AfaIk in BB after a certain story point Eric gained weekly influence and when reaching 100% with Ann and 2 of 3 girls (Lisa, Alice, Kira) it is a game over. Reducing Eric's weekly influence to zero is only possible if you know all actions which affect influence. This knowledge players either get from a walkthrough or by try and error. Battling Eric's influence is a job which requires to repeat these daily and weekly tasks as often as possible/necessary every day/week which is a chore. Otherwise Eric's influence will slowly increase up to 100%. I think for Alice it was a combination of 1-2 spider events (5 days cooldown to get new spider), applying sunblock (?) and daily tv event.
While learning how to effectively battle Eric is part of the challenge, endless repitition of all these steps every day/week just to prevent a game over does not add to the story nor unlocks new content. So it is good that players can get rid of Eric.
In BB_AS in current version the influence is broken and can't be effectively reduced, so players usually use the cheat menu to keep Eric's influence down.
