What's keeping the West from making DOAX style games?

[Ragsnstitches]

*sigh*

You really have to make this about Japan vs West when that is totally irrelevant to the point?

Fine. HuniePop. Stick HuniePop in there instead of Nekopara. Or HunieCam. Neither were made in Japan as far as I'm aware. Same question. I'd lay money on it being someone buying HuniePop getting a weird look rather than Doom.

@errtheking was responding to the number of posts that had already made it 'Japan vs the West.' There's at least 4-5 posts above that blame the whole lack of T&A games on the West's prudishness (which is a rather colored view ignoring many parts of Japanese society). It had already been made into East vs West =/

It becomes clear that a lot of peoples sole exposure to Japanese culture is anime/manga, which is akin to learning about America from Crime Dramas and Comic Books.

 

[Areloch]

Well, according to steam spy, Huniepop sold around 450,000 copies, and at $10 a go, I'd say that's a decent amount of bank for what's basically candy crush with anime porn attached.

So the reasoning "there's no market for titillation games" is clearly not really all that accurate.

I'd wager the major factor for DOAX specifically is that there's almost no gameplay to speak of outside a dollhouse bit and some lazy minigames. Those can be good supplements to the meat and potatoes of a game, but they can't really be the game itself.

If it was a solid game AND it had the titillation, it'd probably do pretty well for itself, but without that solid game underpinning, the appeal is drastically reduced. Or, if actual gameplay is too difficult, they could tackle it from a Visual Novel angle, which tend to do fairly well too, assuming they could find any decent writers.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Because they are niche here. They are also the product of a bygone era, where titillation was rare and hard to find, so hormone filled teenagers had to get it from anywhere, like renting Heavy Metal, pirating Playboy, playing Leisure Suit Larry or sharing your older brother Penthouse collection.

With Internet at our disposal, there is erotica everywhere. Even youtube has adult-like content that can be accessed with a 18+ years account... For the Internet savvy newer generations, it is harder to miss than to find, so the idea of companies investing several thousands or millions of dollars to provide that content is dumb business decisions.

Best post so far.

The absence of games like that aren't because of some SJW conspiracy or right wing prudishness, it's simple supply and demand that's made it niche. Why pay AAA prices for a game featuring DOA spank material when far more explicit stuff is just a Deviantart or Gelbooru search away?

Also, one would assume good spank material is operated hands free, something conventional games are inherently antithetical towards. Hence why porn wasn't popularly consumed in jigsaw or rubix cube form.

 

[Orga777]

More that they don't rely JUST on sex appeal. Usually they're big on story and character, and sex is something that happens as part of the story. Often they try to draw some emotional involvement from the player to give the sex scenes context and meaning.

This is not that accurate at all. Most Visual Novels have a half-assed story with stereotyped characters that all fall into Japanese Anime Trope Land they can't escape from. Many VNs are there to cater to the already built in fan-base in Japan. They do not have to try very hard to craft a good story, because it is going to sell pretty well anyway as long as it is competently put together. Which is why the Harem anime genre is still so popular despite the lack of any real quality what so ever. They start to get samey after a while. It is all about merchandising, and less to do with anything story or character related. Most of the time the characters are boring planks of generic wood in the case of the protagonists (cause you are supposed to insert yourself in there) and the love interests are all walking anime tropes that have very little to them outside of their over-played personalities. Of course, this is not true for EVERYTHING. There are quite a few amazing Visual Novels out there. But most of them aren't going to be Fate/Stay Night or Steins;Gate.

Interestingly enough about those two examples? One of them doesn't have sex at all, and the other one dropped it as fast as possible in every single later release, which tells me that they don't need sex at all to be good. It can actually detract from it some times. The original F/SN for instance only had the scenes in the game because the company didn't think it would sell without them, so they shoe horned them in. Nasu didn't even write those scenes, and it shows. They are so horribly written that it actively takes away from the experience.

 

[Jeopardy Surface]

I think some of this "Liberated Japan" and "Prudish West" has to be coming from people unfamiliar with both cultures. Japan considers us to be basically, immodest sluts. The idea of everyone having instant and constant access to almost limitless free, uncensored porn would be as alien as everyone having their own car.

Putting aside the rampant ignorance, or fantastical views at least, the reason they're not made (or really sold) in the West (or indeed outside of Japan, very much) is that there is no audience. Only Japan has people shutting in and rejecting real women, only Japan has a birth rate that looks like China's population graph, left upside down by accident. Only Japan is putting women in jail for 3D printed kayaks, and only Japan censors pubic hair AFAIK.

Short of going to Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, you'd be really hard pressed to find a more sexually repressive place than Japan. It just so happens that if you don't live in Japan, and aren't Japanese, and have the pick of their entire catalogue of porny games and so forth, you have a warped view. Even in Japan, those games are not exactly played by everyone, anymore than otaku-level anime watching is a normal thing. A lot of what "Japan" supposedly is and does exists purely in the fantastical imaginations of people 4Chan unkindly calls "Weebs".

tl;dr Japan has a high tolerance for a handful of things that predominately Judeo-Christian cultures do not, especially "lightly dirty stuff". That's a result of basically everything else being on a kind of hard lockdown, even if it is in plain sight. Failing to understand that is to fail to understand Japanese people completely.

More that they don't rely JUST on sex appeal. Usually they're big on story and character, and sex is something that happens as part of the story. Often they try to draw some emotional involvement from the player to give the sex scenes context and meaning.

This is not that accurate at all. Most Visual Novels have a half-assed story with stereotyped characters that all fall into Japanese Anime Trope Land they can't escape from. Many VNs are there to cater to the already built in fan-base in Japan. They do not have to try very hard to craft a good story, because it is going to sell pretty well anyway as long as it is competently put together. Which is why the Harem anime genre is still so popular despite the lack of any real quality what so ever. They start to get samey after a while. It is all about merchandising, and less to do with anything story or character related. Most of the time the characters are boring planks of generic wood in the case of the protagonists (cause you are supposed to insert yourself in there) and the love interests are all walking anime tropes that have very little to them outside of their over-played personalities. Of course, this is not true for EVERYTHING. There are quite a few amazing Visual Novels out there. But most of them aren't going to be Fate/Stay Night or Steins;Gate.

Interestingly enough about those two examples? One of them doesn't have sex at all, and the other one dropped it as fast as possible in every single later release, which tells me that they don't need sex at all to be good. It can actually detract from it some times. The original F/SN for instance only had the scenes in the game because the company didn't think it would sell without them, so they shoe horned them in. Nasu didn't even write those scenes, and it shows. They are so horribly written that it actively takes away from the experience.

The average VN seems to be:

"Oh big brother sama, I want you!" [footnote]Gaaaack[/footnote]

"Oh new transfer student sama, we want you!" [footnote]Now coming to Light Novels and even anime such as Irregular at Magic High School![/footnote]

and of course the always popular

"We're some kind of non-human and we want you!" [footnote]Furries... everywhere furries.[/footnote]

and lastly, but by no means least,

"Dame! I don't want this! Stop! AAAHHHHH!"[footnote]which always seems to have the most passionate following.[/footnote]

 

[Avnger]

The prejudice present in this thread towards that kind of games and the people who play it is pretty telling as to why it hasn't happened yet.

I'm confused. What part about 'the prejudice' is stopping these games from being profitable for western release?

Calling something niche isn't prejudice. Saying something doesn't sell well isn't prejudice. Explaining how the Western and Japanese cultures are different isn't prejudice. If any prejudice has been shown, it has been from those trying to 'defend' T&A games by calling Western culture prudish (in comparison the Japanese culture that is; both of those claims are ridiculous if one looks up any info).

 

[DefunctTheory]

The prejudice present in this thread towards that kind of games and the people who play it is pretty telling as to why it hasn't happened yet.

Curious. The most common insult I've seen thrown around in this thread so far has been 'prudish.'

I really don't think the titty lovers are in a position to cry 'victim' here.

EDIT: And just to make sure everyone understands what side of the fan line I'm on...

 

[go-10]

religion and the fight for being the most morally correct person on Earth.

One of the most common comments online when DOAX 3 was announced was "there's free porn on the internet" and "this are not real women, ugh perverts" so I guess it's looked down upon to play dress up games and it's easier to just google porn...

 

[Phasmal]

I dunno, all the free porn?

I'm surprised that DOA manages to still sell copies. I don't begrudge it that, at all. There's often the idea that if I want more women in mainstream games that I somehow must hate titty games. I do not hate titty games, I don't really feel anything towards them. Apart from the odd "Boobs really do not work that way", I don't have many thoughts about them.

That said, people who like titty games can get weirdly defensive and into calling anyone who doesn't like titty games "prudes". I don't think it's prudishness that stops DOA being a massive superpower of a game. I just don't think there's that much demand for it, when you can look at boobies and anime boobies online for free. The gameplay isn't compelling enough for it to outweigh buying something you could otherwise get for free.

I mean, I'd not say no to a game with a bunch of hot guys in it, but I wouldn't spend very much money on a game that was nothing but wank fodder. I'd just watch a lets play of it or something, if that's what I was into.

 

[Maximum Bert]

That's laughable. Japan has violence that would make your eyes bleed, and the West has sex that would offend a Japanese salaryman on a bender. You need to move beyond inaccurate talking points.

Yeah every country has sex and violence and you will find extremes in every country I was speaking in generalistion and yes while that is not accurate because it is impossible to be so you need only look at what a country markets and digests. Heck look at the differences between two of the east and wests most famous fighters Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. Even the this thread is about why do western devs not make certain games like Japan does. Short being their are differences just saying well both countries have sex and violence does not mean they are entirely the same in view of the people. That said Japan seems to be more focused on erotica than sex as such.

It must be noted though that DOA does not have nudity sure some of the costumes are a little risque especially in the beach volleyball series but there is never any nudity. If it did have that I am unsure if it would increase or decrease sales but I am sure it would decrease DLC costume sales. Strangely I think I have played more western made games that feature full frontal nudity than Japanese ones and its not always done in a way many would find tasteful but I gotta say I have never been bothered by it.

I never mentioned nudity or taste, just that they suck.

This was not aimed at you it was merely a clarification in case some people were unaware. I would disagree however I would say DOA beach volleyball/DOAX is pretty average there is noting particularly poor about it there is just not very much great about it either as for DOA I would say they are good games except 1 and 4 which were pretty poor while 5 is great. How good they are though is purely subjective and not really what the thread is focused on especially for the DOA fighting series anyway.

 

[Fox12]

A history of religious prudery, for starters.

Because gamers are known for their severe religious prudery?

I always thought it was because there's no market for a AAA porn game. Why doesn't rockstar make a DOA game? Because that series makes peanuts compared to GTA.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

I never mentioned nudity or taste, just that they suck.

This was not aimed at you it was merely a clarification in case some people were unaware. I would disagree however I would say DOA beach volleyball/DOAX is pretty average there is noting particularly poor about it there is just not very much great about it either as for DOA I would say they are good games except 1 and 4 which were pretty poor while 5 is great. How good they are though is purely subjective and not really what the thread is focused on especially for the DOA fighting series anyway.

Unless wii shovelware has become the new average, I refuse to believe anyone can honestly say DOAX is "average". Take out the tits and it's a shallow party game cum dress up game, something the Wii has in spades and not to its benefit.

The mainline fighting games are good. Not great, but above average... at least DoA2 was above average, I haven't played any since due to xbox exclusivity and losing interest in the series as a result.

EDIT: I should clarify that I'm aware these things are subjective, but you can't give DOAX a pass if you ever condemned the garbage 3rd party shovelware the Wii got buried under, which as far as I'm aware is universally reviled. The only difference is the tits and tits are not a mechanic or an aesthetic or any type of quality, it's just sheer sexual gratification and pandering.

If you take out the shitty mini games and just give people a professionally made soft core porn photo shooting simulator, it would certainly be rated higher as it would at least be true to its strengths rather then obfuscating them.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

The prejudice present in this thread towards that kind of games and the people who play it is pretty telling as to why it hasn't happened yet.

Curious. The most common insult I've seen thrown around in this thread so far has been 'prudish.'

I really don't think the titty lovers are in a position to cry 'victim' here.

EDIT: And just to make sure everyone understands what side of the fan line I'm on...

A real disgusting pervert like myself would have no less than 100 hours of puzzle interrupted wank time. You are an amateur, and your Waifu a shit.

 

[Phasmal]

I just don't think there's that much demand for it, when you can look at boobies and anime boobies online for free. The gameplay isn't compelling enough for it to outweigh buying something you could otherwise get for free.

Games like DOAX aren't so much rooted in a desire to see boobies, but in a desire to see boobies of an existing established character that you can interact with. In this regard it is more similar to fanart and fanficion, than just porn. And while there is content online to meet the demand, character driven stuff is largely untapped as a market niche. Look at all of the Overwatch porn out there. It's not there because of boobies, it's there because of the characters.

Well, yes, but Overwatch is itself a compelling game on it's own. And the fanfic and fanart of it are free. It's actually a perfect example of my point.
It does have a lot of hot characters, but you could also play the game and not care about how the characters look.

I just don't think there's much of a market for waifu simulators. I mean, there IS a market, that much has been proved, but it's niche and it's never going to be as big as GTA, Mass Effect, or indeed Overwatch.

 

[Einspanner]

"What's keeping the West from making DOAX style games?"

Dignity?

I mean, no... it's not that. We have no dignity to lose on that front, I think it's just that they primarily are designed to appeal to people who want to be vaguely teased, while the west is less terrified of women with pubic hair, or who don't cry like toddlers when they have sex.

I'd say the West is terrified of games with younger children in them, as for actual children I'd say we're worse.

Random Podcast said it best, Japan is obsessed with 18 year olds acting like they're 13, America is obsessed with making 13 year olds act like they're 18.

There's some truth to tall of that, but the dark reality of sexual abuse of minors in Japan and how recently it was both legal and quietly acceptable speaks to a different reality.

 

[Einspanner]

The prejudice present in this thread towards that kind of games and the people who play it is pretty telling as to why it hasn't happened yet.

It is? I'm pretty sure it's still just that there is virtually no market, not whatever just triggered you and made you think "prejudice". Not liking what you like, isn't prejudice, it might even be good taste.

I think some of this "Liberated Japan" and "Prudish West" has to be coming from people unfamiliar with both cultures. Japan considers us to be basically, immodest sluts. The idea of everyone having instant and constant access to almost limitless free, uncensored porn would be as alien as everyone having their own car.

Putting aside the rampant ignorance, or fantastical views at least, the reason they're not made (or really sold) in the West (or indeed outside of Japan, very much) is that there is no audience. Only Japan has people shutting in and rejecting real women, only Japan has a birth rate that looks like China's population graph, left upside down by accident. Only Japan is putting women in jail for 3D printed kayaks, and only Japan censors pubic hair AFAIK.

Short of going to Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, you'd be really hard pressed to find a more sexually repressive place than Japan. It just so happens that if you don't live in Japan, and aren't Japanese, and have the pick of their entire catalogue of porny games and so forth, you have a warped view. Even in Japan, those games are not exactly played by everyone, anymore than otaku-level anime watching is a normal thing. A lot of what "Japan" supposedly is and does exists purely in the fantastical imaginations of people 4Chan unkindly calls "Weebs".

tl;dr Japan has a high tolerance for a handful of things that predominately Judeo-Christian cultures do not, especially "lightly dirty stuff". That's a result of basically everything else being on a kind of hard lockdown, even if it is in plain sight. Failing to understand that is to fail to understand Japanese people completely.

More that they don't rely JUST on sex appeal. Usually they're big on story and character, and sex is something that happens as part of the story. Often they try to draw some emotional involvement from the player to give the sex scenes context and meaning.

This is not that accurate at all. Most Visual Novels have a half-assed story with stereotyped characters that all fall into Japanese Anime Trope Land they can't escape from. Many VNs are there to cater to the already built in fan-base in Japan. They do not have to try very hard to craft a good story, because it is going to sell pretty well anyway as long as it is competently put together. Which is why the Harem anime genre is still so popular despite the lack of any real quality what so ever. They start to get samey after a while. It is all about merchandising, and less to do with anything story or character related. Most of the time the characters are boring planks of generic wood in the case of the protagonists (cause you are supposed to insert yourself in there) and the love interests are all walking anime tropes that have very little to them outside of their over-played personalities. Of course, this is not true for EVERYTHING. There are quite a few amazing Visual Novels out there. But most of them aren't going to be Fate/Stay Night or Steins;Gate.

Interestingly enough about those two examples? One of them doesn't have sex at all, and the other one dropped it as fast as possible in every single later release, which tells me that they don't need sex at all to be good. It can actually detract from it some times. The original F/SN for instance only had the scenes in the game because the company didn't think it would sell without them, so they shoe horned them in. Nasu didn't even write those scenes, and it shows. They are so horribly written that it actively takes away from the experience.

The average VN seems to be:

"Oh big brother sama, I want you!" [footnote]Gaaaack[/footnote]

"Oh new transfer student sama, we want you!" [footnote]Now coming to Light Novels and even anime such as Irregular at Magic High School![/footnote]

and of course the always popular

"We're some kind of non-human and we want you!" [footnote]Furries... everywhere furries.[/footnote]

and lastly, but by no means least,

"Dame! I don't want this! Stop! AAAHHHHH!"[footnote]which always seems to have the most passionate following.[/footnote]

Well now, someone who might actually know more about Japan than Pocky and tentacle rape.

"What's keeping the West from making DOAX style games?"

Dignity?

I mean, no... it's not that. We have no dignity to lose on that front, I think it's just that they primarily are designed to appeal to people who want to be vaguely teased, while the west is less terrified of women with pubic hair, or who don't cry like toddlers when they have sex.

I'd say the West is terrified of games with younger children in them, as for actual children I'd say we're worse.

Random Podcast said it best, Japan is obsessed with 18 year olds acting like they're 13, America is obsessed with making 13 year olds act like they're 18.

There's some truth to tall of that, but the dark reality of sexual abuse of minors in Japan and how recently it was both legal and quietly acceptable speaks to a different reality.

 

[coates32]

I think that there are two reasons for this. First, many of the more pervy games that get made are mostly focus on just the sex appeal and not much else.

The second reason is that for a fair number of people, they feel that if you are going to make pervy content, why not make porn instead. For an example, one of my always ask me why I go for fan service shows instead of going straight to porn. I usually tell him that unlike porn, fan service shows can (but not always) have things like character development, cool action scenes, and stuff. His paraphrased reply to that is, "Who cares about that for their porn?".

Understand that both of these points I find to be disappointing, as I'm the kind of guy who like stuff like Skullgirls and Sekirei, but doesn't care for porn.

Games like DOAX aren't so much rooted in a desire to see boobies, but in a desire to see boobies of an existing established character that you can interact with. In this regard it is more similar to fanart and fanficion, than just porn. And while there is content online to meet the demand, character driven stuff is largely untapped as a market niche. Look at all of the Overwatch porn out there. It's not there because of boobies, it's there because of the characters.

Holy moly, I could have explained better myself.

 

[Einspanner]

I think that there are two reasons for this. First, many of the more pervy games that get made are mostly focus on just the sex appeal and not much else.

The second reason is that for a fair number of people, they feel that if you are going to make pervy content, why not make porn instead. For an example, one of my always ask me why I go for fan service shows instead of going straight to porn. I usually tell him that unlike porn, fan service shows can (but not always) have things like character development, cool action scenes, and stuff. His paraphrased reply to that is, "Who cares about that for their porn?".

Understand that both of these points I find to be disappointing, as I'm the kind of guy who like stuff like Skullgirls and Sekirei, but doesn't care for porn.

When you have access to porn, or regular sex, fanservice stops being fun, and starts to feel awkward. To be honest, something like Food Wars would probably have been better if they dropped the fanservice. Without it, it's a show you could recommend to anyone, with it... it's kind of awkward. It's not just porn though, if you have a good sex life it's even less appealing. You need to be sort of constantly horny to appreciate blatant fanservice.

I mean FANSERVICE too, not "She's wearing a skirt".

 

[Frankster]

I just find it weird Huniepop or DOA volleyball of all things is seen as an example of a typical perv game. Jeez people, this is bottom tier perviness, you get like what, skimpy outfits in 1, and like 4-5 naughty pics of each girl in the other? Not even any interactivity in huniepop pics either, which leads people here to correctly ask "why settle for that, when you get a world of free pr0n on the net?". Well actual interactive perv games do exist you know, to bring up a rather controversial example: Rapelay (i'm only bringing that one up cos it's rather infamous and it's also not my fetish, so people raging at it won't reflect on my own tastes, but it is someone's fetish for sure and I aint gonna judge so long as it remains in the realm of fantasy).

The industry of sex games that I'm familiar with is more niche sites selling many varied titles and comprises what some would consider fucked up fetishes, I don't ever see that breaking into the mainstream even if there's some legit good games in there along with the titillation (normally platformers where if you lose the character gets raped/abused by monsters and in the game over screen, such as that castlevania remake..Peh forgot name of it).

DoAx is about as softcore as you can get, you don't even see any actual nudity. And softcore games are meh for the titillation aspect imo, so don't even appeal to those looking for kinky games, it's more if you super love the characters.

So why doesn't the west make more DoAX style games? Imo it's because DoAX is somewhat of an anomaly. it's not hardcore enough to be good jerking material, it's softcore leanings restricts the audience somewhat and it's a "big" title with high production values that still needs to sell quite a bit to make it profitable. It's also riding on the back of a well known cast whose company is ok with using them in this type of game.
There's been a few attempts at mainstream kink games which raven mentioned earlier, but they just weren't profitable as a mainstream game and due to being mainstream were too softcore to be interesting to true and proper pervs.

So imo if you want to see western kinky games (whether it be softcore like DoAx or something more...deviant), you should not be turning to mainstream gaming but the more indie side or delve into the darker parts of the internet where gaming media fears to thread outside the occasional shock story such as with rapelay, where I'll guarantee you you will find a game with the fucked up fetish to suit you and be perfectly happy with your purchase. There is a thriving market for perv games out there, you just have to know where to look

 

[coates32]

When you have access to porn, or regular sex, fanservice stops being fun, and starts to feel awkward. To be honest, something like Food Wars would probably have been better if they dropped the fanservice. Without it, it's a show you could recommend to anyone, with it... it's kind of awkward. It's not just porn though, if you have a good sex life it's even less appealing. You need to be sort of constantly horny to appreciate blatant fanservice.

I mean FANSERVICE too, not "She's wearing a skirt".

I will admit that some shows might not benefit from having fan service, or that the service in a particular series might too "out there" or too extreme for it's own good. Regarding your comment about having a good sex life, I'm pretty sure there are some people out there with healthy sex lives that enjoys that stuff. Different strokes for different fokes, I guess.