Recommending Lesbian Protagonist Games List (My Version)

[Olivia_V]

I think it goes more for the latter, devs who want to make a "career" out of it and make money, almost always choose the popular trends to attract more audience and unfortunately lesbian games is not one of these.

and that leads to the first thing, that since it is not popular there are not many "serious" devs that put the effort in making a quality game because they know that it cannot give them that much money.

Yeah, lesbian protagonist game development at this level will always be an enthusiast's niche. Nobody in this just for money will make such games. On the other hand, those that are making these games despite the small earning potential really like the genre.

 

[The Celtic fan]

The ceiling for male protagonist harem games is much, much higher than that for female protagonist lesbian games.
That said – the floor is much lower as well. The overwhelming majority of male protagonist games has less than 50 patrons if they even made it into the double digits within the first year or so of their existence, while many lesbian games get a small (compared to the high earners), but very loyal audience in a relatively short amount of time since the niche is starved for content.

Devs who are in it for the money will probably end up miserable on both sides lmao

it's a bit about supply and demand, as there are so many straight games, the good numbers are going to be maintained in the most outstanding ones.

lesbian games, because there are so few people interested in them, make them few, but that makes their audience quite loyal and makes profit "distribution" less "uneven", maybe these devs don't earn as much as the big straight games, but enough to make it an extra amount.

Generally what I have seen is that lesbian devs treat it as a "hobby" or at least as a second job where they earn extra money.
while the many of straight devs try to make it their main job, but of course very few actually manage to accomplish that for all the competition out there, as you say the devs who are here for the money will probably end up miserable (reality always hits hard XD).

and well apart from that there are also the straight devs who do it because that's what they like, which adds to the great disparity between the genders.

maybe i'm just talking nonsense, at this moment i'm taking admin subjects at the U so i'm in "admin" mode XD, but i'm kind of understanding it that way.

 

[feierflei]

while the many of straight devs try to make it their main job, but of course very few actually manage to accomplish that for all the competition out there, as you say the devs who are here for the money will probably end up miserable (reality always hits hard XD).

I consider my games my main job at the moment. By no means do I make a ton of money, but I don't need a lot, so it works out for my hermit life style.
However: This was only made possible by including a male protagonist option for my second game. The income from purely lesbian content would barely cover my rent and utilities, and I'm sharing a very cheap apartment with a friend.

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[IM6]

If I made enough money from game development and could afford to drop my main job and work on my game full-time, I would. But my dev support level is equivalent to about 2% of my full-time job salary's paycheck and I have a mortgage, a family, and pets to take care of. I love my game and I work on it as much as I can, but that's why I have to leave development as a hobby (that I spend a lot of time on!) and not a full-time job.

 

[Éama]

Regarding lesbian-focused games on F-95, do you think that lesbian content is an underserved niche or an unpopular niche?

- By underserved niche I mean that not enough devs are making lesbian-focused game, so it doesn't help making this kind of content more popular.

- By unpopular niche I mean that not enough people are interested in lesbian-focused game, so there's very few incentive for devs to make lesbian-focused games?

Had a little talk on discord about it and I'm curious to see what people think here.

I think there are some social mechanisms at play that actively stop LGBT games from getting traction, or popular straight games from including more LGBT content. There is a very vocal crowd that will rate games with one or two stars when they include any form of sex that doesn't include the MC. Since the MC in almost all popular games is a male, that means it is impossible to include sex between women. I wouldn't say it's taboo since there are exceptions, but it's a high-risk decision for a developer who wants to make it a profession.

I know from a very successful and lovely developer that he would enjoy to include LGBT content, but his income depends on good ratings and that's why he will always create straight harem games. His fear of negative ratings is that great.

So, it's not really unpopular in the sense that people don't desire that kind of content. But it's high-risk to include it, because maybe players have a little too much power? Maybe it will change when more developers can afford a stable income by doing what they want and not what is the popular opinion. Maybe that means cheering for the big straight games on Steam is opening doors for our little community as well. I'm not sure.
I'm grateful for the developers that dare to create lesbian games and LGBT games in general though. You are amazing.

 

[EndlessNights]

Regarding lesbian-focused games on F-95, do you think that lesbian content is an underserved niche or an unpopular niche?

- By underserved niche I mean that not enough devs are making lesbian-focused game, so it doesn't help making this kind of content more popular.

- By unpopular niche I mean that not enough people are interested in lesbian-focused game, so there's very few incentive for devs to make lesbian-focused games?

My vote is for "underserved niche" because I think the potential audience for lesbian games is way bigger than the current actual audience. You don't even have to consider the popularity of lesbian porn: just think how many mostly straight games have lesbian scenes (you know, all the ones that help make the current tagging system useless). I don't think most players of those games are skipping through those scenes or dislike the characters involved in them.

Admittedly, the hardcore self-inserters that IM6 mentioned may not ever be reachable. There are even guys on here who complain vociferously at the prospect of playing a black male MC so I doubt they're prepared to play a female character. However, I think there are also a lot of people who would be open to playing lesbian games if they were more aware of the kinds of titles that are out there. I suspect one issue is that many straight male players who like slice of life, romance, college, harem, etc games may not even think to try out lesbian games in those niches because the straight female protagonist games they've likely encountered before are so commonly corruption-focused.

Another thing I've noticed speaking strictly of VNs is that there are a lot of high quality no or very limited sexual content lesbian games (which isn't a bad thing of course). I feel like some of the best writers and artists in this space mostly avoid adult content. This in turn probably limits the number of high concept or very ambitious projects we get that might potentially broaden the audience and create hype. I think if games like Nothing Is Forever or Superhuman had been written with lesbian protagonists they might very well have ended up being all ages VNs instead of AVNs.

I also wouldn't discount the possibility that lesbian and bi players might be able to support the ecosystem mostly on their own eventually. We're talking about millions of people, after all. Just because the adult game audience today is mainly straight and male doesn't mean it won't continue to diversify in the future just as the gaming audience as a whole has.

Perhaps something we could all do to help out a little is spend some time in the rec threads now and then and throw out some plugs for relevant games (something like Toro 7 or Mythos would make for an excellent starter/"gateway" game and be relevant to a lot of request threads IMO). I should definitely do more of that myself.

 

[The Celtic fan]

I also wouldn't discount the possibility that lesbian and bi female players might be able to support the ecosystem mostly on their own eventually. We're talking about millions of people, after all. Just because adult game audience today is mainly straight and male doesn't mean it won't continue to diversify in the future just as the gaming audience as a whole has.

this may be possible, as such there is a market there.
in lesbian communities it is very common for lesbians to recommend "smut books" to each other, also visual novels are recommended a lot (although as you say most of these are for all ages).

But the problem is that there is a stigma with adult video games in which many see them as very male dominated, since not only lesbian games are scarce, but lesbian games made by women are more so, and in general many lesbians and bisexuals do not like to read or play anything lesbian made by men, since they see the creator as a fetishist.

and then there are very few pages where this type of games are highlighted, for example once some friends tried to enter here and immediately they were repudiated by all the rape content that is easily found here, many times looking for lesbian games I comes across people looking for games where lesbians are "corrected", that makes it extremely difficult for lesbians to get into the search for adult games.

 

[lnomsim]

I agree with almost everything the people said here, but I'll be honest, I didn't read everything.

So I'll add my 2cents:
-A lot of people want data D when they play AVG, that's unfortunately why male presence or futa are more popular than lesbian only games
-There needs to be a distinction between Yuri and lesbian games. Yuri is a subculture all by itself, it focuses more on the romance and subtext than homosexuality itself. I love Yuri, and I'm glad to see that through recent years it's been getting more and more popular.
-Some lesbian games now, focus way too much on homosexuality itself and are openly LGBT(and whatever comes next), feeling more like propaganda or a piece of candy for a limited audience. I personally despise most of those games.
-And finally, there are the lesbian games with no real political agenda behind them, that just want to tell stories with lesbian characters. i like those games too.

But most people aren't interested in any of those games. As I said, a lot of people want to see a dick somewhere, after all, it's not sex if there is no penetration, right?

About the popularity of lesbian porn and its correlation to video games. There is none.
People who watch porn want a quick nut. Seriously, who watches a cut 10min video for the scenario?

Video games require more involvement from the player and the developer.
A level of involvement people who simply watch porn aren't necessarily willing to make (first, it's a video game, and people kill because of video games, and people who play video games are just lazy and parasites of society, and second, you need to... you know, that thing you do with those things full of paper old people have in old furniture, yeah you need to READ, and only nerds do that.)

Finally, someone said homosexuals are by default a minority of every society (or something like that), well, welcome to let's learn to make the difference between fiction and reality.

Let's go back to porn, some women like gay porn. A lot of straight men like lesbian porn. And even without talking about porn, homosexual romance is attractive to the other gender too even if their readers are straight.

Stories are not the reality, that's why people like stories, it permits them to see things from another perspective without having to review their own style of life. (that's also why I hate media with a clear political agenda behind them, I'm looking at you Netflix and other LGBT-backed media)

But to answer the original question, I'd say it's both.

 

[Gwedelino]

I think there are some social mechanisms at play that actively stop LGBT games from getting traction, or popular straight games from including more LGBT content. There is a very vocal crowd that will rate games with one or two stars when they include any form of sex that doesn't include the MC. Since the MC in almost all popular games is a male, that means it is impossible to include sex between women. I wouldn't say it's taboo since there are exceptions, but it's a high-risk decision for a developer who wants to make it a profession.

I know from a very successful and lovely developer that he would enjoy to include LGBT content, but his income depends on good ratings and that's why he will always create straight harem games. His fear of negative ratings is that great.

So, it's not really unpopular in the sense that people don't desire that kind of content. But it's high-risk to include it, because maybe players have a little too much power? Maybe it will change when more developers can afford a stable income by doing what they want and not what is the popular opinion. Maybe that means cheering for the big straight games on Steam is opening doors for our little community as well. I'm not sure.
I'm grateful for the developers that dare to create lesbian games and LGBT games in general though. You are amazing.

To be honest I wouldn't really call it a LGBT "problem" since the situation is quite different between most of those identities.

As an example, Gay games are much more popular than lesbian games. There are of course way less gay games than straight games just like lesbian games, but a lot of gay games manage to gather a huge community around them, which is currently impossible for lesbian games.

It still doesn't mean gay games have a better "reputation ?" since we can still see a lot of stupid individuals going to attack those games because they are focused on gay content.

 

[The Celtic fan]

To be honest I wouldn't really call it a LGBT "problem" since the situation is quite different between most of those identities.

As an example, Gay games are much more popular than lesbian games. There are of course way less gay games than straight games just like lesbian games, but a lot of gay games manage to gather a huge community around them, which is currently impossible for lesbian games.

It still doesn't mean gay games have a better "reputation ?" since we can still see a lot of stupid individuals going to attack those games because they are focused on gay content.

I personally believe that happens due to.

there are many more gays than lesbians, statistics have always shown that lesbians are the minority of lgb people.
also gay culture is more "sexual" than lesbian culture, things like porn, are better viewed than in lesbian culture, in fact in lesbian culture those things are usually frowned upon.

I personally see it as I said in my previous comment, many lesbians would not support this type of games, especially if they know that the game is made by men.

so if we talk about gay support (which is often the majority in gay games), many gays would support their games, while lesbians only a minority would, so at least in gay games it is easier to have a more stable user base.

 

[Olivia_V]

My vote is for "underserved niche" because I think the potential audience for lesbian games is way bigger than the current actual audience. You don't even have to consider the popularity of lesbian porn: just think how many mostly straight games have lesbian scenes (you know, all the ones that help make the current tagging system useless). I don't think most players of those games are skipping through those scenes or dislike the characters involved in them.

I agree with this. I remember reading somewhere that in Tubi, content with gay protagonists regularly beat straight protagonists in terms of views. Of course, that can be explained away by there being so much straight content competing with each other, but it also shows that there is so little gay or lesbian content that the few which is out there can gain sizable audiences if done right.

On a side note, I used to be quite pissed about the male gaze and the influence of male-oriented lesbian porn on lesbian content, but seeing straight women (especially the female equivalent of the smelly male anime nerd... the fujoshi) be the massive audience that justifies gay male content. As "Barbie" has shown, straight women do spend on and support stuff they like. I've come to appreciate how much crossing appeal over to audiences we normally wouldn't want to share a room with boosts the making of content we might actually like.

there are many more gays than lesbians, statistics have always shown that lesbians are the minority of lgb people.
also gay culture is more "sexual" than lesbian culture, things like porn, are better viewed than in lesbian culture, in fact in lesbian culture those things are usually frowned upon.

I personally see it as I said in my previous comment, many lesbians would not support this type of games, especially if they know that the game is made by men.

It's not gay men that a lot of this gay male content is targeted at. Straight women are, by far, the largest market for gay male content. But unlike us, gay men seem to be able to take it better in stride. I suppose the fact that gay men tend to get along great with straight women helps a lot. Even if they do laugh at them, and the gay content directed at them, while they're not looking.

Some lesbian games now, focus way too much on homosexuality itself and are openly LGBT(and whatever comes next), feeling more like propaganda or a piece of candy for a limited audience. I personally despise most of those games.

I agree with this. The best lesbian content just treats lesbians like any other pair of people in love. Not to mention that trying to score political brownie points is how you end up with "women" with dicks in lesbian games.

 

[GreenDark]

Similar but diluted effect with stuff like complaining about "politics". If that's a theme in the game; it's probably because it's very important to the writer and their life. So being met with "I don't care, show me hot sex" is going to be extremely discouraging. Of course they're leaving. Why the hell wouldn't they?

I find this pretty annoying to read. You make it seem like the criticism can't be anything other than "I don't care, show me hot sex" when in reality there are so many factors that determine whether the "political" writing can be accepted or not. The main one being the quality of the writing but it can also be as simple as "I'm tired of the culture war, can I have something that simply entertains and isn't terrible."
We are on the internet where obviously there will always be single neuron organisms that react badly to anything that isn't dick-in-pussy. That doesn't mean there aren't valid reasons to reject a product of bad quality when the reasons for the bad quality include modern culture war talking points being put into stories with little to no care given to how they affect everything else.

 

[GreenDark]

and, like, that's their problem, not ours.

It is everyone's problem when these topics are introduced badly then their mere inclusion is used as a shield to deflect criticism or a weapon to insult critics.

I'm someone who likes stories a lot and I criticize bad writing when I see it. These days, a lot of writing includes topics relating to the culture war. Which means a lot of bad writing includes topics relating to the culture war. I've been called all kinds of names from "libtard" to "alt right" for criticizing shit stories that skew politically one way or another. When all I care about is the quality of the story.

It gets even worse when people know I'm a lesbian and the shit story I'm against happens to have a lesbian character in it. Or even just a badly written female character.
My immutable characteristics don't make me immediately accept and love anything that claims or pretends to protect them.

Many of the games and VNs that end up on this thread end up being "LGBT" or some variation of the term which in the culture war belongs only to one side. A lot of them are also really bad. So seeing them criticized might give the impression that only that side gets criticized. But I assure you that reasonable people also criticize forced politics on the other side.

So I don't know about unpopular. But we are definitely underserved for quality.

 

[Olivia_V]

Similar but diluted effect with stuff like complaining about "politics". If that's a theme in the game; it's probably because it's very important to the writer and their life. So being met with "I don't care, show me hot sex" is going to be extremely discouraging. Of course they're leaving. Why the hell wouldn't they?

This is the big downside to the scene being composed mostly of enthusiasts. If it's the activists making activist content, then the games you get will have very limited appeal, even within what is already a niche market.

Unfortunately, the sort of dev that can make a lesbian game that can appeal to as wide a swathe of the fanbase as possible will either not see enough monetary incentive to make a lesbian game, or be chased off by purists and activists.

 

[Olivia_V]

Many of the games and VNs that end up on this thread end up being "LGBT" or some variation of the term which in the culture war belongs only to one side. A lot of them are also really bad.

OMG... the artwork alone is almost universally horrid. Why so many of these activist queer creators think people will find Steven Universe Tumblr artwork erotic is beyond me.

 

[Trinian]

Many of the games and VNs that end up on this thread end up being "LGBT" or some variation of the term which in the culture war belongs only to one side. A lot of them are also really bad. So seeing them criticized might give the impression that only that side gets criticized. But I assure you that reasonable people also criticize forced politics on the other side.

I suppose the frustrating human characteristic seeing criticism of one side as meaning you automatically support the other is probably embedded from our distant tribal past. I see it every day in political threads. "Oh, you think that this incredibly stupid thing this guy said was incredibly stupid? Well that must mean you're a Communist/Nazi. (Delete as applicable)"

While I can't speak for the artsy LGBT games you find on itch.io, which I've always just assumed are one person's auteur-style opus, I just don't see what the point of putting politics into an H-game is. It would be like two pornstars pausing in the middle of a scene, putting their clothes back on and then giving a sermon on the situation in Palestine. A challenging fap, in other words.

If you can read all of the history lessons in my game, then decide you know what my personal politics are, you're almost certainly wrong. They're the closest I come to dealing with any of those topics, and I approach them from the point of view of poking fun at human idiosyncrasies, not offering a serious perspective.

 

[killyourname]

Ladies and others, maybe some of you would be interested to check this game out. It's bloody good.

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I've failed to find it on f95 or in CboyC95 gamelist. So, here:

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[lnomsim]

My apologies, I don't like to post long sheets of text and chew out my every thought.

Sometimes, reality could hurt. As a "happy" citizen of the country, where politicians (representatives of heterosexual majority and faggots in disguise) adopt

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, I'm finding myself lucky that I have opportunity to savour lesbian games made by other people in the world and that I don't live in a place with

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. That's one of the reasons why I think we already have sufficient amount of homosexual content, even if you think otherwise.

Spoiler: Also...

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I think there has been a misunderstanding due to my choice of words.
When I said there was a difference between fiction and reality, I didn't mean the inequalities between homosexuals and heterosexuals didn't exist.

I meant the sexuality of the audience is less relevant when it comes to fiction. The homosexual proportion of a population is irrelevant to the actual audience of a medium featuring homosexuality since heterosexuals are also part of that audience.

I don't know how to convey my point correctly without making a mess.

 

[262177]

Ladies and others, maybe some of you would be interested to check this game out. It's bloody good.

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I've failed to find it on f95 or in CboyC95 gamelist. So, here:

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I have a thing for Hanako Games and somehow... those 4 have gone missing. Secured since I'm all out of space, thanks (secured the other three as well).

 

[Princess Groundhog]

Ladies and others, maybe some of you would be interested to check this game out. It's bloody good.

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I've failed to find it on f95 or in CboyC95 gamelist. So, here:

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Thanks! Should turn this into a thread