Do you prefer to play Harem games with or without male competition?

[DuniX]

Most harem games and even stories in novels are under isolation from male competition because if you insert even a bit of it inevitably becomes NTR. It's as simple as that.

The Player, The Protagonist has Choice, the Love Interests don't have a choice.
The fact that you think that if you are a Alpha Male Giga Chad that if you make the right Choices you can stop NTR means you don't really believe that Females should have a Choice.

Sure with plot contrivances you can add males that aren't really your competition.
You can even make a Harem game and NTR game.

But for Harem games the "fantasy" is you can get everyone through your "Conquest", your Choice or your Skill in Gameplay.

 

[Pr0GamerJohnny]

I like competition simply because it makes being with the girls feel more realistic because there's a yin to the yang.

It's like corruption stories that have no counter-choice to go the "good" route are stupid to me. There's no value in corruption if it's the default, it's the act of "steering them" away from the good path that makes it enjoyable.

It's the same with multiple girls and guys. It's not enjoyable and boring for me if they just default to being attracted to you - it's the enjoyment that comes with the choices - like I can romance girl A but then girl B will hook up with other guy #1, or I can romance girl B and girl A will hook up with guy #2. If both girl A and B are automatically attracted to me, there's not much gameplay, it's just a pure visual novel, and a boring one at that (for me).

 

[SoulsSurvivor]

So this is interesting for me, I like the idea of having to compete with other guys but the two games I saw do it managed it so poorly that I won't trust any game that has it implemented. One is a non-hgame, dungeon of dreams i think it was called, it had dating elements and there was one guy that would steal all your LIs. The issue was two fold in this case, the guy was such an obvious prick to everyone that I had a hard time believing anyone would be interested in him that wasn't mentally deficient and made me hate every Li and the second was that the game wasn't fun to play, imagine imagine Diablo but the best loot is a pair of pants that increases your defense by 2. The other is lab rats 2, the women in the game can meet, date, and marry guys other than the mc, unfortunately they have no models, don't actually exist, and affect nothing which makes it rather meaningless. If I'm cucking a dude I want one of two things; either I want him sobbing in the corner while I breed his wife/gf, or I want him to encourage me to breed his wife/gf. Making him nonexistent just ruins it. So if it's done well, yes absolutely would love it but if it isn't then it sours my experience.

 

[whiteTpoison]

Battle of Bulges is one of my favorites, it raises the issue of the competitor very well, becoming enjoyable to replay

I think that adding competition to these games gives them a special spice, but without putting too much pressure

 

[SleepW4lker]

well... I prefer that there are male rivals to make it more entertaining... and compete for girls or even steal her xD. a good example of this is Artificial Academy 2 just put the same number of boys and girls and let the Battle Royal begin. how I would like an Artificial Academy 3 but Illusion doesn't seem to be interested...

 

[sensepirational]

I think it'd depend on the game's mechanics and writing, tbh. Theoretically, competition could make for some good storytelling if done well, as it presents your game's story with a built-in central conflict to play off of, and ever good story needs some good central conflict.

I don't think I'd want to be competing with another guy over how simpy we can be to woo the girls, though. I wouldn't find that interesting or compelling.

 

[Jolly_Rancher33]

I want to make the guys apart of my harem

 

[whizwart]

I like both, so long as they're done well. Nothing is more boring than a harem you do nothing to get, and nothing is more annoying than losing the girl because you didn't go on one date, but did everything else.

 

[tr556]

no me gustan los juegos harem

 

[5k1n3xt]

While I don't mind if there's competition as long there's a way to stop them getting to the girls, it's also true that after playing a ton of games male competition is kinda boring to me, I know I'm always gonna choose the option where they don't get to win at the end, so even though there is some amount of conflict coming from them existing the outcome will always be basically the exact same.
And at that point it stops being engaging and is more like a more convoluted version of just pressing the "no ntr" button, where I have to read tons of dialogue about what this guy attempts to do and how it affects the story and bla bla bla just to end up pressing the option that basically says "no ntr" after doing all that.
So in the end i think adding male competition often times instead of adding actual conflict just ends up being a chore to get trhough for people who know from the start what the outcome is going to be, either they choose the often obvious option to not let it happen or don't choose it on purpose. It stops being a real conflict and more of a toggle for either if you want it or not, not to mention that in any porn game, not only in harem ones specifically there's more interesting ways to add conflict (An example coming to my head rn is Lessons In Love, yeah, there's no other guys, but there's still a lot of things happening in the story that make it interesting).
And I want to make it clear that again, it's not like I particularly despise the resourcce of a rival male character, but I mean, I think we can all agree that a game where the only "conflict" is: "Oh no! There's ANOTHER GUY in MY porn game? What will I ever do! Should I choose option A: Say "Swipper no swipping" until that filthy male gets his paws off the girls, or option B: Yeah dude, go ahead i'm into that?" aren't really that interesting either.
Overall, I think it's fine to add dudes that want to get the LIs, but making them existing the central drama of your game will just make it boring for both sides of the players, either they get off keeping the guys away, they get off from seeing what the guys do or they just don't care about the guys in the first place and get bored. Which to me means that they are a great way to add variety to the porn scenes for the players that like them and making the players that self insert feel empowered but they are a pretty basic resource for a story and depending on how it's implemented it can be kinda boring sometimes.

 

[zuulan]

Prefer to have competition, but competition should be hard coded, but fluid depending on your stats, opponents' stats and also girls stats. Would be much fun to see that opponent trys to get some girl but you sabotage him or you sabotage already ongoing relationships to get girl more open-minded on your approaches.

But realy dont like hardcoded opponents where your opponents fuck the girls you like and you have no changes to stop them. Also there should be some management mechanics, where you need to keep all your girls happy or dominated otherwise opponents might try to get them from you.

But if there is no real change to protect the harem then im not into forced NTR action. NTR should be result of your choices not scripted events.

 

[grisax]

I'd like to have harem with male COOPERATION, just good old orgies, under my patronage. Which is very rare both in lewd games and IRL. Male ego usually gets in the way. It's clear even in this poll.

 

[clowns234]

I don't mind bad endings, if the player makes the MC make bad choices. I am not a fan of games where it's a bad ending no matter how you play it. *I define bad ending as when the MC gets screwed over in the end.

When I first stared playing these games a couple of years back, I loved harem games. Now I tend to find them boring.

 

[Butt Butterson]

Gigachad answer: yes, so you can fuck the competitiveness out of them and make them part of the harem.

 

[eeeira]

Voted other, but wish provide constructive feed back to question proposed

Not into harem games myself(play female characters) nor into reverse harems to. But each to their own not shaming anyone just my personal preferences is all. (answer is bit later on down)

I always thought point of harem was to be solely for MC and thats where kink lies. From my observations.

Reason I answered the way I did was because some brothel and sex slavery games with management systems. regardless of MC`s gender.

Allow for 2 types of harems. which I think might be more palatable (depends on game focus and world lore too etc)

the first type of harem is standard harem exclusive no one touches these characters. but the mc.

But 2nd tier harem is made up characters the MC/player is meh towards they don`t care what happens to these charcters as much.

normally in above type of management games i listed above the tier 2 Harem, dose eg income earning or choose a character to make this other npc happy for in game progression in storyline.

where as tier 2 harem is used by others etc yet MC if player wishes to can still fool around with the tier 2 harem characters.
(some players you`ll find don`t want this option to follow around so wont use it, but by giving such an option you increase broadness to your player base who are into this kink)

different games use different game terms and mechanics to separate both tiers of harem/s

Just thought i might offer this as food for thought was all.

All the best to your up coming game.

 

[fuckmymamarunnin]

as a HUGE ntr fan, i WELCOME male competition, and want them to take advantage of girls as much as possible, with the girls intentionally n cruelly cheating on the MC, being as much of a complete cumdumpster cocksleeve slutty whore as possible...ESPECIALLY if it meant a mom forcing her husband to watch as a BBC breeding bull raped n knocked up their daughter in front of him, including helping out by holding her down n straddling her face while he impregnated her

 

[Eagle1900]

the more competition there is, the more satisfying the final victory will be

 

[BlackPinkX]

as a HUGE ntr fan, i WELCOME male competition, and want them to take advantage of girls as much as possible, with the girls intentionally n cruelly cheating on the MC, being as much of a complete cumdumpster cocksleeve slutty whore as possible...ESPECIALLY if it meant a mom forcing her husband to watch as a BBC breeding bull raped n knocked up their daughter in front of him, including helping out by holding her down n straddling her face while he impregnated her

 

[PonutLover13]

Prefer the ol' "dominate and feminize the male competition to be a part of the harem" cliche myself if we're being 100% transparent.

 

[DawnCry]

To be fair male competition kinda sucks in visual novels, if it all depends on a choice in the story then it becomes a pointless mechanic except trying to make 2 different games at the same time.

If you want to have some competition and for it to be interesting you tend to need some sort of gameplay, be it a dating sim, sandbox, RPG or strategy game. The reason for it is kinda obvious, because the following happens:

1º The player has the ability to take actions not related to love interests, it may be to earn money, get stats increased or other gameplay related stuff.

2º The gameplay itself will make it possible to have reasonable risks, even more if it's too late then it's too late to do something.

However there are a few things that should differ from NTR games when the NTR stuff happens:

1º First of all the game isn't designed to humilliate the MC, nor should it be a focus.

2º The rivals don't have to be pieces of shit.

3º The heroines shouldn't suddenly treat you as shit if they are taken away.

This should be the difference between a NTR game and a competition game, a girl has been seduced away? well you can peep to have some different scenes or seduce her back, it doesn't have to be finalist.

Lastly rather than males these days I have a preference for futanari competition, mainly cause I wouldn't fuck any male but a futanari is more or less fine in my book and fucking a rival is kinda cool.