{"id":5027,"date":"2026-10-02T14:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T12:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/?p=5027"},"modified":"2026-10-02T14:30:39","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T12:30:39","slug":"market-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/2026\/10\/market-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Market change ?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before going into the focus of this post I have several good news (at last!):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>All my games are on sale on the Steam Autumn sale:<\/strong><br><a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/pub\/winterwolves\">https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/pub\/winterwolves<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And second, we&#8217;re only waiting for a missing animation (the animator is on holiday right now) before we can start the <a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/4327630\/Glamour_Photographer\/\">Glamour Photographer beta<\/a>! It is a matter of a week or so now. Also, <strong>we&#8217;re planning to release the game next month, in early November<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last but not least: things are getting better at home, so I was able to work hard again, and <strong>we might even release <a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/3996520\/At_Your_Feet_2\/\">At Your Feet 2<\/a> sooner, like in December!<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And now back to the topic of this blog post, that is the current state of the market:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Market changes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Being indie since over 20 years has taught me that the market can change over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So far I used to think that yuri games are the best ROI for visual novels. However in the last months, I had some very interesting results. If I add the amount I got from Kickstarter for my two latest yuri games (Christine&#8217;s Care and At Your Feet 2) I slightly beat the amount I got for Glamour Photographer alone!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sparrow-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5061\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sparrow-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sparrow-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sparrow-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sparrow-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sparrow-624x351.jpg 624w, https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sparrow.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>I am still wondering how a game with a beautiful story, art and music like this one didn&#8217;t do better..<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, if I look back just to 2024, games like <a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/2896520\/Tales_From_The_UnderRealm_Lilith\/\">TFTU: Lilith<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/1965960\/House_Of_Chavez\/\">House of Chavez<\/a>, even if yuri only, raised both more than Glamour Photographer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s always hard to draw conclusions to be honest. It could be many things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>the market for modern setting \/ slice of life games is really shrinking. Indeed fantasy games, or horror games did better, regardless of the kind of romances<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>BxG games are getting more popular even on Kickstarter. I already knew they&#8217;re popular on Steam but maybe now even on KS?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>it&#8217;s just the market in general that&#8217;s doing badly. Indeed, while I&#8217;m happy for Glamour Photographer result, such a big game with so many love interest (nine!) maybe could have done much better if done 2-3 years ago?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As you see it&#8217;s really hard because there are so many factors to take into account that&#8217;s really impossible to pinpoint the <em>exact reason<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">So what I&#8217;m going to do next?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First of all, the bigger games (like the RPGs) I will always have all the romance combos, so those are &#8220;safe&#8221;. I mean, they are a pain to create since are very big, however they always have all kind of romances, so that should make everyone happy: I&#8217;m aware that some games (like ToA: Reign Of War) don&#8217;t have an even amount of male\/female love interests, but that&#8217;s because they were originally started&#8230; 10 years ago, while for all future games will try to have an even amount of love interests!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the smaller games, <strong>I&#8217;ll keep doing more yuri games but also more BxG games<\/strong> at this point, also I want to do some more experiments with some more gameplay-focused games. For example, I still have the artwork for Spirited Heart 2 that one day I might want to finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bamboostick-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5063\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bamboostick-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bamboostick-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bamboostick-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bamboostick-1536x863.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bamboostick-624x351.jpg 624w, https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bamboostick.jpg 1635w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Remaining alone with your own bamboo stick is the worst nightmare for every playboy<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also, while I need to look at the market, <strong>sometimes I might want to make games only because I want to do that specific kind of game, sometimes finding artists that can draw males well is hard<\/strong> (and that&#8217;s why I haven&#8217;t done many games with male protagonists or love interests!), <strong>other times an artist who was supposed to draw female protagonist\/CG first and then the male version disappears suddenly<\/strong>, leaving you only with the female art, etc etc<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So: <em>there can be a gazillion of reasons why that &#8220;game A has only male \/ female protagonist and\/or love interests&#8221;<\/em> and many times isn&#8217;t even what I really wanted to make but <strong>I&#8217;m forced to do that <\/strong>because of external factors. Players ignore this but it&#8217;s a very common issue across all VN developers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Conclusions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I already posted this on Patreon a while ago, and <strong>people misunderstood: I am not saying that from now on I&#8217;ll ONLY make straight BxG games<\/strong>!!! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m going to try adding a variety of other genre combos, more BxG, even more otomes, etc. As I said, mainly depends on which artists will be available and what they are capable or want to do (some artists don&#8217;t do gay stuff for example, etc).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think the best combo for the shorter games would be that I&#8217;ll try to have GxG and BxG games so I could make my &#8220;core&#8221; fans (yuri) happy but also reach new people who are into straight stuff. And this only because I&#8217;ve recently found an artist (the comic CG one) who can draw well also male anatomy and has no problem with adult stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m a bit shocked that some people thought I was IMMEDIATELY STOPPING ANY YURI GAME DEVELOPMENT. Where did I write that??? lol!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stay tuned for Glamour Photographer testing later this month!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before going into the focus of this post I have several good news (at last!): All my games are on sale on the Steam Autumn sale:https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/pub\/winterwolves And second, we&#8217;re only waiting for a missing animation (the animator is on holiday right now) before we can start the Glamour Photographer beta! It is a matter of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-topics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5027"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5079,"href":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5027\/revisions\/5079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winterwolves.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}