Simply put, so very often I'm slightly curious about a game, particularly visual-novel style experiences, but yet there's no way to tell what the actual core content, the writing of a game, will be like without playing it. Why? Because the screenshots show me nothing but "hey! Sex! Girls! Maybe one shot of a funny (debatably!) scene! Download now!"
I'll be browsing a few games, I'll see a few tags that sound good, the premise may or may not be compelling, and the art style looks alright. Maybe I'll just go down to the preview screenshots and- oh, no, it's just pictures of girls and fucking. No writing, no samples, no way to tell exactly how the game will feel to read through.
I know it's hard to convey 100% of a game's writing style in just a few shots. But it helps. Maybe even especially in terms of letting me know I'm not about to be blasted with writing that makes me regret even wasting my time downloading. And I'm sure I'm not every user, I'm sure I may not even be in the majority. But I know if I do it, there has to be at least a few other users that, like me, will absolutely exit off of a game's page if all I can see are some "this may or may not be fun" tags and some screenshots that give me no idea on the actual tone of the game.
Reviews aren't too much a help, either. Most people, when it comes to adult content or otherwise, tend to categorize as "bad writing" anything that's "writing styles I don't like." Hell, a game who's style I very much enjoy was criticized as having bad writing in a review, when it turns out that it's just a relatively lighthearted style that fits with the rest of the game's theming, at least to my own tastes. But I was only able to find that out by doing my own googling for more images, as the game page itself didn't have a single damn example in its screenshots.
I know, I know. "Just don't download." "Just spend five minutes downloading and see," etc. No. For one game? For two? Sure, it's fine. But when it feels almost every visual novel game, something that is at least 50% defined by text in the damn genre name, refuses to show me what the 'novel' part looks like, I can't and won't download game after game "just in case I like the writing." Show me examples. Include the text. Let me see what the humor is like, show me what's written during the sex scenes - let me get an idea of how your game sounds and feels to read and play. The only people your nabbing by doing otherwise are those who are just going to be more annoyed when they have to download it first in order to figure out they aren't interested.
I'll be browsing a few games, I'll see a few tags that sound good, the premise may or may not be compelling, and the art style looks alright. Maybe I'll just go down to the preview screenshots and- oh, no, it's just pictures of girls and fucking. No writing, no samples, no way to tell exactly how the game will feel to read through.
I know it's hard to convey 100% of a game's writing style in just a few shots. But it helps. Maybe even especially in terms of letting me know I'm not about to be blasted with writing that makes me regret even wasting my time downloading. And I'm sure I'm not every user, I'm sure I may not even be in the majority. But I know if I do it, there has to be at least a few other users that, like me, will absolutely exit off of a game's page if all I can see are some "this may or may not be fun" tags and some screenshots that give me no idea on the actual tone of the game.
Reviews aren't too much a help, either. Most people, when it comes to adult content or otherwise, tend to categorize as "bad writing" anything that's "writing styles I don't like." Hell, a game who's style I very much enjoy was criticized as having bad writing in a review, when it turns out that it's just a relatively lighthearted style that fits with the rest of the game's theming, at least to my own tastes. But I was only able to find that out by doing my own googling for more images, as the game page itself didn't have a single damn example in its screenshots.
I know, I know. "Just don't download." "Just spend five minutes downloading and see," etc. No. For one game? For two? Sure, it's fine. But when it feels almost every visual novel game, something that is at least 50% defined by text in the damn genre name, refuses to show me what the 'novel' part looks like, I can't and won't download game after game "just in case I like the writing." Show me examples. Include the text. Let me see what the humor is like, show me what's written during the sex scenes - let me get an idea of how your game sounds and feels to read and play. The only people your nabbing by doing otherwise are those who are just going to be more annoyed when they have to download it first in order to figure out they aren't interested.
