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

[Master-17]

On 11/12/2023 at 11:28 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.

The first few worlds had simply poor art, which is why I stopped playing a couple of months after the game was launched. Because other than that there were no technical differences from the HH. Since then it seems to have gotten better, and the art in HH itself has, in my opinion, degraded, so now both games are on par.

[LukeWarmbath]

Maybe Im in the minority here, but there's content missing from CxH that HxH has like league girls, lack of new club champion girls to keep us engaged, these things I think are far more beneficial to long term player engagement. I wouldn't mind KK cutting out a couple of the "3/4 day" events in exchange for adding in longer term content. Whats the point of being in a club if there aren't 5 star girls to collect. At this point in the evolution of HxH/CxH with the game being more pvp oriented 5 star legendaries and 6 star mythics are the true viable girls for pvp. 3 stars are just a collector item, which I know is needed to keep engagement going, but there's places CxH needs to add things first, then look in other places to scale back.

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by LukeWarmbath

[DvDivXXX]

8 hours ago, Master-17 said:

Since then it seems to have gotten better, and the art in HH itself has, in my opinion, degraded, so now both games are on par.

It's largely a matter of taste, of course, but I'm still not really into the CxH art I see (with few exceptions). Granted, it's much better these days than in the first year or maybe even just the first half year, when they started out with a batch of really subpar art across the board. But it's still not my cup of tea.

Interestingly enough, I've been into comic books for decades (although I read a lot less and don't keep up with super-hero stuff these days, especially not from Marvel or DC). I've barely read a few manga ever and while I did have a japanime phase, and still watch some from time to time, I've never really loved most of the classic manga or Japanese anime styles, certainly nowhere near as much as I love a lot of US, UK and European comics (especially French, British and Italian artists). On paper (lol) I should be much more into CxH than HH. But in practice, it's the exact opposite.

There are multiple reasons for that. First and foremost the fact that the vast majority of the art in HH is NOT primarily inspired by Japanese artists, but has always had a strong influence from certain schools of classic US comics, and a more subtle but also noticeable influence from some of the semi-realistic styles of some European comics, especially the French/Belgian school ("BD" to use the French term). A bit of a manga influence as well no doubt, but all three styles have informed one another in at least some capacity since the late 90s or so.

Conversely, despite the deliberate focus on comics in terms of themes, the graphic style of CxH doesn't have much of a comics vibe in my book. Or at the very least, not the type that I'm really into and/or find sensual or sexy. The humble beginnings with the Mad Magazine dirty and very comical approach to visuals notwithstanding, it's been sitting somewhere between old school 80s US cartoons and maybe something like a John Buscema inked by Tom Palmer 70s vibe, both very dated and more functional for the story than pretty to look at. I see hints of loose inspiration from more recent masters like Jim Lee or J. Scott Campbell here and there, but it's not well integrated. That inking style in particular, with the super thick brush strokes all over the place, is super off-putting to me, and it's still all over the place from what I can see even in recent banners or threads.

To be honest, the only Kinkoid game where I saw some artwork clearly in the same vein as what I think about when I hear the term "comic books" would be Gay Harem. There's at least one or maybe a couple of regular artist(s) exclusive to GH who clearly show(s) influences from or similar to the likes of John Byrne, George Pérez, Alan Davis, possibly even the aforementioned Jim Lee (minus all the extra cringe 90s shading and inking style). It's probably just a coincidence, but I can't not notice great art when I see some, let alone not examine what its vibes and possible influences (or kindred spirits) might be.

Anyway, that's probably the main reason I never got hooked by CxH like I might have if it had been say, someone like the guy from Leandro Comics handling the visuals.

Beyond that, the source material being parodied in CxH strikes me as having more to do with the casual MCU generation of "superhero fans" from the movies and TV shows than from stuff that would really speak to long-time fans of actual comic book series. They even parody things very tangentially related like The Matrix, a movie I love for what it is, but that is neither superhero nor comic book stuff. It happens to take inspiration from comic books (mainly The Invisibles) and it also grew to inspire the costume style of the X-Men movie adaptations and indirectly the X-men comic book itself for a bit, but it isn't comics itself. There are plenty of classic comic book characters and archetypes covered as well, don't get me wrong, but they're more of the old-fashioned, generic type to my tastes. Plus, the world building of the CxH didn't really go anywhere interesting or unique, at least as far as I went. I'm confident referring to the Haremverse as being a thing. I don't really see a ComixHaremverse in the same way.

Just my two cents. To each their own, and of course I sympathize with fans of CxH whose game is not in a good shape right now.

[krayzo]

I stopped playing CH last month, not because I didn't like the game or the art, but because they were adding too many things to the game that consume too much time, and it was simply impossible to play all of their games and still have time to work and live.

Not to mention that the recent changes they made left me extremely unmotivated to play, and I lost count of how many players I know stopped playing for the same reason. The curious thing is that all the changes they proposed only reduce their costs, but all the main problems will continue, in my opinion the CH's days are numbered.

HH and CH have completely different art styles, but I got the impression that the CH team was taking better care of the girls they released than HH, that not only has the quality of the art gone down a lot lately, it looks like the girl was made in hurry or not being careful at all.

[OmerB]

Some of Rosso statements indicates that we can be optimistic about the future of this game (not sure how it will continue, but it should be still on):

[Varnart13]

So HH does well because of hentai searches, CH suffers for comjx searches, does PSH do well with pornstar searches?

[Gotaku]

On 11/15/2023 at 6:41 PM, Varnart13 said:

So HH does well because of hentai searches, CH suffers for comjx searches, does PSH do well with pornstar searches?

PSH has easy brand deals and is ultra cheap to produce.

[Master-17]

40 minutes ago, Gotaku said:

PSH has easy brand deals and is ultra cheap to produce

From the point of view of labor costs, no doubt, but royalties can take up a very large part of the revenue and no one will tell us this figure.

[Gotaku]

Pretty sure they just bought access to a massive photo database and there's no royalties involved. All those rights have been signed off ages ago, most are old photos women who aren't even in adult entertainment anymore. Peanuts compared to the expenses for artwork that is being produced and colored constantly for HH and the rest.

[Master-17]

17 hours ago, Gotaku said:

Pretty sure they just bought access to a massive photo database

It's one thing to buy a database for yourself and another thing to use photos from it to make money. These are different licenses and cost completely different money. Just like for example, you do not have the right to play the music you purchased in public places, clubs, restaurants and other places unless you have the appropriate license.

[DvDivXXX]

True, and of course Kinkoid purchased the relevant license(s) for the photo galleries they're using to make PSH's (and TPSH's) visuals. It's a different type of cost: it's an investment upfront, then you can recoup the cost through your commercial product that includes it, until you start making a profit. But once your product (game in this particular case) sells well enough to reach that point, it's a much bigger profit margin from then on compared to the model of commissioned exclusive art that they have to keep paying artists to keep producing as long as the game exists. It's a bit like the difference between buying a place and renting  one. In theory, at least.

I don't have the numbers, but it's clear PSH is successful enough that the initial investment in the license(s) for the pictures is behind them and it's a low-maintenance moneymaker by now. The fact that the next clone released after that was based on the exact same model (Trans PSH) rather than the old model based on original art they had been using all along prior to that is pretty telling, even if I'm not sure TPSH is at the point it's making a profit yet.

The fact that the next clone to become a big enough financial burden that they're openly admitting it and discussing possible solutions to save it is CXH, which is based on the old model with original art is perhaps even more telling.

[DocJD]

Comix Harem just released a new adventure and, yet again, most of the steps are single digit energy cost. 15 free energy every day piles up (not to mention all the "left over" energy I'll get when I cash out the Seasons prizes) and I will be done with this adventure very shortly. Then I will have to wait 3 weeks for another one. If they did it like Pornstar Harem where each step is 25-35 energy the adventures would last longer and provide more reason to hang around and would cost them nothing extra since the art would be the same.

[OmerB]

Rhat's why I much prefer HH and CxH over PSH (and I would lose PSH in an instant), as I want to recieve original content, especially if I'm paying, even 5-10$ a month. I don't want to get old, recycled content...

[DocJD]

Well, I finished the new Comix Harem adventure today and still have 141 energy left over. Probably nothing new coming until around Christmas time.

[OmerB]

17 hours ago, DocJD said:

Well, I finished the new Comix Harem adventure today and still have 141 energy left over. Probably nothing new coming until around Christmas time.

I'm using most of the energy to get some few tickets, which are very important and scarce (needed for both CumC, LC and MEs) atm, so I don't have much energy to advance in the adventure 😢

So I'm happy with low energy scrolls.

Edited December 1, 2023 by OmerB

[DocJD]

On 12/1/2023 at 3:19 PM, OmerB said:

I'm using most of the energy to get some few tickets, which are very important and scarce (needed for both CumC, LC and MEs) atm, so I don't have much energy to advance in the adventure 😢

So I'm happy with low energy scrolls.

In Comix Harem I have 4700 tickets and own all the girls in the Champions area.I mostly only use the tickets for Path of Attraction and the ocassional contest or daily goal. Right now I have 1146 energy after collecting leftovers from Seasons and whatever the month long event was above the "collect harem" box.

My point is that, once you reach a certain point, there's not much reason to hang around in CH. The adventures at least had something new to read, but they don't show up often and don't last more than a couple days. Making each step in the adventures cost more energy would entend them without haveing to buy more art.

If you need tickets, you should concentrate on raising up the levels of the top 3 Places of Power slots. For a newbie that is the most useful application of Kobans. Get them up to Level 9 and collect them 3 times a day and they will fuel most of the things you need to do.

Edited December 5, 2023 by DocJD

[OmerB]

I'm not a newbie. I used most of my tickets to get to the top 5% of the last 'Hot Assembly' event, and thus I got 3 of the new HA girls and 70 shards of the 4th.

[Karxan]

i am a bit angry & confused.  i was visiting xvideos.com, & there was a Banner ad for Comix Harem!  Thinking that clicking & using the Link would support Comix Harem in some way, i Clicked it!  I was promptly taken to Hentai Heroes!

Spoiler

Yes!

Waaait...  Whut The ---?????

i don't know if this is self-sabotage or incompetence on Kinkoid's part.  Ether way it's a blunder that needs to be corrected before it does too much damage.  The last thing CXH needs is Kinkoid screwing with or angering potential customers.

Mods, please do what you can to send this info up the pipeline to someone who'll fix this?

Should i send this complaint in the in-game Feedback?

Edited January 25 by Karxan

[DvDivXXX]

On 1/25/2024 at 6:07 AM, Karxan said:

Should i send this complaint in the in-game Feedback?

Sure. Nothing much we can do about it from the forum and it wouldn't be something I'd go to Discord and tell CMs or Tech either, since this has to do with the Sales and Marketing team instead (and it's very likely just a bug and not an intentional scheme to lure potential CxH players to HH instead as you might have assumed ^^).