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

[Kaimax]

As was stated before, Visual Novels are BARELY games (They have lose states, that's about it.) but they tend to sell relatively well, and they're pretty much the primary source of porn games.

And this is Why people need to stop calling Visual Novels as a Genre, because it's an outdated classification that doesn't do justice to the medium.

The definition that is in your head is what we call ADV style game (adventure) and NVL style games (Novel Type). Recent Games by Aquaplus, Tears to Tiara 2, and Utawarerumono 2 is a Strategy Game with ADV style story telling with no "Porn".

Even in the Adults Only part of Visual Novels, there are also games that doesn't fit your definition of Visual Novels. Take Alicesoft's games for example. Alicesoft one of the oldest companies in the VN industry focuses more on VNs with gameplay. Their long running Series called "Rance" (it's going to have it's 10th title) is always an RPG with ADV Style story telling, heck its 7th title, "Sengoku Rance" is a love letter to everyone who also plays Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Kessen style of gameplay.

Even in a Nukige (a VN that focuses on Sex), there are also some that doesn't fit that definition anymore. There's plenty of simulation games, Stat-raising games and more Strategy Games.

So calling VNs "barely games" is being ignorant to the Medium

VNs do, however (usually, not always) have good characterisation and story. They're not reliant on their sex scenes to sell, and in fact the sex scenes are often only a small part of the story.

It depends on who's making the VN and that's not even guaranteed.
Take "Nitro+" for example they can make non-Adults Only games, like Steins;Gate, and Chaos;Head but also makes Saya no Uta, Kimi to Kanojo to Koi and Tokyo Necro which is pretty much Adults only (Some even have gore) while having heavy parts in storytelling.

There are plenty of Games that have Sex scenes a Major part in the story,
One example is Alicesoft's Beat series (Beat Angel Escalayer and Beat Blades Haruka)
Both stories is about the protagonist with the main heroine fighting evil organizations that is trying to rule the world ala Monster of the week Power Rangers style. The sex takes a major part because the main characters can only empower themselves when they have sex.


OT: Putting aside being niche, not gonna make money and all the other monetary and technical reasons. Western developers just doesn't have the guts to make one and be proud of it.

We need more developers that can make games like Huniepop and be proud of it.

 

[sniddy_v1legacy]

Too much 'hate' against it - not enough 'love' for it

Simply put, not enough demand vs too controversy

 

[Callate]

It's not that hard, Leisure Suit Larry managed. You just have to appeal to something that exists in large numbers. A lot of people on this forum seem to confuse their own person (extreme) passion for something, with the general temperature in the room. The fact that almost no one really enjoys a "DOAX" experience isn't down to prudery, it's down to:

Access to real people
Access to more porn than is easily conceived of
A desire that a game isn't boring; why sift through hours of BLEGH just for a virtual tit jiggle?
Teens outside of Japan are generally not losing their minds over panty shots, or virtual titty jiggles. A thousand "bloody nose" jokes gets old in a hurry.

It's just difficult for most people over the age of 15 or with a healthy social life, to enjoy a game that is so puerile. The sex doesn't make it puerile, the puerility makes it hard to enjoy the sex. It's hard to lose the awareness say, when watching an episode of 'Irregular At Magic Highschool', that clearly this is someone's desperate fantasy. Well, my fantasies don't revolve around being an emotionless Gary Stu with an incestuous twist, and if they did, I'd want to see them actually FUCK, not blush about it and stammer.

Or yeah, "The West" is just prudish, that must be it. Or people don't want to engage because of the subject matter. That must be why advertising, television, cinema, and other games are drenched in sex...

I mean really, maybe some of you didn't watch Animal House, or Fast Times at Ridgemont High?... and that was decades ago.

Leisure Suit Larry "managed" in 1987 at a time when most games were created by teams of less than five people. Selling 100,000 copies was a tremendous success. LSL's most recent "modern" installment, Box Office Bust, was almost universally reviled; the re-make of the original, Reloaded, seems to have met with mixed success at best.

Likewise, the movies you mention came out more than thirty years ago. Movies, television, and advertising are far less "drenched with sex" now than they were then. Beer companies rarely try to attract consumers during the Superbowl with women in bikinis any more. R-rated movies may contain violence or raunchy jokes, but relatively few contain nudity.

Conversely, DOA as a series enjoyed a fair measure of success overlapping a period when Internet pornography was perfectly available... And while attitudes may shift, I'm pretty sure real people were available then, too.

To some degree, as I've commented before, we seem to be in the midst of the process of segregating erotica from mainstream entertainment altogether, dictating that never the two shall meet- at least without hew and cry that erotic elements are detracting and distracting from, in the case of this medium, the game elements, and vice-versa; that the only possible purpose of an erotic image is immediate sexual gratification, so the user might as well be watching pornography. "Prudishness" might not be the best description for this attitude (nor, I would note, is it one I used), but it doesn't seem any less neurotic for all that.

Now for all of this, DOAX may well just be a terrible game. But it wasn't just the single game the author, or I, was trying to address. Nor does it seem unlikely that the stigma attached to the uncomfortable juxtaposition of erotic and mainstream contributes to the game's problems.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

"DOAX style games"? What, like porn games? There are plenty of those out there with western devs if you're willing to look, they just don't see as much advertising in the same circles as DOAX on tv and general games media because of the content. Or do you mean lewd-themed games with gratuitous T&A? There are quite a few of those too. I think the Leisure Suit Larry franchise might have 1 or 2 lewd adventure games that stop just before full-frontal nudity.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

I'm curious to why anyone would buy a 60$ game about girls with some nudity, when a simple Google search can get you those same girls having numerous forms of sex and kinks.

Or real girls
Or men
Or various art styles

... For free.

 

[Gamerpalooza]

I'm curious to why anyone would buy a 60$ game about girls with some nudity, when a simple Google search can get you those same girls having numerous forms of sex and kinks.

Or real girls
Or men
Or various art styles

... For free.

Yeah but do those come from people/characters you like and bring out a sense of immersion in the world they live in?

That's the difference between DoAX an established franchise and some random XXX game.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I'm curious to why anyone would buy a 60$ game about girls with some nudity, when a simple Google search can get you those same girls having numerous forms of sex and kinks.

Or real girls
Or men
Or various art styles

... For free.

Yeah but do those come from people/characters you like and bring out a sense of immersion in the world they live in?

Actually for Japanese properties there always exists the possibility of erotic doujin and I suspect that Dead or Alive is a rather popular property for such items.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

I'm curious to why anyone would buy a 60$ game about girls with some nudity, when a simple Google search can get you those same girls having numerous forms of sex and kinks.

Or real girls
Or men
Or various art styles

... For free.

Yeah but do those come from people/characters you like and bring out a sense of immersion in the world they live in?

That's the difference between DoAX an established franchise and some random XXX game.

Yeah. Not sure if you know this, but doujin can have stories with character development and world building.

I see that as a lot more appealing then 'some girls from a fighting game were invited to some rich guys third new island, to spend every minute in a bikini, doing nothing but volley ball and little mini games, as one girl tries to buy their friendship with an Xbox 360."


There's also animated series that have the porn and sex sprinkled in through the episodes, rather than just meaningless sex.

I'm not gone to sit here and pretend they're all well written. But DoAX isn't gone to win any awards with its grand story telling.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

Game developers in western countries are still very scared of the sort of hate mob backlash that games like this tend to create, there are a ton of people with backwards views that tend to get offended by this sort of stuff.

This keeps on getting said, but I don't see it. Can you give an example where a developer wanted to make a game, but then chose not to for fear of backlash from a mob? I can't help but feel people have convinced themselves this is true, rather than it being true.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

hows it feel to be WRONG.
DoAX I
North America: 0.36m 61.1%
+ Europe: 0.08m 13.4%
+ Japan: 0.14m 23.0%
+ Rest of the World: 0.02m 2.5%
= Global 0.59m

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/482/dead-or-alive-xtreme-beach-volleyball/

DoAX II
North America: 0.15m 57.7%
+ Europe: 0.03m 11.0%
+ Japan: 0.06m 24.9%
+ Rest of the World: 0.02m 6.4%
= Global 0.26m
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/481/dead-or-alive-xtreme-2/

whats that?! the first 2 games didn't even sell 1 million copys world wide, AND North America OUT SOLD JAPAN.

yeah, we're done here.

Sit down, shut up, and stop lieing to people.

They're bad games, bad games don't sell. get over it.

Jesus Lunar, bringing out facts? That's not fair. But damn, that one was satisfying to watch.

 

[Worgen]

Because if you want porn, YOU WATCH PORN.

Games are not porn. Or movies.

Stop trying to make games a pornographic media.

Actually games and porn can go together really well. Take Sakura Dungeon with the patch.

 

[MishaK]

hows it feel to be WRONG.
DoAX I
North America: 0.36m 61.1%
+ Europe: 0.08m 13.4%
+ Japan: 0.14m 23.0%
+ Rest of the World: 0.02m 2.5%
= Global 0.59m

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/482/dead-or-alive-xtreme-beach-volleyball/

DoAX II
North America: 0.15m 57.7%
+ Europe: 0.03m 11.0%
+ Japan: 0.06m 24.9%
+ Rest of the World: 0.02m 6.4%
= Global 0.26m
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/481/dead-or-alive-xtreme-2/

whats that?! the first 2 games didn't even sell 1 million copys world wide, AND North America OUT SOLD JAPAN.

yeah, we're done here.

Sit down, shut up, and stop lieing to people.

They're bad games, bad games don't sell. get over it.

Jesus Lunar, bringing out facts? That's not fair. But damn, that one was satisfying to watch.

No! NOO! It's a vast left-wing puritan conspiracy against people who just enjoy having a dedicated wank keyboard. It's not about numbers and the fact that companies in the West are considering 3+ million sales "failure" territory (Tomb Raider for one example), it's those wicked pinkos!

lol

Because if you want porn, YOU WATCH PORN.

Games are not porn. Or movies.

Stop trying to make games a pornographic media.

Actually games and porn can go together really well. Take Sakura Dungeon with the patch.

Allow me to say what I'm sure almost everyone says when you say "Sakura Dungeon" and say... "What?"

 

[Dr. Crawver]

Sex appeal alone can't sell a game. Why pay $60 for a game full of girls in bikinis when you have limitless amounts of free porn online? And even then, you can always watch someone's "Let's Play" of that game in question if you just want some eye candy.

You ARE aware that the Hooters Restaurant chain is still a thing yes? As are Bikini bars?

People like teasing sight just as much as they like open titillation dude. Fact of life.

I can walk into a hooters for free, buy a beer and leave. Low cost to entry, typically good service rendered.

I can't do that with these games. I think you missed the important part which is the price tag attached. And these games can't sell for less, because the market has already been demonstrated to be tiny.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Spoiler

Because if you want porn, YOU WATCH PORN.

Games are not porn. Or movies.

Stop trying to make games a pornographic media.

Actually games and porn can go together really well. Take Sakura Dungeon with the patch.

Allow me to say what I'm sure almost everyone says when you say "Sakura Dungeon" and say... "What?"

Sakura Dungeon is the Sakura game with actual gameplay.


How 'good' the game is, I can't say, of course, as the series is, for the most part (And as far as I can tell), just eroge chafe, and I'm personally unwilling to pay 20 bucks to find out for myself if this is an exception.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

hows it feel to be WRONG.
DoAX I
North America: 0.36m 61.1%
+ Europe: 0.08m 13.4%
+ Japan: 0.14m 23.0%
+ Rest of the World: 0.02m 2.5%
= Global 0.59m

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/482/dead-or-alive-xtreme-beach-volleyball/

DoAX II
North America: 0.15m 57.7%
+ Europe: 0.03m 11.0%
+ Japan: 0.06m 24.9%
+ Rest of the World: 0.02m 6.4%
= Global 0.26m
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/481/dead-or-alive-xtreme-2/

whats that?! the first 2 games didn't even sell 1 million copys world wide, AND North America OUT SOLD JAPAN.

yeah, we're done here.

Sit down, shut up, and stop lieing to people.

They're bad games, bad games don't sell. get over it.

Jesus Lunar, bringing out facts? That's not fair. But damn, that one was satisfying to watch.

So, what exactly does that prove beyond the series being niche and interest waned like it does with literally everything sooner or later?

Sex appeal alone can't sell a game. Why pay $60 for a game full of girls in bikinis when you have limitless amounts of free porn online? And even then, you can always watch someone's "Let's Play" of that game in question if you just want some eye candy.

You ARE aware that the Hooters Restaurant chain is still a thing yes? As are Bikini bars?

People like teasing sight just as much as they like open titillation dude. Fact of life.

I can walk into a hooters for free, buy a beer and leave. Low cost to entry, typically good service rendered.

I can't do that with these games. I think you missed the important part which is the price tag attached. And these games can't sell for less, because the market has already been demonstrated to be tiny.

Yes, they can. They generally don't require NEARLY as much resources in order to make. You don't need to spend a lot of time designing anything beyond characters and environment interactions, voice actors range from optional to no real need for expensive talent, you generally don't need a wide variety of environments, etc, etc.

Heck, you could go even cheaper and just go full Visual Novel. Then you don't even need animation.

Game developers in western countries are still very scared of the sort of hate mob backlash that games like this tend to create, there are a ton of people with backwards views that tend to get offended by this sort of stuff.

This keeps on getting said, but I don't see it. Can you give an example where a developer wanted to make a game, but then chose not to for fear of backlash from a mob? I can't help but feel people have convinced themselves this is true, rather than it being true.

The fact that no major retailer anywhere in the States will openly sell AO games and said retailers are where most of their sales comes from probably has A LOT to do with it.

 

[CaitSeith]

hows it feel to be WRONG.
DoAX I
North America: 0.36m 61.1%
+ Europe: 0.08m 13.4%
+ Japan: 0.14m 23.0%
+ Rest of the World: 0.02m 2.5%
= Global 0.59m

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/482/dead-or-alive-xtreme-beach-volleyball/

DoAX II
North America: 0.15m 57.7%
+ Europe: 0.03m 11.0%
+ Japan: 0.06m 24.9%
+ Rest of the World: 0.02m 6.4%
= Global 0.26m
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/481/dead-or-alive-xtreme-2/

whats that?! the first 2 games didn't even sell 1 million copys world wide, AND North America OUT SOLD JAPAN.

yeah, we're done here.

Sit down, shut up, and stop lieing to people.

They're bad games, bad games don't sell. get over it.

Jesus Lunar, bringing out facts? That's not fair. But damn, that one was satisfying to watch.

So, what exactly does that prove beyond the series being niche and interest waned like it does with literally everything sooner or later?

Nothing, if you ignore that Western publishers care only about series and genres that have not yet waned into niche status. It's all the money or nothing.

 

[tzimize]

A history of religious prudery, for starters.

That and the fact that, despite all the hustle and bustle, there isn't a freaking audience for it.

This, probably more so then the prudish bit. I remember when the last Dead or Alive shit storm started, and everyone was complaining about 'censorship' and 'stupid western puritanism,' and no one seemed to be able to accept the simple statistical fact that no one was buying the fucking things.

The West's problem with sex is a real thing, to be sure, but it's helpless in the face of pure, unadulterated capitalism. If EA or Activision or one of the Japanese companies could make money in the US with a shameless, big budget titty extravaganza, they sure as shit would. But they can't - Even though sex appeal is a massive part of gaming, they've found that there is a point of over-saturation, where much like the spine of a well endowed woman, the sales of the game sag and breaks if you try to cram too much boob in there.

Dat image. 10/10 post. I salute you sir.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

This keeps on getting said, but I don't see it. Can you give an example where a developer wanted to make a game, but then chose not to for fear of backlash from a mob? I can't help but feel people have convinced themselves this is true, rather than it being true.

This kind of evidence is not exactly probable, isn't it?
Unless it is an insider tape with some developers going: "Nah, the mob will eat us alive" and even then it does not really prove anything.

Thing is, people are saying it not as something that may be the case, but as the definite reason without any actual evidence. I mean multiple people have said under no uncertain terms in this thread that it's a major factor. Asking for proof is not unreasonable.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

Snip

Edited as I realized it was all addressed to me.

What it proves is that the points some others were making (that these games sell well in japan) are simply falsehoods. Nothing more.

But from that, if they're a niche genre in their native country, and are actually outsold in the west, especially america, it is a kick in the head to the "america is a prude" argument, and that it's particularly profitable and the only thing holding it back is stigma.

Hard numbers beat out pontification I'm afraid.

Next, ok, budget titles. You could be right there. But Rockstar, blizzard or any other major companies are going to bother with them. Why would they? They make buckets from their current model. That's an indie mans circuit, and there are western indies who do that.

And as for retailers. That's not because a subset of gamers don't like it. That's because parents, or the governments in some countries don't like them. Their intended market ain't the one with the issue here. But also, I live in the UK, where I can buy an 18+ game in my local tesco. Don't lump all of us together with you.