Adult Content Producer Career (Patreon)
Content
Hey! I want to talk to you about a project that I have been developing for some time now. I usually don't share details on ongoing features, it's much more satisfying to just finish something and release it, but this one will benefit from your input.
I like the shape and structure of what I have made so far, so it would be great to know if you think so too. Many aspects of this project need added depth, perhaps you will have some suggestions. And you've been asking about this kind of feature for a while, which means it's better to make sure this is what you wanted.
Everything is still work in progress, nothing is fully finished, and it will take a while to complete this project, but here's what I got...
I thought it would be interesting to try creating a fully playable Adult Content Producer career that involved planning, hiring, shooting, and publishing. There aren't many games that let you run a business like this, so additionally I had to do a lot of research on how everything operates behind the scenes around the world and mix it all together into something that makes sense for Sims.
But before I get to that, being a content producer isn't just operating the business, you can participate as an actor too, which leads us to the starter adult careers being part of this project.
💻 Live Camming, Strip Clubs & SimHub
Although my current focus is somewhat on reworking and improving the SimHub and Strip Club features first, a Live Camming feature is in the works too. With help from Nevely42, we have constructed a base for a Live Camming activity. It still lacks the actual work aspect of live camming, but it has all of the technical parts of performing the activity.
Live Camming isn't an actual career, it's just something any Sim can do.
- Set up a desk, chair, and computer to begin livestreaming. You can talk, tease, undress, and masturbate to provide a flexible experience for the viewers.
- Similar to SimHub you would build a following, which will be easier to do with higher social skills, nudity skills, and consistent livestreaming hours.
- And similar to Strip Clubs, a Sim would develop a skill of livestreaming confidence, acting, and engagement to further help grow a following.
- Grow live viewership by performing manual actions, or let autonomy do it, and receive money from viewers. You can decide to stop early or go for way too long, and receive feedback moodlets based on performance.
❔ I have my doubts in regards to how interesting the gameplay of it can be, but I'm giving it a try. If you think live camming should involve something more than what I explained, let me know, I feel like I don't have enough ideas for this activity.
🎬 Adult Content Producer
There's a lot to say about the Adult Content Producer career, so much that I feel tired just looking at my messy notes for all of the ideas I have. So I just want to share with you the core concept and gameplay flow to give you a chance to let me know if this seems interesting.
Like any other career, you have the Career Panel to know what's going on. It gives you the most basic information about your overall progress and current production progress. How much can be displayed on this panel is limited, so Performance is a combination of your production quality and reputation within the adult industry. The better your performance, the more money you will be making per production.
Once you begin a production (gig) by pressing a button, you're given the list of tasks to perform and the Production Planning window opens.
Every production consists of these 5 steps:
- Plan the production (unlock, contract, hire).
- Schedule or immediately begin the production social event.
- Let the hired crew do their thing (and participate yourself).
- Edit captured materials or let a hired editor do it.
- Publish the finished product.
📝 Production Planning
Production Planning is the first core pillar of a successful production. It's designed to be both a challenge and to allow for creative/roleplaying freedom. You decide what you want to do, with who, what are your goals, and how much "quality" you're going to invest into it.
The included production planner image might seem like a bunch of random icons but don't worry, everything is introduced gradually and you can always view an explanation tutorial on how it all works. The interface might need to be simplified, but currently the process of planning only involves three things - Hiring, Unlocking, and Goals.
But first, you will need to decide what you want to do, which is mainly done by choosing contracts and unlocking specific roles. Make a photography only shoot? Filming and photography? Solo or maybe group sex? Simple shoot or premium commission? Keep it safe or save money? Some things matter for a successful outcome, but some things are just for fun.
❔ Let me know what kind of ideas you have for adult shoots you would do, that would help me cover as many options as possible!
💼 Hiring Crew
You always will need to hire at least one actor and at least one person to record things, either by filming or taking pictures. You're able to hire more actors, more filming crew, even a director, a makeup artist, an editor, and an assistant. It's not all immediately accessible or cheap, but it can be worth it.
Who can be hired depends on the unlocked options and signed contracts, but you will always have access to most Sims in your world. As you progress in the career you will be able to access Sims with higher expertise levels, but they will cost more money to hire.
Expertise level is the most obvious indicator of quality that you can extract from a hired Sim. Depending on how well you prepared and how well you manage the crew during a shoot, you might be able to extract all of the potential of the crew which will translate into higher production quality.
And don't worry, you can hire yourself for any of the default roles. Your Sim can either remain as the Executive Producer or be one of the actors or filming crew.
⭐ Progression Advancements
Progressing the career requires gaining points which are awarded based on the quality of your published productions. This is the main limiting factor and the main way to increase production quality. You will need points for better quality, and better quality earns you more points. In case it's not clear, better quality increases profits too.
Production Advancements use points to unlock more slots for hiring crew, unlock more types of crew roles, the ability to access lucrative contracts, ways of increasing expertise, ways of decreasing accidents, and just overall progress in the career.
Points that you spend are gone forever so failing to produce a quality product means you lose progress. Failing a production is inevitable, so it's best to prepare for that occurring from time to time.
📑 Legal Papers
Once unlocked, you gain the ability to sign legal papers which provide access to special services and deals. Most of them help prevent costly accidents, increase quality/profit of production, provide unique crew, and offer better publishing opportunities.
In simple terms, these are sort of like cheat codes that require paying to get better results. But every production comes with a different selection of contracts so you won't always be able to create the perfect shoot.
🎥 Shoot Social Event
Shooting is the second core pillar of a successful production. How well it goes depends on how well you planned it, how well you manage it, and where it is.
Shoots are Social Events, so you can schedule when it happens using the calendar and choose any lot you want. The place you choose will temporarily become an adult shoot location, but you can just build a studio lot and always use it instead. You have total creative freedom where and when you want to shoot.
This aspect of the career requires the most development, so it is currently the least developed out of everything that's explained. The idea is that once the adult shoot social event begins, all of the crew will gather at the location and await their tasks. To increase production quality you have to assure that every crew member knows what they are doing and that they are ready to fulfill their roles. This includes accommodating hired crew, interacting with everyone to explain everything and provide assistance, and at least initiating the filming. The more involved you are, the better the overall outcome.
Hopefully the camera isn't broken, or an actor doesn't have issues getting it up, or there aren't any conflicts at the set, or someone isn't simply late. Issues and accidents are commonplace and you or a hired assistant will need to make sure everything is going according to the plan.
Once everyone is ready, begin filming or photographing. Take your time to record everything that you want or a contract you signed requires, and wrap up.
❔ I would like to have a substantial collection of problems, accidents, and scandals that can happen during or after a shoot. If you ever heard any interesting stories of problematic shoots or crew, please share them with me.
⚖️ Call an Attorney
Calling an attorney doesn't always come with obvious advice, as you might need their help to resolve problems. Accidents and scandals happen and you will need to resolve the situation somehow, usually with money (debt) or performance loss.
Lack of testing could result in unexpected STDs (yes, more are coming), an unhappy crew might sue you due to a bad work environment, and not being prepared for production accidents might leave you unable to finish the shoot. Problems are inevitable, but your trusty attorney should be able to fix most of them, for a price.
🚀 Editing and Publishing
Now that you have the captured footage, editing and publishing are the last steps and are the third core pillar of a successful production. Thanks to Peco (CinErotique), you can edit videos and pictures yourself on a computer, or send everything to an editor.
Editing is pretty straightforward, the more you do it the better your skill which improves the quality. You can only do so much with average raw footage, but it's usually better to release something than scrap it completely. And sometimes sending bad footage to an exceptional editor might just save it.
Publishing depends on signed contracts, which might offer better visibility on premium services with extra revenue from paywalls, or you can just publish yourself. Either way, quality will always be appreciated, even if you have to deal with less revenue due to piracy.
❔ Currently both editing and publishing are just linear tasks to mostly slow down how often you can plan, shoot, and release content, so you get rewarded by investment and not grind. If you have any suggestions on how editing or publishing could be expanded to be a more interesting or involved process, let me know!
🎩 Odd Jobs
How well and how quickly production is managed depends on your Sim skills, which include a production skill gained from finished shoots. If you don't want to start with no experience, some production skill can be gained by doing special adult production odd jobs. It's not much, but your Sim will be more familiar with how their career works.
And that's it. This feature is still far from being finished but I would like to know your opinions, suggestions, and worries. If this doesn't seem worth it to you then I might need to reconsider my direction.
Parts of what is explained here will be included in upcoming updates to slowly accommodate what the career itself needs, like Live Camming or STDs. Releasing things in parts makes finishing this career easier, but unfortunately most of it can't be so easily separated into parts. I would like to just work on this and finish it all at once but that would take waaaay too long. Hopefully I will have enough time between updates to push it forward 😄