What they make you believe about "aaa" games is all bullshit, there are no "aaa" games, "bbb" games, "ccc" games, etc.
Well, Vampire Survival isn't the same range as Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, aren't they?
They are both games, yes, but not the same scale, pretty much the shirt size range from 3S to 3XL.
The scale can define a whole lot of things, direction, concepts, design, etc.
In the end, they both end up as games we access and play, but the road it takes into becomes one isn't the same
This difference is all psychological.
And this is what many budding developers fail to understand.
And any good serious gamer does not distinguish between porn games and non-porn games.
And this is what many budding developers fail to understand.
Sadly, that doesn't apply in a 'development' industry.
Because, as a consumer, player, or 'gamer'.
You can only expect what to see but not expect them what to make.
As one with some experience in drawing and game dev myself, I can assure you, as an indie or lone walker, you can only do so much with the concepts and effort. Making this stuff is both mentally and physically draining. And most indie porn game dev will focus on either of these before their fuel ran out.
Focus on porn, you got bare minimal gameplay.
Focus on gameplay, you got lackluster porn.
Focus on both already sounds like a dream which might turn into a nightmare and fold away mid-road when you have enough of its stress, it's important to find a sweet spot in making a porn game, just like how sex work.
But does it totally impossible, at all?
Answer : No. It doesn't impossible, but it will take a real tenacious one to actually get it done. Especially for indie or a small team, and I really mean a REAL team, not 'Eromancer' team
Just as I said, can a porn-focused game be as good as a usual game without porn?
Answer : It does, but not something you see every day, and that's everyone's commonsense.
The truth is that this game, as well as many others (particularly in Unreal Engine), is already born bad in its foundations and I do not believe that there will be a future for its development, or it will be such a slow development that I will already be old when and IF the game is completed.
I believe everyone in this forum agreed with this, so do I.
Despite how promising or good progress it made, there's little hope that a good game with gameplay and porn will pop out of it within our lifetime, I been said on many thread that I might as well leave this as a legacy for my grandson instead.
The game you have exposed is Japanese, and this kind of mentality is very different from Western mentality.
So much so that their games are always followed and completed.
Which we cannot say about the mentality of our developers.
From my experiences within this sphere, no, they don't really that much different.
They are still people with different mindsets and personalities, many games, be it indie-doujin and porn or not, were folded and discarded multiple times. This was from the era when digital patronage isn't a thing and people will still always mad and disappointed.
And with this era of digital patronage, people will become even more entitled to have their bucks worth, as well as devs that have to deal with this mob mentality, despite how many positive sides they get, the negative side will always have much more pressure on them.
Japan or not, a humble dev that runs a fund backing will postpone these pledges so that they can have peace of mind for their development, while the scumbag will prolong it because why not?
post:
Many eastern developers, they already have real life jobs.
So does the Japanese.
They may have NEAT and Hikki problems but it's not the point of proving that the dev who can deliver their work don't have a real job or expense to take care. Patronage backs don't always cover all of their necessity.
And the time they devote to developing their project, they do not charge for it at the expense of other people.
For them, there is the term Gift.
For us, there is the term Grab.
The conceptual psychology is this.
This is also subjective from team to team or person to person.
Again, they're people, they think individually and decide different things for themselves all the time, as well as how they view consumers and backers.
There's western dev that only see their backer as cashcow to be milked but always orchestrate their front stage like an opera show, and there's JP dev that anxiously xenophobic but only put on a humble guise because they get the gaijin backing them.
Check out the Eromancer work, a western dev, and you would be amazed at how 'devoted' they are.
Alright!
I think that's my 2-cents, I don't try to change the way you think or anything, but I also want you to look at a more vast and wider perspective and see things from a different angle.
Being on the creating side can give you a lot of reasonable explanations why we don't always have nice and reliable things to access for our entertainment all the time, is it that hard to make?
For my final answer : Yes, it's hard. And not 'hard' in an anime protagonist term, it's 'hard' in an irl term.
You can also try engaging in creativity for a year or two if you want a good grip on them for critique purposes, it'll help a lot.
Also, this is personal, I'm in a very bad term with the word 'gamer', maybe cuz of negative memes about them but let's not account this into my opinions, cheers.