It is actually quite huge. Pornographic are all about the act of sex. Erotic are more open and while sex is present it is not the core of the story.
I repeat: Pornography is a form of erotica. Erotica is simply literature and art meant to sexually arouse the reader/viewer. There are no rules to how a story has to be constructed in order to be classified as erotic (other than it is meant to sexually arouse). Look it up in a dictionary or google the definition of the word erotica if you don't believe me.
You can do an analogy, but your analogy is wrong as you said: "
Er, you play erotic games for the plot/story, not for the fapping material...?
That's like watching porn for the acting, not for the, well, porn.
"
You are thinking that the two sets are comparable when they are not. In the first set, erotica, you have both the story plus the erotic content. When you consume that set you are consuming both items, so yes you can consume erotica just for one part. The other set, porn, has only one element, the erotic scenes. So yes, watching porn for the acting sounds silly. But the analogy is flawed, they are not comparable.
Just as there is nothing that says that an erotic story needs to have a story beyond the erotic content, there is also no rule that dictates that a pornographic story or piece of art cannot have a story beyond the erotic content. There are plenty of pornographic films and books which have just that (wether that story beyond the erotic content is good/qualitive is of course a completely different question).
You are missing the point. First it has nothing to do about overall quality, which is subjective.
Again, imho in theory, yes, in practise, no. At an individual level, what is quality is of course subjective. At a collective level, not so much as individual preferences converge. There will always be outliers, yes, but that does not detract from the trends of what is considered high quality and what is considered low quality.
My point was objective: as erotica can touch subjects rated stories cannot, they have less restrictions. That implies that you CAN tell potentially better stories, as everything you could do in rated stories is still available and more.
There is no rule that says a non erotic game can not contain certain subjects that only erotic games can contain. That mainstream game studios avoid, say, incestous love stories in their games is not because it is forbidden, but because the vast majority of gamers do not consider incestous love stories to be qualitative additions to their gaming experience. Quite the opposite.
Whether you like it or not, whether you think it is good or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that you that your critique is flawed as yes, reading erotica for the story can make sense. The end result of what is accomplish is subjective and I will no debate it here.
For someone who will not debate it here, you seem to be debating quite vigorously...
And yes, there are other formats to touch taboo subjects. But they have some kind of constraint regarding age, which more taboo subjects generically having an higher age restriction. Why is sex (18+) higher than murder (17+) I will never know though.
Do you honestly think that there is an exception from laws and regulations when it comes to erotic games? Have you never noticed that only very, very few erotic games outright mention that a character which engages in sexual activities in the game is underage, despite many games taking place in high school or similar environments? There is a reason for that, and that reason is that underage erotica is criminalized in the US.
Where I'm from, there is no ban what so ever when it comes to the written word, so if you want to create erotic (pornographic!) stories with pedophillic content, you can go ahead and knock yourself out. How ever, visual depictions of underage children, including nudes with sexual characteristics, are criminalized, meaning visual novels or other games containing sex scenes including underage children are illegal in my home country (not the US).
A tag system cannot include everything, otherwise you end up having the whole dictionary and it renders the system useless.
No, but there is a tag for games not containing any sex already. We just need a tag for extreme slow burn.
Besides, your comment of "hours upon hours" is also hard to understand. Are two hours enough? are four hours? I don't mind reading for several days without erotic action if the story is good. You seemed to say that 4 hours is too much. While this could be established upon the tag, usually is not necessary and you can just ask. But I guess that if enough people claim they need it could be included, who am I to judge?
I don't think there needs to be an exact time interval. The dev probably has an idea of where he/she want to take the story regardless.
You seem to be making assumptions about the reason why I liked them. You are mistaken. It's ok, we all make assumptions and it happens (you thought I was gonna go "are you making assumptions about my kinks?" kind of attitude, right? hahah don't worry I am not like that. Hopefully).
That was more meant as a joke. Obviosly didn't land.
I find this contradictory. You claim your bullshit detector spat and that their personalities are childish and such and then you say that it makes sense as we would need to be antediluvian ourselves. Are you an antediluvian claiming to understand how immortals would behave? even more, as the standard social rules and dynamics of the immortal society in this game have not been established, how can you tell that their behavior is inconsistent with the plot? I am not saying you need to like it. I am just saying that for now everything is unclear. Good practices would be to give it a benefit of doubt before claiming is done poorly, in my opinion.
Let me break it down for you:
1. To construct a believable deep and mysterious character who is supposed to be a centuries old immortal is likely difficult when you yourself is lowly human who probably will not even live to be a hundred.
2. To construct a personality who is at least adult and mature (not like an immature teenager), should not be that difficult if you yourself is an mature adult.
Furthermore, regardless of what rules the imortals have in their own society, the neighbours do spend a lot of time in ordinary society and also have a vested interest in being able to blend in.
Why? where does a rule in erotica says once you get to four hours you have to have sex? Again, you don't need to agree with me in what enjoying the trip is, but just because you dislike the trip does not mean that there is something wrong with it (neither that it is perfect, of course).
There is no such rule, but I think most players of erotic games want to get to the sex part sooner or later, exactly how long people are willing to play without any sex before they tire is certainly individual, but from reading reviews on this site, it's not an uncommon complaint that a game is very time consuming relative to its sexual content.
course, this is after all a site about hobbies and pleasure. To each their own is fine. That is the reason why I answer your previous message. You were doubting a person's activity by essentially saying their behavior is inconsistent/silly. I answered because, ok being honest because I am stucked in my work and cannot solve a fucking problem and needed a distraction, but regardless of that I answered as I share his views (I think) and I enjoyed adult visual novels for the story. Sex for me is just the strawberry on top of the ice cream, not the reason why I eat the ice cream but something I enjoy nonetheless.
I'm not doubting anyones preferences, I'm pointing out that they seem contradictory and could have an adverse effect (for the vast majority of players who do want to have some sex in their erotic games) on game development if brought to the fore.
Also, you shouldn't have any trouble understanding my point as you agree on it when it comes to acting in porn (I promise you that if you comb through the entire world population, you *are* going to find people who enjoy porn for it's acting), our disagrement seem to lie in how qualitative we consider erotic games to be in areas such as story/plot and gaming.
