Opening the Kimono - A Look At What A Small Visual Novel Makes (Patreon)

Fair warning. If you care nothing about how a dev makes money and the depressing statistics of a crowded marketplace, then just wait for my normal dev update on Friday. This isn't a must read, and I'm not hiding some secrets for To Be A King in this wordy piece. This is a long post with some math *shudders*, but I do want to let everyone know what this actually brings in for me now, as well as what I expect in the future.

Also, please don't take anything I'm saying here as a rant against patrons or anyone else. The market is what it is. There is a lot of luck involved, and a lot of working long hours with very little rewards hoping for your "big break." I liken developing a visual novel to trying to make it in Hollywood, but with shittier income prospects both near term and long term.

In case you're considering getting into visual novels, and you've seen the eye-popping numbers that a very small number of devs make, I thought I'd share my own numbers. I was an artist at Thunderline Studios, until January of this year. My original plan was to do small comics and occasional renders when I went on my own, but ended up restarting development of To Be A King in February. My visual novel, given the setting, isn't for everyone, so that's going to likely factor into lower interest and lower revenue numbers for me. However, I peruse other dev's Patreon and SubscribeStar pages extremely regularly, so I feel like I have a good idea of what the average dev, even after a few years of development, is earning, and mine is not some horrible aberration. Will it get better? Most likely. Will it jump to be anything more than covering my costs of development and maybe a couple hundred dollars left over for me each month? Not bloody likely.

Let's talk about hours

The hours I put into developing the visual novel are quite a lot in my average week. I'm not full time, but I'm blessed that I only work four days most weeks now at my day job (a relatively recent change), and I have a family that doesn't demand a lot of my time, as long as I don't stay up in my office for 12 hours a day. Writing and coding are significant time investments, though coding is by far the least part of that.

Writing took me about a month for this latest release, I believe. At this stage, I'll admit it is hard to remember. I just did a work count, which does include some code, and it came out to 99,300 words. That is JUST for Chapter 6. Chapter 5 was right around 50,000 words. Let's assume that code makes up about 10% of that. That means that this next chapter is close to 90,000 words! I'm not looking for a cookie, but the average modern novel is about 90,000 words, according to a quick Google search. I have nearly doubled that in just two releases (though dialogue for a novel and for a VN can only be compared so much here). That was days of writing, in some cases for eight hours per day. Probably a good 140-160 hours for writing, though this release will be a massive one. While I haven't played one of Dr. Pinkcake's releases in awhile, because of the obvious time I devote to my own, I anticipate Chapter 6 of To Be A King nearing that size.

The images for the visual novel, which I'm mercifully good at completing quickly and have a very powerful system with which to render, take me anywhere from 5-15 minutes to setup per render, on average. That doesn't include actually setting up the environments, creating the characters, etc. Those are a few hours of additional time, though I can reuse that stuff from release-to-release. Chapter 5 of To Be A King had just over 1500 renders. Let's assume it takes me, on average, 7 minutes to setup a single image. Since I render overnight usually, I don't need to count that time, thankfully (though my electricity bill sure does!). That equals out to 175 hours just for the renders for Chapter 5, which sounds pretty close to what it actually took. That doesn't include the time I put in to setup the environments, create the characters, and go back and fix issues.

Now, we have everything that goes into releases, promoting the game, etc. This includes bug testing too. Shout out to my WONDERFUL beta team that spends hours of their own time beta testing so you get a polished game. That averages another 3-4 hours a week, over the course of a release. With me doing larger releases now, we are looking at about 12-16 weeks, at least, between releases. So add another 48 hours there, at a minimum.

What are we up to now, without setup, me doing my own training to improve or fix issues, and just doing general system maintenance to keep everything running smoothly? Right about 540 hours for this next release, probably. Likely more, but we will see how things shake out. I do have large releases now, and most devs I find average around 250-400 renders per release (no idea on their word counts). But I would put up my speed in development right up there with any dev. I'm massively impatient, so I am always looking for ways to spend less time doing these tasks. Plus, over two years of experience with Daz and over a year of writing make it easier for me than it used to be.

Chapter 5 was about half the size that I expect Chapter 6 to be, and I actually know how long I spent there roughly, so here's that number: 290 hours, conservatively, is what I spent to develop Chapter 5 of To Be A King. Keep that 290 number in your mind.

Income? Income? I just hope I can get out a release!

I'm paraphrasing Jim Mora with that heading, but income isn't what you think for most devs. For every Phillygames or Dr. Pinkcake, who work hard and earn their income, I might add, there are hundreds of the rest of us. Here's how my income breaks down for the last few months (after Patreon fees).

• February - $99.71
• March - $129.81
• April - $375.38 (Release month!)
• May - $424.18
• June - $352.14

June obviously just started, but since Patreon charges folks on the first, I don't expect that number to jump much. If it beats May, I'll be impressed. I also have my game for sale, for the latest release, on Itch.io and Gamejolt. Gamejolt has sold nothing. Itch.io, surprisingly, brought in about $53 so far, after their fees. Now, let's figure out what my depressing hourly wage is from Chapter 5.

I'm going to take February, March, April, and May for this. May and even most of April were all about Chapter 6 development, but obviously being a small dev with my "first" release (at least on my own), factors in here. $1029.08 + $53 from Itch.io = $1082.08. That brings me an "hourly wage" of $3.73.

Now, that all can't be income because I have to pay for the assets for my 3D art. Things like character models (I create my own, yes, but I use other characters as my bases and change them from there, as most devs do), props, environments, etc. A lot of these are up-front costs. Of course I'm free to use these assets later wherever the hell I want in my art. But these things average about $17/asset. Let's not even get into the costs of video cards…

My numbers will be better judged after another couple of releases, but I know enough of what other devs are pulling in, even after years and very well made games, to know that my numbers aren't likely to skyrocket here. If I break $1000/month, after fees, by the end of the year, that will be a massive surprise and blessing.

So, uh, can I make a living doing this?

Are you brain damaged? Did you just skip to this section without reading the rest? NO! The likelihood is that, at best, you cover your asset costs and a few other things, like a Photoshop license. That's after a few releases too because, let's be honest, with a market of dozens of new releases of visual novels each day, that's all folks care about (and rightly so, I would say).

But if you're expecting to be the next visual novel success story, your odds are about as good as becoming the next YouTube sensation. I do this because I enjoy it. I appreciate all of you who support me through your hard-earned money. Just please remember if you ever get impatient for a release from a dev who is making even double or triple what I'm making what my numbers look like. Devs are spending hundreds of hours to give you something to enjoy. That's why it is important to support devs who actually produce. Not certain devs that I will not name, but who apparently believe that releases are for losers.

It is also why I might get a bit testy with you if you ask when the next release is after I busted my ass getting the last one to you a month ago. How I wish these things produced themselves without this much work, but sadly, they do not. Even if I cut back my standards, I'm not likely to see a much bigger return. Those are the odds, and I'm just hoping for a miracle and enjoying the ride in the meantime.

P.S. If you like To Be A King, please tell your friends. Visual novels, like mine, aren't easily advertised, and most folks pirate my game anyway. Have a great one, everyone!