Money as consept in adult games

[zuulan]

Critics and thought about Money and concept of money in adult games.

As we all know money is almost avoidable concept in games and also in adult games, there is always some sort of idea or representation of money. And this concept is also close to hearth to me, couse i have worked years in games industry where my main job is to design game economy and balance it out to make sense and be stable. And this have made me notice many things on adult games and they are quite disturbing.

• First thing we see in adult games there is concept of money in some form, usually, stories go around of idea family had alot of money and now they are broke, or young protagonist needs to go to work and start supporting themself and maybe also a family. Main problem i see that is protaginist is forced to commit actions in need to make money, but in game there is actually no value how much money they make, and there event happens and text says you spent some money on meal or drinks or you spent some money to buy your LI new bikini, but actually there is no motivator behind it what kind of bikini you would buy. So would you buy cheap bikini what is not so sexy or would you buy an expensive bikini that is hot. If you actually dont have risk to go bankrupt then you always make most beneficial choice and in adult games it is mostly driving forward a corruption or sexual trope. WOuld you make different choice if you have numerical value of money in game and you have choice do you wish to buy expensive bikini or buy food for you family.
• Other big problem i have seen is game has scripted event to spend money that you actually dont wish to spend and has no choice on that regard so game is nothing more than scripted events and forced routines. You go to work and then scripted event says now you will spend all that money` and oops im out of money i need to work more` that denies a player a choice of taking part of economy as they wish.
• 3 trope is monetary values and economy, where economy dont make an sense, like you work hard for 8 hours to earn 30 buck and then you spend that earning to 10 dollar beer and 20 dollar rose/chocolate. As i worked econom designer, we researched concept what is minimum salary according of economy. And result was that. Person should earn in 1 hour enought to get 4 simple meals, or2 better meals or 1 fulfilling meals. And that was standard game economy was built. So how much in minimum salary in day so player can pay taxes and still barely survive? And every career level increases income acordingly. This was driving idea how economy should work. Would you spend whole daily income to buy 1 beer or should 1 beer cost according what players earn. How many days you need to work to afford 80 dollars bikini if you also need to eat and bay taxes and would you buy that 80 dollar bikini if there is also 30 dollar bikini available. What 80 dollar bikini gives you more in game, that you would make choice to buy that.
• fourth topic is money as a motivation, this can be topic for NTR games especially when you choices can matter. So if player is not that into in NTR, but would he change his mind if someone ays can i take few bikini pictures and i give you 20 buck, or i would pay 300 for some nude pictures especially when he needs to work for week to earn that money in work. would player be interested that his LI takes part in porn casting if it give regular extra money. would player make choice to steal from someone and lose relation but earn money . What motivation money can make and will it influence player choices.

What the community thinks about it. SHould we be content how it is or so we expect some reality in it.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Critics and thought about Money and concept of money in adult games.

Did you really wrote a full essay to complain because games where MC's have a 20cm+ (7.8 inches+) dick, and bang any girl he cross, including his family if needed, don't have a realistic use of money ?

As we all know money is almost avoidable concept in games and also in adult games, there is always some sort of idea or representation of money.

Hmm, it's both avoidable and always used ? :/

Well, anyway, it's untrue. In the vast majority of cases, money is just an abstract concept used in an attempt to add a bit of realism into the story.
If you go to a restaurant with your date, it feel a bit more realistic to tell you that you spent X on the bill. Especially if you were presented the possibility to share the said bill. The story assume that you can cover all your expenses, and the sharing option is not a economical option, but a romantic one ; some girls will prefer a white knight that treat them like a princess, while other would be offended if they aren't seen as equal who can cover their own expenses.
But, as I said, in most games it's the only way money intervene in the story. You don't know when you get your salary, you don't have bills to pay or anything like that. Just, one to few, dialog line(s) showing that you spend some money, and possibly few other dialog lines presenting the girl reaction. It's a pure narrative vector, not a game mechanism.

If your job was really to "design game economy and balance it" (no wonder that nowadays games cost this much with so specific job), you should be able to know the difference, and to see it when you face it. In fact, even if your job was just to design games, you should be able to understand by yourself everything I'll say, because you've been taught most of it, while facing the rest when you were working.

Main problem i see that is protaginist is forced to commit actions in need to make money, but in game there is actually no value how much money they make, [...]

It's how narrative economy works, yes.
Have you never read Dickens ? I don't remember him putting long monologues where his heroes balance their income and mandatory expenses, in order to know if they can afford to have an apple/month or not. They are poor, live in despair, and we don't need to know how much they earn, nor how much they spend, for this to be true and explicitly visible. When numbers are used, it's a vector to reinforce their poverty to the reader eyes, nothing more.

[...] but actually there is no motivator behind it what kind of bikini you would buy. So would you buy cheap bikini what is not so sexy or would you buy an expensive bikini that is hot.

Of course there's a motivator: What bikini do you prefer her to wear in the next beach scene ?
Because it's the reason why you are presented this choice. At no time the intent behind this interaction was to force the player into an economical choice. To my knowledge, and obviously outside of management games, there's only one game that use an effective economical game mechanism, Banking on Bella. Yet, it's not the core mechanism of the game, but a limiter for the harem size. It's pure game design logic ; money and the risk of bankruptcy being the leveler he use to balance the game.

Would you make different choice if you have numerical value of money in game and you have choice do you wish to buy expensive bikini or buy food for you family.

No, like 95% of the players I would just cheat in order to have enough money to buy the bikini that I find the most attractive ; whatever if it's the cheapest or the most expensive one.

3 trope is monetary values and economy, where economy dont make an sense, like you work hard for 8 hours to earn 30 buck and then you spend that earning to 10 dollar beer and 20 dollar rose/chocolate.

Once again because money isn't intended as economical game mechanism. Here, it's a pace limiter.

Incomes and costs aren't balanced according to reality, but according to the pace of the story. The author decided that you need two casual dates and a romantic one to open the route with a girl. Therefore he designed the price in order for you to not be able to do the three during the same week. Or in order to prevent you to make significant progress too quickly if you pursue more than one girl at the time.
Once again a pure game design mechanism using money to balance the pace of the game.

What the community thinks about it.

I don't know about the community, but personally I wonder what you are doing here. Games are about entertainment, and about arousal when they are adult/porn games. And when playing them, you care more about the lack of realism of their money use... But well, if it's what entertain/arouse you, who am I to judge ?

SHould we be content how it is or so we expect some reality in it.

Since you're supposed to have been a game designer, I'll present you the question like I would to do a game designer: Is the leveler achieving its purpose ?
Since, for most of those games, the answer is "yes", then also "yes", we should be content by how it is actually.

 

[zuulan]

On your post, I would ask, can we name your suggested narratives a game, they are just novels/visual, scenarios. But not actual games.

You wonder what i do here, i look for entertainment and as highly logical person i cant enjoy the content that dosent make sense on logic base. Im not here to fap,i prefer game to be adult erotic, not porn. I prefer adult life is content of game, not focus. Thats why there is very narrow variety of games i enjoy, but sometimes i play also games that have heavy adult content.

And thank you for writing your opinion what is rest of community opinion i wonder.

 

[Carpe Stultus]

Lets say you make an adult game where you really have to make money to keep on living and not just to buy some fancy shit to get into the pixel chicks panties, people would either cheat or simply not play that game.

Most people are here to escape from the reality, which includes scraping by with the little money they have and having to feed themselfs and others. Obviously they are also here for the fucking in the stories.

When you take a look at the highest rated games here, they are mostly about porn and the stories are not existant or mediocre at best. What makes you think a game with a system, that forces you to buy food and so on, would be liked in any way by a wider audience? Before you answer think about the facts that people are here to tune out real life.

Most people already hate grinding in adult games and your idea would ad another layer on top of the grind and i really don't think that many would enjoy that at all. I sure wouldn't because if i wanted to grind my ass off i'd play a looter shooter, JRPG or MMORPG.

If you had AAA like adult games it might attract a wider audience but 99% of western devs are amateurs and most of these 99% are a one man show. How should they be able to create complex systems, like a proper money system, and deliver enough smut content to keep enough players interested to earn some coin with what they do? In the end of the day a dev has to eat and pay for electricity, hardware and assets and if he can't he'll most likely abandon the game.

Your statement that these games aren't games but VN's are also unnecessary because we all know that most of the so called games here are VN's but these VN's get still called games.

 

[Warthief]

This is very complex discussion and making in it open will be confusing like what exactly you want to talk about?
Money work in different ways in every game, depend on the game style and focus for sure.

As someone who is working on sandbox rpg game when i start working on money the 1st question i had in mind how the player gonna use the money, how important money for the game and how i am going to balance it.
for rpg sandbox game is much easy to do yet it also much hard to balance, in rpg money could be used in story like buy a gift for the girl or things like that to impress her or open new scene like many sandbox non rpg games do,
but also can be used in combat to buy potions, combat items, weapons and armor for sure,
it can be used for other things that related to the game mechanics like if player need to sleep to regain health and he have no place to sleep he can rent a room in town Inn and things like that,
money can be used for story, player need to buy thing or pay someone to open more story contents, or maybe he need to pay someone every day, week or month to pay this npc else it's gameover so player will be forced to make money, this is bad for sure but sometimes it can be done very well if the dev wanted the player character to be under domination and forced to do things he will not do.
For VN games i think the dev should not add money because player have almost like 0 choices over the event of the game,
but for Sandbox non rpg games, like i said it can be used to buy thing to improve relation or unlock new contents, story or side contents.

But most important than how to use the money in game is how the player make money, again i am working on rpg game and that much easy to do with loot from dungeons or work,
Talking about work there is many ways to do that and this is the most hard part for any dev who want to find way for players to make money, i try mini games for work and many people dislike that because they have the chance to win or fail and also waste the time for player, there is also the simple way of choing player working in 1 picturen, having small text like "MC have been working in this thing for 4 hours and he earned 100$", time pass and it's over, some people like this way other find it boring so?
other way is player own place that make money and without doing anything he get let say for example 1000$ every month, this can be good mid/end game way to earn money when player start to get bored from the work or idk other ways of making money but at start of game i think this would be bad, also it can be better if player need to do things for this place to improve it and improve the income.

Now moving to balance, this is very hard to do especially if the dev add update every month or 2 and have no idea about what he is doing overall with the game in the future,
how much income the player have and how much money he need to spend in day, week or month ..., how the dev will make the payer feel he progressing and what the things the player want to spend so much money on that feel important to the game, if let say for example the expensive things in game are new house or car, how this will effect the game and what it gonna add?

I can spend hours talking about this subject because again every game have it own things and mechanics and i can't generalise things, but overall i think if dev want to make economy in his game it must effect the game at least in gameplay or story else it better not to add it.

 

[tanstaafl]

i look for entertainment and as highly logical person i cant enjoy the content that dosent make sense on logic base.

 

[anne O'nymous]

On your post, I would ask, can we name your suggested narratives a game,

No we can't, because "narrative" is not a game genre, it's a game component ; commonly named "the story".

they are just novels/visual, scenarios. But not actual games.

So, you're telling me that the Fallout, Watchdogs, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Splinter Cell, and so on, series are not actual games ? Or perhaps are you saying, despite having been a game designers for years, you don't know that around 75% of games have a narrative part ? Even when, like in Super Mario by example, this part only have one dialog line.

You wonder what i do here, i look for entertainment and as highly logical person i cant enjoy the content that dosent make sense on logic base.

Poor you. Whatever if it's games ("regular" ones included), movies or books, there's not much entertainment that you can enjoy.

 

[Jaike]

I thought the OP essay was a kinda interesting take about a topic I'd never bother to think about, but I'd never be bothered by a game where the money system is just "unrealistic". But if it appears it has a lot of grind, yes that's a reason for me to drop it.

3 trope is monetary values and economy, where economy dont make an sense, like you work hard for 8 hours to earn 30 buck and then you spend that earning to 10 dollar beer and 20 dollar rose/chocolate. As i worked econom designer, we researched concept what is minimum salary according of economy. And result was that. Person should earn in 1 hour enought to get 4 simple meals, or2 better meals or 1 fulfilling meals. And that was standard game economy was built. So how much in minimum salary in day so player can pay taxes and still barely survive? And every career level increases income acordingly. This was driving idea how economy should work. Would you spend whole daily income to buy 1 beer or should 1 beer cost according what players earn.

A lot of the devs who do that have a fetish for grind. They're irl probably caught in an endless orgasm loop with current inflation rates.

Lets say you make an adult game where you really have to make money to keep on living and not just to buy some fancy shit to get into the pixel chicks panties, people would either cheat or simply not play that game.

Most people are here to escape from the reality, which includes scraping by with the little money they have and having to feed themselfs and others. Obviously they are also here for the fucking in the stories.

When you take a look at the highest rated games here, they are mostly about porn and the stories are not existant or mediocre at best. What makes you think a game with a system, that forces you to buy food and so on, would be liked in any way by a wider audience? Before you answer think about the facts that people are here to tune out real life.

Most people already hate grinding in adult games and your idea would ad another layer on top of the grind and i really don't think that many would enjoy that at all. I sure wouldn't because if i wanted to grind my ass off i'd play a looter shooter, JRPG or MMORPG.

I think the OP's point is more like that the economies in many games have too much grind and that's one thing that makes them unrealistic.

 

[zuulan]

No we can't, because "narrative" is not a game genre, it's a game component ; commonly named "the story".




So, you're telling me that the Fallout, Watchdogs, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Splinter Cell, and so on, series are not actual games ? Or perhaps are you saying, despite having been a game designers for years, you don't know that around 75% of games have a narrative part ? Even when, like in Super Mario by example, this part only have one dialog line.


Poor you. Whatever if it's games ("regular" ones included), movies or books, there's not much entertainment that you can enjoy.

Scenarios, where ending and steps are fixed, they are hard to lable as games. Like Persona series, where actually dialog choices dont have meaning and actions dont have wider impact. Ending is same.

What goes to games, movies, books. Then there is wide variety of them i enjoy and make sense in logic base or games can be modded to make sense. So entertainment can be fantasy, scifi or what ever genre aslong as it makes sense on logical level they are enjoyable. Logic is based on facts and in every realm they can be different facts that define it. But if we copy games idea of human word we are bounded by our reality facts.

I just finished to watch WUXIA series Martial universe and in logic base things made sense there except sense of money. That didnt make any sense. Where you could buy meal with one unit of currency and there were rare treasures that cost 300 or 3000 units and that disturbed me along the series, couse logic base they should be worth millions or billions in comperative value. As it was fantacy series, the average audiance dont notice them. Or people real sense of money is also out of control.

 

[Carpe Stultus]

I thought the OP essay was a kinda interesting take about a topic I'd never bother to think about, but I'd never be bothered by a game where the money system is just "unrealistic". But if it appears it has a lot of grind, yes that's a reason for me to drop it.


A lot of the devs who do that have a fetish for grind. They're irl probably caught in an endless orgasm loop with current inflation rates.


I think the OP's point is more like that the economies in many games have too much grind and that's one thing that makes them unrealistic.

I don't know. Maybe i was wrong, maybe you are wrong or maybe we're both wrong with our interpretation.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Scenarios, where ending and steps are fixed, they are hard to lable as games.

So, hmm... The Call Of Duty series, to take only one really obvious example, aren't games... I've learned something today.

Like Persona series, where actually dialog choices dont have meaning and actions dont have wider impact. Ending is same.

Hmm... Among the five games in the Persona series, only the first twos have just one ending. In the three others, choices have a meaning, and actions have an impact in the ending that you'll get.

But if we copy games idea of human word we are bounded by our reality facts.

Really ? So Foundation cycle fall where exactly ? Asimov clearly copy human world, just expanding it. Yet it also clearly put it in a different reality where psychohistory is something possible.

I just finished to watch WUXIA series Martial universe and in logic base things made sense there except sense of money. That didnt make any sense. Where you could buy meal with one unit of currency and there were rare treasures that cost 300 or 3000 units and that disturbed me along the series, couse logic base they should be worth millions or billions in comperative value. As it was fantacy series, the average audiance dont notice them. Or people real sense of money is also out of control.

When put in perspective with what you said above, your last sentence is really interesting because it demonstrate that you don't have a single clue regarding how economy works. And coming from someone who worked as designer of game economy, it's relatively scary.
The price of something isn't based on its sole rarity, else diamonds would be one of the cheapest gemstone. No, it's based on how long you're ready to wait before you find someone ready to buy it at your price, and how much others are ready to spend to have it.

In

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universe, it make relative sense that treasures don't worth much, because people don't really care about them. This universe isn't ours, there isn't a constant competitions between museums, nor art collectors that add to it. It's the reason why treasure worth millions in our world, and near to nothing in this series world.
You can perfectly have a 100% logical universe when a 10kg ancient gold statue worth less than a dozen of arrows. It suffice that gold isn't used as money, what make the statue totally useless. This while with the arrows you can hunt, and therefore eat, as well as you can protect your life. No one will want of your statue, while people would be ready to kill in order to have few more arrows. And it's what would define the price and also make it totally and absolutely logical.

Therefore, it's not that "average audience" (oh yeah, it's true, unlike them you are a "highly logical person") didn't noticed it. No, it's just that they are smarter than you.

 

[Based_Allah]

Lets say you make an adult game where you really have to make money to keep on living and not just to buy some fancy shit to get into the pixel chicks panties, people would either cheat or simply not play that game.

Most people are here to escape from the reality, which includes scraping by with the little money they have and having to feed themselfs and others. Obviously they are also here for the fucking in the stories.

When you take a look at the highest rated games here, they are mostly about porn and the stories are not existant or mediocre at best. What makes you think a game with a system, that forces you to buy food and so on, would be liked in any way by a wider audience? Before you answer think about the facts that people are here to tune out real life.

Most people already hate grinding in adult games and your idea would ad another layer on top of the grind and i really don't think that many would enjoy that at all. I sure wouldn't because if i wanted to grind my ass off i'd play a looter shooter, JRPG or MMORPG.

If you had AAA like adult games it might attract a wider audience but 99% of western devs are amateurs and most of these 99% are a one man show. How should they be able to create complex systems, like a proper money system, and deliver enough smut content to keep enough players interested to earn some coin with what they do? In the end of the day a dev has to eat and pay for electricity, hardware and assets and if he can't he'll most likely abandon the game.

Your statement that these games aren't games but VN's are also unnecessary because we all know that most of the so called games here are VN's but these VN's get still called games.

Agree, it would just add grind and turn off most people