Why aren't adult porn games popular in general?

[allura404]

Because it's not specifically about sexuality, it's about how it's used.
I've read enough threads on sites that weren't designed for porn game themes, and I can tell you this, what scares most people away from our industry is that there are almost no good games.
What is considered here to be good games and which are praised in the comments, people unfamiliar with the industry won't even look in their direction, but rather will forget porn games forever.

I don't think quality matters much. People don't need to see quality stuff to have an orgasm, anything with a hole can be enough for many people lol. I think there are quite a lot of games with very good models and scenes in the industry. Since there is not much demand, it is very difficult for high production games to come out. As I said in my other comments, this industry needs to go viral somehow. This sector is perhaps a sector that many people really need but do not know that they need it (It's like a hidden gem). Frankly, after discovering these games, I don't look at the faces of porn anymore. After playing these games I discovered that I actually need something like this.

 

[Ataios]

The economic reason: In the age of the Internet, people are no longer willing to pay for porn. Therefore large companies wont put their budget in porn games, so porn games wont reach the level of quality regular games do.

The social reason: People are not open about watching porn. That's why they don't like to have any achievements from porn games on their Steam profiles.

 

[Clown fish]

I don't think quality matters much. People don't need to see quality stuff to have an orgasm, anything with a hole can be enough for many people lol. I think there are quite a lot of games with very good models and scenes in the industry. Since there is not much demand, it is very difficult for high production games to come out. As I said in my other comments, this industry needs to go viral somehow. This sector is perhaps a sector that many people really need but do not know that they need it (It's like a hidden gem). Frankly, after discovering these games, I don't look at the faces of porn anymore. After playing these games I discovered that I actually need something like this.

I can tell you this, I can also call myself a newcomer to the industry, since I've played mostly the hippest projects. After them I tried to go deeper into the industry, but I was pushed away by the mountain of the same-type Visual Novels with the same incest and dead father scenario. And the same opinion is held by almost everyone I've had the pleasure of reading outside of this site.
To summarize, I suspect that the industry is not that popular:
1) There are no games that can become a mass-produced product. Subverse should be, but it successfully blew its chance.
2) Even if a person learns about the industry, he will quickly get tired of it, as there are few unique products.
I continue to follow only NLT Media, in how many months of studying the porn game industry I have only remembered them, which is surprisingly what I remember them for with regular updates. I hope the practice of milking their patrons is a thing of the past.

 

[semen69]

While there are multiple reasons why porn games aren't popular, I think it comes down to shaming of both sex and video game. Societies deeply affected by abrahamic religions tend to shame sex, and conservative societies tend to shame video game as something for children.

 

[gunderson]

I don't know that porn games are unpopular. I think people are just unwilling to talk about them in public. And because of the level of shame attached to them, people are generally more than happy to steal them. It could very easily be the case that a few million people have played Summertime Saga, even if only a few thousand have ever paid a dime for it.

Consider porn: it's sort of broadly known that people watch a lot of porn movies, to the point that basically every household has somebody who does it on average, but who talks about the specific porn aside from on niche websites? When was the last time you had a water-cooler conversation about your favorite C4S stepcest studio? Yet, they seem to be able to keep the lights on.

 

[jamdan]

Let's be honest here, most of these games are objectively not good. The art isn't better than IRL porn or professionally done hentai or anime porn. The stories are even worse, erotica or romance novels are substantially better. The animations aren't better than professional quality animations. The gameplay isn't good, especially those grindy sandboxes. Yeah...you get where I'm going with this.

Adult porn games are a niche. They appeal to a subset of people that want to combine all of those things into one, even if it means the individual aspects are of a lower quality.

Another thing is, and partially why these games are generally not very good. Is they're almost all made by amateurs. For every Philly or Pinkcake, there are dozens of people who decided to make a game on a whim and don't really know what they're doing. And a lot of those get abandoned. Being an adult game dev is a lot harder than people seem to realize.

- Make the art, which is several other skills rolled into one.
- At least basic coding skills.
- Write a story, which is several other skills rolled into one.
- Basic PR skills, hopefully.

In the same way porn games combine multiple things into one, a porn game developer has to have a more diverse skillset than most other content creators. And not many have that diverse skillset or want to take the time to acquire it. So you end up with mediocre games.

 

[Meaning Less]

Here is a simple test: would you play any of those games if there was no sex in them? I can't think of one right now.

 

[Lerd0]

Here is a simple test: would you play any of those games if there was no sex in them?

...yes...

 

[Meaning Less]

...yes...

sauce? would love to play something good that isn't relying on sexual content.

 

[Lerd0]

sauce? would love to play something good that isn't relying on sexual content.

...wait do u want no sexual content.....plenty of good vns like that......
...thought u were just askin if i would play any game here if the lewds were yeeted from it......answer is yes.....
..mostly strategy games and shit like that......

 

[Meaning Less]

but which one? most strategy games with sexual content I've played were very simplified and dumbed down just so you can reach sex scenes fast...

 

[Lerd0]

but which one? most strategy games with sexual content I've played were very simplified and dumbed down just so you can reach sex scenes fast...

....sengoku rance.....

You must be registered to see the links

...would play most eushully games without lewds too....

 

[Meaning Less]

....sengoku rance.....

You must be registered to see the links

...would play most eushully games without lewds too....

To be fair japanese games are part of the exception I mentioned before where some are in fact good, so I was thinking more about western games when posing that question.

But I will accept this answer anyways because your taste is good.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

To be fair japanese games are part of the exception I mentioned before where some are in fact good, so I was thinking more about western games when posing that question.

Corrupted Saviors, which manages to be a hardcore strategy-RPG and one of the best non-con corruption games thanks to its player- and gameplay-driven approach. To be fair, it's hentai-themed, but since it's released in English and not Japanese, I count it as western.

I'd also play Star Knightess Aura without any of the current H-scenes - the gameplay, characters and nonsexual corruption would be enough to carry it for me; another anime-themed game from a western dev.

 

[desmosome]

Here is a simple test: would you play any of those games if there was no sex in them? I can't think of one right now.

Love of Magic. To me, there might as well be no sexual content, because it's way too vanilla to get my pp going. Still worth playing for the innovative combat system and nice urban fantasy plot.

Big Bang Age. I pretty much skipped through all sex scenes because again, it's too vanilla for me. Great gameplay and great cast of characters.

Venus Blood Frontier/Hollow. Well these are not too vanilla for me, and I busted many nuts. But they also take the spot for my favorite gameplay for eroges. If you remove the initial tentacle rapes, remove the Chaos routes, use implied sex for the few scenes in Law route, and touch it up here and there, you'd have a presentable non porn game.

There are many other gameplay focused ones that would be worth playing without the porn. Truthfully, any gameplay driven or plot driven games could be de-porned with just implied sex if it was vanilla shit and not some hardcore fetishes.

Would people know about it? No, not for most lol. They might be worth playing for us, after we've already found em, but most games do not possess the production values required to get passed off as a normal game. The exceptions would be the stuff from professional Jap studios. It's just that little bit of polish and presentation that most amateur devs, no matter how skilled, tends to lack.

 

[allura404]

I don't know that porn games are unpopular. I think people are just unwilling to talk about them in public. And because of the level of shame attached to them, people are generally more than happy to steal them. It could very easily be the case that a few million people have played Summertime Saga, even if only a few thousand have ever paid a dime for it.

Consider porn: it's sort of broadly known that people watch a lot of porn movies, to the point that basically every household has somebody who does it on average, but who talks about the specific porn aside from on niche websites? When was the last time you had a water-cooler conversation about your favorite C4S stepcest studio? Yet, they seem to be able to keep the lights on.

Actually, that's not exactly what I mean by talking. If you want to follow an account that shares random porn, pictures, videos, hentai on social media, you have unlimited resources. There are many people who use platforms such as Reddit, Discord, Twitter, Telegram just for sexual content. Even on sexually-restricted platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, there are many sexually explicit accounts. You won't find almost anything related to adult games on social media. Porn and Hentai are fairly frequent additions to normal humor. Outside of social media, people are afraid to talk about any kind of sexuality. I'm not saying anything to this. The general question is why porn games have not become popular while almost every sub-branch of sexuality attracts so much attention. There were quite logical answers to this in the comments, I got my answer.

 

[konabwo]

im into RP and sandboxes
(and funny thing. those games make me want to grind for porn so pornsites are less preferable option)

i wish porn industry produced some lifeselector into sandbox . bigbrotherish thingy (that sort of ui, navigation and by-hour tracking. maybe to add more p&c/object interactions; and no walls of text ofc. 1 sentense per scene & couple live phrases. some info in tips. narrative will be clear. caz who cares about texts and story? make games not books!) basically can shoot in one house. fill time slots with some random regular inhouse activities (should not be hard if scheduled. like dunno, keep close yoga mat, book, mop, tv remote , let a gial hold it quickly - voala, 4scenes in 1 minutes. cut! remove some layers of cloth - couple of scenes more). and progression scenes ofc.

 

[Sphere42]

Here is a simple test: would you play any of those games if there was no sex in them? I can't think of one right now.

Ruins Seeker. Action combat dungeon crawler/roguelite with a decently interesting plot and likeable main characters. Aside from the "lust" curse mark which never actually leads to explicit sexual content and some lategame nudity you can play it as just that. And I am fully convinced the game would have been better had they invested all their development effort into those aspects.

So why is it a porn game? Generic godawful Game Over Rape, with unlocks for beating the bosses so you can see how the monsters would have raped (and murdered?) you had you lost. Nothing else, zero sex for playing well.

 

[Meaning Less]

Would people know about it? No, not for most lol. They might be worth playing for us, after we've already found em, but most games do not possess the production values required to get passed off as a normal game. The exceptions would be the stuff from professional Jap studios. It's just that little bit of polish and presentation that most amateur devs, no matter how skilled, tends to lack.

Exactly this, sex baits people into them, but most people wouldn't even have considered playing them otherwise.

 

[PoiluSansNom]

The other thing about porn game not being popular is certainly the lack of big teams.
Most of the games are held by little teams or solo devs. And AAA-quality can't be reached with such a reduced effective unless someone very motivated works on it for decades... and they will obviously not waste time by studying fully the market like mainstream companies do such like probing the players to get the best balance between story-telling, gameplay-value and sex.

So, even if a game maker put all their energy and passion into a porn game, there are obviously some flaws, some aspect which are less polished (graphics, story-telling, gameplay, etc.) The games which are favorited are for the most games which manage to have balance in these : simple gameplay not too hard to handle, good plot to get somekind of immersion and sex scenes present enough to have our dose of dopamine time to time.

About the argument "there are alternative to porn game" : imo, it's not entirely wrong, but also not entirely true as we could say the same about any genre. It's more about the means such like communication.
It's easier to promote a "classic average rogue-like" than a "run or rape". Just because saying it out loud could lead to censorship if reported, especially if the game contains hardcore elements. Sure, you'll have nice person who will search for your content and support you gladly (and we'll never stop to thank them) but I think I'm not wrong to say they are a minority among the gamers.

Thus, all these things combined (so small teams, lack of real market data, reduced communication, etc.) are certainly a good reason the porn game industry is stucked as a niche.

Imo, it's absurd and I completely agree, there's a paradox "Gore and torture is ok, but two people having a fuck, even consensualy, is a no"... To me, this part of the industry deserves as much attention as the rest.

That's the reason I think the best thing to do is to keep being a strong community so porn devs and porn players could help each other to make better games, spread the word and potentially get rid of the censorship in long term.