What is it about the protagonists in so many B-games that they tend to be complete asses? I’ll be playing these games and the male character will treat the women around him so poorly - being constantly rude, or beyond insensitive. I want to root for these characters, but at the same time I’m hoping they’ll fall in a ditch and die so someone better can come along for the girls in the game. Maybe the characters’ attitudes just don’t translate well into English - but I’ve played through quite a few games wherein the only thing I want more than winning the girl is to punch the main character in the face.
This is a hallmark of a bad, cliched writer.
There are only so-many simple ways to set up a story. Someone who’s not the greatest author will tend to use one of these simple ways. One of the ones that’s common, at least in English translated eroge, and I’m pretty sure in untranslated ones as well, is to make the main character know all these girls from school. Generally the winnable girls will mostly have been interested in the guy for years before the game starts. But then there’s a problem: if all these girls are interested in him for so long, why is he still unattached? So they try to give the MC a personality that would explain that.
In Hinata Bokko for example, the way that this worked is he’d just been entirely oblivious to the whole thing.
Which games would these be? If you like, I can point you in the direction games with better written protagonists.
Most of the time it depends the genre of the eroge you are playing.
In rape-themed or Netorare eroges the protagonist is a big jerk because, after all, he will be raping girls. He don’t care about anyone else besides himself. See VIRGIN ROSTER as an example.
In comedic harem-themed eroges the protagonist will be a pussy who can’t make his stupid mind because there will be lots of girls to choose. He just don’t want anyone to be hurt because he likes all of them… in other words, a lame excuse to keep all of them.
In many eroges the protagonist is a clean paper… he don’t have a personality until you as the player make the choices for him… good or bad.
Is that the OP’s point, though? A badly written main protagonist would be flat, or devoid of personality. It doesn’t match the OP’s claim about them being “constantly rude, or beyond insensitive” and “treat(ing) the women around him (so) poorly.”
It sounds more they have a personality he dislikes than they don’t have one at all.
…not to mention most “generic” ren’ai protagonists as hinted by Nande rather only have one personality trait, that is being “kind”, which opposes the OP’s POV about them.
The way it sounds, I think the OP is foremost playing kichiku and, well, their protagonists are often selfish jerks.
I’ve found that bouken protagonists work better for this matter, because they usually have a background story explaining their reasons to “adventure” and to keep their resolution when facing situations and events challenging their beliefs.
I guess he is talking about our hero : Makoto (school days)
I want to be just like him because IRL, the good guy never get the girl. Only uncaring jerks manage to attract girls.
Define what’s a good guy and what’s the girl. 
You should watch a few soap operas: they say that IRL, good girls never get the guy. Or that when they DO get the guy, he only wants to take away her virginity/innocence, then proceeds to dump her to the side for another pure girl. 
Actually I’m playing Kirakira right now and the protagonist is pissing me off … no matter what Kirari does he bitches about it … and when he isn’t bitching he’s talking about how he should be bitching. He’s constantly criticizing her in his internal dialog and constantly treating her like she’s an idiot child. At this point I can’t imagine why she would ever like him enough to become a love interest.
But when a girl does this, she’s a tsundere (or just a total bitch if she has no -dere in her).
This is a major reason why I dropped Family Project without getting all the way through it once.
Nah. Some of the most interesting protagonists are the kind of ‘not very nice’ you speak of. Sekai no Subete’s protagonist pretty much wins the ‘outright incompetent’ award for eroge (at least, until I played those PLASTIC LABEL eroges >_>) but it’s great. The ‘average’ cliche eroge protagonist is nice to girls but completely clueless. That’s the kind we can afford to see less of =p
this is really old stuff (as in 10 yrs ago) and i have no idea if this considers renai (only an otaku like olf would know the answer to this) but back in the old days when i played F&C’s canvas1 and i think the protagonist is a selfish ass…
There’s another game I was having a difficult time getting through for that very reason.
The only time I was a bit disturbed by the protagonist’s personality was when I played Cross Channel, but it didn’t really stop me. I stay away from rape-themed eroges, so my main beef with your average eroge protagonist is that he’s usually clueless and oblivious to the girls’ feelings for him. 
I think that’s a little bit of a common trait among games Tonoike Daisuke writes. His protagonists often look pretty creepy too. Still more personality than the average protag though, I guess! =P
I agree its making it kind of hard to play with the protaganist acting like that. But I want Matsuri’s ending
yeah his personality was pretty disturbing. but I could feel sympathy for him. unlike most other horrible protaganists.
I was most of the way (I think) through Matsuri’s route. At some point, I’ll probably go back and finish, because I loved Matsuri. She and Chunhua were the only characters in that game that I didn’t find to be either jerks or annoying. The fact that the protagonist started out acting in precisely the opposite way towards her that I would created a lot of dissonance for me, and did a lot to turn me off the game.
The only thing I didn’t like about him was that he never felt in love with the girls he slept with.
I needed more love.
Of the games I have played, the only one I can think of that had a protagonist bad enough that I wanted to strangle and beat them to a bloody pulp was Takahiro Maejima from Hitomi - My Stepsister. I literally beat my head against the table in frustration when I played Hitomi’s route.
Wut ???
She was clearly tempting him… not wearing her bra ! 