Date Ariane (and the Western AVN industry) is 20 Years Old!

It was around the beginning of August 2004 that I posted "Ariane's Date Simulator" to my web site. Nobody noticed until 2007 when it went viral, and as a result a new gaming genre was born.

link: A 3 part history of Date Ariane / Date Ariane Remastered (contains links to older versions of the game)

Sales are over, but I'm leaving the post up.

This has been an amazing experience. Not only launching the first HTML Adult Visual Novel which inspired hundreds of others, but also launching the first Western (3D or western style art) Renpy game about 9 years later which inspired thousands of others.

I want to thank all my fellow AVN developers. I know how much work and creativity goes into the development of these games, and how little reward is often gained from their development. It's a fun but not necessarily rewarding hobby for most of us. I love making these games, I hope you all do, too.

I'm a big believer in "All ships rise with the tide" and other developers are not competition, we all benefit together as a growing industry. The Adult Visual Novel games come in many "flavors", some of which I personally don't care for, but my tastes are unimportant. Developers should make what they want to make, and nobody deserves censorship. Hopefully enough variety exists to satisfy all players.

The philosophy of AVNs is to give players platforms to fulfill their desires without harming others in real life, and this philosophy constantly proves true. Adult gaming plays a role in the decline of sexual assault cases world wide. Sadly the industry is constantly under threat of censorship and demonetization, but the data favors our position. AVNs are a net good for society.

I love the look of Daz based graphics and I am now working on a couple of titles using Daz, but I also understand the appeal of Honey Select games. These are much easier to make graphically, leaving small developers to spend more time with the writing, which is why it's not a coincidence that many of the best written games use HS graphics.

What really amazes me are the hand drawn titles. I never ever believed 3D was superior to hand drawn, I only used 3D for my games because that's what I have available. I love the hand drawn games!

 Here's to the next 20 years!