Buckle up because this is a long one.
I’m currently studying game design professionally and have thought about this question for a bit. This is the conclusion after hours of trying to break down every possible aspect of my attraction to this genre.
I think that I am more interested in being presented options that I can take as a player, and the consequences that those actions bring. The thing that separates games from any other type of media is the ability to make choices and affect the story as a result. A lot of hentai games tend to just focus on only positive outcomes and the negatives are usually either just a minor variation of a scene, or just missing content entirely. Ntr offers a unique choice where, if done correctly, the player can directly see the outcomes of negative choices in a meaningful way.
I admit to being a hypocrite, however. I often tend to save before making a clearly negative choice, seeing where it goes, and then loading back into my “main vanilla playthrough” unless the decision has no impact on the overall story. This kind of thinking brings me onto my next point.
One of the major problems that developers face when making RPG games is the fact that most players will seek out the best outcomes rather than letting the story flow based on their decisions. For example, the choices in the Mass Effect games are heavily sided towards paragon instead of renegade because BioWare knew most players would pick them. Most of the renegade choices felt like they had no purpose because most of the options weren’t fleshed out as much as they should. This made some of the shifts in tone when picking between each of them jarring, giving players the feeling that they were being an asshole for absolutely no reason, and that at time Shepard was a bipolar psychopath.
Translating this to ntr, getting cucked is obviously the worst possible outcome in most of these games for the casual player. Players usually want to have what they feel is the most “correct” choices in their playthrough (positive vs negative feedback loops) and tend to avoid anything that might lead them away from it, even at the cost of overall enjoyment of the game.
Essentially players tend to unfun the shit out of a game in order to get their preferred/best outcome.
So, what does this all mean exactly?
The average person doesn't like ntr because it goes against their very nature as a player. People tend to hate the things that they don't understand, and nothing is more confusing to a gamer than someone who wants to intentionally lose.
That being said ntr games that give you no real choice, whether that be to win or lose, throughout the story are not my cup of tea. Even the well-constructed ones like
NTRPG and
Scars of Summer are hard to play for me because it feels like it lacks player agency. You tend to just move from place to place, seeing the story as little more than a background character instead of an active participant. On the other hand, I greatly enjoyed
Leane 2 and all the Kegani Laboratory games. Even if the characters were bland and the story wasn’t all that good, the player was front and center and was making all of the decisions as well as handling their outcomes. If you got cucked, it was because you hit a lose condition (lost a battle in leane 2 and your general gets kidnapped) or because you wanted to do it intentionally (not picking up your generals from the king's harem in leane 2 for an extended period of time). It was also why I enjoyed
Welcome to the Sexy Bar more than
Time Loop NTR (multiple unique losing conditions and a variety of things you need to do in order to avoid ntr vs you basically just grind your grades and don't interact with the girl at all until late game).
