作者：Lex Allen

视觉小说能赚钱吗？

你可以赚到一些钱，但不会非常多。事实上，如果你所销售的第一本视觉小说能赚到1000美元，你就够幸运了。如果你卖出3000美元，那你的视觉小说应该相当不错。虽然现在有些开发者过得还不错，但你却不能指望创造了一款游戏后就辞去全职工作。我还要指出的是，那些开发者也不是只针对于一种游戏类型，他们往往还会在游戏中添加RPG、谜题和其他元素，以此增强游戏的互动性。

如果你的游戏收入超过1万美元，那它一定相当棒了。但是更多情况下你的第一款游戏只能赚到几百或几千美元。《A Hate Story》和《To the Moon》则是例外，因为它们的媒体宣传非常到位，而且成功登录了Steam平台。《Cherry Tree High Comedy Club》同样也进入了该平台。因为Steam的审批系统引入Greenlight，视觉小说能否在这个平台发布变得更加不确定，基本上是件碰运气的事。大多数视觉小说的下场是未能通过审核，完全与排行榜无缘了。

visual_novel（from wikipedia）

欧美有哪些出色的视觉小说开发者？

目前，Winterwolves是视觉小说的领头羊（产量最高），Hanako Games紧随其后。也许Hanako在单款游戏上的销量比较多，但Winterwolves每年都会发行3到4款游戏。去年，Sakevisual和Sakura River也非常活跃。《Always Remember Me》一直是我们网站上的销售冠军。我不知道为什么，但它确实把握了潮流动向，是一款成功的游戏（这款游戏中有一个女主角，玩家可以升级各种指数，赚钱和约会）。从销量来看，《To the Moon》可能是至今为止欧美市场中最为成功的视觉小说。虽然这款游戏的类型比较偏，但是因为《植物大战僵尸》的音乐演唱者参与了该游戏的音乐部分，所以它获得了大量的媒体报道机会。

选择类型：

虽有例外，但你的游戏应该设有模拟约会！这是视觉小说的传统模式。如果没有模拟约会，你至少应该设定一些类似约会的元素。一般来说，玩家玩视觉小说要做的第一件事就是确定游戏类型是“女追男”还是“男追女”。最重要的是：你的游戏一定要有RPG元素，这可能是确保游戏通过审核的关键之一。

创造视觉小说游戏的技巧：

（1）使用跨平台引擎（面向Windows/ Mac/Linux）去创造游戏。我认为Renpy较难用，所以我推荐的是Multimedia Fusion 2 Standard。因为你的销量大多是来自Windows，所以如果你不能使用跨平台引擎，你就必须确保能够将所有内容移植到PC上。虽然有些开发者也会通过手机平台赚取收益，但主要关注点仍应该是Windows平台。

（2）这一点很明显，你的游戏不能具有任何键盘操作。

（3）有女主角、约会、升级和RPG元素的游戏往往比没有这些元素的游戏销量更好。

（4）确保游戏具有互动性。视觉小说不好卖，但是动画小说简直卖不动！你的视觉小说应该包含可选择的谜题、RPG战斗、指数升级、货币系统、玩偶（能够用于装扮）、烹饪、宠物等元素。不要让传统的玩家玩他们不擅长的迷你游戏，这样只会让他们讨厌你的游戏。

（5）尽管这一点也显而易见，但我还是要强调，不要在视觉小说中加入3D射击的元素。Ayu在Sakevisual上做了一次有趣的投票，有193人参与投票，而只有11%的人表示他们不想要任任何迷你游戏。开发者必须始终确保游戏的简单，否则游戏将会很快被市场所淘汰。例如，提供给玩家他们想要的角色。还有什么比玩一款游戏N遍，却发现只是因为没穿粉红色的连衣裙或没打波点领带而攻不下一个想要的角色还糟糕吗？

（6）视觉小说的玩家希望能够通过菜单系统自定义游戏。玩家应该能够改变背景音乐的音量和音效。他们还希望能够随时保存所有内容。

（7）不要在画外音上浪费时间。话外音不会拉动销量，并且大多数人也不喜欢。话外音还占空间，很容易导致下载崩溃。这会影响游戏的下载数量。如果你想通过话外音给游戏增加特色，那么你可能会一次遭遇利益损失。

（8）游戏应该设有12条长的路线，而不是许多条短路线。在《Curse of Slate Rock Manor》中，因为我们设置了36条短的路线，所以问题便出现了——因为这些路线有点短，玩家总是会一次又一次看到相同的开头。

（9）允许玩家可以跳过文本内容。文本回放很重要，但跳过文本更重要，如果游戏因为任何原因游戏无法回放文本，那你至少要保证游戏能跳过文本，即使这个功能是受限的。

（10）确保拥有高质量的游戏画面。视觉小说的内容已经相当不专业了，所以玩家不会再原谅低劣的画面。也就是说，如果你请不起美工，你必须围绕你所拥有的美术资源去设计游戏内容。

（11）保证你是个优秀的写手。也就是你必须获得其他人的认可，否则，你就得找个写手了。

（12）用Freemind等软件去设计游戏，可以避免设计和剧情的空洞。你总不希望你的游戏世界因为断断续续的内容而显得支离破碎吧？

（13）将小众产品的价格定为19.99美元-24.95美元能够让你从中赚到更多的利益。你不要指望游戏能像病毒一样在大众市场上走俏，因为视觉小说的需求量并不大，并且，就凭你一个人也不可能引领新潮流。

（14）你可以将TrialPay作为可选择的支付方法。TrialPay让用户通过购买他们一些必要的内容而免费获得游戏。你只需注册一个TrialPay帐号，然后选择你想让用户支付的东西便可，用户要做的就是从各种东西中选一种购买或代购（就像信用卡）。用户从flowers.com等网站上购买东西，然后flowers.com再反过来支付你。

这个方法很管用，因为有些玩家会因此认为游戏是不用钱，是免费的。如果他们通过购买有价值的东西（或他们无论如何都会购买的东西）而得到你的游戏，你就可以轻易地解决付费障碍了。

（15）你应该在游戏中添加游戏购买页面的链接。你还可以在玩家退出游戏时，在试玩版中强制打开购买页面。

（16）你还可以通过出售其他人的游戏赚更多钱。现在，大多数视觉小说开发者都在使用BMT Micro。

（17）不要指望社交网络和集体融资能够为你的游戏提供资金帮助。如果你未拥有一定的追随者，那么集资便是不可能成功的——因为没有媒体宣传便没人会注意到你的游戏。如果你决定集体融资，那就需要先创造一份可游戏的演示版本。

（18）通过给预购的人打折或附赠额外内容便能够取得不错的效果。折扣比附赠内容好，但你可能会因为折扣打得太大而损失收益，特别是因为会预购游戏的人一般都是会按零售价购买的人。

（19）为了制作视觉小说，你必须拥有一些背景和角色作为视觉资产。你还需要音效和背景音乐。你可以从Dlsite.com （English）上廉价下载高品质的材料。但是美术资产可能就不好找了。

警告！视觉小说的骨灰级玩家可能会认出来那些在其他游戏中已经用过的材料，但对于大多数人来说，他们是看不出来的。你可以先在游戏中使用某些材料，之后如果游戏做大了，你就可以将其作为专属内容。

（20）你还可以考虑像fiverr.com这种网站。许多人都乐意接受5美元的佣金为你提供技术、美术或文本服务。并且你必须持有好的态度，并且在条件允许之下支付一定的消费。这可能会违反fiverr.com的条款，所以请事前先查看一下规定吧。

（21）如果你需要钱，又得不到商业贷款，你也可以看看Prosper.com这种贷款网站。我自己就试过，比去银行填一大堆表格和交一大堆文件容易多了。所以，向Prosper.com借钱吧！

（22）视觉小说的主导风格是日式动画或日式漫画。不要偏离这种风格！Cinders虽然能够靠与众不同的美术风格博出位，但我建议除非你能够做出一些别俱一格或令人惊艳的东西，否则不要轻易冒险。

（23）如果你认为你的游戏品质和长度还不够拿来卖，那就免费放送吧。这可以帮你建立玩家基础。

最后，你最好能与其他视觉小说开发者合作，在这些网上发贴也有好处。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Bringing Your Visual Novel to Market: The Tips for Western Success

by Lex Allen

Can You Really Make Money Selling Visual Novels?

You can make some money, but you’re not going to make a million dollars. Actually, you’ll be lucky to make a $1,000.00 on your first novel. If you make $3,000.00, it would be rather excellent. There are a few developers right now that are making a modest living, but you can’t expect to quit your day job after one game. I should also note that these developers have not stayed true to the genre, often offering RPG, puzzle, and other genres to make the games more interactive.

If you can make more than $10,000 on your game, it would be rather excellent. More likely, you will only make a few hundred or a few thousand dollars if anything on your first game(s). Analogue: A Hate Story and To the Moon are exceptions, as they managed to get extreme press coverage and somehow managed to get on Steam. Cherry Tree High Comedy Club also managed to make it onto Steam. With the introduction of Greenlight to Steam’s approval system, the acceptance of visual novels onto the platform has become even more unpredictable, mysterious, and is for the most part a virtual lottery. Most visual novels are failing to get “Greenlit” and have been completely blown off the charts (and not in a good way).

Who are the top visual novel developers in the west?

Currently Winterwolves is the leading visual novel developer (by number of visual novels produced) with Hanako Games following behind. Hanako may or may not sell more games per title, but Winterwolves is releasing 3-4 titles every year. Sakevisual and Sakura River have also been considerably active in the past year.
Always Remember Me is the top selling affiliate game on our site of all time. I’m not sure why exactly, but it does follow my popular features list that often go into creating a successful title (the game has a female heroine, stat-raising, currency, and dating).
Analogue and To the Moon are likely the most successful western developed visual novels to date in terms of units sold, but To the Moon is more of a fringe genre, and received considerable coverage because the Plants vs Zombies music lady contributed music for To the Moon.

Choosing a Genre:
There are exceptions, but your game should be a dating-sim! This is the traditional model for visual novels. If you don’t make a dating-sim, you should have some minor dating elements at least. Often, the first thing people search for in their novels is whether the genre is otome (girl pursues boy) or bishoujo (boy pursues girl). Most
importantly: Adding RPG elements will likely be one of the leading variables that will push your game out of the red and into the green.

Visual Novel Game Tips:

1) Build your game with a cross-platform engine for Windows/ Mac/ and Linux. I think Renpy is hard to use, so I really recommend Multimedia Fusion 2 Standard. Most of your sales will be on Windows, so if you have to use an engine that is not cross-platform, make sure you use one that ports to PC. Some developers are making some sales through mobile, but you should be focusing on the Windows platform.

2) It may seem obvious, but your game should not require any keyboard controls. Period!

3) Games with female heroines, dating, stat-raising and RPG elements tend to sell more novels than those that don’t.

4) Make your game as interactive as possible. Visual novels are hard sells and kinetic novels are suicide! Your visual novel should include OPTIONAL puzzles, RPG battles, stat-raising, currency, paper doll (dress up), cooking, pets, and other elements. Do not alienate traditional players by making them do mini-games that they may not be good at.

5) Although it may seem obvious, a visual novel is no place for a 3D shooter. Ayu at Sakevisual posted an interesting poll about this here. Out of the 193 people that took Ayu’s pole, only 11% said they didn’t want any mini-games. However, you need to remember to keep your game simple, or you will quickly and surely alienate your market. For example, let your players win the dateable characters that they want. There’s nothing worse than playing a multiple times only to find that you didn’t get the partner you wanted because you didn’t wear a pink dress or the polka dot tie.

6) Visual novel players expect to be able to customize the game through a menu system. Players should be able to change the volume of background music and sound effects. They also expect to be able to save anywhere.

7) Don’t waste your time on voiceovers. Voiceovers will not help you sell more visual novels and most people won’t appreciate them. They will also take up excessive space and will make your downloads corrupt more easily when downloading. This will hurt your number of successfully completed downloads. If you want to make your game special by adding voiceovers, then it will likely result in decreased profits.

8) You should concentrate on around a dozen long paths, not dozens of short paths. In Curse of Slate Rock Manor, we had about three dozen short paths, but this ended up being a problem because they were a little too short and required the player to see a few of the same starting branches over and over again.

9) You need to be able to skip text! Scrolling backwards through text is important, but skipping forward is more important, so if you can’t scroll backwards for whatever reason, make sure you can at least skip text, even if the feature is limited.

10) Your graphics need to be high quality. With all of the cheap professional content out there, visual novel players will not excuse poor quality artwork. That being said, if you can’t afford an artist, you may need to design your content around what art assets are available.

11) Make sure that you are a decent writer. This means that other people need to think you are good… If not, you’ll need to find a writer.

12)   Designing your game with software such as Freemind will help to avoid holes in your design and your plot. You don’t want your universe to break over inconsistent information in your game.
Innovative Payment solutions

13) You will make the most money on niche products by charging $19.99 – $24.95 on your games. You will not be able to ride the viral mass market appeal train because there isn’t widespread demand for visual novels, and you by yourself will not be able to set any new trends.

14) You can also offer TrialPay as an alternative payment solution. TrialPay allows users to get your game free by purchasing something that they would have bought anyway. You sign up for Trial Pay and choose what you want to be paid, and the user is given various choices of things to buy or sign up for (like a credit card). The user buys something from a company like flowers.com and flowers.com pays you what you want for referring the customer.
This works well because some gamers view games as having no value and should be free. If they get your game for free by buying something that they believe has value (or they would have bought anyway), you can easily get past this consumer spending bump.

Monetize your demo

15) You should always include a link from within your game to the purchase page of your game as well as your other games. You could also consider forcing open the sales page on the demo when the user exits the game.

Sell Others’ Games

16) You may be able to make more money by selling other peoples games. Most visual novel developers are currently using BMT Micro. I’ve been using them for a few years and they are excellent.

Crowdfund

17) Do not expect social networking and crowdfunding to be a silver bullet to funding your game. If you don’t have a following already, it is unlikely that you will be able to successfully crowdfund since nobody will find your game with out proper media coverage. If you decide to crowdfund, make sure that you have a playable demo. I cover this in detail on my blog.

Preorders

18) Preorders can be done successfully by offering significant discounts or extras to those who preorder. A discount is much better than an extra, but you may lose money by preordering at a discounted rate, especially because people that preoder your game at a discount probably would have bought your game anyway at retail price.

Where to Find Visual Novel Assets:

19)  In order to make your visual novel, you are going to need backgrounds and characters at a minimum for the visual assets. You will also need sound effects and background music. High quality assets can be downloaded cheaply from Dlsite.com (English). They may be hard to find, so I have included links to the higher quality artists here. Character Sprites, Backgrounds

BE WARNED! Hard core visual novel players will recognize some of these assets as being used in other games, but for most people, they will be new to them. You can use the assets initially to develop your game and swap them for commissioned ones later if your product is strong enough to warrant it.

20) You can also consider sites like fiverr.com. Many people are willing to do commissions for just $5 (chibi sprites for example). Be nice and tip them extra if you can. This may be against fiverr.com’s terms, so make sure that you check that first.

21)  If you need money, you could also look at peer lending sites like Prosper.com if you are unable to get a business loan. I have done this myself and it is much easier then going to a bank and filling out countless forms and providing endless documents. Borrow With Prosper!

22) The dominant art style for visual novels is anime/manga. Do not deviate! Cinders was able to stand out by offering a different art style, but I would advise against this unless you are able to create something unique AND amazing.

23)  If you don’t think that your game is good enough or long enough to sell, release it for free. This will help you to build a customer base.
Affiliate Networks and Visual Novel Distributors

Your best bet is to work with other visual novel developers, but posting to these sites will help.（source:gamasutra)