HTML5 Games - Rated M or for 18+ only

[mikandi]

Hi, my name is Jesse Adams, co-founder of mikandi.com (warning:site is very NSFW), the largest adult app store for Android. We just announced the first third party Chrome app store for adults at mikandi.com/mint (also very NSFW). For the past year, adult games has been in our top three requests for our mobile app store and the adult game category is the most searched on our website. With our push into HTML5, we'd love to connect with folks who are creating or interested in developing adult html5 games (essentially rated M or X).

 

I'm aware that most html5 game sites and tools appeal to a mainstream audience, which means the adult game category is in it's infancy and basically pushed to the back alleyways But it's our vision to grow an awesome html5 adult game community and feature them front and center. We're open to discussing collaborations, commissioning games, joining affiliate programs of existing adult games, etc. So if this sounds fun and exciting to you, please email me at [email protected]

 

cheers!

 

Jesse Adams

 

Update 9/15/2015:  Happy to report that we're making solid progress on our vision stated above. The first HTML5 distribution platform for adult-only games is now live: https://publisher.mikandi.com/get-games (the page itself is actually SFW). It's essentially a game widget and game feed service for adult games.  There's a variety of great distribution resources for mainstream games to get exposure (i.e Trensensa, Spilgames, Kongegrate, etc), but none allow 18+ games, so we're pretty excited to fill this gap for adult game developers. As with our mainstream counterparts, our focus was to make it super simple and safe for publishers to add/share games to their site and exponentially increase distribution and reach for developers. It's still in beta, but if you have an adult game, please do reach out. We're also still actively buying games and collaborating.

[rich]

Wow I had no idea this kind of market existed, but I guess that's silly of me really because I'm sure you've got lots of Flash games on your site for example? How does it normally work for those games? Do you pay developers to build them or license them or whatever?

[mikandi]

Hi Rich,

 

Yup, there's a ton of adult flash games, but as you know, they don't work on mobile. That's why we're pretty excited about the progress of HTML5 for game development. Some folks have tried to port these flash games by using native wrappers to quickly turn them into Android apps, but they turn out horribly. Developers should just move away from flash, but also these games were originally designed with mouse clicks in mind, so they need to be redesigned for touch screens.

 

Currently most adult flash games are offered free to play with the purpose of driving traffic to a subscription site where more games and premium videos are available or a trial version is offered, with the full version available only after subscribing. In some cases, studios will commission these games, especially when the game designer or artist is well known and they are looking for high quality. Other flash game developers will essentially sign up as affiliates of these sites and churn out simpler games at a faster rate to drive more traffic and sales taking around 50-60% rev-share on signups they generate. 

 

On mobile, developers who publish their own adult android games take 65% revshare of app sales or in-app purchases. Others integrate with our adult-focused ad network and monetize with ads, but if you have to generate a considerable number of installs before this can generate meaningful revenue.  We're also working on our offerwall program (currently in beta with a few developers), where users can earn in-app content  (i.e. unlock new game levels) by downloading other adult apps (developer gets paid for every free app download generated through the offerwall). This converts very well since users can earn premium content without using their credit cards.

 

So we're looking to explore several options in the beginning stages. We can either commission games and just buy upfront. Or if the developer wants longer-term rev-share, publish the games themselves, but we still want to help during the development process and of course marketing/distribution. For example, hentai is one of our top search terms, but we generated 30,000 unique search terms last month, so we can provide great insight into what people are looking to buy. We also drive a ton of downloads through our featured sections (about a million app downloads a month) and through app of the week push notification promotions. In addition, we can help with some coding especially with integrating in-app billing APIs, ads, etc.  Or for developers who aren't artists, we can collaborate and provide all the custom art assets and/or adult videos and photo content. For more involved collaborations like this, we would ask for 50/50 rev-share. Essentially we want to take a very hands-on approach to build some great partnerships and grow this market. Thanks for asking!

[rich]

Thanks for the detailed answer. It's not really a market I'd care to enter myself (conflicts massively with our regular client base) but I'm really impressed with how open you are at discussing how the business side of it works here. You don't get that kind of transparency from most companies!

[mikandi]

thanks, I appreciate it. Transparency is best

[Red Spark]

Thanks for sharing. I was always interested in entering adult games market, since I've got pretty wild imagination and all this stuff is like a second nature to me.

What types of games are you guys interested in? Quick viral flicks only? What about games with some additional depth, like adventures or even story-powered action games, centered around sex and drive? Do you consider funding complete development (milestone-based)?

[gaelbeltran]

Do you have some sample games? I'm interested in entering this market, especially producing hentai content.

[rich]

Just to add that if anyone wants to share links for games of this nature they have made, please could you do it via PMs/email and not post them to this board, thanks.

[mentuat]

spoilsport

[rich]

There are some things it's not worth corrupting your Google search ranking for

[mikandi]

Thanks for sharing. I was always interested in entering adult games market, since I've got pretty wild imagination and all this stuff is like a second nature to me.

What types of games are you guys interested in? Quick viral flicks only? What about games with some additional depth, like adventures or even story-powered action games, centered around sex and drive? Do you consider funding complete development (milestone-based)?

 

Hi Vincent,

 

We love wild imaginations! Because the market is so new, we're looking to explore different game concepts, but if you have certain ideas that you're more passionate about, we can definitely help you narrow it down and provide some tips. Just PM me here or send me an email to [email protected] and we can pick up the conversation there. For example top search terms are hentai, asian, and other words that I shouldn't mention here but also niches like tranny, boobs, amateur or game types like puzzles, strip, interactive comics, virtual sims, etc. 

So when it comes to adult games, here's how we think about them:

 

1. Eye candy - More visually stimulating than anything else, like the quick viral flicks you mention. You interact with different objects, characters, scenes, etc, but essentially you're enjoying the view. we have some examples of these now such as simulation games where you have a virtual girl you can interact with using different props. 

 

2. Story and reward based adult games - Follow typical game structure, where there is a story, rules, clear objectives and rewards. In our world, rewards can be sexy animations, characters, props, new scenes, videos. So your story-powered action games  sounds awesome already!

 

Now some folks will take simple mainstream game templates, such as poker, and then offer a sexy photo as reward for winning a play. This has been done often, BUT very rarely is it done well, so I think there is a lot of opportunity here to do better. Especially if this is your first adult HTML5 game or game in general. I think it's great to get a head start by looking at winning mainstream game concepts, but rethink/redesign with an adult story (instead of just throwing in adult photos as an after-thought).

 

3. Social, multiplayer games - At this early stage in the market, I would hold back from attacking any game idea that requires synchronous game play. In other words, make sure player doesn't necessarily have to respond back to another online player right away for the game to work.

 

I can say that amateur photo and video sharing apps are super popular. People love sharing themselves and checking out other people, so games that feed into this interest would be exciting to explore for an adult social game.

 

We do consider funding whole games, but keep in mind, if that's the case we would want to own the game completely.  Having said that, we are leaning towards collaborations and/or only funding partially so that game maker keeps some rev-share, so that 1)they are motivated to update the game with new content and fix bugs and 2)we can help foster a variety of great games targeting several niches.  It really depends on the project and the experience of the game maker.

 

Lastly, html5 adult games are just getting started, so I would recommend keeping first games super simple, but polished and high quality. It's that last 10% of development that most people rush, but it makes a huge difference.

[mikandi]

spoilsport

 

 

There are some things it's not worth corrupting your Google search ranking for

Ha! we're keeping it classy.

 

mentuat, got your message, thanks, I'll get back to you tonight.

[mikandi]

Do you have some sample games? I'm interested in entering this market, especially producing hentai content.

As far HTML5 games, not really. most of the games we have now are flash games ported as Android Apps (but again those pretty much suck) or they are native android games. The hentai examples we have are games such as stripper games, where girls/guys dress down and do different acts depending on how well you play or simple puzzle games. there's also the popular dating sim type games from Japan where you have to choose the correct response to progress further. These dating games were originally designed for PC screens though, so the buttons and overall presentation is just way too small for mobile. Alot of room for improvement here. I'll send some links privately.

[Red Spark]

mikandi, thanks for your quite detailed reply!

I have a couple of fresh story-driven concepts floating around, so I'm looking forward to contacting you in the near future once I get them fleshed out.

[mikandi]

mikandi, thanks for your quite detailed reply!

I have a couple of fresh story-driven concepts floating around, so I'm looking forward to contacting you in the near future once I get them fleshed out.

great looking forward to it.

[Vaxhacker]

One developer of whom I'm aware is Chaotic who has a number of virtual dating games.

A huge challenge is educating the Adult Interactive Fiction community of the power of HTML5. They believe video and even sound is impossible! This with Apple, Microsoft, and Android killing of Flash support as much as possible!

[mikandi]

One developer of whom I'm aware is Chaotic who has a number of virtual dating games.

A huge challenge is educating the Adult Interactive Fiction community of the power of HTML5. They believe video and even sound is impossible! This with Apple, Microsoft, and Android killing of Flash support as much as possible!

Cool, let Chaotic know.  

Yup, I think the best way to educate them is to just create some awesome example games. We're working on some now and hope to share later this year.

[kuuuurija]

@mikandi This is great. I always wanted to make a Hentai game... I could start working on something in middle of next month.

 

Reminds me of NHK (anime)

[mikandi]

@mikandi This is great. I always wanted to make a Hentai game... I could start working on something in middle of next month.

 

Reminds me of NHK (anime)

awesome

[JUL]

I would be interested in those kinds of productions.

 

I'm a 2D graphist and 2D game dev.

 

(With a bit of culture regarding porn industry, eh)

[mikandi]

I would be interested in those kinds of productions.

 

I'm a 2D graphist and 2D game dev.

 

(With a bit of culture regarding porn industry, eh)

Awesome, glad to hear it. You can reach me directly at [email protected]. We're developing, commissioning and collaborating on a variety of games and have also launched a few in the past couple months, so we can show some good examples of what we're working on now.  I shouldn't link them here since they are NSFW, so contact me and I'll show some links or of course just google us.

[Sebi]

Hi mikandi,

 

maybe I overread it but could you provide the average revenue for an adult game?  I have honestly no clue how big that market is, But I would assume that it is a "growing" market.

 

Cheers

[mikandi]

So it can range like mainstream games. Of course we don't have the huge distribution of Play store.. yet  I would say on average our payouts per paid developer are between few hundred to few thousand dollars every month. Now that we have some games under our belt, I've been getting game license requests where game portals are willing to paying non-exclusive license of $500-1500 to publish some of our simple adult games on their site.

 

Mainstream may payout more, but you're also competing with tens of thousands of developers. With adult mobile games, it's easier to stand out. Also I'm sure we all prefer to makes games around stories, characters, art that we personally enjoy, so it's also a lot fun to work on adult theme games. Knowing your audience is 18+ changes how you think about the entire game experience.

 

The games that generate the most money are usually represented by an artist/creator who has done a great job of building up a fan following whether around his/her original characters, art style, specializing in a niche (i.e. furry or hentai), storylines, etc. Of course building your own IP is not easy, but people really do appreciate an adult game with personality and substance and not just showing T&A.

 

 It's definitely just getting started. Since I'm in the industry, I get to see some awesome demos and prototypes that are coming out soon. 

[croco]

Mikandi,

 

I would love to hear how mobile market has changed since html5 release times. Are there any decent apps made compared to powerfull and massive adult games developed in Flash?

 

I'm a Flash developer as well creating adult hentai games. And I'm really interested to come into mobile market.

 

More info and links by pm are highly appreciated!

 

Thanks,

[mikandi]

Mikandi,

 

I would love to hear how mobile market has changed since html5 release times. Are there any decent apps made compared to powerfull and massive adult games developed in Flash?

 

I'm a Flash developer as well creating adult hentai games. And I'm really interested to come into mobile market.

 

More info and links by pm are highly appreciated!

 

Thanks,

 

 

Hey there, sorry for the slow reply! I was in the middle of a product launch, so you know how that goes.

 

Yes, it's still pretty early, but we're seeing some very impressive HTML5-based adult games from Japan and US that are getting great reviews in the mikandi app store.  I'll send some links privately.  

 

We did learn some lessons over the past year. Since you've made hentai games before, then I'm sure you'll know that it's often about having a lot of eye candy which means there's a ton of art, animated sprites, sound effects and other media. When it comes to creating fluid animations, Flash is still one of the best tools around. Especially for adult game art, it's awesomely fast to create smooth organic animation, which is what adult games need  Depending on the art style we want, we either hand draw the animated sequences and sprites frame-by-frame or use flash to create the animations then export and make our sprite maps. So Flash can still be a very useful part of your workflow in creating html5 adult games.

 

But before we knew it, we would have very large games that took forever to download on some mobile connections. But the bigger problem was that some of the more richly animated sequences ended up lagging unbearably in some browsers. 

 

On the other hand, when we exported the same games to Android, they played perfectly. So we had to make some compromises for web. Our strategy now is that for the complex animated games that we know are going to be very large in size, we plan out exactly what's going in the web version vs the android version.  For example, the web version of a puzzle game that has many tiles of sexy animated sprites, may be scaled back to show only a few of the tiles animated, less frames or just images only. For the Android version, we can probably get away with all tiles richly animated. Another example is that we have a hentai game with over 35+ levels, but we decided to show only 10 levels for the web so that it doesn't take so long for the game to start.

 

In summary, we had to make some compromises, but the benefits of getting people to try our games with very little friction ("just press play" vs "install the app") is great for conversions and building traffic and audience to our sites. The web games can also be a great tool to promote your studio or cross-promote your larger native games.

 

Hope that helps. I'll send links next!