We need to address the crime family issue in an adult games.

[obibobi]

Being on this website, you have almost certainly run into this trope, you get your standard game, whether it's family or college, you have your happy go lucky protagonist and his assortment of bitches and then bam, you're hit with the crime family subplot, if you haven't hit the skip button you'll spend 20 minutes talking to some guy behind a desk about how he has a deal for you or you owe him, or whatever contrived reason you have to go out and shoot people or do drugs for a third of the games play time and you won't remember a single detail because it was all so bland and forgetable.

Now that's not to say crime family sub plots can't work, but just because a game you like did it, doesn't mean it's what people like and much more important, just because a game you like did it, doesn't mean you can.

Here's a simple rule, if you remove the sex appeal aspect, could the sub plot hold up on its own, would people be willing to read it, be honest, if the answer is no, don't add one until you've brushed up on your writing skills.

This general idea applies to any sub plot that doesn't mesh well with the family life/ college life/work life porn plot you have going on, but I had to call out the whole crime family because it is by far the worst offender.

 

[anne O'nymous]

[...] you have to go out and shoot people or do drugs for a third of the games play time [...]

You are addressing only a fraction of the issue. WVM, to only name the most known, also have his crime family subplot. Except that here the MC isn't the actor, but the target. In both case it's one of the easiest way to put a story in the back of a cheap game plot.
You don't need to think about a motive. Just pick a lame reason, generally because you, or your mother, are broke as fuck, and it's ready to starts. The advantage being that this reason works both side. You'll then be a criminal to earn the money, or you can be the victim of some criminal to who you owe money.
You don't need to search what event you can have. You'll do shady stuff for shady guys. What shady stuff ? You don't even have to say it, just make your MC carry a big bag and give it to some guy in a back alley, it will be shady as fuck, oh yeah. Or if you're the victim, it's bad guys that will regularly come to reminding you that "you need to give the money, otherwise...". You can even have them beat the shit out of the MC once in a while, it will make all the chicks wet their panties.
And finally You don't need to overthink the outcome. It's not complicated, either you succeed and become rich, or get the bad guys are put in jail. Or you fail, and... well and nothing, you'll not fail it would kill the mood.
Bonus points if you use this in top of a cliché incest story.

And of course, there's all the games who tried to benefit from The DeLuca Family success and use it as main plot. But whatever if it's a main plot or subplot, the reason is always the same. There's suspense, tension and fear, players will be hooked to your story and come back for every single update because they want to know how it will end... Well, at least it's what those authors believe, but it's generally so cheap that there's more boredom than anything else.

Here's a simple rule, if you remove the sex appeal aspect, could the sub plot hold up on its own, would people be willing to read it, be honest, if the answer is no, don't add one until you've brushed up on your writing skills.

This rule is incorrect.
Firstly because, yes, the subplot would hold up on its own without the sex. At least as much as it hold up with the sex. Secondly because the author wouldn't have used this as subplot if he wasn't convinced that it's something really interesting and that people will want to know every single details you are ready to give them.

The question is more to know what it really add to the main story. Not in terms of interest because, as I said, those guys are convinced that it's interesting, but in term of depth precisely in regard of the sexual content.
Because for once it's how it should be looked at, precisely because it's to hide how thin is the main story. If it's just to add content, or a semblance of story, then forget it. The game will not be worse without it and can even end being a bit more interesting. But if it give a motive for the sex to happen, because the MC will grow some balls, starts to meet chicks, and so on, then yes, why not.

 

[sillyrobot]

Yeah, I remember that turning me off one of the first games I played from this site.

The game's premise is you're a doctor running a clinic. Suddenly, you're being blackmailed to act as a daily courier running contraband around town for the crime of... giving a decent physical exam to a patient (you do have the option to be more lascivious, but I wasn't). The option is to accept the blackmail or... accept the blackmail.

I noped out of the game at that point.

 

[darkduck09]

Being on this website, you have almost certainly run into this trope, you get your standard game, whether it's family or college, you have your happy go lucky protagonist and his assortment of bitches and then bam, you're hit with the crime family subplot, if you haven't hit the skip button you'll spend 20 minutes talking to some guy behind a desk about how he has a deal for you or you owe him, or whatever contrived reason you have to go out and shoot people or do drugs for a third of the games play time and you won't remember a single detail because it was all so bland and forgetable.

Now that's not to say crime family sub plots can't work, but just because a game you like did it, doesn't mean it's what people like and much more important, just because a game you like did it, doesn't mean you can.

Here's a simple rule, if you remove the sex appeal aspect, could the sub plot hold up on its own, would people be willing to read it, be honest, if the answer is no, don't add one until you've brushed up on your writing skills.

This general idea applies to any sub plot that doesn't mesh well with the family life/ college life/work life porn plot you have going on, but I had to call out the whole crime family because it is by far the worst offender.

Counter point: This scenario is literally the teaching example for DOD personnel on how to avoid human trafficking / crime. That means it happens enough that it is a common teachable moment. Just the other day I read an article of a Marine officer seeing something out of place and helping to take down a human trafficking ring set up by MS13.

I think the bigger issue with this trope is the lack of understand just how they get you. It's never when you're doing good for yourself; it's almost always when you've accrued lots of debt you need to pay off (from your own stupid decisions) or having issues with the government/ employer. I think The Good Son does a decent job of this. The only issue is that your dad, the one that owes them money, is still alive. There's no way a mob/crime family would go after family if the person that owes them money is alive and IN THEIR CUSTODY.

 

[khumak]

I think this is really just one of many options for a villain in a game. Sometimes it's well done. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes the main character has no choice but to become somewhat of a criminal himself or he loses the game. Other times there is more of a "moral high ground" path which avoids that. Personally, I have always been a sucker for crime dramas and cop shows so I tend to like stories with a strong criminal element to it.

In the context of an adult game I think this sort of plotline usually ends up with some sort of scenario like money trouble led your family to borrow money from a loan shark when you fell on hard times. Now you're flat broke again and unless you as the main character find a way to pay back that loan shark you get to watch as he has his way with your mom, your sister, etc. Some people WANT to watch that happen. Others want to prevent that.

Another obvious path would be that MC has a choice to either pay back the bad guy or to just go to work for him and work off his debt, which means becoming a criminal himself at least in the short term. At that point you could still have moral decisions about which lines MC is willing to cross and which he's not.

So I have no objection to a theme like that. It's all about whether the story for it is done well. I prefer that stories like that have both a good guy and a bad guy path. So for instance on the good guy path you might go to the cops and make some kind of arrangement to work for them as a CI or something. You might still have to commit a few crimes but your ultimate goal is to take down the villain eventually. On the bad guy path you probably eventually either kill the boss and take his place or get him arrested and take his place.

 

[DynamiteJoe/RenMan3DX]

I think it's a perfectly fine conflict hook to use, even if it's being used enough to become a trope. Of course, there are ways of doing it that I wouldn't like.
Off the top of my head I'd say that you have to introduce it as soon as possible, not spring it on players out of the blue after playing an hour. And make it reasonable. With this I mean you have to give a good reason why such an organization would bother with you, the MC, in the first place. Unless you actually are going for a parody/comedy story I'll cringe if the MC is just an ordinary dumb college kid forced by the mafia or a lost heir who knows nothing about that life and suddenly has to.
At least those are the things I tried to keep in mind for my game's story, which I guess you could say it's "crime oriented" because it's about running a brothel which is not legal in most places but, unless I add a morals system (still not sure about it), I'm planning to keep it fairly light.

 

[MarshmallowCasserole]

Here's a simple rule, if you remove the sex appeal aspect, could the sub plot hold up on its own, would people be willing to read it, be honest, if the answer is no, don't add one until you've brushed up on your writing skills.

Whoa buddy, you've just condemned... like 95% of writing on this site.

Not that I disagree with the principle, but... The vast majority of writers in adult gaming scene suck donkey balls. No amount of telling them to git gooder will help, unfortunately (especially without very concrete instructions on how to git gooder)

 

[obibobi]

Whoa buddy, you've just condemned... like 95% of writing on this site.

Not that I disagree with the principle, but... The vast majority of writers in adult gaming scene suck donkey balls. No amount of telling them to git gooder will help, unfortunately (especially without very concrete instructions on how to git gooder)

If you're not the best writer, the added spice of sex appeal can carry it.

Scenario A - Protagonist and other character sit and have a conversation about something

Scenario B - Protagonist talks with his busty mom about something while oiling her back

The sex appeal is the very reason this site exists.

 

[Deleted member 6149291]

I do feel the same as OP, it's mostly forced spice into the games sadly. But I do like the criminal element in itself. I just haven't seen it well executed on most games that I've played.

 

[tanstaafl]

My issue isn't the crime plot, it's the fact that devs that implement it fall back on tired tropes and stereotypes (shady guy behind a desk, sometimes in a smoke filled room, usually with some bruiser of a bodyguard or associate hovering nearby, etc.) and stick to them with annoying tenacity. On top of that, they use these stereotypes to avoid putting any effort into developing any complexity in their shiny, new crime subplot that would make it in any way interesting.