is quite smooth). Maybe you can ease it by using the closest English equivalent, like using "Master" for the old man for master and pupil relationship.
I would want to make a Wuxia genre VN someday, but I don't quite understand Chinese naming conventions ( western name doesn't need a meaning), or costume standard, or writing some special words (like mentioned above) in a way that English reader can easily understand. Choose appropriate English words without making it sounding weird in ancient Chinese setting is definitely a challenge, not taking in account that the writer first language is English or not.
Thanks for your insight! I'm not sure if it's just a niche on itch.io - it does seem like a niche everywhere else as well. The upside to it being a niche means that it's usually sought after by folk who are specifically and actively looking for it. I feel that if more niche audiences know that itch.io houses Wuxia/Xianxia games, they would visit this platform and we'll have more developers making them since they also share the same niche. But if we're looking to get a lot of views and plays on the get go.... that's not going to happen. It'll take some time before it catches on.
You bring up an interesting point about translations and origin languages. To be honest, I had thought of using simplified English words such as "Master", but they don't always fit the context - "Shifu" doesn't always translate directly to "Master", since "Master" can also mean one from the household or an employer of a servant, and it's a very different thing if it's a martial father ("Shizun"), because it's more clan-based than technical-based ("Shifu"), but like "Shifu", can also mean "Master". As it is, I'm already taking a risk by using the general term, "young master" instead of the more specific "gongzi" and "shaoye", which have different meanings but both can translate to "young master".
If I'd used generalized words for all of them, it'll alienate the ones who are already into the genre as it would confuse them. It would also unfortunately confuse me, since I'm directly translating it from my head to English with these specific meanings. Therefore I'd left some of them directly untranslated - they're shorter, easier to manage, and keep an original flavour that makes Wuxia, well, Wuxia. It's a bit like "-sensei", "-kun" and "-san" suffixes in English-translated Japanese games, novels or comics... swap them out and it'd feel weird to a native English reader who's been exposed to anime translations for a long time. That said, I ultimately chose to write for the native English reader and not the peripheral audience who aren't natively English-language consumers; sometimes you need to choose between a rock and a hard place. That's the challenge of producing stuff for a niche - you tend to need to pick one and stick with it.
Getting into Wuxia is mainly about prolonged exposure, I feel. There are times when I think it isn't so much about educating the audience, but rather inviting them to stay and learn and explore at their own pace. What this means is to make it as enticing as possible, whether it be in character design or humour. This will draw them in, and then they'll figure if they want to know more about the genre or if they don't.
The only thing I can say is that Chinese names don't necessarily require a meaning either - we're sometimes named by our parents without that much thought. There's literally an uncle in my family named "Small Dog" because my grandpa liked dogs, and I'm literally named after the fact that I came out of the womb ass-first. So I wouldn't really worry about names were I you.
The only thing you might want to worry about are the oufits, though. It can look pretty jarring if we don't understand the components and layers of the outfits before tweaking them. The idea is to make them look less like costumes and more of something that fits into the world it's from. But if your consumers are mostly Westerners I don't think it's something to worry too much about either. I can't speak for other Asians, but... where I come from I don't really think it's our culture to call you out on that sorta thing. In turn, the Westerners haven't really called me out for getting anything wrong about Western culture either. I feel we're quite alright on the give-and-take bit.
Yeah, I do understand that the right way to translate is the hardest part that prevent me from actually try to write one. Many words are without alternatives either: the puplpil who came under the master before you and after you have specific noun to show their seniority etc.
It's the same thing as senpai, kouhai, sensei, nii-san etc in Japan. I noticed in official translation of manga etc they often ommited those titles and replace with characters name. It make sense for westerners because they don't call their sibling " big brother", the stranger lady who is older than you "sister". For Asian, they would consider calling name out rude, and I wouldn't be able to take it seriously if Alphone Elric start calling his brother " Edward". So yeah I understand your concern about confusion it might cause.
I recommend "master" because that words was a favorite in manga translation and Japanese isn't less varied than Chinese when it come to pronoun, I believe most English reader could interpret the difference between "master"- teacher and "master" -owner. The prerson who make the round medicine thing ( what is that called in English again) would be weird to be called potion master tho.
Back to topic, when I was a beginner in the genre, most of the book i read were beginner friendly with detailed explanations on how immortal cultivation works, so I still think some explanation is still required. The specialize nouns, if you don't want to switch them, you might want to add a dictionary system that highlights the words when it first appear and show the english meaning of the text when player click on them (I might have heard of a Renpy code that does that). The advantage of VN is that we could make use of programming to our advantage. I understand that it would be too much trouble for short game xD.
About the clothes, yeah I'm totally not confident to draw them. How many layer of robes, which side going in first, how does the inner layer looks like
when they are taken off for a H sceneetc require a lot of research. And the problem with Chinese name is that it's hard for a non-Chinese to name a character in Chinese because they are so language specific. It's also hard for a non-Chineses to write something in another ancient culture (though fictional but based a bit on reality). Western style VN is easier probably because the whole world is modernized following the west, and there's not as many hard rule (or if there are, people broke them often enough that the broken rule became the norm).Yeah, there's no real right way or wrong way to translate them - which can make it hard in its own way. If we neutralized everything and made them completely western, quite a number of westerners who're already very used to cultivation will find it odd or too dumbed down. And yes, your disciple brothers and sisters will all have seniority and junior names depending on ranking. "Senior Disciple Brother Yi" would be a mouthful compared to "Yi-shixiong". You can't run away from that in cultivation, unfortunately, unless you're making a story about a hermit...
Yeah, there's also the issue of it sounding rude if honorifics were dropped. Alphonse calling Edward by name wouldn't be odd at all since they're westerners from the start. But in an ancient Chinese clan/sect setting? Oh boy.
I don't know about "potion master" but fortunately the ones who make pills can easily be called "alchemists", "herbalists" or more accurately "pill forgers". If they can also make potions and decoctions, the easiest way is to simply call them "pharmacists". It's not so straightforward when making a distinction between "Shifu" and "Shizun" though. Using the latter usually highlights the cuteness of the disciple, after all. As always, the cuteness of a big wolfish clan disciple is a most important thing!
Mm, yeah, I think I know what you mean about footnotes and explanations. A lot of novel sites have modern footnotes (popup tags), that you can click at to find a glossary or explanation of the words. They definitely help newbies with the terms and teach you a bit more about the culture as you go without you needing to refer to a search engine. I write these footnotes when posting cultivation novels on regular sites. But like you mentioned, it's an absolute pain to program that sort of thing for a short VN - and a free one at that where we're not going to get much payout or much thanks for. The cons outweigh the pros, really.
But if it helps, think of it as something folk who already know cultivation can have as street cred! They'd be like, "here's how I can test my knowledge! I no longer need footnotes to understand the game!" In fact, if they're streaming it, they can work as a translator too to the audience and that might give show off their skills and knowledge. There's always a silver lining to doing things on medium to hard mode. We don't always need to spoon-feed our audience. Quite a number may prefer to learn to fish on their own, or show off their fishing skills. It might help to label it for advanced cultivation readers only, which may be what they're looking to be known as.
I see. It does make sense that non-Chinese folk are scared to start because of the naming conventions and cultural differences. Everyone's working hard to make a VN and the last thing we'd want is for folk to laugh at us or tell us off for getting something wrong. As it is, we're already mostly not paid for whatever we're doing... and then there's this additional stress! I totally get ya.
I know I've talked about making Wuxia/Xianxia games more available to others, but honestly, after some retrospective, there's nothing wrong with leaving it as a niche too. It's just that there's this misconception that making Wuxia/Xianxia BL games will get a developer views because The Untamed and Faraway Wanderers are popular. Wuxia/Xianxia's like K-pop; it looks big but not everyone's actually into it. If views makes someone happy, I don't recommend they do Wuxia/Xianxia unless they like the genre, or can market their games very well.
I'm only really making Wuxia/Xianxia games because I so happen to be Chinese and it's naturalized for me. The upside is that I don't really need to market it because people will be clicking on it out of curiosity anyway. It's probably pretty rare to see something ancient Chinese pop up in BL adult games. Even if people are not interested, they would click to see what it is.
But now I find out why Wuxia is rare here. People are too scared to make them.