Round table — what is the visual novel market?
App2Top brought together the heads of Hit'n'run Digital Studio, KPD, FlyinDogs and SERIES to talk about the situation in the visual novel market. We discussed the cost of development, the competitiveness of the market and the myths associated with the niche.
1. It is widely believed that a visual novel is one of the easiest genres to develop, which is suitable for beginners who want to try their hand at development. What do you think about this position?
Maxim Pankratov is the founder of Hit'n'run Digital Studio
From the point of view of resources, this is so – you will need a very small team to develop a visual novel, and many do them solo. In general, for a novice developer who wants to try himself for the first time, it is a very good option to start with a novel. But the devil, as usual, is in the details. To develop a good and high-quality novel, you will need narrowly focused, but very good specialists who will be able to pull out their areas in development, and it will also be very important to see enough of the head in this genre. It is important to stand out, otherwise your novel risks going unnoticed. However, for a beginner, perhaps this is not critical – experience is experience.
Alexander Lipilin — co-founder of KPD Studio
On the one hand, the development of visual novels has a low entry threshold. To create the simplest game, basic programming skills, a small amount of graphics and the ability to tell a story through dialogues are enough. Ready-made specialized engines and generative models for working with text and graphics make development even more accessible. So it's really relatively easy to create a game that formally refers to visual novels.
However, to create a visual novel that is not only playable, but also really interesting, able to stand out among the mass of similar projects, it will require significant efforts comparable to the development of games of other genres. Here, the art of screenwriting and high-quality directing comes to the fore, skillfully using a limited set of expressive means inherent in the genre. Beginners often seriously underestimate the amount of work that needs to be put into working with the plot and its implementation in the text. And we, as a team that made its first game, were no exception.
Ilya Maksimenko is the founder of FlyinDogs
I partially agree with the thesis that this is one of the simplest genres, since there are a huge number of tools for developers to make a visual novel relatively quickly. With the advent of neural networks, the situation has become much simpler, so if you have a little experience in programming, you can even assemble an interesting novel on your own.
Peter Prokhorenko — SERIES
I think that this setting is fundamentally wrong. It's not even that the concept of "developing a game" and "making a hit" is being replaced (no one just needs to develop something in any genre - hits are needed), but that there are no "simple genres" at all. Each genre requires a deep understanding of it in order to achieve success. In short stories, indeed, the technical part is noticeably simpler than in other genres, but the main pitfalls here are precisely how the narrative content is organized. And here the key point is to have talented playwrights on staff, and they understand the audience of short stories very well. This is a very rare combination. Without this, the development of the novel will be a failure. However, there are advantages. Achieving this failure will take less time than developing any other game.
2. How conservative is this genre? Are there any trends in the genre that are important to keep in mind? Or is it still enough to use traditional approaches and mechanics for success here?
Maxim Pankratov is the founder of Hit'n'run Digital Studio
Visual novels are not a conservative genre at all. On the contrary, this is a genre that requires experimentation. If you want to make a popular game, you need to come up with something that stands out from the rest of the games. It can be a memorable and interesting visual, some cool idea for a story, or a meme game (as we know, several of these were shot on Steam).
2007 (Hit’n’run Digital Studio)
Of course, it is worth focusing on the Japanese — everything in their novels has been invented and polished for a long time, but just behind bold experiments in the genre you are able to hide the lack of funding and experience. Yes, it would be cool, like the Japanese, to do an opening with vocals and rendered cutscenes, but we can't believe that. Therefore, the artistic component in the novels is more important. But the question remains the same: how to make candy with a limited budget and a small set of tools.
Alexander Lipilin — co-founder of KPD Studio
Visual novels have long followed an established basic approach: character sprites are displayed against the background of various locations, their speech and thoughts are text that is displayed in a dialog box.
Notable innovations have been brought by the advent of mobile phones, separating mobile novels into a separate subgenre due to smaller screens and vertical format, as well as, as a rule, shorter gaming sessions.
Visual novels for PC, on the other hand, can deviate from the basic formula towards more complex visual means: speech animations, character and camera movements, voice acting, reaching the level of audiovisual complexity up to the level of narrative games from Telltale Games or Quantic Dream. However, in my opinion, it is much more important for success to focus on an interesting plot than on technical innovations. As for thematic trends, visual novels most often include stories that are best conveyed through dialogue: romance, detective stories, horror and drama.
Ilya Maksimenko is the founder of FlyinDogs
Honestly, I still didn't understand how conservative this genre is. On the one hand, judging by the comments of colleagues from the mobile game dev, it is quite conservative, on the other hand, there are extremely many short stories of various directions on Steam, and some of them find their audience. However, many are sold so-so: novels are a genre that is quite difficult to monetize, if we are talking about PC.
As for trends, cool art, cool plot, interesting mechanics and immersiveness should definitely help. Well, anime. Anime is still very popular.
There is also an editorial direction, but I think there are completely different rules.
Peter Prokhorenko — SERIES
If we talk about mobile romantic novels for a female audience, they are extremely conservative. There are three or four relatively win-win recipes for different territories and classroom sections. But the most interesting thing is that, besides these already proven solutions, there are many others, since the audience of short stories is also developing. Sooner or later, she will get tired of the same recipe. Moreover, it has already been implemented many times by the leaders.
In general, over the past year we have probably tried all possible settings, options and mechanics in the SERIES (now we have already published 35 short stories and there are almost no similar ones among them). I can say that "it didn't go down":
- overly dynamic plots;
- The focus is only on drawing characters;
- self-restraint in terms of censorship;
- insufficiently developed plots;
- humor.
Otherwise, almost every high-quality and detailed story sooner or later finds its audience.
3. Who is the main audience of the genre and which stories are most popular?
Maxim Pankratov is the founder of Hit'n'run Digital Studio
The market for visual novels is much larger than it seems at first glance, in general, novels here are, in fact, the logical development of books in modern digital form. Therefore, there are novels for every taste and color, from romantic (highly specialized for a certain gender) to detective-fanstastic. The main audience is those who like to read, and those who are more interested in the plot than the gameplay. And, of course, the lion's share of the audience are those who are fond of anime in one form or another, because visual novels owe a lot to this media.
Alexander Lipilin — co-founder of KPD Studio
The audience of visual novels is mainly made up of fans of deep plots with well-developed characters. However, depending on the subgenre, the audience can vary greatly. There are novels aimed at young men that include romance and elements of eroticism, such as eroge and hentai games. In these games, there is often a male protagonist and a group of female characters with whom he can build relationships, while the level of frankness can range from light romance to 18+.
Fallen Seeds (KPD)
For young women, otome games are more suitable, which focus more on romantic relationships than on erotic content, where the main character is a girl interacting with a variety of male characters. There are also players who prefer horror films or comedies, and even games that study the topic of mental illness, which can be separated into a separate subgenre with its own specific audience.
Ilya Maksimenko is the founder of FlyinDogs
The audience is mostly female, but I've heard that men are also quite good players (the success of Endless Summer is proof of that). Regarding the plots, it is very individual.
Peter Prokhorenko — SERIES
Again, I'm only talking about mobile novels. The visible part of the audience is teenage girls and young women. But, according to our statistics, the players are divided about 70/30 (and the number of guys in the genre is growing). But our situation is not very revealing. The SERIES is specially designed as a unisex application precisely in order not to scare away any of the potential players. We are aiming at the category of platforms with interactive content. Netflix, Kinopoisk and IVI are ideologically closer to us than the Romance Club or the League of Dreamers. Therefore, in our audience, the male minority manifests itself more actively than in conventional applications with "girl novels".
Our top five novels are quite static in terms of objective indicators (number of users). There are such topics there:
- vampires;
- horrors;
- erotica;
- Epic fantasy;
- magic;
- Succubus demons.
This is a pretty classic book and movie set of "box office solutions". The world's book and movie tops look about the same. I don't think the audience of short stories acts as trendsetters here. Rather, they are simply more willing to consume what has already become familiar in larger media.
4. What is happening in the visual novel market today? Who defines fashion here, who are they looking up to? Which companies or areas consistently occupy the main market share?
Maxim Pankratov is the founder of Hit'n'run Digital Studio
Japanese companies that successfully localize and port their classics are doing well in the global market. But it's hard to compete with the Japanese – they have big companies and everything is honed. Even in classic VN, even in those that are 18+.
We have several major players in the market, the sensational "Bunny", LMR, well, and some smaller titles, there's the "Altushka for Skuf", for example. We still can't get out of our past and comparisons with the "Endless Summer", but I believe that sooner or later we will break this fashion.
Alexander Lipilin — co-founder of KPD Studio
The visual novel market is very heterogeneous and diverse; there are both small indie studios and large publishers. In Japan, the ancestral country of the genre, short stories remain especially popular, Japanese short stories dictate fashion and serve as a reference point for many developers around the world. There has been a steady increase in the popularity of short stories in other countries, largely due to digital distribution platforms such as Steam and mobile markets.
There are also many teams in Russia involved in the development of visual novels, from experienced market players specializing in commercial novels, for example, the Romance Club, to indie groups like ours. Nevertheless, at the moment in Russia it is difficult to talk about a stable market in which someone occupies certain shares, since the situation and trends are changing rapidly. Rather, it is worth talking about specific projects, teams and their success or failure stories.
Ilya Maksimenko is the founder of FlyinDogs
There are a thousand million of them, an extremely small part earns — the rest is content with a closed art gestalt.
The Tales of Bayun (FlyinDogs)
Of the super-successful ones, I immediately remember "Bunny", a pure-blooded and extremely popular short story in the horror genre, as well as "The Life and Suffering of Mr. Brante", an amazing narrative adventure with a bunch of forks and cool mechanics that are non-standard for the genre. I also remember Chiken Police: Paint it RED!
Peter Prokhorenko — SERIES
The "golden age" of mobile novels fell during the pandemic period. Then this genre grew a lot, and then its correction took place. Now, in general, it is stagnating. This can be said about foreign majors (Choices, Chapters, etc.), and about the leader of the local market (the "Club of Romance"). It is wrong to look up to the leaders (the applications released in the first wave and the maximum audience size) at this stage of the genre's development, since they themselves have big problems with retaining the audience base.
Our opinion is that the time has come for platform solutions in the genre that aggregate disparate content, remove 80% of the cost of maintaining the technical side of the issue from the authors and make it possible to simply publish and earn money. Actually, SERIES is such a solution. So far, we are only for short stories, but this year we will also enter the book market (more precisely, into the samizdat segment).
5. How competitive is the visual novel market?
Maxim Pankratov is the founder of Hit'n'run Digital Studio
In the world and Japan, it is quite strong, in Russia it is a rapidly developing genre. Now in our country there is a great flourishing of creating visual novels for every taste and color, but it is important that big companies are not interested in this. Right now, all developers are singles and small teams. There are no monopolists, and therefore anyone who releases an interesting product can grab attention.
Alexander Lipilin — co-founder of KPD Studio
It is very competitive, because there are a lot of projects. But the genre of games itself does not imply much replayability, which contributes to the fact that players, after reading one novel, after some time go to look for another. I like the analogy with coffee shops here: there are a lot of coffee shops in any major city, but this does not mean that by opening another coffee shop, you cannot occupy your niche.
Ilya Maksimenko — founder of FlyinDogs
Very strongly. Incredibly strong. To make a successful, payback visual novel is a hard mod in game development, as for me.
Peter Prokhorenko — SERIES
Now the mobile novel market is objectively oversaturated with content. This circumstance does not allow beginners to earn money.
SERIES
The core of the user audience has 5-7-10 applications with short stories installed. These players, of course, do not pay anything, but they use all the free options and go around their "possessions" daily to collect gifts for admission. So now, for small teams and studios, I would call the mobile novel market extremely difficult. I mean going out on your own with your own developed application and fighting with competitors for a place in the sun. It is clear that it is much easier to go out on the SERIES shelf and receive deductions: all you need to do is make a cool story.
6. How large is the audience of such games (world /Russia)? And how many copies can developers expect to sell on average? And what are the different editions of the hits?
Maxim Pankratov is the founder of Hit'n'run Digital Studio
An average of 5,000 copies per year is a completely achievable result with proper marketing. But it's hard to judge here – you need to look at which platforms the game is sold on, what its orientation is, price, and others. It may shoot much more, it may not take off from the word at all. In my experience, it strongly depends on the marketing of the project.
Alexander Lipilin — co-founder of KPD Studio
Disclaimer: This is going to be a very subjective assumption right now, and it only applies to Russian-speaking PC visual novel players, who are our target audience, and completely excludes the mobile visual novel audience, which I don't know anything about at all.
I think the players can be roughly divided into two large groups. The first one is more numerous. These are those who are fans of several successful titles, do not read so often and mostly play those individual games that they like. This group relies on such titans of the domestic novel structure as, for example, "Bunny", "Endless Summer", as well as the most popular international titles translated into Russian, such as Doki Doki Literature Club!, Danganronpa, etc.
The second group is people who read a lot of different short stories and do it all the time. There are significantly fewer of them, but they are the ones who are most likely to play your game. Therefore, in my personal opinion, when calculating the business logic of the project, it is worth counting on the interest of the second group, which reads a lot of different things, because creating a new folk hit that everyone will like is not only a matter of skill, but also of great luck. There are also games speculating on memes, but that's a bit of a separate topic of conversation.
And if you focus on the audience of hardcore fans of short stories, then sales will be measured in the order of a thousand copies in a pessimistic forecast to tens of thousands in an optimistic one.
Ilya Maksimenko — founder of FlyinDogs
It is numerous enough to fight for it. At the same time, it is quite difficult to monetize it. The market is very saturated and, of course, there is an example of the same "Bunny", which, it seems to me, has already exceeded 500 thousand copies, and on the other hand, there are thousands of projects that no one has ever heard of, which are gathering dust, being unnecessary to anyone.
Peter Prokhorenko — SERIES
It seems to me that talking about the volume of the market as a whole makes sense only for projects that have ambitions and opportunities (financial, infrastructural and others) to compete for a share of local or global markets. For everyone else, these are pretty useless numbers. Let's just say that the volume of the short story market (and related segments) is exactly sufficient for the emergence of solutions like ours — this is all that interests us in a practical aspect. There are several million players in Russia, and an order of magnitude more in the world. At the same time, the ceiling of an ordinary application with novelties is 100 thousand installations and non-payment even for operational payback. What difference does it make how much money there is in this genre if your app closes soon after investors stop funding?
7. It is believed that the genre is inexpensive to produce. How much does it cost to create a visual novel on average today? What is the main cost item for their development?
Maxim Pankratov is the founder of Hit'n'run Digital Studio
I estimate about 100,000 rubles per hour for a visual novel. As much as possible, as little as possible – it depends on the goals and duration. The main article is a visual, the work of artists. The second article is voiceover, if it is done at the proper level, but not all developers are interested in it.
Alexander Lipilin — co-founder of KPD Studio
Accordingly, while remaining a realistic pragmatist, you need to lay down the cost and timing of development, based on the expected price and the number of copies that you can sell - say, 5 thousand copies. This is relevant if you do not consider your novel only as an artistic statement, but see it as a commercial project.
Thus, a commercial novel should most likely be created by a team of no more than 5-10 people and in no more than six months in order to have a chance to pay off.
It is clear that in practice there are significant deviations. For example, my wife and I have been making our game together for three years. But it was originally more of a hobby, which eventually turned into a commercial product, rather than a project whose economy was calculated in advance.
Ilya Maksimenko — founder of FlyinDogs
Very individual. The main items of expenditure are always artists/animators and narrators. You can hardly make a good novel without them. The budget for the development of a novel starts from 2-3 thousand dollars and goes on indefinitely.
Peter Prokhorenko — SERIES
There may be very different numbers depending on the quality of the picture, the technological solution and a number of other parameters. The technical solution costs like an average mobile game, perhaps a little less. If we talk about the stories themselves (that is, about the content), then, in our experience, it is from 1 million rubles and up to 10 million rubles per season (usually 10 episodes).
The cheapest novel in the SERIES, I think, has a very modest cost (the team worked there on a voluntary basis), and the most expensive ("Game of Dragons") has already crossed the cost threshold of 15 million rubles, but this is solely due to the participation of famous writers, very expensive art, cut scenes in the work on it and long-term development by several studios. According to our information, now the most expensive thing is the unique mechanics and bringing the quality level of the novel to the top (an example of both is in the novella "Traitors" in the SERIES). A couple of years ago, art was the most expensive, but neural networks have changed a lot here.
8. How guaranteed is the payback in the genre?
Maxim Pankratov is the founder of Hit'n'run Digital Studio
According to my estimates, it depends on marketing and how much the author invests in advertising and promotion. But the payback period for short stories is long, and therefore the question is how long the author is willing to wait.
Alexander Lipilin — co-founder of KPD Studio
Not guaranteed at all. But it seems to me that this is generally typical of the video game market now. Of course, there are proven formulas, but as soon as it comes to finding something new, it is always an area of uncertainty. So probably the only reliable strategy is to test many different hypotheses, look for what works, and not get hung up on what doesn't work.
Ilya Maksimenko — founder of FlyinDogs
And how guaranteed is the payback in game development in general? If you want guarantees, then this is definitely not the right area.
Peter Prokhorenko — SERIES
For 90% of developers, non-repayment is guaranteed. If you don't have some kind of "ace up your sleeve" (let's say your stories are written by one of the top scriptwriters of the "Romance Club" with his lured audience), then the chances of success are minimal now. Of course, this does not apply to SERIES—type platforms - we have completely different scales, monetization tools and capabilities. Even the problem with payments from stores and bans for local developers alone may well sink a small studio.
9. What advice would you give to developers who decide to work on visual novels?
Maxim Pankratov is the founder of Hit'n'run Digital Studio
Watching is the key point. To make a good VN, you need to play a large number of hours in other games in order to understand how they are made and what artistic techniques the authors used here and there. Well, my personal advice is to look up to the best, and the best now in this genre are the Japanese.
Alexander Lipilin — co-founder of KPD Studio
First, if you have an idea and a desire, try it. Take it and do it. Secondly, especially if this is your first project, start with a smaller one, focus on the main thing, the core of your story or another key feature of the game, and check if you and the audience like what you get. Since, as I mentioned at the beginning, a significant underestimation of the scale of work is the most common mistake among beginners, it is important not to turn your project into a long—term construction that will take decades to sculpt.
Ilya Maksimenko — founder of FlyinDogs
I would like to warn you that it is better to make a project that is average in quality/above average, than not to make a stunning magnum opus. And it is also necessary to find a proofreader based on the results, or there is a chance that the audience will not appreciate the mistakes.
Peter Prokhorenko — SERIES
First of all, you need to decide what you are doing: business or content. If it's a business, then take out several million dollars from the bedside table, assemble a large team, hire lawyers and build a financial infrastructure, in general, this story is not at all for a small group of developers. If the content (that is, you are the authors of the story and just want to please people with your creativity and earn a living from this business), then, of course, it is better for you to publish, rather than try to do everything yourself.
