Why are mandatory sex scenes so common in VN's?

[Kadajko]

I always understand when it is the case if a game positions itself as just fap material, when the plot is not the focus, when there is no ''romance'' tag. Sometimes I am in a mood for that, just meaningless sex scenes without romance.

But often it is the case in games that advertize themselves as games that offer meaningful choices and do have the ''romance'' tag. But if you think about it, in a visual novel that has sexual content and offers choices, there is no bigger and meaningful choice than who the player has sexual relations with. These games would often offer the player meaningless choices such as whether to peek at someone in the shower or whether to peek down someones skirt, but then throw mandatory sexual scenes at the player without offering any choice.

I really dislike this for two reasons. First is - sometimes I don't want to play just a fap simulator, I want to play a game that has meaningful romance, but as soon as the player starts to have sexual relations with characters which is outside of my control it throws that posibility out the window, romance and a horndog protagonist that is ready to fck anything that moves don't go well together. Second reason is - games often offer a variety of romance options in all shapes and sizes, and I only want to see the sexual content with characters that I find attractive and sexy, but often I am forced to go through sexual content with characters that I find ugly.

So my question is - why do so many devs, and I FEEL like it could even be the majority, develop games that have mandatory sexual content? It is gotten to the point that when I see a game in which ALL sex scenes are optional it is already a 3 star baseline for me, and can only go higher from there, just because of that.
Is it because they just can't deal with the fact that someone won't see the sex scenes that they've put work into? What is the reason?

 

[RandyTyr]

I can tell you why my game has mandatory sex scenes. I would expect my reasons to apply to many others, too.

First of all, whenever I think about offering a choice to the player or not, I have to consider the cost I pay for that in terms of future writing effort. If the MC spies on someone taking a shower (and doesn't get caught), there is no particular reason why this should be relevant again and again later. However, if I do give the player the choice whether MC fucks her son or not, that would have significant consequences throughout the future development. In a game where different LIs are kept apart, this might simply cut off the son-route. But if you want to include interactions between other characters, it can quickly become unmanagable.

Then there is the question of pay-off: Do I actually expect a significant part of my target-audience to want to say "no" to a particular encounter? I know that there are players who'd like my game more if fucking the family dog was an optional encounter. But these are not my target audience. More generally, if someone makes a "fuck everyone"-style game, and you really like to pick one, this game might just not meant for you.

I've more than once seen people report bugs that must have been in a game for months which they found by rejecting some LI (hinting at noone doing that before). As such, I wouldn't be surprised if your stance is not overly wide spread.

 

[Kadajko]

@RandyTyr

Thank you for your reply.

''In a game where different LIs are kept apart, this might simply cut off the son-route.''

Isn't that absolutely fine? If the player chooses not to engage with part of the content? You just cut off the route and that's it no?

''But if you want to include interactions between other characters, it can quickly become unmanagable.''

I mean that is only relevant in a harem game or a game where people would beef with one another over things like cheating and stuff no?

Can you by any chance elaborate on that?

I would also like to mention that OVERWHELMING majority of the things I am talking about are also random hookups that never have any plot weight as well. Like the player going to a club and having a one night stand and can't say no to that, or the player fucks a stewardess on the plane during a flight and never sees her again but still can't say no to that encounter. You go to the Doctor she gives you a blowjob, never see her again etc. Because usually when you have proper in-depth romance options, you have to work for it, pick the right choices to get to sex.

''if someone makes a "fuck everyone"-style game, and you really like to pick one, this game might just not meant for you.''

That's true, but these games should always have harem tag I think? Because a LOT of the games without the harem tag have this problem for me.

You ever played Chasing Sunsets? I can give you a good example from that.

 

[MidnightArrow]

Your question assumes every VN should be a self-insert game, with a bland protagonist you project yourself onto.

If I put a mandatory sex scene into a game, it's because it's part of the story. Even if the player can make choices, ultimately they're still watching two other people have sex. Whether the player finds one of them attractive or not is irrelevant, since the characters themselves feel that way.

Then again, I don't make games for F95Zone. My VN was just scraped and uploaded here by a third party.

 

[desmosome]

Major choices mean major branches. Major branches mean having to account for the variation in future writing. It's a cost benefit analysis, and sometimes, the romance is part of the core story.

Try and think of what actually goes into crafting the narrative instead of treating every game as a self insert playground.

 

[Kadajko]

'' our question assumes every VN should be a self-insert game, with a bland protagonist you project yourself onto. ''

A good kinetic novel offers multiple choices to the player about the kind of character they want to play, a baseline kinetic novel should atleast be bland.

This is not the case for VN's that are not kinetic, I never have a problem with VN's that don't offer me any choice at all, then I just read the story that the Dev wants to tell. But as soon as you offer choice and market game as having meaningful choice, I expect to have it, and the choice of sexual partners in an etoric VN with sex scenes is paramount.

 

[MidnightArrow]

'' our question assumes every VN should be a self-insert game, with a bland protagonist you project yourself onto. ''

A good kinetic novel offers multiple choices to the player about the kind of character they want to play, a baseline kinetic novel should atleast be bland.

This is not the case for VN's that are not kinetic, I never have a problem with VN's that don't offer me any choice at all, then I just read the story that the Dev wants to tell. But as soon as you offer choice and market game as having meaningful choice, I expect to have it, and the choice of sexual partners in an etoric VN with sex scenes is paramount.

Kinetic novels don't offer any choices.

Other than that, it's just your opinion on game design, and not everybody is going to share your opinion.

If a game was advertised as being a slice of life simulator where the plot is never more complicated than "Which of these 18 women do you want your bland self-insert to bang?" then sure, you'd have a point. But if a VN is an erotic thriller about a married couple, then mandatory sex scenes are expected -- they're married. You shouldn't go into it expecting "Wife isn't hot -- DO NOT WANT TO BANG."

 

[Ariostebaldo]

I agree with you a little. I think it's awful when an annoying character is forced into the MC. Sometimes a game is amazing and one fucking annoying character is enough to ruin it!

 

[Ariostebaldo]

Major choices mean major branches. Major branches mean having to account for the variation in future writing. It's a cost benefit analysis, and sometimes, the romance is part of the core story.

Try and think of what actually goes into crafting the narrative instead of treating every game as a self insert playground.

Most games have a main love interest and some side characters to complement. It's easy to just make the side characters avoidable.
The story turns around the main love interest and anyone who don't like it won't play anyway.

 

[whizwart]

I get what you mean, but also, I think you might be expecting too much. I mean....this is a self described adult website. This is a little like saying "why is it so dirty?" at a landfill.

That being said, the simple asnwer is sex sells. It can be an easy feature to highlight, and if you're doing this off a paetron, you need every advantage.

 

[Kadajko]

I get what you mean, but also, I think you might be expecting too much. I mean....this is a self described adult website. This is a little like saying "why is it so dirty?" at a landfill.

That being said, the simple asnwer is sex sells. It can be an easy feature to highlight, and if you're doing this off a paetron, you need every advantage.

I understand, but there are also quite a few games that have all the content optional, ones that are high quality and have good ratings.

 

[Losersriot]

The first answer is true. The developers are just stupid and lazy.

 

[sensepirational]

I think there are a lot of contributing factors, and I'm not going to brainstorm or list all of them, but one of the big ones is a simple matter of practicality. Branching is difficult, especially in this medium where the visuals are often static renders or short, pre-rendered animations. Every branching decision a dev/author provides for players inherently doubles their rendering and writing workload.

Imagine trying to write a novel, where instead of getting to determine every choice the protagonist of your story makes, and therefore having control over your story and characters, you instead give readers choices to determine what the protagonist does or does not do. Even if those choices are few, and binary, you necessarily cede control of your story and characters, and have to account for all included choices going forward.

And that's just the writing aspect of it. Now, put yourself in the artist's shoes.

You can have your game provide players with the option of an exclusive relationship with NPC A, B, or C. Or you can inherently cast NPC A as your story's main LI, and have subplot sex/romances with NPCs B and C all built into the story by default. The latter is simply much easier to deal with and render for. Quality rendering takes time and effort. This is why the VNs/games here with exceptional renders are few and far between. Most devs/authors seem content to load up assets out of the box and hit render without much tweaking, fine tuning, or adjustment, not to mention bothering with post work, and it shows. Whereas if you really want to deliver exceptional quality, each rendered image can take quite a bit of time to complete depending on circumstances. And some scenes will have to be rendered in compartmentalized fashion and composited because the hardware and software simply struggle to render complete scenes with loads of assets.

And if there are multiple branching decisions going forward, this issue is compounded exponentially.