Sadly, selling "seasons" is the primary reason I don't buy AVNs on Steam. You pay $15, or even $20 and just have the introductory part of the story for a game. By the time you own all the parts from different store pages, it's the price of a AAA game or more. I own over 2,500 games on Steam, but only one is an AVN (because it's not episodic): Come Home from RJ Rhodes.
Other devs may say it's the way to do it, but from my perspective (being on Steam since 2004) it turns out not to be financially smart for the purchaser, unless money is no object. And sometimes if it's not clear enough that the buyer is only getting part of the game (and has to pay more for others), they may end up extremely unhappy and leave a negative review (so now not only are they unhappy, so are you).
I'd recommend going the DLC route for subsequent Seasons, and clearly stating that on the game's store page. In fact, you can announce and add DLCs to the store even before they are released, so people could clearly see the story continues via those. That avoids the disappointment factor and any negative reviews. And the DLC could potentially be priced a bit lower to encourage sales, and help people justify the higher cost when compared to other games.
Just my .02, hope it was of value.
I understand what you are saying, and I value every opinion, but you also need to understand the devs. I won't talk about other developers, though, only about My Dorm and me since it's something everyone here knows how it works.
I will start with "The DLC could potentially be priced a bit lower". Why should I sell Season 2 cheaper than Season 1? It has more and better content than the first season (36k renders vs 19K)! It has fewer words but approximately the same playtime due to the writing being optimized.
I understand that some devs "abuse the system", splitting the game into Seasons when it's not needed. But this isn't the case with My Dorm. I squeeze the most content the technical limitations allow me to do into every season.
Yes, I also understand most players on Steam haven't heard about My Dorm or Tropecita Games, so they don't care. But the players who know me know I'm all for fairness. If people on O**aiman pay 10€ for a Season, people on Steam will pay 10€ for a Season. If they buy the games separately on itch, they will buy the games separately on Steam. Doing it differently on Steam would mean it wouldn't be fair for O**aiman or itch players.
Since Steam doesn't support Android, the size limitation isn't there, but doing it differently would also mean it would be unfair for Android players.
There's also a comparison thing. Imagine Ferrari could sell their cars at $50,000 and still earn money. Would they do it instead of selling them at the same price as Lamborghini sells theirs? No. Why? Because the audience would think it's a worse car. The same happens with games. Why do almost all the AAA games sell for 60€? Because if you saw Witcher 4 for 20€, you would think it's worse than other titles, or the studio isn't confident in their own product.
Now imagine you see an AVN for 12.99€ on Steam that says:
And another for 10€ that says:
Any player will think that the second one is worse (if they haven't heard of any of them) because it gives 3x the playtime and more renders, and it's cheaper. That can mean the developer doesn't think highly of his game. The second game is My Dorm Season 1, btw. Imagine now that this description, or similar, is in a DLC that sells even cheaper! Any player will think it's crap.
Let's talk about visibility and exposure. Steam doesn't give the same visibility to DLCs as it does to "independent" games. My Dorm always had an issue with exposure. I'm bad at marketing. Losing a possible boost in visibility would be like shooting myself in the foot.
As I said, my goal isn't to become rich. I did a job, and I would like a fair return from it. I can lose buyers because of that choice, but it's a meditated choice. I can also win buyers for future seasons. We will never know.
The numbers are there. Take the best-case scenario with DLCs, 35% player retention, and the worst-case scenario for an independent game, 60% player retention. If I sell 1,000 Season 1 games for 10€, that would mean 350 Season 2 DLCs for 9€ (taking your advice of selling the DLC cheaper) or 600 Season 2 independent games for 10€. Total sales: 13,150€ with DLCs and 16,000€ with independent games (before Steam fees, taxes, discounts, etc. Devs don't get half of those theoretic sales).
Once again, why would anyone sane sell the rest of the seasons as DLC?
No offense intended, but you aren't a good example of the target audience on Steam. You, with over 2,500 games, only have an AVN because it was sold as a complete package. You didn't buy AVNs that were sold with Seasons as DLCs. You didn't buy AVNs that were sold with Seasons as independent games. You only bought ONE AVN that was sold as a complete package.
You also talk about an AVN getting to the price of an AAA game if it has several seasons. I think the comparison is unfair. What makes a game an AAA game? Size of the team? Budget? Length of gameplay? Marketing? Note that I don't talk about quality. There are crappy games among the considered AAA games. I made a fast google search:
So, let's talk about The Witcher 3, the only one I played in the examples.
When it went on Steam, it was 60€ IIRC (Euros of 2015, that would mean 87,86 in 2025, taking into account the inflation shown
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). For My Dorm to get to that price, it would take ~9 seasons. OK, Main Story and side content in My Dorm: 20-30h per season makes 180-270h of gameplay (vs. 105). Competionist: Seeing every combination of choices, some millions of hours (vs. 180).
Are they the same kind of game? No, obviously. Have they the same quality? No, obviously (My Dorm doesn't have as much clipping). Are they comparable? No, obviously.
Why do we pay for games (or anything else)? To enjoy them for a reasonable hour per € invested. Would we pay 60€ for an AAA game that lasted for 10 minutes? I doubt it, even if it was the best game in the world. Would we pay for a full ticket in the cinema to see the best movie in the world if it lasted 10 minutes? I wouldn't.
My Dorm gives more hours per € than The Witcher 3. I'm not comparing both games. You did.
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