The games with good stories aren’t really porn. Porn basically means doesn’t have a good story. You’re essentially correct – nobody is playing Crescendo for the hscenes.
It’s not really that you’re one of the few who likes gameplay; rather gameplay is much more expensive to implement. There is no chance of a Brave Soul 2, for instance; I am given to understand PP asked, and Crowd said ‘impossible’. The game appparently sold much better than a normal b-game would for Crowd, but not enough to make up for the increased cost.
A handful of companies have the funds required to make actual games; but not many. The market is incredibly cutthroat, and most makers very small companies.
So most companies do click-your-own-adventure games out of necessity.
Now, many of them have really really good stories; often non-explicit versions will be coded up and put out on consoles. But if that’s just not your thing … well, it’s not your thing. You’re hardly alone; Brave Soul is one of (possibly by this time THE) best selling title in PP’s lineup.
(I also enjoy gameplay - Brave Soul was great even if I never did have the patience to go through enough to win all the girls. But pure porn? ESPECIALLY pure 3d porn because I generally don’t find 3d attractive? Ewwww.)
This is why for the most part RPGs would have been better staying 2D. Some games have really pushed the genre with stuff that couldn’t be done in a 2D world, even with cut-scenes, but not many.
I do too, and I’m a guy. I don’t really care for the 3D stuff as there is less story in them than the 2D rompfests. Good stories in h-games are inspiring (well in general good stories are), but the fact that they have good stories for h-games is what attracts me to them. They fascinate me.
Sorry, Nande, but technically they are. Is “pornographic” any material containing pornography and pornography is any “sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal”. If we consider that in “games with good stories”, the adults scenes aren’t really needed (esp. in the case of ren’ai where a perfectly “clean” version can be done for the console, without any kind of loss) – not that the scenes themselves aren’t necessary per se since love scenes exist even in all-age material, but rather the explicit nature, rather than implicit, of the scenes – it seems the very existence of said scenes is then “to cause sexual arousal”. Even if it’s not the main purpose of the game, it’s the main purpose of the scenes, which makes them pornographic scenes. The game containing pornographic material becomes itself “pornographic”.
What you’re talking about is the (wrong?) connotation and preconception Westerners have about pornographic materials that associate them with the fact they don’t (can’t?) have stories, nor any focus or primary purpose other than sexual arousal… which doesn’t define what makes a material pornographic or not.
Truth to be said, the concept of “pornography with story” isn’t that old either in Japan, may it be in anime (“Cream Lemon” anyone?) or in games (not so long ago, erogames were all about “sexual arousal”…).
Ren’ai games and gamers aren’t numerous in the English-speaking world, indeed, but the answer to this question lays in the very existence of the ren’ai, bouken and mystery genres – differentiating them from the yarugees and kichiku – in erogames themselves.
[ 10-22-2007, 07:00 AM: Message edited by: OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol ]
There are plenty of games that have story that are not focused primarily on the H-side of things. I mean seriously, you KNOW that DYLHB is a heavy H-game but from the looks of games like Crescendo and Tsukihime/Melty Blood, you get different ideas. Melty Blood in particular because it is a fighting game. XD
It’s certainly a misconception. Within the porn industry itself, there’s a distinction between the various forms of presentation. Porn with stories, are often categorized as “Features” - which are viewed differently (at least within the adult media) from the mindless sexfests.
There’s no argument that the vast majority of Western pornography is purely about arousal and sex-sex-sex… but there are story driven titles from time to time. Granted the stories aren’t exactly Emmy winning or anything… but the sex takes a backseat in overall context.
shrugs
All in all, Western porn is about the $$$, rather than the art form. So if mindless sexfests sell best, then mindless sexfests is all we get at best.
All western games are about $$$. If a game can’t make money, it won’t get any kind of backing even if it could win awards. A movie or book on the other hand might. Despite video/computer games being produced for 30 years.
There are titles out there that put innovation before profitability. Take The SIMS for example. Sure EA has whored the series out to no end these days (the H&M Fashion expansion for example), but when Maxis created the very first SIMS years ago, there was doubt to its success. Remember… the game is nothing more than a virtual dollhouse. However the concept was Will Wright’s deepest desire before SimCity was even a forethought – and thus he pushed to have it out as soon as PC technology could make it possible.
The rest is history.
The thing about the PC game industry is that you don’t need the backing of EA Games or Square Enix to release a title. Of course it’s not cheap… but everything is possible within a five digit budget, to see a title popup on Gamestop or Walmart shelves.
The problem isn’t the game publishers – it’s the game consumers. Bling and advertising sells better than innovation. There’s a reason why World of Warcraft does a hell of a lot better than Ragnarok Online.
And of course porn is the same way. The typical buyer thinks: why get a 3 hour movie that only has 30 minutes of sex, when you can get a 3 hour movie with 2 hours and 55 minutes of sex? And it’s only lacking 5 minutes, because they have to waste time on credits somewhere.
Uh? How does that go at all against what I wrote? How is what I wrote a “misconception”? What you wrote (about how there are “porn (works) with stories”) doesn’t prove nor disprove at all what I wrote, since I talked about “connotation and preconception”. In other words, I wrote about what most people think when you wrote about what is… which cannot prove nor disprove the former.
I AGREE with you totally. I’m saying the misconception is the idea that porn movies have no plot, when there are porn with plots and they’re categorized as “Features” (in comparison to say… Orgies and Teen) within adult sites, stores, and awards.
I’m not always against ya: just when it concerns the glory of twincest.
Battle Raper 2 from Illusion has twins… but there’s no event that has you having sex with both twins at the same time. However Battle Raper 2 has two expansions: Sexy Raper and Cap Raper. One of these might have actual twincest added… I must confess, that I found Battle Raper 2 kinda boring, so I never bothered buying these expansion.
You da Man, Unicorn. It was ƒSƒXƒƒŠEƒ"ƒ@ƒ"ƒpƒCƒAEƒVƒXƒ^[ƒY ˆú‰x‚̉ƒ that caught my eye and I lost.
DO NOT GET ¬ëo¬éq-¬ç¬Ç√ù¬è` - it’s not a complete game. Just a bunch of 3D test video. Crap.
DO NOT GET ¬Én¬Éj¬Å[-V¬ãY - it’s beyond garbage and boring.
¬ëo¬éq¬Ç√å¬É¬Å¬ÉC¬Éh¬ï¬®¬å√™ is okay, although I don’t exactly recommend it. Cheap of course, but very simplistic: even for a DLSite title. However it’s the best 3D twincest I’ve seen from that site… but I still don’t recommend it offhand.
I obviously haven’t played ¬ÉS¬ÉX¬É¬ç¬É¬ä¬ÅE¬É"¬É@¬É"¬Ép¬ÉC¬ÉA¬ÅE¬ÉV¬ÉX¬É^¬Å[¬ÉY ¬Å¬à√∫¬âx¬Ç√å¬â¬É¬Å yet… but I’m downloading it now, and will give it a run tonight. Unless this one is creative enough, overall I haven’t found 3D twincest that’s worth the time and price. Fortunately there’s a flood of 2D twincest to keep me happy until someone gets it right.
Yes, occasionally someone takes a risk and tries something innovative.
The differance here is that innovation for what could be sold at Wal-mart or even Gamestop must come from big publishers. An indy game is going to find it all but impossible to get their title to sell there, esepcially console gaming. PC games might have a copy show up on the discount rack with most gamers I know never look at unless they know a title they want is specifically going to be there (FE: Lucas Arts remakes).
There is no indepdant awarder with prestige to bring good game ideas, engines, concepts or stories to the front like their are for film and movie. It’s all from heresay and that can only get you so far if your budget is quite low.
Bling and advertising work, but it’s not all. If it were, Guild Wars would be more popular. It has more bling and enough advertising to compete with WoW.
What drove WoW and continues to drive it (to some people’s disapointment) is it’s low system requirements (thus allowing more people to play it world wide) and world developement inside and beyond the game in the form of books mostly now days.
Actually typical buyer thinks “3 hours? I want to be done in 1 hour because I have stuff to do with my life…like work” sad…most of these people can’t enjoy rpgs because they don’t have good memory retition and they see a game with 40 hours of gameplay and turn away. This is what gave rise to Rise of Nations (no pun intended), ie the “build a civlization from ancient times to modern during your lunch break”
Of course rpgers are the opposite and want more gameplay, as long as it’s meaningful.
Define what you call an indy, because it’s REALLY nebulous. The company I used to work for defined it as a group with 10 or less employees, not incorporated, and earns profit less than $250K.
Product placement is a big deal in marketing. No store is going to put “Narg’s Indy Adventure” on the center floor, when there’s Pokemon and Zelda. Not gonna happen: that’s unrealistic as hell to expect. Nintendo (and other big game companies) spend money to ensure their latest title gets top billing in the isles.
Is that fair? Sure it is. That’s capitalism.
However getting your product on the store shelves is what we’re talking about here: not product placement within the store. That’s another beast.
Game companies have partnerships and third party pickup. I’ve had a lot of experience in that regard. Fact of the matter is: a lot of would be game makers don’t know the process of how companies like Capcom and Konami pickup titles from third party sources. It’s a political beast of its own – requiring some cash and finding contacts – but it’s not a rich man’s game. Anyone who is serious can do it. Indeed the reason why it’s semi-complex, is to prevent people who aren’t serious about game publishing: otherwise every “geek gamer” in America would be sending game ideas. :roll:
Now I’m not guaranteeing that a game submitted in this fashion will be published. I can tell you that 99.9% do not. However I can guarantee that staffers who are responsible for approving such games for getting published, will see the game and play it. Considering that there are movie stars who can’t get a director to read their “homemade” script – this is a big deal, trust me.
Also I assume we’re talking about a finished product here, correct? If so, then you have dozens upon dozens of companies to go through for distribution. Look up how the movie/TV industry approves things: there’s a bottleneck – only 5 or 6 groups can do it, or the guilds will stop it from happening. Game industry isn’t like that. If Capcom doesn’t like it, go to Konami. If they don’t like it, go to Nintendo. Sony. Sega. Etc, etc, etc. If no one takes it… well… don’t blame the industry: blame your game. I’m not risking my career and position for a game that won’t sell. Distribute it yourself and prove them wrong. If you’re that certain it will sell and make millions, then you’re that certain taking a loan to cover the foundation costs will be paid back in full.
Also you do realize, that it’s far cheaper to get a game on the store shelves of Gamestop and Walmart, than it is to get an independent movie shown in theaters or something like the Sci-Fi Channel, right? People mention things like Blair Witch - which cost around $25K to make… but that’s an exception to the rule, and the gaming industry has things like Bejeweled (made on a thousand dollar budget) that are it’s own versions.
As mentioned before: there’s more red tape to cut in the entertainment sector of movies and television, than there are for marketing store merchandise. Many stores have what they call a “local purchase program” which has a low application cost and allows you to submit your product. If it fails to be accepted, many state laws require that they give a detailed answer why, allowing you to fix it. You could also go through supplier venues - one of the easiest a group in Shenzhen (yea China) - that can act as an intermediary.
I could drone on about this… but it gets boring. Needless to say, I could get software - within realistic expectations - sold in Walmart or Gamestop. I have friends who have, and it’s really not that hard. It’s costly… but not insanely expensive: a reasonable bank loan could cover the costs.
I’m not saying that it’s everything: I’m saying that it’s a major influence. Also Warcraft is a MUCH bigger property than Guild Wars. ArenaNet is nowhere near the level of Blizzard Entertainment in terms of resources and contacts (especially overseas). In some cases, you pay Blizzard for the rights to handle their titles, not the other way around. In any case: Blizzard’s advertising budget for WoW was greater than ArenaNet’s own efforts for Guild Wars.
With porn? No way: the longer ones sell best. Look at the online sales at sites like Pornography Movies or Adult DVD (because nowa days, porn sells better online than in stores). The three hour “compilation” titles sell best. Most porn tend to be within the 2 to 3 hour range as well, because these are video lengths that sell best (there’s a book that even explains this… I’ll see if I can get the ISBN and title).
People may not watch all 3 hours at once, but they want more bang for their buck.
Well, it’s interesting because you basically said all the things I was going to say, but put them together differently.
I said the game wasn’t porn. It’s not even worth trying to argue the scenes aren’t porn (because … well, they are). But to me the work as a whole isn’t porn unless main point of the work is porn. That is, a b-game isn’t porn unless the h-scenes are the whole point of the story. Otherwise, “porn” becomes a very far-reaching term, with a far wider reach than most people want to give it.
Good Will Hunting, for instance, has a sex scene, but I don’t think anyone would say it’s porn, even if the scene were extended or more graphic. Requiem for a Dream isn’t porn – in fact, the movie actually was re-rated from NC-17 to an R – despite the fact it features an extended sex scene.
So … Do You Like Horny Bunnies? Porn. Tottemo Pheromone? Porn. Crescendo? Not porn. The fact that some games are so good they’re sold as non-ero versions actually strengthens my conviction that they’re not porn.
My point is that it’s not how it’s defined, though. Is defined as being porn any material containing porn material, no matter how little and regardless of the focus of the whole work compared to the focus of the little porn material.
Containing a sex scene isn’t what define porn. You’ll have to prove how the primary purpose of that sex scene is to cause sexual arousal for it to be “porn”. Contrary to what most (American?) people think, explicitly depicting a nude body or a sex scene doesn’t automatically imply an exclusive purpose to cause sexual arousal.
Then, you don’t understand how it works because it strengthen the fact the sex scenes aren’t an important part of the game and story, therefore make it very debatable they serve any other purpose than sexual arousal. Which makes them “porn”. Which makes the work in which they’re featured “porn”. As I wrote, you’re confusing ‘definition’ and ‘connotation’.
[ 10-29-2007, 08:23 AM: Message edited by: OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol ]
