Linear VNs have a pacing problem that stems from the fact that they try to appeal to plenty of different taste, to do that they cram in a handful of LIs, but most of them don't appeal to everyone. So the story ends up with at least a couple of those that just annoy the player and serve no real purpose; and yet they're still there, flirting with the player, telling them their life story. All this pushes the player to either skip their dialogue and miss out on the occasional main story backdrop or worse, trudge through it.
Then why not just make multiple games? Then they don't even need to have the same MC. And you aren't constrained by dating sim conventions.
By having stuff for everyone in the same game it increases its appeal. AAA games are notorious for this because there's effectively plenty of different games in them, they're huge, bloated games that are meant purely for mass appeal. It's also why almost every VN has a handful of unique LIs, not because it adds to the story, but to attract different types of players. Adding content, or subgames, to an existing game is generally a better idea than creating a whole brand new game; piggybacking off your existing playerbase rather than make them redownload a game with a new interface, story... that they aren't already familiar with.
But as a player I'm not concerned about the mass appeal of the games I'm playing. The player count doesn't really factor into my personal fun (unless we're talking about multiplayer games). I don't really need more variety in a single game, because I always have the choice to go play something else.
I think when a developer tries to appeal to the masses 99.9% of the time the game is doomed from the start. Because, if you're writing to appease all, that's not possible anyway. I often find games that do that to lack any passion whatsoever. Just my two cents.
Mass appeal and appeasing everyone are different concepts. Most games are built for mass appeal, for porn games on here that'd be straight white male protagonist, probably school setting, with some optional incest and a handful of LIs. Games can absolutely function with a specific target audience in mind, if their niche is large enough; but games that don't know their target audience or pander to it are indeed doomed from the start.
While you might not care about variety in games, or it's potential appeal to different players; it directly affects you anyways because developers do. You can always go play a different game, but developers need you to play their game, to do so they create content that will appeal to you and make you stick around. At this point we circle back around to my original argument as to why i prefer sandboxes, i'm free to ignore said variety and focus on the parts that appeal to me personally.
But that works the other way as well. If there are a lot of content that I don't care about or actively dislike I won't stick around either. Just see how some people demand everything be optional. And even if I do play the game despite that it also means lots of resources on stuff I dislike. And when it also means sacrificing having a good overall story I don't see any reason to stick around. To me it makes more sense to make shorter games so that those who like that particular content can fully enjoy the whole game without having to skip and those who don't can skip the game altogether.
I suppose you are right about this scenario. However those games also have a problem as well. They are generic, boring, and retread. But, I also know a guy who can listen to the same song 20 times in a row. So, to each their own.
It's perfectly plausible for someone to write a riveting college story. Mass appeal just means writing while making sure your story is appealing to the largest possible audience, and that contains its own set of challenges. Badik is typically seen as a "by the numbers" erotic game, and frankly it has better writing than most games on this website. You don't need an original story or a complicated one to make a compelling story.
I respect your opinion, and politely agree to disagree. I will add one thing though. DPK was the one everyone else copied, so his idea was in my opinion original. But, I'd rather not argue the point with you further.
I think everyone can see your point of view and respect your opinion. It's just that this is a thread about story-first games, and the people that participate here generally value the dev's creative license highly, whether it fits their own particular fetish or interests.
That's just the vocal playerbase, unrelated to the "masses" from mass appeal. Yeah they can be painful, and they can bully devs out of their own community. Though ignoring said community is generally not a good idea for success. But at the end of the day, they are only a vocal minority that do not represent the bulk of the silent playerbase, who never comments or reads those threads.
You can't simultaneously be contemptuous of the masses while expecting their time and money. If you want the masses' attention, you need to cater to them. If you don't, that's fine too. Oblivion is the default.
How do you know what the "masses" want? Have you done market research? And at the end of the day a dev doesn't care about the "masses". They care about getting paying customers. And the set of paying customers is not the same as what the freeloading "masses" want.
That's the difficulty isn't it? But you can certainly make educated guesses. Pornhub regularly posts tag popularity, you can take a loot at the most viewed threads on this website... The set of paying customers might not be the same, but they are directly correlated, more players ≃ more attention ≃ more payers.
