Summary of what's to come in June

Absolutely! In many ways, the CoG market is a huge win for writers, particularly amateur ones who are just starting out trying to forge a fanbase. It’s intuitive code, there’s tons of free and easily accessible help, the readership is extensive and bubbling with feedback and you are almost guaranteed to have *someone* read your work unlike on Amazon with its hundreds of voices scrambling to get their cut. But in other ways, the creation of these games is far more daunting than traditionally writing a novel. The length of course is padded some by coding and by writing the same general scenes repeatedly with different iterations of the MC or the ROs, but still, 300k is a thick chunk. A Game of Thrones, as famously long-winded a novel as it is, doesn't even cut it at 298k. And that's just the standard for CoG with many of them reaching or surpassing 700k. The expectations and low price make sense due to audience demographic—a combination of gamers, role-players and avid readers—as well as the massive not to mention well-funded market these games are meant to be competing with, but it is still a weighty task for the creators. And a payout that is extraordinarily tipped in favor of those who have less on their plates, have the ability to write solely as a passion project and/or who can churn out quality writing like they’re Stephen King on a buttload of adderall. Luckily, as I said, you still don’t have to consistently power through exceedingly long stories as in upwards of 450 - 800k because then it starts hemorrhaging attention spans. I don’t think that model will be changing any time soon either, what with society getting faster and faster paced by the second. Personally for me, I think horizontal flowchart style coding/writing programs would be extremely helpful. I saw one that someone was working on in the forum, and it looked highly promising for my disorganized, confusion prone self. I would throw money in a heartbeat for a visual aid like that to make order from the chaos.

I've spoken with other CoG/HG authors about the very thing you're talking about, and honestly, it's scary when you do the math. All writers have different schedules and different priorities in life, and some work faster and some work slower, but when you get down to it, a 600k-word gamebook represents a writer's investment of time that's probably almost equivalent to 10 "regular" novels (assuming around 60k words each). Yes, the Amazon landscape is very daunting for indies, and there's no guarantee that any of those 10 novels will make money, but still, 10 novels is a pretty damn nice start for a backlist, and it diversifies the author's income (assuming they aren't all in the same series). Whereas with a 600k-word CoG/HG gamebook, all your eggs are in one basket, and even if you do well, it's hard to see that model being economically efficient for most writers. I feel like it's sort of a "race to the bottom" to create longer and longer stories, where the price cap (realistically) is always going to be about $8 or $9 unless people start changing their views on what these are worth. But yes of course you're right, people want higher and higher wordcounts and that probably won't change. We have to focus on the reader/player and respect that many of them love robust stories with lots to explore (I mean who doesn't? :) )) I don't know if some sort of AI program will come along to help us with productivity because right now for me, it's still a grinding process even using CSIDE and having a general idea of what I'm doing. Sorry for the long-winded post but I enjoy a good back-and-forth once in a while and I think your views reflect those of a lot of folks!

Eric Moser

Admirable work ethic! If you want another über professional, unsolicited opinion, I can say pretty confidently based on my years of playing CoG/HG games and observing the fanbase that 300k-650k range and/or a series is a sweet point. (Series come with their downsides, which I’m sure you know from CCH, but they are great for building anticipatory fan loyalty until they’re staying for brand alone *hopefully*) Much under 300k, readers may feel cheated on content vs. price. Much over 650k, they may get bored, confused or feel it's becoming tedious to keep up with no matter how interesting. My own buying pattern definitely reflects that too even though I try to support as much as possible despite misgivings save egregious ones. I’ll go for that range and/or non-standalones way faster than anything else because I know I’ll get a lot of fun fandom chatter (more content = more to talk/speculate about), intrigue and replay value. Not to dramatically increase your work load or something. Take all that with a grain of salt. And know, regardless of outcome, you’ll always have one fan’s financial backing in your corner. Ride or die.

Thanks for the supportive words, Artemis! Honestly, I'm hoping to transition into writing as a second career down the line, so really I can't afford many 'misfires' like Zip. As you say, there are a lot of factors at play, but I've analyzed Zip thoroughly to avoid another misstep. At the very least I'm pretty sure I'll never again release a ChoiceScript game under 150k words. CoG/HG's readers these days just expect that sort of minimum length.

Eric Moser

On point 4, I would encourage you to please not be too hard on yourself/your writing! I know you said you are determined to learn from your mistakes (which is great!), but poor sales doesn't necessarily indicate "bad story" or something. Financial success of course is important, morseo to some than others, but I think you should still be proud of the accomplishment that Zip! was regardless of if it took off or not. Luck factors in, and yes, probably word count as well as the other stuff you mentioned too. Still, regardless, sometimes games perform well but were not the greatest or vice versa. Sometimes they perform better in the market all the sudden later. You never know with these kinds of things what will take to consumers or not. There's good models, sure. But ultimately, there's no saying.

You should go to the Choice of Games forum and research around/ask questions. I'm sure Eric has a lot of work to do as we can tell from the update. :)

Hey, I'm trying to make my own choice of game but I'm not sure how to do anything. Could I get a step by step guide?

Jayk T. Thomp!