Which is what I was getting at earlier with my comment about "writing for the wrong genre." I suppose I should expand on that and say it's important to "know your audience," as well. As I said, I'm all for the idea of creating a game that is ostensibly porn, but has a story that could probably stand pretty well on its own even without the titillation factor. But the target audience is probably going to be a little put out because they're expecting "easy" porn without having to do the "work" that comes from actually having to worry about whether Character X is going to be written out, or Character Y is actually some kind of evil, scheming backstabber instead of just a passive goal that the player can eventually "conquer."
Yes, I understand what you are saying, and I think from a practical perspective you are correct. However, the current "gonzo" doctrine for porn is still a somewhat recent phenomenon, and it hasn't always been the case that sex scenes with no plot or only the flimsiest of settings are considered the "only real option in the genre". I think that's come about recently mainly because of market efficiency and the fact that the audience doesn't need a plot to enjoy the sex, and so all the products ultimately gravitate towards this style to maximize efficiency.
That isn't to say that people don't actually enjoy it
more if they can have
both good sex and a story (with plot, characters, setting, etc), however, and I think that the popularity and enthusiasm for
Acting Lessons is a strong indicator that this is the case. Still, there are two big difficulties with it that I see:
- It's more difficult to do two things well (story and sex) than it is to just do one (sex).
- The general audience is happy enough with just one (sex).
Beyond that though, there is also the factor of differentiating your offerings from other content, and gaining a "novelty" factor, that should be considered in this discussion about what fits in the genre. And furthermore, an exciting new element in all this is the democritization of the tools and the opportunites for the simplified production and publication of such content, which is changing the genre as well. With those in mind, "know your audience" may ultimately not be as important as "write what pleases you, and people will follow", which I think is a fairly decent synopsis of the
Acting Lessons dev's own words from a few pages back.