For most creators of original characters (OC), the creation is to satisfy their creative desires, to project their emotions onto the OC, or simply to hopefully keep up with trends. But for some, they create in the hope of profiting from their OCs.
Xi Huan Yan is a game maker who is in the process of creating a game with her OC as the protagonist, and her game demo has already been logged on the steam platform.
The game she is making is a female romance game set in Chinese history, and the core idea is to express the fate of the little people in the era and show the humanities of Chinese society at that time. After considering various aspects, she decided to make the game in the form of a visual novel. When asked how she profited from OC, Xi Huan Yan replied, ‘I did data collection on the Internet to understand players’ preferences and dislikes.’
In Xi’s initial plan, the male protagonist existed emotional experiences in the past so as to fit his position in the story background. However, when researching, she found that most players were unable to accept this, so she had to opt for suggestive language to skip this part of the specific description.
She explains, ‘Commercialisation does give me the possibility of making a profit, but comparatively, I have to change the character settings to suit the market. If you’re completely unable to accept your original characters changing their settings, don’t hold on to the idea of making money off of them and continue to stick to being a lone creator.’
‘It can be slow, but any partner must be able to be trusted. Be sure to find partners who are like-minded in their conversations, or who are willing to communicate well when disagreements arise.’
When it comes to publicity and promotion, creators are often unable to do the whole process on their own, so they need to find the right partner.Tan, a creator who is in the process of commercialising his original character, Furnina, doesn’t use an adequate budget, so he has to look for a partner who shares his ambition to promote the show step-by-step in the early days without any revenue.
‘If your partners are trustworthy, then you will get a lot out of the co-operation process. There are a lot of people behind Furnina who help out, and there’s no shortage of great perspectives in the values they export, which equates to someone who can stand in for inspiration on other layers that are detached from my way of thinking, and it’s our combined efforts that make Furnina better and better.’
As for how to benefit from the commercialisation of other people’s original characters, I’ve once again interviewed Althea, a full-time painting commission artist, so let’s hear what she’s been up to for this job and what advice she has for people who want to make money off of their original characters.
This website is part of a student project. While the information on this website has been verified to the best of our abilities, we cannot guarantee that there are no mistakes or errors.
The material on this site is given for general information only and does not constitute professional advice.
The views expressed through this site are those of the individual contributors and not those of the website owner. We are not responsible for the content of external sites.
