Paper in Proceedings of DiGRA 2023,

by Petri Lankoski & Tanja Välisalo

Abstract

Pornographic games have historically been distributed outside of mainstream channels. Steam, in 2018, change its policy allowing uncensored pornographic games to be sold. We found 452 games or DLCs that were tagged as mature content and sexual content. We analyzed 40 of those games in detail. 17.5% of these games only contain nudity while the rest graphically depicted sex. Visual novels and adventure games were the most numerous genres. Drama and fantasy were the most used milieus. Two of the games contained only male-male sex whereas the rest depicted heterosexual sex or heterosexualized same-sex sex. The pornographic scenes or nude images were tied to the game’s progression structure.

Mikolaj Dykek & Petri Lankoski

Abstract

Building on case study data, this paper identifies processes and actors that form an enabling ecosystem for indie porn game development consisting of game platform technologies, asset stores, commission-based artists, F95zone, Steam, Discord, and crowdfunding platforms (e.g., Patreon). Co-creational and organisational perspectives provide a rewarding exploration of this phenomenon.

Keywords: videogames, pornography, ecosystems, crowdfunding, indie games

https://doi.org/10.1145/3582437.3587176

In Foundations of Digital Games 2023 (FDG 2023), April 12–14, 2023, Lisbon, Portugal. ACM, New York,
NY, USA, 4 pages.

https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120221084453

Petri Lankoski, Thomas Apperley, J. Tuomas Harviainen

Abstract

This article examines the prominent role of Patreon in the rapidly growing sector of crowdfunded pornographic games. Recent research has indicated that, on average, more people (patrons) are funding pornographic digital games on Patreon than other (non-adult) digital games (Lankoski & Dymek, 2020). Graphtreon’s ‘Top Patreon Creators’ list from 9 June 2021 includes six NSFW game projects among the top 50 projects (ranked by number of Patrons).1 For example, Summertime Saga (Dark Cookie), the highest-ranked pornographic game, is third in terms of the number of funders, with 27,791 patrons funding $74,657 per month. While Wild Life – An Adult RPG (Adeptus Steve), which reportedly only had 9417 patrons as of 9 June 2021, receives a monthly income of $94,129 from those pledges.2 The current funding levels for both Patreon projects are considerably higher than when we began our sampling: since January 2020, the funding level for Summertime Saga has risen by 27.86%, while for Wild Life – An Adult RPG it has risen by 21.45%.
Keywords
adult games, content analysis, heteronormativity, non-consensual sex, patreon funding, pornography

Petri Lankoski & Mikolaj Dymek

In DiGRA 2020 conference proceedings: http://www.digra.org/digital-library/publications/patreon-and-porn-games-crowdfunding-games-reward-categories-and-backstage-passes/

Abstract

Patreon is a crowdfunding platform where pornographic games are funded; even the most successful game developer in terms of the number of members is developing a pornographic game. We looked at 42 developers and their Patreon pages in order to examine the effects of the Patreon crowdfunding model on videogame development. Especially we studied membership rewards. As a result, developers were not only selling the game, but rewards we much about Community, Influence, and Recognition. Regulating Content Access is used regularly but often the latest version of the game is made available to everybody, just later to the members funding the development. We propose that certain rewards are similar to backstage passes in the music business and suggest that Patron pornographic games funding deviates from the crowdfunding model is not following mainly product-oriented commodity logic but a more community-oriented concept.

Keywords: Patreon, pornography, porgraphic games, crowdfunding, rewards