So anyway, on to the point. Porn games have, in my opinion, a porn problem. This problem is that porn feels like a band-aid for deficiency in the game. And, to an extent, that's okay. If your gameplay is just mediocre, if it functions just fine, but has some weird imbalances, then, whatever, your porn probably can carry that through. What if your gameplay is solid, but your story is a bit lacking? Well, again, porn can make up for it. But there is something porn can't make up for, which is motivation. Why am I playing this game? What am I supposed to do? What goal can I work towards? None of these questions a player asks can really be answered with just "Porn". Because porn, obviously, is super freely available, no one is going to work on things for *just* porn.
This isn't just a porn game problem obviously, and I'm not saying all games have this problem. The thing that got me thinking about this is how utterly directionless I feel playing Skyrim or Oblivion with porn mods on. Obviously I want to engage in the porn content but it's hard to do so while also advancing a grander story. I had to think about it for a moment after getting this far however to be sure that I've played porn games with this problem, but I know I have. I forget the name of the game, but I remember playing a demo for a paid game and finding myself thoroughly underwhelmed by the whole thing.
The root of the issue, in my opinion, is that porn, while in the name of the genre(depending on what you call it), can't actually be the main draw of the game. There needs to be some other form of engagement to motivate a player to actually be a player, and not just wander off to go and do something else. And it can be something pretty simple. In TiTS for instance, I played through that game with the motivation of beating the shit out of my cousin and taking them as a prize. Will you actually be able to do that? I don't know. I fucking hope so, cause if not that's the biggest tease ever. But it's my motivation for playing on.
The other point besides motivation, as the title suggests, is player initiative. This one is a lot more circumstantial, as there's a lot of genres where you just...don't need it. If your game is linear, or spoon feeds content to the player, initiative isn't necessary. However, again, playing the games I do, it comes up a bit and I want to mention why I think it's a thing worth considering. Player initiative is a strange thing in video games. The rigid nature of video games means that pursuing a goal is a very limited thing. I can't set out in Skyrim to be king. Not unless I have a bunch of mods, at least. Nor can I set out to be a Jarl, or really any figure of authority. Except for all the guild leaders. But that doesn't entail pursuing any real goal, it's just a quest chain. There's no initiative behind it. One time in Oblivion I set out with a goal to build a harem. That actually worked out nicely, I had something to work towards, I had to build up the power to achieve it. In the end I did it. And then promptly stopped playing because it wasn't a very fun outcome. It was the most motivated I've felt playing one of these games, cause I had a clear goal to build towards. The problem wasn't that achieving it was boring. The problem, at the end of the day, was how easy it was. Once I had access to the right spells combat became a joke, and without any threats, and without the game being able to pose a challenge to my success, I didn't feel any need to continue.
I was going to include a bit about Shield High here, but on reflection it's wiser to just stop talking and hopefully I can just...show you how I think things could work better.
Pudding Earl
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