You know that is how pop music works. The goal is not to make something that everyone will enjoy, but that the majority will. There's a big difference. So yes, producers do research before making new songs to understand the current vibe.
And they create a song, when not an artist, that will be forgot in no time. So, if you expect to release your game update by update, it will not works. People will try your game, perhaps play an update every now and then, but will never be really interested in it.
I guess my question wasn't phrased correctly, and I appreciate your feedback. What I meant to ask was: Do you prefer the sex in the game to have a profound connection to the story, or do you prefer sex scenes for the sake of sex, or maybe both? Should it be a fully story-driven experience with sex only in relevant parts and include a mechanic that allows for wet dreams to instant satisfaction?
And I must have poorly worded my answer, because it's the same even to that question.
When the sex scene happen totally depend on the story. It would make no sense for the MC to have early sex in
The DeLuca Family, because he's struggling with a big change in his life and try to fit on his new position. This will it would make no sense to delay sex in
Desert Stalker, because the MC is perfectly fit in his position, while living in a world where rape, sex abuse and sex domination are expected to be the norm.
And even in stories that fall more on the slice of life side, it's the same. If the MC is expected to starts his sexual life, why would he have sex early ? If he's supposed to be a macho alpha male, why wouldn't he have many casual one night stand ? If he's confident and friendly, he surely have a friend with benefit, and therefore can have sex early. But if he's more on the shy side, he would only have romances, then, unless he have a girlfriend right on the starts, he wouldn't have sex before gaining some confidence or having started a romance.
If you want a coherent story, then the sex should starts when it make sense in regard of that story, period. Else you'll just make yet another fuck feast game with a mostly erratic and incoherent story, that exist only to links the sex scenes together.
Still, as you said, they conduct studies.
Yes, but studies focused on their story. They don't ask what people expect in a game but, by example, what they expect in a survival real time 3D open world game featuring zombies.
Yet, the games that actually had a strong impact on video gaming all came from the same source. They weren't built according to what the players said they wanted, but according to what the developers wanted to play. If ID Software had performed studies, Doom would have never been something, because at this time players hated 3D. If Valve had performed studies, Half-Life wouldn't have been made, because at this time players were mostly afraid of opened world. And so on. And, of course, it don't starts with Doom. Studies would have said that Tetris is a really boring and stupid idea that should be abandoned immediately.
Often, they work with their own flow. The results of already released games provide a lot of information to work with.
See above...
Perhaps are you too young, but personally I'm 53yo. I lived through the whole video gaming history, and I can assure you that there's nothing more wrong than what you just said.
Everyone forgot what where the hot games (in terms of sales) in the 80's and 90's, and those who weren't born yet never ever heard about them. The only exception to that is Half-life, because it ended majestically what ID Software started. The games that people remember about, the ones that the youngest know about, weren't this much successful in their time. Yet they changed the world, becoming iconic.
If people know about Call Of Duty, by example, it's not because the games changed something, but because they games are still released. Would EA have stopped after the 4th, by example, everyone would have already forgot that it was something.
Learning from previous game just lead you to replicate the same scheme. And if it works for regular games, because they have a really large buyers base, it's the opposite for Adult games. Whatever how good they are, it's games that come with something new that succeed, not games that follow the steps traced by previous success.
Despite it's many flaws,
WVM is a success. There's a something like dozen games that followed its steps, do you even know that they exist ? I know they exist, but would be totally incapable to give you a single name.
However, if you work in a small game studio, the first thing they do is study the market to know what works best.
And this is why most small game studios make most of their income as mercenary, doing a level or two for whatever successful mobile game. Why would one want to play the umpteenth Call of Duty clone, made by a studio they never heard about, when they can play the original, made by a studio they know everything about ?
As bad as EA practice are, you know that you'll not regret the money you spent on the game. Something that can't be said for the clone made by an unknown small studio. Yet, studies will tell that studio that it's the game they have to make.
And it's not something new. Studies told Bioware to not keep the car exploration from Mass Effect 1, it's what players missed the most in the following games. Studies told Bioware to put a bit of online in Mass Effect 3, it's what players hated the most.
I know I can have good ideas, but often, people have great ideas too. This aligns with my motto: I want to bring to life what people like but can't create themselves. The people who support me will have enjoyed the first part, so most of their ideas will likely align with that direction.
I's not because they are your patrons, that they share the same direction than you.
They support you because of their reading of the story and what they expect from it. And they can perfectly read it in a way that you haven't intended, while expecting things that should never happen in regard of the story you have in mind.
By example,
Triple Ex have a transgender character. It's optional, and I'm sure that the majority of those who choose to have her have been disappointed when discovering that she's a fully transitioned MtF. So well transitioned that there's nothing left, not even the Adam's apple or hips shape, of her male body.
But the direction is just a side issue. It's the constancy that is the main one.
Take a game like
Shattered by example. Kushari come as one of the main characters in the first updates, offering both a possible submissive route and a romance one. Then she was wrote out by the patrons, leaving the romance route on a dead end ; an "I promise, I'll bring you on a date soon", that stand since more than 2 years, while she now turned MC's mother into a sex craved slave. And it's worse on the submissive route, because it strongly lower Kushari standards, making her pass from an educated pet that have some kind of self respect, to a nobody trash that don't really worse to live, nor even want to live.
All the character back story have been trashed by this. And when she's finally mandatory as character, she fell totally out of place. She come to the rescue of a MC that she mostly ghosted for a very long time and even refused to acknowledge in few previous scenes.
Something that, once again, harm the character building. She was built as a strong independent MtF character, someone that make the rules and don't care about what other will think, and then looks like she flied to MC's rescue only by fear to loose her cock sleeve (MC's mother).
For people playing by updates, it perhaps don't feel too strange, but for anyone who discovered the game later, it's a big obvious issue that really harm the story. And it's something that, way too many, devs forgot. Their game is supposed to be a whole, something that stay coherent from start to stop. And it
must be like that, because there's people who will start it after who know how many updates, and even some that will wait for the final release before playing it.
