Are you interesting in voice acted games?

[Deleted member 3145675]

Hi,
Considering that I read a lot faster than actors/characters speak ingame:
- I tend to be annoyed with voices. (even more when there's a lot of text which leads to endless talking)
- if you add the facts that skipping text/voices most often creates ingame lag and that once you've heard it once most people don't care about it the second time. (very low replayability value)
- I would say it's a lot of efforts for a very small effective result.

but to each his own.

 

[desmosome]

I can't handle eng voice acting.
It just sound so forced, i have no problem with jap though.
Wonder if people with jap as mother tongue feel the opposite

Yea. I feel this too. For one thing, japan has an established porn voice acting industry. You are getting professional results. There is no such thing yet in the west, as far as I know. They also have a certain flair to the porn dialogues, whereas most western games have extremely sparse dialogue during scenes.

Another big factor is probably because we can't understand exactly what they are saying like you pointed out. We read ahead the English text, and the Japanese VA is mostly in the background to set the tone. Also, written porn dialogues can be quite outlandish and be super hot in the hentai sense, but imagine actually hearing these lines spoken out loud in English. It could certainly be cringy.

I too wonder how it must all sound to Japanese speakers heh.

 

[kytee]

I feel like all the people in this thread don't see the potential that voice acting adds to a porn game. Just take a gander at

You must be registered to see the links

and listen to a couple of the top posts of all time and tell me that you can't cum from voice acting alone. People talk shit about English porn voice acting but you can't improve an industry that doesn't exist, just like how we had to deal with shit porn games before we got to where we are today. If you dismiss voice acting in porn games as something unneeded or useless, you never get to see the game that comes by that nails everything, the graphics, the writing, and the voice acting. As great as a porn game can become, without voice acting, you are still reading dirty talk and moans using your own inner voice.

 

[Deleted member 3145675]

I feel like all the people in this thread don't see the potential that voice acting adds to a porn game. Just take a gander at

You must be registered to see the links

and listen to a couple of the top posts of all time and tell me that you can't cum from voice acting alone. People talk shit about English porn voice acting but you can't improve an industry that doesn't exist, just like how we had to deal with shit porn games before we got to where we are today. If you dismiss voice acting in porn games as something unneeded or useless, you never get to see the game that comes by that nails everything, the graphics, the writing, and the voice acting. As great as a porn game can become, without voice acting, you are still reading dirty talk and moans using your own inner voice.

Exactly,
(for your end of post statement)
but your point omits the fact that with a good voice acting you no longer need the text and then it becomes a movie.

I can do with written text and a few audio sounds/moans - but images + written texts + the exact same audio version and it becomes overkill.

it leads to: is text avoidable? or is audio avoidable? - is it still a game? do we need a voice-over for the MC too?
how many game Devs have a decent budget for a good voice acting?
and so forth and so on.
Let's say you prefer audio stimulation and I written words.
To each his own.

(written words are a lot cheaper tho)

 

[kytee]

Exactly,
(for your end of post statement)
but your point omits the fact that with a good voice acting you no longer need the text and then it becomes a movie.

I can do with written text and a few audio sounds/moans - but images + written texts + the exact same audio version and it becomes overkill.

it leads to: is text avoidable? or is audio avoidable? - is it still a game? do we need a voice-over for the MC too?

How exactly does this work? How does adding voice acting into a game where you would be reading text turn it into a movie? Is The Witcher 3 a movie now? Is Mass Effect a movie now? Should we remove all voice acting from games so that we can play games and not be watching a movie? Or is it different because it has porn? Or is it that an interactive medium is only a game if it forced you to read instead of listen to voice actors voice what characters are saying?

how many game Devs have a decent budget for a good voice acting?
and so forth and so on.

OP's post isn't about whether devs should budget for voice acting in their games, the OP asked if anyone was interested in voice acting to which I replied yes, because voice acting has the potential to add significantly to an adult game. Whether or not devs have a decent budget for good voice acting is irrelevant. I am interested in voice acting in porn games regardless of a dev's ability to pull it off.

 

[Deleted member 3145675]

How exactly does this work? How does adding voice acting into a game where you would be reading text turn it into a movie? Is The Witcher 3 a movie now? Is Mass Effect a movie now? Should we remove all voice acting from games so that we can play games and not be watching a movie? Or is it different because it has porn? Or is it that an interactive medium is only a game if it forced you to read instead of listen to voice actors voice what characters are saying?


OP's post isn't about whether devs should budget for voice acting in their games, the OP asked if anyone was interested in voice acting to which I replied yes, because voice acting has the potential to add significantly to an adult game. Whether or not devs have a decent budget for good voice acting is irrelevant. I am interested in voice acting in porn games regardless of a dev's ability to pull it off.

we're on a porn site - I may have assumed that most questions would revolve around porn and porn games. (my bad)

voice acting (like a lot of things) is not free. (Most game Dev tend to think at least a little about costs and earnings)

Now saying that a theoretical hypothetical potential free of charge addition to a porn game would make it better - is maybe right and correct but it is nothing more than that - a theoretical hypothetical potential assumption.

(i.e. you may be right or wrong or it may be simply your opinion - the only way to "judge" it would be to witness a game Dev using it in his game - and see if he either succeeds fails or sees no changes compared to his previous games success cet. par.)

and I did not present my opinion in a different form as it is but exactly as it is - a simple opinion - I may be wrong or right but to each his own.

 

[Hadley]

Problem with Voice-Acting is that most voices don't fit. If you have a 40 Year old Milf she shouldn't sound like a 20 Year old girl and a "18" Year old sister shouldn't sould like a 30 year old.

 

[Deleted member 3145675]

Problem with Voice-Acting is that most voices don't fit. If you have a 40 Year old Milf she should sound like a 20 Year old girl and a "18" Year old sister shouldn't sould like a 30 year old.

Yup,
that's why casting/dialogue/voice directors exist in the animation industry.

 

[Umbra Nensei]

Hard to say. Of course it's great to have spoken lines voice acted, but at the same time, voice acting can improve a scene just as much as it can spoil it. If you don't like what's written on screen, you might ignore it and focus on the visuals. But when it's spoken - that could be a problem for some. Especially during sex scenes, when a character says something that by the developer was considered hot or arousing, yet for the player is a major turn-off.

 

[smnb]

Of course I want it, but...

Take a look at regular games, they started with terrible graphics (from today's perspective), bad or no sounds, and gradually evolved. Can you imagine today's AAA game without voiced dialogs? Hardly. It's a new standard and you want it, because it's improvement over what was there before.

I'm sure it would improve adult games too, but we're nowhere near that being possible, with perhaps few exceptions. It's both type of games and development model. It would fit nicely with something big and interactive, some AAA adult game. But are there any? All these small(ish) Patreon-funded games are made by one or few people and take years to complete. Adding voices is huge task, with required long-term commitment from everyone involved, which is a lot more people than now. Because ideally you want to do it right, i.e. have fitting voices for all characters, same at the beginning as at the end, etc.

There was a game, I'm not sure right now which one, that had sporadic voiced line here and there, but most was still text-only. And it felt pointless to me. Plus I didn't really like the voices for characters, but that's subjective.

So yes, I'm looking forward to it, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[desmosome]

There is no industry for it to be possible You have 2 options. Amateur VA with questionable results, or professional VA that will not do sex scenes.

Look at Subverse. The VA is great. I imagine these are professionals. These people will almost certainly not be on board to voice lines such as "Oooooh my pussy is being reshaped by this dick~~~! It's entering my womb~~ Uhhh~~ Ikkuuu~~"

No, lol that shit ain't happening any time soon. I wouldn't even be surprised if this is the reason Subverse scenes are utter garbage with no dialogue whatsoever.

Maybe you can get some professional VA for some vanilla ass romance game with missionary sex and bare bones bedroom talk not involving any fetishes.

 

[smnb]

Just take a gander at

You must be registered to see the links

and listen to a couple of the top posts of all time and tell me that you can't cum from voice acting alone.

Fucking hell! I needed to reinstall one computer, so I used this as "background noise" instead of music, and wow! Installing and configuring Windows was never so exciting.

 

[God3333]

Hmm, idk, for me the voice acting would have to be spot on, there's a reason why people don't watch the anime dubs.

For me, if you're gonna have sound I'd prefer banging music. BeingADik generally had music that I shazamed and is now in my playlist.

 

[F4C430]

I voted no but actually i'm fine with it only on the condition that there's a setting to turn it off. A good game design gives the player choices.

 

[gunderson]

The biggest problem I have with voice acting is simply that I've tried several games whose devs took the time and expense to add VA to their porn games in what's generally a bunch of otherwise content-light updates. It's never, in my experience, been worth it. It doesn't make the game significantly sexier (and can often backfire if the voice actor sucks) if at all, and people too often make the mistake of comparing it to simply adding nothing.

Sure: if voice acting is free, amazing, and instant, who in their right mind would say no?

But that's not how it works. Voice acting costs money, sometimes a decent chunk of change especially if you want to ensure you have a strong cast. It takes time (quite a bit more, I think, than people tend to assume -- since you're adding more people to your development cycle, people who may or may not be flaky and can't do their work without the writers already finishing theirs, it's almost inevitably going to make things take longer). And I can think of very few instances (basically only games where the devs have decided that the game is 100% finished aside from adding voice acting, and even then I feel like it's just devs wanting a bit more cash for their game rather than a good way to make a finished game better) where I'd even consider voice acting a good use of the devs' time and money. Just make more game.

My one exception is that I do think the generic, "Hi!" "Good job!" "I don't think so." sorts of barks that can be used to verbally punctuate more extended written dialogue actually can add some character to the people in your game. It's not going to be free, of course, but I think that's about the best bang for the buck you're going to get from porn game voice acting. But I literally cannot think of a time when I would have been mad that a porn game dev decided not to put voice acting in their game.

 

[UndercoverLover]

Most points were made already for either side of this.
The only thing i can add to this is my experience from a lot of anime and 1 game "snow daze".

The problem for me is that i can hear it mostly when its only one actor speaking multiple roles as that is often the case in anime and would be most certainly the case for games too.

That goes especially for english material as japanase at least partially try to add more qualitly to this.
It also probablly depends on the studio that is making the voiceover as there is at least one very prominent female actor in a whole lot of anime and she did a really good job but at times its just too much and especially the younger and older characters will sound kinda bad and some other can only be rec. via how they are saying things or due to visual confirmation as some sound just alike.

In snow daze its 4 characters spoken all by 1 voice actor. And she did a good job but i still turned it off due to me not liking her older voice and being put off by it being too prominent that its all spoken by just 1 woman and i could read and go through the game much faster with voices turned off.

So for me voice acting would be fine if there are more than 1 actors involved as in 2 voices per actor probably as i think that they can pull of 1 higher or lower voice to their real one and thats it maybe can speak a side character one liner where it doesent matter. But every main char needs a distinguished voice or i would prefer text only.

But that leaves the issue that text is faster to read as spoken therefor it takes more time to go thru a game or vn and if one hates a specific voice it could take from the game as much as it could add.

Noises can be nice but most do a horrible job same goes for music taste in most games so in general the first thing i do is go into settings and disable all sounds.