Recommending Story-first games

[Jaike]

Hey jufot, have you tried Sanguine Rose and Karlsson's Gambit yet? Both have their dark parts, and KG really is pretty dark and dystopian, but if you could put up with Book of Bondmaids... and KG's good path actually makes sense in the story.

I seem to remember a certain president of a north american country who insisted the he "did not have sex with that woman", even though oral sex was involved. I suppose he too could have benefited from Jufot's explanation...

This is the commonly remembered version that's embedded in the popular mind, but what he actually said was "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" in a speech, and "I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky" later in a deposition. Not like I was there though. But Mr Clinton clearly chose that wording for its spin possibilities, not for his lack of first-hand experience.

 

[jufot]

Hey @jufot, have you tried Sanguine Rose and Karlsson's Gambit yet?

I've played Sanguine Rose. It was ... fine? Definitely in the same vein as Bondmaids. Good, but not particularly memorable for me. I haven't tried Karlsson's Gambit yet. Looking at the screenshots in the game thread, I can't imagine there is an actual story there, but I'll take your word for it and give it a shot.

But Mr Clinton clearly chose that wording for its spin possibilities, not for his lack of first-hand experience.

Oh, he was a highly skilled lawyer. His whole testimony was an impressive attempt at getting away with it. He actually tried to

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the definition of the word 'is' during his official testimony so that he wouldn't have to admit to having sex

Also, beside the famous oral sex argument, there was also the lesser known

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!

 

[Tlaero]

Have a great hunt for the Arc of the Covenant, Raife!

Tlaero

 

[Gwedelino]

Hope my project will manage one day to make it into the list.

I think the key about having a good script is to follow this one motto :

Make a simple story but with complex characters.

A lot of games published on F95 are failing at both. They're trying to make complex scenarios, get lost in the process, and forgett everything about character developement of any character outside of the MC.

 

[boobsrcool]

I just wanted to pop in real quick with a (premature) request.

I just released CH6 of Alive on patreon, which means it'll probably hit this site in a few weeks (if the past is any indication). Those of you who have played it keep an eye out for that, and let me know what you think - I uh.... I did some stuff in this chapter that I am REALLY curious what people think about, from a storytelling perspective.

Full disclosure - the stuff I dropped in CH6 I have been waiting a solid year to do, so I am especially curious what those who focus on story have to say about it. Suffice to say I've finally reached the point of telling the story I've wanted to tell, rather than building the story which is what I've done so far.

It's totally fine if you hate it or have issues with it or whatever - I'd want to know that too, but I'm definitely curious about this particular installment. So if those who are familiar with it could keep an eye out and lmk your thoughts when it does eventually drop, I'd very much appreciate it.

im on it

 

[raynarnab]

Not sure if there any Last Sovereign Fans in this thread. But has anyone read an insightful commentary about their thoughts on the adult game industry from Sierra Lee (probably one of my fav adult game dev). Here is the post incase anyone was interested, I apologize if this off topic, but I figured I would share of as a common interest:


"MY TAXONOMY OF ADULT GAMES
I'm not sure how insightful this will be, but let me do a little taxonomy of the adult games industry as I see it. These are marker stones with overlap, not categories with hard borders.


Normal Games with Adult Content: A standard game subgenre with adult content integrated via the story or themes. I think most would agree that TLS and most of my work falls into this category. There's nothing wrong with it, but there's no fundamental discontinuity between such games and the entire field of gaming/writing, so there's not a lot to say.


Fetish Simulators: Interactive programs that may resemble games but have different goals. This category represents an evolution in my thinking.
The classic example is poorly-designed platformers where the only sexual content comes when you lose. It's sometimes said that the game's incentives are misaligned (because you only get content by failing), but I've come to believe this isn't accurate. In my experience, for the people who like these games, the act of failing is itself part of the fetish for them (and they aren't necessarily looking for a good platformer by conventional standards). I think it's useful to think of these not as "bad games", but products aiming for an entirely different goal.
This category includes a wide variety of examples of sexuality being integrated into the game mechanics themselves, and I think it has seen the most development from a mechanical perspective. Unfortunately, I haven't played any of these that focus on fetishes that interest me, so I'm not very engaged by this subset of adult gaming.


Porn Delivery Mechanisms: Free online pornography is ubiquitous, but some people prefer their content to be parceled out via another activity. I think this both relates to physiological rhythms (since the main game is usually semi-sexual and leads to warmup) as well as simple pacing and sense of progression. Oftentimes the mechanics of these games are tedious and repetitive, for which reason I've been negative on them in the past, but I've come to feel that this is actually the product working as intended. Extensive or elaborate gameplay would get in the way of mediating the sexual experience, because it's really just a wrapper for the main content.
Social Simulators: These games are generally less concerned with gameplay than narrative, so they're often VNs with some light interactive elements. In my experience, these tend to focus on pseudo-real situations: common real world scenarios (like high school if you're Japanese, or college if American) with standard character types taken from life, if not portrayed realistically. I think these are on the borderlands with standard erotica, porn, and so on. I assume these are largely serviceable, since they can be quite successful, but they generally don't interest me from either the gameplay or story side.


Memes: A non-trivial amount of the field is based on a sort of "art as object" view of things. You don't really play it for a game or story, but because it references internet fetishes, YouTubers are playing it, you can leave joke reviews on Steam, etc. I'd say these are more artifacts of internet culture than anything, but I think there's significant overlap with the other categories. While I don't really enjoy this, complaining about it would be complaining about human nature.
Note that in all this I haven't really written about integrating sex into gameplay as a meaningful axis for analyzing games. That's not to say that it has no validity, but I think it's secondary to the fact that different products are offering fundamentally different things.

THE FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE
No reason to sugarcoat it: I feel like it's far too rare for me to play an adult game that I think is sexy, or even fun. Has the industry changed? No, and that's the issue. Elements that felt novel when I started ten years ago have become increasingly tedious to me. To my eye, the industry seems dedicated to cranking out soulless product. Anime Tiddie Inc.
Heaven knows I like silly/over-the-top/unrealistic tropes, but after prolonged exposure to certain elements and long conversations both read and participated in, I've become more cynical about it all. There are a lot of things that I no longer think are self-aware fetishes (which would be pointless to criticize), but are instead rooted in a stunted understanding of human sexuality (which is also pointless to criticize, but I don't personally enjoy).


Some of you know that I used to write romance novels. I started adult games expecting them to be similar: an extremely popular product that is intentionally not for everyone. That's partially true, but my opinion has worsened. The adult game industry isn't equivalent to romance, it's equivalent to a toxic subsection like the Omegaverse. There are large numbers of people, possibly majorities in some subgroups, for whom the very concept of "sexiness" is inextricably bound with a lot of arbitrary elements that have nothing to do with eroticism for me.


This probably comes off as judgmental, because to some degree it is. I'm not sure that fetishes are exactly immutable human nature, but it's true that people can't always change who they are. But I feel that my own preferences should deserve the same respect, and due to the industry being wrapped up in an Omegaverse-style subculture, they don't receive it. While I might seem like an over-sensitive artist focusing on criticism, I've tried to do objective comparisons with random samples and I think the difference in reception is not imaginary.


So while my opinions have changed, I feel that the industry hasn't. In that case, I think it's time to accept that the machine is working properly and if I don't like the end product, that's my problem. Better to accept that my work will always be compared to these end goals rather than naively believing I can change what's viewed as a worthwhile goal.
There are a lot of potential reasons for negative reception of my work. I have all kinds of real or potential shortcomings and failings as a creator, some of which may be improvable or changeable. But at the heart of my fundamental problem is that my passion has slowly been withered.


I'm trying to avoid weasel words/phrases in this post, but I do use the passive voice consciously there. I still can't help but come up with tons of ideas for new adult games. Some of them have much higher amounts of sex, some I think are innovative, some I believe would be commercially successful... but when I think about finishing them and throwing them out into the current environment, my enthusiasm withers. Not instantly; it's a years-long process of erosion.


Is my sense of eroticism that rare or maladapted to this environment? I just feel like half of sex is personality and emotional variation. To my eye, much of the most successful work is incompatible with personality and offers only one type of content, no matter how many different things dongs are doing to a blow-up doll. I believe I'd be capable of producing this content, but it's wearying to think anything I create will just be compared unfavorably to these monotonous ideals."

Curious how others think!

 

[jufot]

Thanks raynarnab! That's a great post, and it has convinced me to finally try The Last Sovereign

There are a lot of things that I no longer think are self-aware fetishes (which would be pointless to criticize), but are instead rooted in a stunted understanding of human sexuality (which is also pointless to criticize, but I don't personally enjoy).

[...] The adult game industry isn't equivalent to romance, it's equivalent to a toxic subsection like the Omegaverse. There are large numbers of people, possibly majorities in some subgroups, for whom the very concept of "sexiness" is inextricably bound with a lot of arbitrary elements that have nothing to do with eroticism for me.

This is a point that has been brought up time and again on this thread. It's the unfortunate reality of AVNs. Perhaps the dev should join us here? If nothing else, we could commiserate

I think it's time to accept that the machine is working properly and if I don't like the end product, that's my problem. Better to accept that my work will always be compared to these end goals rather than naively believing I can change what's viewed as a worthwhile goal.

Other devs could provide more insight here, but I think this is the healthiest approach. If you are making a game that is focused on characters or plot and not on porn, some people (especially on F95) will always shit on your work and tell you it's why you don't have more Patreon subscribers.

Is my sense of eroticism that rare or maladapted to this environment? I just feel like half of sex is personality and emotional variation. To my eye, much of the most successful work is incompatible with personality and offers only one type of content, no matter how many different things dongs are doing to a blow-up doll.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves with AVNs. When there is a sex scene, I ask myself "why is this woman having sex with the MC?" and more often than not, the answer is "because he wanted to." There is no emotion, no rhyme or reason. She's just a sex doll for the player's gratification. Games that give LIs personality and character and agency are rare. I wish they weren't :/

 

[raynarnab]

Thanks raynarnab! That's a great post, and it has convinced me to finally try The Last Sovereign

I will say it is more gameplay heavier than the games you might play, but the world building is fantastic. I say sometimes say this game is a political/economic simulator with adult content incorporated. But I certain love the niche it has provided in this space. I don't believe there is any game quite like this ever.

 

[noping123]

it's why you don't have more Patreon subscribers.

I mean... it sort of is a lot of the time. I'm not gonna speak on my own behalf, I think my product just isn't quite good enough to amass a heavy amount of patrons, but in general plenty of good games have lowish counts because they don't cater to what a lot of people want out of these games. If you're just in it for the money, there's a very specific path you should be taking. On the other hand, even the most successful games on this list (or that aren't on it but would probably qualify) tend to dwarf in comparison to the big ones. It's not what the majority want, and the numbers will always reflect that.


If I'm being honest, that entire writeup, to me, sounds a lot like "Stop liking what I don't like.". I have next to 0 interest in many of the games that person is railing against, (and by the sounds of it, my game for example falls into the category of "I don't have an opinion because it just doesn't interest me" - as well as many of the games in the OP), but they exist, and plenty of people love them, and that's fine. It all just reads to me like someone who is upset at what is "popular".

Generally we have a word for people like that - "Old". (Not that I should be talking. In the words of grandpa simpson, I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it anymore, and what's it seems weird and scary).

My biggest problem with that entire writeup really stems from this line in particular:

But I feel that my own preferences should deserve the same respect, and due to the industry being wrapped up in an Omegaverse-style subculture, they don't receive it.

This to me reads like some weird sense of entitlement, like "People should like the same stuff I do!" (or what I said earlier "Stop liking what I don't like!").

I personally, have 0 interest in that game. I don't like 2d style drawings at all, so I avoid any game that has them right off the bat, and honestly I don't even look past that - and that's fine. I'm not going to say it's a bad game or anything else (It's fairly successful, over 1k patrons), it's just not for me. But plenty of people obviously love it, and that's fine.

And I think that's my problem with that entire writeup. It seems to lament the fact that more people don't put out content that the author enjoys, wishes more people would adapt the authors way of thinking, and rails against "The industry" (which really, is comprised mostly of a ton of indie/solo people doing something THEY are into, and a very small amount of companies putting out whatever they put out), instead of simply saying "Yea, I'm not a fan of this, but other people are, and that's cool."


The only part of the entire thing I agree with completely is:

I think it's time to accept that the machine is working properly and if I don't like the end product, that's my problem. Better to accept that my work will always be compared to these end goals rather than naively believing I can change what's viewed as a worthwhile goal.

Exactly this. If you don't like the end product, and a ton of people do, the problem is yours, not anyone else's. Like I said - I dislike 2d drawn art. I am just not a fan. I'm not lamenting that there are a ton of games out there that have it - plenty of people love it (and many others don't love it, but also aren't bothered by it). It's popular, it exists for a reason, it's just not for me. That, IMO, is something the author of that needs to come to grips with, I think. If your goal is popularity and money, you should be creating something that falls into what the majority obviously want. If your goal is to create something you are happy with, then you should do that, and accept that even if you do find some measure of success, it won't compare to what some of the others do.


I won't talk too much about what the author said about the "evolution" of the industry - I wasn't involved with, or practically aware of it a decade ago like this person apparently was. What I will say is, I've seen a pretty stark difference between the stuff (Not just in terms of visual quality, but also in terms of gameplay elements and storytelling) from stuff I've played thats even 3-4 yrs old, vs stuff that's relatively newer. I feel like - just based on my limited experience, and the perspective of having come into it late and being able to compare and contrast old vs new without the experience of seeing it happen in real time - that there has been plenty of evolution, just not in any direction the author would appreciate or really spend too much time on.

To make a really piss poor analogy since I'm ready to pass out - It's 10000bc. I'm a huge fan of dogs, so I have a pet dog. I hate cats. I see this group of cats and I just don't like them. (I'm immortal in this example. Just go with it). Now it's 2022. I still like dogs, and I still have a pet dog. Lots of people have pet cats, and I still hate cats. In 12k years I haven't changed my mind on that, but man a lot of people have pet cats now.

That doesn't mean cats haven't evolved in that time - they most certainly have. I was just so focused on the dogs, and so in the mindset of "A cat is a cat, and I don't like them" that I didn't really notice the evolution as it was happening. Sure if you show me a picture of a cat 12k yrs ago I'd say "Oh yea, that's pretty different", but I certainly wasn't paying attention to the change.

And that is my bad analogy for the day. All in all I sort of agree with some of what was said, and tend to share a similar view on a lot of games, but at the same time to me it felt like a pretty bad take on it all, for the reasons stated above.

 

[TranscendentThots]

This is one of my biggest pet peeves with AVNs. When there is a sex scene, I ask myself "why is this woman having sex with the MC?" and more often than not, the answer is "because he wanted to." There is no emotion, no rhyme or reason. She's just a sex doll for the player's gratification. Games that give LIs personality and character and agency are rare. I wish they weren't :/

jufot, do you mind if I start a Conversation with you about this? I'm not currently a dev, but I've been thinking about starting a game soon, and I want to pick your brain. I've always felt like you need a good story to make a good game, and you need strong characters to make a good story, and you need to know your characters' motivations in order to write strong characters. (I think my writing skills are mediocre. Hopefully that means my taste and my skill are both gradually improving in lockstep, but we'll see.)

The best eroge relationships I could hope to crank out in my wildest dreams would probably be something vaguely like

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, where the characters are toxic and their relationship is founded on bullshit, but they make a good team when it comes to the A-Plot (which is unrelated to sex,) and we watch them catch glimpses of good in each other in a world that's otherwise basically against them, until their tough facades shatter and they cling to each other like they're drowning, before saving the world or whatever. What's that? "Do they have sex before or after saving the world?" No, see, they already did it way back during the period of time after they saw glimpses of good in each other but before the facades crumbled. I told you, they're both toxic! They're bad for each other!

 

[Hildegardt]

I mean... it sort of is a lot of the time. I'm not gonna speak on my own behalf, I think my product just isn't quite good enough to amass a heavy amount of patrons, but in general plenty of good games have lowish counts because they don't cater to what a lot of people want out of these games. If you're just in it for the money, there's a very specific path you should be taking. On the other hand, even the most successful games on this list (or that aren't on it but would probably qualify) tend to dwarf in comparison to the big ones. It's not what the majority want, and the numbers will always reflect that.

The popular games are always the exception and the overwhelming majority of not-so-popular games are too diverse to really plot a clear path to success. For every successful college dating sim, there are hundreds of college dating sims that nobody ever heard of.
Just as an example, one of my guilty pleasures is probably one of the most ridiculously unapologetic harem games ever (I just can't help being a sucker for scifi). F95zone should eat this game up, but they constantly overlook it. In fact, there's been a new release for a few weeks now, with a teaser and all, but the thread has been dead since and nobody has leaked the update, yet. Then there's another game I follow, which got shit on for sullying the sanctity of the harem from the first release, but new releases still get leaked on the clock.

(As a disclaimer, I'm coming at this from my experience as a musician and I can see how porn games are much further down on Maslow's pyramid than any piece of music could ever be. Porn probably lends itself much more to being a service than any other artistic pursuit, because it offers sexual satisfaction, but I feel like I can still see similarities. Some genres of music are more popular than others, just like some kinks are more popular than others for example.)

The most important common factor between all popular things is luck, but it's tough to say what this actually entails. Luck can't really be forced. The only thing you can do is put yourself out there through as many channels as possible, so you get into more opportunities to eventually get lucky.
The whole idea behind Patreon is that art shouldn't need to be popular to be successful. Artists shouldn't need to fight for a piece of the pie, because they all deserve their very own pie, because a world, in which a piece of art doesn't get created for financial reasons, would be worse off.

 

[boobsrcool]

Just as an example, one of my guilty pleasures is probably one of the most ridiculously unapologetic harem games ever (I just can't help being a sucker for scifi). F95zone should eat this game up, but they constantly overlook it. In fact, there's been a new release for a few weeks now, with a teaser and all, but the thread has been dead since and nobody has leaked the update, yet. Then there's another game I follow, which got shit on for sullying the sanctity of the harem from the first release, but new releases still get leaked on the clock.

what are they

 

[desmosome]

Anyone watching The Peripheral? Top notch sci-fi based on William Gibson's book. The writing and characters are fantastic. The brother sister dynamic of the two leads felt really genuine. Not sure why I thought of this thread while watching, but the nuanced depiction of sibling love (obviously not in an incest way lol) was something I took note of as someone who enjoys good character writing.

Plus, it was nice to see a small rural town depicted without the usual red neck vibes.

 

[MidnightArrow]

Other devs could provide more insight here, but I think this is the healthiest approach. If you are making a game that is focused on characters or plot and not on porn, some people (especially on F95) will always shit on your work and tell you it's why you don't have more Patreon subscribers.

Although there have been some comments like that, most people have actually been pretty supportive of my game even though it was ripped off itch.io and doesn't cater to F95Zone "sensibilities" (porn logic) at all. And when people do complain there's too much writing, it only shows how little they know about what professional visual novels from Japan are like. So I reply "It's not porn and I didn't post it here" or "Have you played Steins;Gate?"

I don't think devs should blithely accept "the machine" is working correctly (since incest porn is a thing for some fucking reason), but yeah the healthiest approach is to ignore the criticism but also not worry about winning hearts and minds.

But like I said, most people have been pretty supportive and there's been a lot of defenders too, which I'm glad for.

 

[TranscendentThots]

Is my sense of eroticism that rare or maladapted to this environment? I just feel like half of sex is personality and emotional variation. To my eye, much of the most successful work is incompatible with personality and offers only one type of content, no matter how many different things dongs are doing to a blow-up doll. I believe I'd be capable of producing this content, but it's wearying to think anything I create will just be compared unfavorably to these monotonous ideals."

I mean... have you played any of the games in the first post of this thread? If so, how could they be improved? What would your dream game look like, if you had a team of people and a good sized budget? Describe anything other than what you don't want to see.

 

[Tlaero]

Sierra Lee has been doing this for almost as long as Ariane and I have. There's a ton of experience behind her thoughts, and I'm glad she's sharing them with us.

I played The Last Sovereign for a while. It's clever, extremely well written, and enjoyable. The challenge for me was that it's a game first and an erotic story second. That's not to say that there's a scarcity of sex, or that the sex isn't well written (in truth, there's a lot of sex, and it's really well written). It's just that there's a lot more gameplay.

The gameplay is good if you're into an old school Zelda style adventure, but many many hours into it, I started to wonder why I was playing it instead of Halo (etc). I was enjoying it, a lot, but if I'm going to spend that much time on something, there are other things that I'd enjoy more. Back in the day on Sharks Lagoon I had a nice conversation with her about this.

Her frustration with the genre we participate in shines brightly in that post, and the crux of it is that more people aren't writing games that she would like. I completely understand this. I think a lot of us, especially old schoolers who started this before there was any money in it, got into writing these games because we wanted there to be more of the games that we wanted to play. That worked out pretty well for me (I know the people I inspired, because they told me) but I don't think it worked out very well for Sierra. There really aren't many erotic games with significant gameplay elements in them.

I think this is completely separate from the lament that some things that make a ton of money don't seem worth their success. That's not unique to this genre. It's been going on for centuries in all forms of arts and entertainment.

Tlaero

 

[noping123]

I think this is completely separate from the lament that some things that make a ton of money don't seem worth their success. That's not unique to this genre. It's been going on for centuries in all forms of arts and entertainment.

I don't think they're separate at all, I think they're intrinsically linked. Something that is popular will tend to make more money (popular in how many people enjoy it), AND will take up a larger share of the market - both because there are people seeking that same share of the pie, AND because more people enjoy it which just lends itself to more people making it for themselves.

Because of this, there's simply going to be A: less "other" things being made, and B: less of a share of the pie to go around for all those other projects. (While it's an idealistic thought someone mentioned earlier that a world in which art doesn't get created for financial reasons is a worse one, it's also a reality that exactly that happens, and often.)

In an idealistic world maybe you could seperate the 2 concepts, but unfortunately we don't live in an idealistic world, and I don't think the 2 are actually separable, one is simply a function of the other.

 

[TranscendentThots]

but I don't think it worked out very well for Sierra. There really aren't many erotic games with significant gameplay elements in them.

I feel like this is relevant, though, because "have non-trivial gameplay mechanics" has been an integral part of some of the current crop of best-sellers on Steam. The basic idea is you can't use a traditional email list to distribute porn links, and you can't use most social media to link to porn, so most tried-and-true indie game dev marketing strategies are off the table.

So instead, you put in some non-trivial gameplay elements, and hire a couple letsplayers to do a run with the porn elements turned off. People watch these youtube videos in order to figure out how to beat the game, and in the process, it gets some new organic views thanks to the algorithm showing the link in peoples' feeds. At the very least, it gets players talking about the games, if only to ask each other "how do you unlock so-and-so's route?"

That said, while I know or could easily learn how to remake most of these mini-games in RenPy or RPG Maker, I don't necessarily know how to make them fun. And as close as this particular guerilla marketing strategy comes to hearkening back to the GamePro magazines I read in my youth, somehow I don't think fun was ever really the goal.

So, uh. That's a long way of saying "I wish I knew what kind of gameplay Sierra Lee wanted to see in these games." Might be able to kill two birds with one stone, you know? Make something fun and lucrative.

And, hey, if it works once, maybe everybody will copy it.

The gameplay is good if you're into an old school Zelda style adventure, but many many hours into it, I started to wonder why I was playing it instead of Halo (etc). I was enjoying it, a lot, but if I'm going to spend that much time on something, there are other things that I'd enjoy more.

This is one of the great paradoxes of porn games. I've been thinking about this since the 90s, off and on, and the conclusion I keep finding my way back to is the better a video game something is, the worse porn it is, and vice versa. I think it might be one of those so-called

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. Games challenge the player to achieve a goal. Porn removes or trivializes real-world barriers to sex. Sex requires trust and cooperation. Games require conflict and competition. Good gameplay distracts from arousal, and arousing content distracts from the gameplay.

I would absolutely love to hear counterexamples.

 

[Tlaero]

I would absolutely love to hear counterexamples.

I don't know that they're actually counterexamples, since the sex wasn't very good in them, but the original 3 Mass Effect games are at least moving in the direction of counterexamples. Great gameplay and story + relationship building that leads to a sex scene that pushed the limits of what a mainstream game could do. I still remember certain politicians claiming that ME1 had "the most realistic sex you could possibly have" or something like that. (And you should vote for them so that they could protect your children from such evil...)

I think the real issue is the "Mainstream" part. Erotic games are a niche. Two of mine were each played by over a million people, but that doesn't even equal the opening weekend of a Hollywood movie that's considered a flop. Take the most popular games on F95 and the number of people playing them doesn't compare the userbase of an actual mainstream form of entertainment.

I could say that it won't change unless society gets over its squeamishness with sex, but I'll also say that erotic games going mainstream wouldn't actually be good for any of the current erotic game developers. Some of you think I'm a good writer (and I love you for it, thank you!) but I'm not even fit to shine the shoes of the real writers in this world. The only reason you folks have ever heard of me is because none of them would waste their time writing for such a small audience.

Tlaero

 

[TranscendentThots]

I don't know that they're actually counterexamples, since the sex wasn't very good in them, but the original 3 Mass Effect games are at least moving in the direction of counterexamples. Great gameplay and story + relationship building that leads to a sex scene that pushed the limits of what a mainstream game could do. I still remember certain politicians claiming that ME1 had "the most realistic sex you could possibly have" or something like that. (And you should vote for them so that they could protect your children from such evil...)

I think the real issue is the "Mainstream" part. Erotic games are a niche. Two of mine were each played by over a million people, but that doesn't even equal the opening weekend of a Hollywood movie that's considered a flop. Take the most popular games on F95 and the number of people playing them doesn't compare the userbase of an actual mainstream form of entertainment.

I could say that it won't change unless society gets over its squeamishness with sex, but I'll also say that erotic games going mainstream wouldn't actually be good for any of the current erotic game developers. Some of you think I'm a good writer (and I love you for it, thank you!) but I'm not even fit to shine the shoes of the real writers in this world. The only reason you folks have ever heard of me is because none of them would waste their time writing for such a small audience.

Tlaero

I mean... I don't wanna argue with your lived experience, but if your fans all seem to think you're a good writer, how could they all be wrong? Who are these so-called "real" writers, anyway? And what did they ever write that was so great? Mass Effect? Pfft. Anybody can write Mass Effect. Look, I'll do it right now:

Spoiler

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Which ending did you get?

But seriously, the fact that it's a niche audience doesn't matter as long as you keep your costs of development low. If you can afford to keep the lights on and make another game, you're winning. Society might change after the (literal, not meme-insult) baby boomer generation starts to die off and the pearl-clutchers gradually stop being the majority demographic, or then again, it might not. It's not really about cultural puritanism, though. It's about credit card charge-backs motivated by guilt or shame when the most chaste person in a household finds out that the most horny person in the household has been spending the household's money on porn.

I honestly don't think any of that will raise the bar of storytelling in porn games, though. There's only really one way to do that, and you're already doing it.

Write.