How To Create An Otome Game

I might be a little late to this conversation, but as someone who started developing otome games (wow, last month, I started...), I think I have relevant information.
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☼If you are planning to go commercial in an otome visual novel, is it worth all the hard work?

I think it's worth the hard work. But it's A LOT of hard work. As an ex-romance author(maybe not ex, but just not focusing on writing novels right now), I thought THAT was hard. But comparing to putting a game together, it's almost a cakewalk. It's not easy and I see a lot of castoffs on the side of the proverbial road, the dregs of dead/dying/never fully formed games that people start but give up because it takes too much effort. As someone who's been in the professional industry, though, I'm not likely to give up. When I go into something, I go into it with all my effort. So far, since starting to develop our game PS I LOVE YOU, of which I am writing the script, drawing the lineart for the sprites/CG/promo images, programming, searching for music, etc etc, I can honestly tell you that I am at the computer from 7AM to at least 9-10PM. It's nuts. I've never spent this much time writing before. But strangely enough, I don't think it's awful. I'm having fun and that's the most important thing. If you're doing something you love, which I am, spending godawful amounts of time dedicated to it isn't all that bad.

☼Is there people who buy indie otome games?
or is that all the audience for those games is too young and does not have money to pay for them?

There ARE people who buy indie otome games...like me. Because there's people like me who grew up playing Neo Angelique/Hiiro no Kakera/Pretear and they're now in their 30s with disposable income. But we don't throw our money all willy-nilly. We want good, developed storylines with hot men and sexy art, of which there seems to be somewhat of a lack of in the Western world. (which is why I started making PS I LOVE YOU because I didn't see the games I wanted to buy that were in English)

☼For the indie developers, do they really earn money creating those?

Yes, but it's definitely not like winning the lottery. There's a crapload of work involved and very little reward. But we do it because we love it and most times, that's better than making tons of money but hating what you do.

☼so what do you think? ☼ is it worth it going commercial for an otome visual novel?
☼or should they just go free because they will get pirated anyway?

Pirates. I faced this problem with my books. Sometimes I'd find books of mine that were on file-sharing sites and they weren't even available for purchase. (ARC readers can be quite unscrupulous) Nevertheless, it's a problem that isn't likely to go away and to just stress about it is no good. It's going to happen and the people who are pirating books/games never intended to buy them in the first place because they don't have the money (for the most part). But, I have seen/met people who used to pirate in the past, due to lack of money, but now that they can afford it, they're paying money.

I think I read about an album by...Metallica? (I could be wrong) Anyways, they put their album on file-sharing sites, tracked what country downloaded the album the most, and then went to that country to play in a packed stadium. They made bank Take from that what you will.

and also!
☼why did you choose to create a visual novel and no a comic?

I'm choosing to create a visual novel/otome game because I find it more immersive and enjoyable than a comic.