Not every scene in a game has to be about character development, if a player already has 3 time periods to develop the character what is wrong with giving them one period where they develop their relationships? or use the character development they have already done? What is the point of developing a character in a porn game is not to lead to the erotic scenes / sex scenes?
A good dev makes their game enjoyable.
Ah you see, this is the mistake you are making, you are taking your tastes and a few others and saying they should be applied in general. Not everyone wants to "earn" a scene, not everyone wants great dialog and there is nothing wrong with trying to find a balance between those and just fun sexy scenes.
Okay. So you enjoy easy slop. That's fine, but it doesn't stop it from being slop. Not everything needs to be well written with interesting characters, but I have little interest in poorly written boring strangers getting naked for funsies.
It also does NOTHING to disprove my original assertion, that these go-to tropes are commonly the tools of low effort hacks. Again, not everyone who uses them is a hack, and at this point I think you're failing to notice that distinction on purpose.
Now you see, that is uncalled for. Is there a need to use insults when talking about porn games and what people like? Hacks, garbage, you don't know most of these dev's so why take it to such a hostile level?
Honestly? Because of people who think I'm not allowed to share, or even have, a negative opinion. Every fucking time I ever say anything critical about any game ever, I always get the braindead response of 'Who are you to criticize them? What game did you make?'. Anyone who seriously floats an argument that dumb shouldn't be allowed to vote or have children.
1. So there is "good" farmed out AI art?
I think there is 'competent' AI art. People who take the time to use it as a base or as just a tool in their own art creation. I have zero respect for people who just dump raw Stable Diffusion renders into their games showing people with mangled anatomy or locations that would make Salvador Dalí blush. People who used raw AI renders are hacks.
2. Translations are 1. done by fans. 2. Done by a company. 3. The dev has volunteers. 4. a person sells their translation services. etc. etc. very rarely do dev's do their own translations.
3. The issue with grammatical errors is to be expected.
My dude. Plenty of games here are not properly listed as 'translated', where the dev themselves is dropping it into Google Translate and parading it around here (and Patreon) for an English audience, even though they don't speak or understand English as a second language. They literally have zero capability to even comprehend the garbage they make. Games where every sentence has a grammatical error, because they couldn't even be bothered to dump their MTL garbage into a word processor before putting it into their game. Those people don't deserve a free pass.
I don't speak Spanish as a second language. So if I made a game, translated it into Spanish via MTL, and created a Patreon page in Spanish seeking money for my effort? Any native Spanish speaker would be right to call me out for dumping that low effort garbage out onto the internet, and having the wherewithal to ask people for money to support me to continue doing so.
In summary: When the resulting final product is so poor, it should be pointed out for the benefit of others in the community, and those devs partaking in such low-effort practices deserve to be roasted for it.
4. Played out tropes is a persons opinion, you might feel they are played out while others might feel there are not enough.
Sorry, I didn't know 'opinions' weren't allowed here on F95Zone.
5. "trend-chasing copy cat" often lead to gems so not really valid.
Please, which of the dozens of Naruto parody games is a hidden gem?
I'll wait.
6. Those last two make no sense, "Tryhard edgelords" <-- no clue. As for specific kink games, I can't understand how anyone could complain about a femdom game ONLY having femdom in it or and BDSM game only having BDSM in it, they are catering to their community.
A 'tryhard edgelord' would be someone like
Jobeo who made super racist shit seemingly just to make super racist shit, or Blondie Bear (since removed from the site for rules violations) who's games were little more than a series of hate crimes. Generally anyone who puts questionable content in their game, then calls their detractors 'snowflakes' and the like (either preemptively or reflexively) as a means to shield themselves from criticism is a 'tryhard edgelord' and a hack.
A one-trick-pony would be someone like
Sinncubus, where they make the same short game over and over again, just with a different coat of paint. Every game is BBC and turbosluts, where the female lead is gargling cock and getting railed within the first minutes of the game. There is the barest pretense of a setting with poorly written dialogue, lots of boring sex built around a singular kink, churned out with the efficiency of a meat packing plant. Sure, there might be an audience they're catering too, but that doesn't make it less hacky.
A 'hack' is someone who makes low-effort work quickly. Short-cuts are tools to increase efficiency. If you want to be a 'good' hack (i.e. increase your efficiency), you're gonna make use of a lot of short-cuts. That's why hacks love and overuse short-cuts, like yoga and truth or dare scenes. It also contributes to them being so ubiquitous. It's the same reason why there is a ton of step-sisters getting caught head-first in clothes dryers all over PornHub.
You will also find that there are people who want more kinks / less kinks, more LI'S / less LI's, more story / less story, who is the dev supposed to listen too?
Ideally, themselves. The highest quality games here are made by people or teams with a singular vision. They already know what they want to make, and go about making it. Even if it's not your personal jam, they end up producing unquestionably solid and quality work.
On the opposite spectrum are those who are slaves to polls and public opinion, hoping that by catering to the fickle whims of their imagined 'fanbase', they too can make the big Patreon bucks. Sure, some devs have managed to bumble-fuck their way into that situation *cough*
Milfy City *cough*, but it's like winning the lottery; it is largely luck and comes about organically, and is not the sort of success one can just plan to duplicate.
You keep mentioning low effort but there are people enjoying the games you call garbage so the dev's there are putting in enough effort for those players. Those game just happen to not be for you.
Just cause it's low-effort slop doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. Sure, there is a market for it. If people want low-effort slop, other people are going to supply low-effort slop. That's perfectly fine. But I'm going to call it out as low-effort slop when I see it, so that others who prefer a better grade of erotica know what they're getting into.
There is nothing wrong with adding a yoga scene to reward players, to further a story or to give the player a break from the grind etc. While some might think it is over used, it fits, it makes sense (refer to my reply about penises on jogging moms) and moms in tights are great.
This right here is why I'm fairly certain you're not honestly engaging with what I wrote.
I never claimed that these scenes were ONLY used by hacks, merely that they are the go-to tools of low-effort hacks. Good devs can and do uses these type of scenes to great effect.
Pale Carnations has the King's Game scene.
Now & Then has a Truth or Dare drinking game scene.
Ripples has
multiple yoga scenes. But all three of them are high-effort and high-quality games with superb writing, interesting characters, all the while making some of the best use of Illusion Game assets around.
However the fact remains that these types of scenes are overplayed and dirt common
precisely because they are an easy shortcut.
