How much it cost for a quality HCG?

[Gunz]

Personal, I’m saving money to make a visual novel ( nsfw).

My goal is use 5000$ for HCG alone.

That is when I look back some of my favourite visual novel ( Eushully), and…Wow. How much money they spent to draw all these HCG ( just HCG)???

 

I counted HCG of two Eushully games:

+ With Madou Koukaku : It have 81 total different HCG ( I not count these HCG look similar to each other, with just a little change).

+ With Sankai Ou no Yubiwa: It have around 74 total different HCG.

 

Even if it cost just 200$ for every HCG ( not extra money for every edittion in these similar HCG), it still very huge cost. And they still have to drawn Background, bust shot, normal CG,… too.

 

Not only that, I think Madou Koukaku and Sankai Ou no Yubiwa is these eroge game which don’t have too many HCGs. ( Look at Black Lilith studio).

 

So, how much it cost for every HCG? I mean, how much it cost for every HCG which have quality as same as these artist? Are they really “ just” around 200-300$? Is it too cheap for their level ? :

+  Yano Mitsuki夜ノ みつきhttps://twitter.com/mituk1

+夜kun : https://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=7382203

+ Magicians:  https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?id=9580845

 

And these artist have the same level like Alpha ? : https://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=16051830

 

If anyone have experience about recruit artist, please share me. Thank you. 

[Seraphim]

I have no personal experience here, but @Emi has previously replied to another topic in regards to this. I'll paste the text in a spoiler box below, since it's pretty long. (I took the liberty of adjusting spacing and making some of the text bold or underlined in order to make it somewhat easier to distinguish the different parts.)
 

Spoiler

Eroge industry veteran Yamato Tamaki had written a detailed eroge production cost breakdown on his site a while back. Yamato Tamaki had done a variety of jobs in the eroge industry for 10 years (mainly as a project planner and scenario writer), and this is info that he is giving based on his experience.
This list does not include costs from advertising or manufacturing, because he has never been involved in that area. Advertising refers stuff like handing out flyers, putting ads in magazines, providing articles to magazines, setting up the website, etc. Manufacturing costs refer to costs incurred in stuff such as producing the box, pressing the DVDs or CDs, copy protection, printing the game manual, etc.

People involved in the development staff

Director
Similar to a movie director, but in the eroge industry the director is usually also involved in one of the other jobs listed below.

Artist
Draws the original art

Scenario writer
Writes the story, many of them also double as a scripter

Programmer
Writes the program, many also double as a scripter

Scripter
Scripts the game according to how the program works, does the presentation too

CG Supervisor
Makes sure the art is consistent, does the finishing touches, works on the improving quality of the art, etc

CG colouring
Colours the CG art and makes small graphics such as buttons

Background artist
Makes the background art used for bust shots and sometimes also for event art

Composer
Makes the music

Sound Effects
Makes the sound effects, this part is usually done by the composer too

Seiyuu
Voice actors

Sound director
Directs how each seiyuu should be speaking like and explains the intonations needed etc

Animator
Guys that do the anime parts or filming etc

Enshutsu
Does the storyboards for the trailer movies or anime scenes

Debugger
Checks for bugs and QA etc

Production manager
Makes sure everything is going according to schedule, usually done by the director or producer

Production costs
There are two ways to calculate prices in the industry, one is where the price is calcuated on a per unit basis and another is by having the company stating the total amount required and calculating the total price from there.
It is believed in the industry that you get a cheaper price via the 2nd method. That is because even if there is a sudden need to increase the amount required, the price usually does not change. The 2nd method is usually paid on a per project basis, so a small increase in the amount needed will not change the price. There are also instances where it is in the contract that additional fees are required if the amount needed increases, but it’s usually very vague in this area.

Event line art
8,000 ~ 15,000 yen or 50,000 ~ 80,000 yen per image
Event art refers to art that takes up the entire screen and is used to represent a certain scene. The cost on the left is for a normal artist, and the cost on the right is the cost when a popular artist is used.

Event CG colouring
10,000 ~ 30,000 yen per image
The price changes according to if the background has to be coloured, and also according to the colouring style used (such as anime style colouring), and if the shadows are already designated in the line art.

Bust shot line art
3,000 ~ 10,000 yen each
These are the images used to represent the characters in the normal parts of the game. Variations in the character expressions doesn’t change the cost, but different clothes and poses will count as different images.

Bust shot CG colouring
approximately 1/2 ~ 1/3 of the cost of colouring the Event CG
The colouring style will be done in the same style as the Event CG, so the cost of colouring the Event CG will directly affect the cost of the Bust shot colouring.

Bust shot backgrounds
15,000 ~ 50,000 yen each
These are the backgrounds used to depict where the characters are.
All sorts of backgrounds from TV anime level to movie level of art.

Scenario
1,000 yen for every 1kb
The story. Basically 1 yen for every 1 byte of the scenario. Outline and background settings do not count.

Programming
150,000 ~ 2,500,000 yen
The computer program that’s needed to run everything on the PC.This is the cost for ADV games, the price can get higher if it’s stuff like Action games or Mahjong.

Scripting
150,000 ~ 300,000 yen per 1MB
Scripting refers to the scripting that’s done to present all the relevant materials (art, backgrounds, bgm, etc) in order as the scenario progresses. The 1MB refers to the size of the scenario.

BGM
10,000 ~ 50,000 yen each
Most of them have been 25,000 yen or below recently.

Song
100,000 ~ 1,000,000 yen each
Stuff like the theme song, insert song, ending song, image song etc. Using a famous singer can cost a ton.

Sound effects
1,000 ~ 5,000 yen each
It’s pretty tough for the sound effects guys because when they sell a sound effect to a company it tends to get used across all their games.

Movie
100,000 ~ 10,000,000 yen
The more sophisticated the movie, the more it costs. It can cost a fortune if there’s anime or stuff like that.

Animation
1,000,000 yen and above
For comparison, a 30 minute TV anime costs about 8,000,000 ~ 15,000,000 yen

Cut-in
This refers to small graphics such as items and stuff. It’s usually done within the company itself, but if it’s outsourced, it’ll cost several thousand yen each.

Voices
It’s hard to give a range for this because the costs are completely different depending on the person that is used.

Interface
100,000 ~ 200,000 yen
Basically the graphics and design for the GUI. This is also usually done in-house, but this is the average cost to do it if they outsource.

Debugger
5,000 ~ 10,000 yen per day
It’s usually done in-house with everybody doing it together, but they get part-time staff when there isn’t enough manpower.

Other fees that may occur:
Direction fees 100,000 ~ 300,000 yen per month
CG managing fees 100,000 ~ 300,000 yen per month
Project fee 300,000 yen and below

Event CG variations
During the same scene a character’s expressions may change or the character’s hand may move slightly. These variations can have additional charges depending on how big the change is compared to the total area of the image.
Additional charges will not apply if the change is smaller than approximately 1/3 of the total area. If the change is bigger than that, there will be an additional charge (approximately 1000 ~ 5000 yen for event line art), and if there are many different variations of the same piece, the additional charges will keep increasing. Yamato Tamaki has personally seen a case where an image costed 15,000 yen for line art and 25,000 yen for colouring (total 40,000 yen), but because of the variations it became 250,000 yen in the end.

Royalties
There may be royalties given to the artist or scenario writer, usually between 0.5% to 3%. In many cases the royalties are only given on condition that the game manages to sell a certain number of copies.
Seiyuu also need to be paid when the voices recorded for the game are used in other applications such as when a game is ported to consoles, when a game and its sequel are packed together and sold in a set, or when there is a remake etc. The price is usually a percentage of the original cost for when the voices were originally recorded.

Art used for advertising
Art that is used in advertising materials such as posters, telephone cards, magazine spreads etc need to be done in a higher resolution than the game art so the prices are different.
Line art – 15,000 yen and above
Colouring – 25,000 ~ 80,000 yen
The prices can go crazy when using a popular artist for the line art. The highest that Yamato Tamaki has seen is where it cost 350,000 yen for a single piece. But popular artists on this level can make the game sell over 10,000 copies just with their name alone.

How many copies need to be sold to make a profit?
The distributors get approximately 40% ~ 60% of the selling price. How much the distributors get is usually determined by the power balance between the maker and the distributors, recently there have been distributors that provide funding to the maker for the game’s development, so in these cases, the distributors hold more power. Whereas the more stable game makers that constantly make games that sell consistently or when the maker has a famous artist, they can have more power than the distributors.
Also, when a game maker sells a game directly themselves, they do not have to go through the distributors so the distributors do not get a share of the money. A game maker that is able to get good sales from direct sales basically gets double the income as compared to going through a distributor.
For example, for a game that is 8800 yen, if the distributor takes 50%, that means 4400 yen goes to the game maker. The distributor will then sell the game to stores at 6500 yen a copy, so the distributor really makes 2100 yen per copy. Then when it comes to the stores, the amount they make will change depending on how much they sell the game for. If they sell it a the fixed price of 8800 yen, they make 2300 yen per copy, if they sell it at 7200 yen, they make 700 yen per copy.
On the game maker’s side, if they make 4,400 yen per copy, that means they get 44,000,000 yen when 10,000 copies are sold. If 3,000 copies are sold then they make 13,200,000 yen.
If the cost of production was 50,000,000 yen (including advertising and manufacturing), it means they will need to sell 11,400 copies before they can start seeing profits.
This means that in the case where they use a famous artist that is able to sell 10,000 copies of the game just by his name alone, it is possible to break even, even if it costs 40,000,000 yen to use his art. (Though it’s not a really good deal at that price)
So basically the big titles that manage to sell over 100,000 copies made 440,000,000 yen, but the game makers that can make sales on that level will probably be able to demand a bigger cut of the sales from the distributors so the amount that they actually get is probably higher. (there are only 3 companies that have games that sold more than 100,000 copies in recent times)

(Just in case anybody is getting the wrong impression about sales numbers, getting 5000 copies sold in the eroge industry can be surprisingly hard for many companies, so many try to keep the break-even point lower than that)

 

[nihilloligasan]

it depends on who you hire

i know some artists who will charge anywhere from $60-$300 for a commission. they're generally more expensive due to the advanced anatomy/poses. it also depends on what kind of nsfw art you're looking for. artists will sometimes charge more to draw something that doesn't appeal to them, but they can also just flat out refuse.

a common formula i've seen many artists use for charging commissions is Time spent x hourly rate + cost of materials (+ base commission payment if there is one). a lot of these values are subjective to each artist, so it's best to ask them about how they charge before you hire them.

[Gunz]

Quote

 

I have no personal experience here, but @Emi has previously replied to another topic in regards to this. I'll paste the text in a spoiler box below, since it's pretty long. (I took the liberty of adjusting spacing and making some of the text bold or underlined in order to make it somewhat easier to distinguish the different parts.)

 

it depends on who you hire

i know some artists who will charge anywhere from $60-$300 for a commission. they're generally more expensive due to the advanced anatomy/poses. it also depends on what kind of nsfw art you're looking for. artists will sometimes charge more to draw something that doesn't appeal to them, but they can also just flat out refuse.

a common formula i've seen many artists use for charging commissions is Time spent x hourly rate + cost of materials (+ base commission payment if there is one). a lot of these values are subjective to each artist, so it's best to ask them about how they charge before you hire them.

 

Thank you.

I read Emi's post many years ago. THat is why I think the information in the writting is outdate already.

Today, many artist have their patreon. It is difficult to think a famous artist how earn 2000-4000$/month to draw just 3 pictures/month will accept the price 200-300$/ every picture.

I founded a Vietnamese and a Thailand artist several month before. Now their salary almost as same as the Korean and Japanese already (1000 - 2000$/month. it all depend on their skill).

 

 

Edited April 29, 2019 by Gunz