[ November 8th, 2023 ] The Future of Comix Harem Survey

[Ravi-Sama]

There's a survey about making CxH 20% more expensive, and nerfing some of the poses/scenes, since it's not profitable, compared to HH.

Here's the link to the survey: 
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc0z_2U6JFA6u2tYFfPymKSQ23S7FIFHLKhPvWMFOyZXywOww/viewform

[Horsting]

4 hours ago, jelom said:

so that most people have no time to run two games and they leave comix harem.

I think that is quite a major aspect, which KK probably did not think about well, when implementing all the new features combined with slow GUI which requires much back and forth navigation and long loading times, especially in Harem and League. I am personally no fans of the art style in CxH, but even if I was, I could never double, let alone triple or quadruple the amount of daily and weekly time needed to play all clones properly.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Horsting

[garadron]

this is a sad lesson on why making multiple reskins of your game, making them more and more time consuming and hoping for the same audience to play more than one of them is a bad plan.

KK really made a great game with HH (great when I joined 3 years ago, recently declining) and they're struggling to repeat that success. I'm not really into clickers but from what I've seen, it seems that HC was pretty much a copy paste clicker game with their art. All the other Harem games are just copies of HH with new jpgs on them.

They should really try to come up with something new instead of copying other stuff. There's a limited amount of clones needed on the market if you want to make a living on them.

I wouldn't mind if they made a game that let's you collect sexy anime girls, each with unique affections scenes, that is pretty casual and doesn't require a lot of your time, no RPG elements, some basic PvP and a funny story that is a parody of some well known anime series 🤔

[Horsting]

23 minutes ago, garadron said:

They should really try to come up with something new instead of copying other stuff. There's a limited amount of clones needed on the market if you want to make a living on them.

In theory, clones are much more rentable, as the game mechanics need to be programmed and maintained only once, I think. Creating something new is expensive and risky, as it is not sure whether the concept will succeed or not. So generally I think clones were a good idea (from commercial point of view), if the original/first game was successful. That way KK can cover a larger range of tastes and get a share of players playing (and paying for) multiple of them. The only thing which does not fit into this plan is the extended time consumption of the game with recent features, which make the clones competing which each other. We are not all jobless with no family, friends and other hobbies, to spend so much time with browser games.

[TetsuoThc]

If how things are it's "impossible" to bring in new players due to HH competition, making it more expensive or subscription only sounds counterintuitive.

Free to play game with more and better content or pay to play game with less and worse content.

In case it becomes 20% more expensive it would be almost the same situation.

I try not to be pessimistic but this does not look good for kinkoid in general. Or for CxH being the other games just next in line.

[jelom]

Many players of Hentai Heroes started playing Comix Harem from the start and later abandoned it and their reasons were that the games (HH and CXH, and in some cases PsH too) took too much of their time to allow playing more than one of them, and they decided to stay with hentai heroes only.

Comix Harem started very casual with very few features of the twin game HH, but as more and more features were incorporated into CxH until it finally was a clone of HH with different girls.

If the games were less demanding in the time requested from the players (there are too many tasks and events), it could be possible for whales to play both games and spend money in both games making Comix Harem profitable again.

 

I think your selections in the screenshots above are more or less what most players will select, so the most probable outcome will be a reduction on quality and variety of the images and perhaps an increase in price.

I like this game but the future doesn't look bright now.

[Dudegrey]

The proposed affection scene change is already what's done in HH which is really funny if it's supposed to be a cost cutting measure here.

[Yamiray]

9 hours ago, jelom said:

Terrible news in the last patch notes https://blog.kinkoid.com/patchnotes/comix-harem-patch-notes/, Comix Harem is not profitable and Kinkoid has made a survey to decide between three outcomes:

I kind of feel like they should just put it in rerun mode having no new girls and just have revivals and just work on the story when they can. I hate when a story goes unfinished so if they where to end it they need to at least find a good stop for the story. CxH and HH I'd like closer on from a story point of view. PSH on the other hand they can stop when ever they want, I don't feel a good story flow on that one.

[OmerB]

12 hours ago, jelom said:

Terrible news in the last patch notes https://blog.kinkoid.com/patchnotes/comix-harem-patch-notes/, Comix Harem is not profitable and Kinkoid has made a survey to decide between three outcomes:

A feedback that I wrote in response to that:

I don't care much about the affection scenes. I prefer that the affection scenes would be downgraded a bit (like what they did on HH). I care more about the poses, but I'm willing to compromise, that new 3* girls poses will be less different from each other, if it will cut some costs for the company, so the game will still exist without paying more for it. For the continuation of the game, I'm willing to compromise about that (but only for 3* girls).

I don't need animations in this game, thanks.

We are getting a bit too many girls per month: 1 Mythic, 7-8 new L5 girls (1 LD, 1LC, 4 ME, 1-2 BB or DP), 16 new 3* girls (6 CE, 4 PoV, 2 Season, 4 PoA), plus 0.33 girls per month from Club Champions and PoP. So overall, 25.5 new girls on CxH per month. That's a lot.

There are too many girls that are introduced each month. They can cut 1-3 L5 girls per month to cut some of their costs.

Edited November 8, 2023 by OmerB

[DocJD]

Too bad the survey had no place for suggestions. Here are a few from me:

If they want to save money on art, they should stop having quests with most of the steps using low single digits of energy. For most of the game I spend 3 weeks out of 4 with no current quest then, when a new one shows up, I finish it with, mostly, accumulated energy in a couple days if not a couple hours. After all, they're giving out 15 energy per day free (plus energy awards in other activities, and lots left over at the end of PoA) and it just adds up.

If they made every step cost 20-30 energy (as in the other two games) A) People could spend more time actually doing the quests and B) The given amount of art would last longer. As it is, I enjoy the quests in the other games but this one has so much downtime I forget the plot and the characters by the time the next installment is released.

That suggestion is mostly about retaining players, not getting new ones.

I will say the art has improved greatly over what was used at the beginning (I almost quit just because I found very few of the girls attractive). If the old art is still being used for what new players experience, I can see why some of them don't hang around.

As a final suggestion, Instead of keeping the artists secret, they could reveal their names and have "about the artists" somewhere in the forum where players who like certain art could track down their comics, kickstarters, webtoons or whatever and buy them. The artists might charge less if this game gave them, effectively, free advertising. The artists might also use their social media to send fans to the game.

Just a note: If they make it "Pay Only" the game will die in a very short time. People can play the other two games for free. If this one loses all the free players, Seasons, Leagues and Contests won't have the critical mass necessary for competition.

Edited November 8, 2023 by DocJD

[Sharkbite]

Suggestions:

First and foremost, I am willing to pay more.  I am willing to accept certain art downgrades.  I believe it is unlikely that I am willing to pay more AND accept certain art downgrades.  I understand these are two different ideas you are entertaining; I encourage you to settle on one or the other, instead of trying to do both.

Second, I'm going to give an honest bit of feedback.  Your initial belief seemed to be that Harem Heroes had no shortage of Hentai websites to advertise on, while Comix Harem has far fewer XXX Comics websites to work with.  This seems to stem from some idea that you believe you're trying to draw in new customers who haven't heard of the other game.  However, you also recognize that your own game is actively competing for your largest customer base.

Think of it like a menu.  McDonalds goal in offering the McChicken is not to defeat the Big Mac.  Instead, it is to provide an alternative to the Big Mac so that customers who know about the product and who are not interested enough to buy the Big Mac may still continue to be customers through a different menu option.  Offering Harem Heroes and Comix Heroes should be like an ice cream company offering both Chocolate and Vanilla.  The target audience is essentially the same, and you're playing to interests.

Point blank, I do not believe that there are more Anime fans than there are Superhero fans in the world.  Look at the money those Marvel movies are making.  Compare the subscription boost that the Marvel shows did to Disney Plus, versus the entire subscription base of anime's Crunchyroll.  Superheroes are more popular in the pop culture zeitgeist.  And it's not like none of those superhero/comic book fans are interested in sex.  Axel Braun's superhero porn parodies basically swept the Adult Film Awards for decades.  Superhero Porn is insanely popular.

I think you're missing the pulse on Comix Harem.

Too high a percentage of the girls look like they are basically just Anime girls.  Too much High Fantasy.  And while yes, I realize that Amazons are a thing and Wonder Woman is a pillar of a character, we get a disproportionate number of characters that seem to appeal to these nitches, and not enough that actually focus on what the comic book fans want:  COMIC BOOK STUFF.  Do more direct parody of relevant comic book stuff at the time when it's relevant.

I remain baffled why, when huge blockbusters like Spiderverse were releasing in theatres, the Comix Harem events for the month was not characters meant to capitalize on Spider-Man, Miles Morales, Spider-Gwen, Jessica Drew, Spider-Punk, etc.  Nope.  We got a Summer Beach event, where we were given heroes in swimsuits... so they didn't even really look like superheroes.

Those are some of the biggest problems.  When a huge superhero event happens, you're frequently not releasing a tie-in.  Instead, a lot of the time it feels like we're just getting some generic anime stuff.  The Comix Harem fans are here for Comics related content; the retention of Comix Harem players won't be solid if it isn't actually embracing their interest.  Mechanically the game is basically identical to Harem Heroes, so the difference maker has to be the content.  And that's one of the bigger places where you drop the ball.

Listen, I'm an 80s kid as well, so I love Terminator and Aliens and all those great 80s action movies.  But when you make an event a release a month's worth of girls following that theme, you know what it functionally becomes?  A bunch of generic army looking girls.  It's a girl with a gun, and there is no comic book relevance.  And that's where you're not holding the attention of your players.

I spend probably $100 a month on Comix Harem.  Not a ton, but enough that I get anything I'm interested in.  And yet I find that there are SEVEN of the MYTHIC girls who I didn't bother to get, because even though statistically they are the most powerful, at an immediate glance I saw they had no comic book relevance and I decided I didn't care enough to spend a bunch of money to get them, and then a bunch of money/time to level them, so that I could be stuck using a girl on my team who doesn't even look like she belongs in a comic book.  That is just missed money.

For heaven's sake, I would have bought the cosmetics to re-outfit Wildman years ago if I had the option to, but you don't have any unlockable costume stuff for him.

<-=O=->

A subtle change that you can do that I think could accomplish in part your hopes regarding the recycled pose base with outfit changes... Do that as the standard for seasonal outfits.  If you're going to make Bikini versions for Summer, and Halloween Costume versions for Halloween, and Christmas outfits and Back To School outfits and all sorts of holiday outfits for the girls... put THOSE outfits onto the models that are already drawn.  You know, too often those seasonal outfits are attached to a different art job so that even if we like the outfit, the girl wearing it is almost unrecognizeable.  If you manage to win me over with a character and make me really like Darkling, then make sure that when you do some silly outfit for her, it still looks recognizably like her.

<-=O=->

Lastly, I'd reach out to various Adult Comics and see if an arrangement can be made for "content sharing".  I've seen it very popular in the adult comics I follow on Patreon and Kickstarter.  You shoot an email to Brad Guigar and say "Here's our XXX superhero game.  Can we include a few of your characters?  We'll add a link to your Patreon in the characters' character bio.  Fans of our game check out your comic; fans of your comic check out our game."  Evil Inc, Nothing-Man, Fox & Hound, Blue Bombshell, basically everything Avatar Press makes, etc.  You could actually get licensed characters into your game from these indy books that embrace mature content.

It feels like you look at the success of Harem Heroes, and you try your hardest to make Comix Harem into Harem Heroes.  But the fans who are paying you money for Comix Harem are not the people who just want to play more Harem Heroes.  They are the people who love comic books and superheroes, and don't necessarily give a crap about the anime stuff.  Embrace your fanbase and give them what they want, instead of trying to repeat what works for a different audience.

People aren't playing your game because the mechanics and gameplay is so awesome and engaging.  They're playing it for the girls.  If you drop the ball on the girls, nothing else is going to make up for that.

[Yamiray]

20 minutes ago, Sharkbite said:

I do not believe that there are more Anime fans than there are Superhero fans in the world.

Its hentai not anime there is a difference. hentai is a type of anime aka adult anime of which there is a market. Adult Superhero is not really a thing

[Master-17]

It seems to me that it is incorrect that they separate their game clones and calculate the profit from each of them separately and, based on this, calculate the profitability of one or another clone. They have ONE game (not counting the abandoned clicker) and several skins for it. Therefore, you need to calculate the profit for the game in total, and then divide it by all skins and calculate its profitability from the calculation of “Total amount” / “Number of clones” / “Costs per clone”.
If the quality of a skin decreases or its cost increases, this will ONLY lead to a decrease in its popularity and a decrease in profitability. No matter how you optimize costs.
Therefore, voting will not give anything, only a revision of your attitude towards the game and its skins.

[Pelinor]

Okay, I do not play either of the clone games because that is what they are—the same game with a different storyline. HH takes all my gaming time, leaving no time for the others. I love comic book superheroes. Had the girl equipment patch been for that game alone, and I had choices on character skill, power discovery, and costuming (all only available in the CHX game), I would have felt more of a draw to play it.

[Karxan]

Comix Harem/CXH
I/Karxan started his harem on Nov 11, 2021...
https://www.comixharem.com/hero/280664/profile.html

Hentai Heroes/HH
I/Karxan started his harem on Nov 18, 2021...
https://www.hentaiheroes.com/hero/4441628/profile.html

Exactly 1 week of CXH before i started HH.  I have tried most of the other Kinkoid games, but it is only CXH & HH that keep me engaged & coming back for more.

Several months ago, i had attempted to make a purchase for CXH, but the transaction failed & there was no clear explanation why.  Was your bank/vendor refusing my
card?  Or was my card refusing your bank/vendor?  I have been too busy IRL to investigate further.
Comix Harem/CXH is the game i would be most likely to support, with Hentai Heroes/HH a very close 2nd.
The other games don't interest me.

Kinkoid Entertainment should consider the value of Comix Harem/CXH as it brings in new players to other Kinkoid games.  Had i not enjoyed playing Comix Harem/CXH
i might never have given Hentai Heroes/HH a chance.

Kinkoid Entertainment should consider advertising BOTH Comix Harem/CXH and Hentai Heroes/HH on hentai sites.
Most of the comics-based adult content i get is on hentai sites, not comics' niche sites.
The ad that i clicked to start playing Comix Harem/CXH was on a hentai site.

Others have pointed out that most Kinkoid games are clones of Hentai Heroes/HH, in essence One Game with different skins.
Cost-sharing should be one way to help cover costs.
Reducing the number of new girls & events for Comix Harem/CXH, as fewer girls of decent to high quality has more appeal than many girls & events of reduced quality,
and should cost you less to make.
There is Also the Added Benefit that by slowing down the pace of new Comix Harem/CXH content, reduces Comix Harem/CXH having to compete against Hentai Heroes/HH.

[mini810]

I've said it in chit chat and I'll say it here again. It's like delaying the death of a stage 4 cancer patient, I'd much rather euthanize them.

At this stage things are bad, and I don't see how they can turn it around so that it's not only good for them, but for the players as well. What they're saying is, perhaps raising the prices, perhaps lowering the quality, perhaps even both, who knows. This in no way sounds good for the players. I can see some players willing to make sacrifices to see the game going, with the most prominent form being the willingness to pay more. However, I don't see it being sustainable in the long-term, because, imagine paying more for lower quality products, it only makes sense if you are thinking with your smaller head 🍆 down there.

Over time, lower cost? Yeah. It is hard though, to keep the revenue at the current level, let alone raise it. It is also quite common knowledge in marketing that customer retention is more important than acquisition, especially when they say the latter is unlikely already. With this direction, they ARE gonna lose players, profitability would never be a possibility, and I also doubt if it is going to cut too much of their loss (if any).

I myself love this game, maybe even more so than I do HH. I love it enough to lick the BS off the ground and continue playing even after the changes are in effect (which is 101% gonna happen since it happened to HH, their flagship, already), but not enough to have myself pay more for a downgrade just to keep it going. I'm ready to move on.

To be frank, I expect this to come at the same time as this happened to HH, it makes very little sense to propose it only now if the financial situation has always been like this. And I think this brings up another question: has KK ever disclosed any of its financial position? This move is about cutting costs, which would be roughly the same as HH since they are mostly identical pre-change. This move then, is either desperately needed or quite unnecessary, given that HH earns 10 times more.

If none of the games are making a profit, well then gl KK ; if HH is earning a big profit, then it can be used to cover for CxH, which is not uncommon in business I reckon; if the profit is small even after the direction change in HH, well then maybe it's true they have to adopt this sinking ship strategy. But remember, a sinking ship can only go down.

Honestly, after the HH change I was quite mad. It is only now that I understand where the anger was coming from. It is the fact that what they are doing is shifting the burden to existing players. It is like they are saying this is our fault that the game is in the state it is in. It is our fault for not paying enough, and now they're making us pay for it, figuratively and literally. However, it's their direction and their control, and the failure can also only be theirs. It's true that the audience might not be as big and advertisements aren't able to reach as many, then the responsibility falls onto your shoulders to think about what you can change and have some diversity instead of following your first and best example (HH), cause if you keep doing that and HH falls off a cliff, the rest is gonna follow.

That said, there are some viable ways to steer in different directions without making it look like it's our fault. DocJD's is a valid point, giving exposure to artists in exchange for lowering commission costs, that's something I'd love to see since there are some styles that I like and I don't know who tf drew them. This is a no-cost solution for lowering costs. Whereas dropping the nerf hammer on quality is always bad for business, because I've never heard sane businesses say "hey customers we're dropping quality in order to cut costs" and expect customers to react all the same as before. This brings a huge implicit cost, at least in the long run, and that could be the last nail in the coffin. Also I don't need animations  

Phew, I got serious. Why did I even get this serious. I must love this game and the unique poses and scenes.

 

Also, in an alternate universe, where they decided to cut costs again and hired me to be an artist, enjoy the new sexy heroine Boobie Girl  

Spoiler

 

[Wekthor]

Agree if it means removing animations in favour of maintaining the quality of the graphics. Comic book content always puts priority on story and graphics one can not survive long time without the other. 

[Murton]

I agree that animations are not a priority, I don´t even want animations. Imo, scenes are also a thing where less originality and making them cheaper would be okay. The priority for me would be heroine poses and quality, specially with higher rarities. But another thing that someone has said here before, don't remember in which coment, is the fact that a clever step forward can be making the heroines more frecuent, and reusing more the heroines that are already in the game. For example I havn't seen Cougar Woman since march, put heroines like her back more often. Putting the heroines back more frecuently, same with events, repeating mythic events more, legendary cumbacks... this kind of movement can help lowering the cost while maintaining quality. In sort, less new girls but when we get a new heroine, it will be a more special event between cumbacks.

[Gotaku]

I prefer Comix over HH, but in the end this isn't even Comix's fault.

Kinkoid mismanaged all the games by never ever listening to the players (and gaslighting them), stuffing the games with far too many events nobody has time for multiple games, and constantly changing the mechanics so much it would scare any but the most hardcore players away. Rosso completely lost sight of why people click on these games and now Comix has to pay for the lesser revenue.

[Master-17]

1 hour ago, Gotaku said:

Kinkoid mismanaged all the games by never ever listening to the players (and gaslighting them), stuffing the games with far too many events nobody has time for multiple games, and constantly changing the mechanics so much it would scare any but the most hardcore players away. Rosso completely lost sight of why people click on these games and now Comix has to pay for the lesser revenue.

How to add 10 likes to a message at once?

[Sharkbite]

On 11/8/2023 at 4:29 PM, Yamiray said:

Its hentai not anime there is a difference. hentai is a type of anime aka adult anime of which there is a market. Adult Superhero is not really a thing

Axel Braun's Superhero Porn Parody's have swept the Adult Film Awards for over a decade.

Across all new porn being made, Adult Superhero is consistently claiming a majority of the accolates.

If you're claiming that Adult Superhero isn't a thing, or that there isn't an audience for Adult Superhero, then you haven't been watching porn.  Adult Superhero has been a top selling genre of porn, literally winning the awards in the field, for over a decade.

[Sinnin]

I have always felt the splash page scared more people away than it attracted.  Now i feel even stronger about that opinion. Probably the worst adult artwork Ive ever seen and they decided to build a game around it.

[OmerB]

On 11/12/2023 at 10:28 PM, Sinnin said:

I have always felt the splash page scared more people away than it attracted.  Now i feel even stronger about that opinion. Probably the worst adult artwork Ive ever seen and they decided to build a game around it.

I agree. It's one of the worst pictures that they've created.

They had created much better pictures since then.

Edited November 14, 2023 by OmerB

[Karxan]

17 hours ago, Sinnin said:

I have always felt the splash page scared more people away than it attracted.  Now i feel even stronger about that opinion. Probably the worst adult artwork Ive ever seen and they decided to build a game around it.

15 hours ago, OmerB said:

I agree. It's one of the worst pictures that they've created.

They had much better things since then.

it's the splatter, isn't it?  i've ignored it mostly.  When i replay the intro i'm doing it for the Girls/Ladies (especially that Redhead), not the splooge.

i wouldn't mind them changing the intro if they keep the Ladies, or better yet, Finally add the rest of the 'Intro Heroines' into the game.  Thanks to @Ravi-Sama for how to look for girls in the Harem interface!  When i was searching for the 'Intro Heroines' it became apparent many of the Ladies teased in the intro were not in the game proper, unless they've been so extensively changed as to be unrecognizable.  This kind of let down probably turned off some players too.

[Ravi-Sama]

Here's the results of the survey, if it wasn't already mentioned yet.

Quote

Thank you all for filling out our survey!

Here are the key results of the survey with 1143 responses:

-If the game were accessible only to paying players, with a minimum of a Silver Monthly Card (2.99 euros per month) 20.7% of you answered that you would continue to play. 79.3% of you said no.
-If the game is 20% more expensive 46.6% of you said that you will continue to play Comix Harem.
-Poses 0 to 3 are marked as very important with an average of 10%(Pose 0) to 40% for the last pose.
-Scenes 1 to 3 are marked as very important with an average of 20 to 30% for the last pose.
-20% of you love the idea of simplified but animated poses.
-25% of you love the idea of a simple background on the scenes and the focus to be on the sex scene itself.
-24% of you don't like the idea of reducing poses but you think you could grow to like it if it keeps the rest of the game alive.
-30.7% of you would prefer the reduced style of backgrounds in scenes and simplified poses to apply only to girls with rarity below Legendary.
-44% of you are fine with the reduced style of backgrounds in scenes and simplified poses everywhere.

We are going to analyze the results and start making a plan.

We will keep you updated in the following weeks and we are going to organize a Q&A.

Link to that message on CxH's Discord.