Discussion: Porn Game Standards

[Zardoz23]

Hello fellow degenerates. Recently I went on a slight rant about how difficult it is to be critical of decent porn games. In a nutshell my argument is all the straight up garbage and abandoned games make the semi-decent ones look fantastic in comparison. When a game comes along with good looking renders, decent animations, and good grasp of the English language it instantly qualifies as a fantastic game because so many others fail to pass that low bar. Said game could have plenty of bad design choices and still be praised as a triumph in the porn-game sphere. Am I wrong? Is that too hyperbolic a statement?

I want to open this discussion up because I genuinely don't know if I'm being ridiculous or too harsh in my expectations here. In particular I'm interested to know a few things:

1. Where do you "set the bar" for what is and isn't a garbage game (e.g. is poor English a deal breaker for you?)
2. What percentage of games on F95zone do you estimate meet or exceed your bare minimum expectations for being playable (and not abandoned)?
3. In your opinion what game on F95Zone sets the "gold standard" in terms of quality? Please explain why.

Any other comments are welcome. I just thought it would be an interesting discussion topic. And yes, I am aware I should probably go touch grass now.

 

[Guntag]

I became extremely picky when selecting the adult games I play. First, I never liked the Koikatsu visuals or kinetic novels (for me choices are essential). Then I couldn't stand the RPGM games anymore. Then, I gave up on the Honey Select visuals. And then I gave up on the VNs (with a couple exceptions, see below). And I haven't even started talking about sexual/fetish preferences, gameplay, settings (not a fan of space opera for adult games for example). So, I can't really tell if the games are bad or if I'm too picky.

My gold standards for games that are currently still in development :

College Daze (VN, but with more freedom than most sandboxes, with, in the late game, other 30 possible choices at a given time, all leading to a different new event) : I love the setting, the management of stats and the incredibly huge amount of choices that are taken into acount all along the game. I don't think any other adult game has such depth in the implications and the number of choices the player can make. It has great replayability, you can play dozens of times and still discover new stuff. When you'll start a new game, you'll ask yourself : "What am I going to do this time ?".

Photo Hunt : It's my gold standard for sandboxes. I like the visuals, the story, and the different characters. Many of the characters have 2 possible paths, so it provides replayability. I'd like more choices and more control over the story though.

Honorable mention for completed games : Good Girl Gone Bad It took me a while to start playing this game because the visuals didn't really attract me, but when I played it, I really liked the choices in this game and how they impacted the story (not as much as College Daze though).

Notice that those 2 games are old (started in 2019) and it would be nice to have great games like these being developped now (but maybe back in the days, it was easier to get support, and during covid lockdown it was easier to dedicate time to develop a game).

 

[Zardoz23]

I became extremely picky when selecting the adult games I play. First, I never liked the Koikatsu visuals or kinetic novels (for me choices are essential). Then I couldn't stand the RPGM games anymore. Then, I gave up on the Honey Select visuals. And then I gave up on the VNs (with a couple exceptions, see below). And I haven't even started talking about sexual/fetish preferences, gameplay, settings (not a fan of space opera for adult games for example). So, I can't really tell if the games are bad or if I'm too picky.

Choice is a big factor for me as well. Although I've kind of gone in the opposite direction. I used to avoid all games that don't offer any choice (or have the illusion of choice but still force you down a singular path) but I've grown to like some visual novels if the story is good enough. At that point it's more like reading a manga than playing a game. But the story really has to sell it otherwise I lose interest quick.

College Daze is a good shoutout. Despite it being HTML and using real porn gifs the dev is delivering an absolute banger of a game.

3. Being A Dik/Treasure of Nadia/City of Broken Dreamers/Desert Stalker, all are extremely polished, fun to play, have great art, a good variety of women, good sex scenes

Interesting that you brought up variety. I think too many devs fall into the trap of trying to provide too much variety. The more love interests you add to a game the more complicated it gets. I get that variety is the spice of life and more is better. But I'd prefer a more solid foundation than you typically get when a dev tries to cram 10+ love interests into their game. Even when it's something like 4 main LIs and a ton of side characters it can get a bit too chaotic to provide a decent plot. In my opinion anyway.

 

[Kamishirov]

I tend to "set the bar" for what is and isn't a garbage game by a variety of factors, in a nut shell a general feeling of it "clicking" with me is needed.

The art style (2D/3D, etc), theme, sexiness of situations, body types, fetishes represented, if there are dumb decisions that lead you inescapably down a dark path, tedious grinding, humour, whether characters are annoying or not, even things like does the person have tattoos/piecing can make a huge difference... a multitude of factors working in combination, even a little thing can throw it all off and ruin the experience.

I'd say that, as with animated hentai and doujinshi, 1% would probably for me be considered "fantastic". 1-in-100 seems like a fair vague and generalized estimate.

As for games that meet or exceed a bare minimum expectations for being playable, let's be vague and general again and say 1-in-10 maybe.

Gold standard?... there's different Gold standards in my eyes, just like with AAA productions there are indie games and I feel that it'd be unfair to compare a one person passion project with a game made by a multitude of professionals.

For indie Gold standard I do like "Hentai University", it's got for me attractive characters that aren't annoying, the gameplay is fine and it has no real grindy elements, it is a game you can come back to multiple times and it makes you cum.

There are a few games that are considered sub-par but for me they have something that arouses me and that's enough for something "semi-decent" to be considered "fantastic" in my book, would I review it as such or recommend it as such? No, but some people do. "Material Girl" is probably the very definition of being a mid game, but the FMC Sakura is very cute and very fuckable, I love seeing her tight pussy getting stretched out in a public toilet.

Even abandoned games can have some qualities that are attractive to someone, "The Nursing Home" for example really made me laugh, I love the humour in that game even if Gilfs aren't something that I'm attracted to, there's plenty going on in that game to keep you entertained. If there's a Gold standard for abandoned then I'd assign it to that game.

For AAA that's a toughy, I don't think I can give an accurate answer for that right now, I could just rattle off the ol' faithful nostalgia game "Discipline - The Record of a Crusade" but I admittedly haven't played that in ages, "Starless: Nymphomaniac’s Paradise" sucked in comparison even though the art style and general theme is pretty much identical, very tedious and repetitive gameplay with obnoxious characters, unlike with the characters in Discipline you simply don't care about what happens to them. Fuck away! Get corrupted! Get impregnated! I don't care.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

1. For me to call a piece of media garbage, it has to utterly fail to fulfil its purpose. For porn games, the most common culprit is bad writing. The writing and interactivity are what sets these games apart from animations, videos, non-interactive stories etc., so you have to get it right. So when a game has unmodified stock RPGM gameplay done badly, writing by a horny Russian 14-year-old and localization courtesy of chatGPT, yeah, it's worthless as a porn game. You might find fap-worthy pictures in there, but I know of some other places where you could find a hell of a lot more of those, faster.

2. Playable? Most of them will run and not consistently CTD. Like 85% of them or more. Ones that have any value to me? Less than 10%. Ones worth my time? Less than 2%, though this comes down to my preferences and not just quality.

3. I'd say iNSight of you for the porn (including dialogue, characters, pacing of scenes, etc.), and Star Knightess Aura for the game aspect.

 

[TheExordick]

My personal preference is a game with a game loop. I'm not a fun of VN especially the ones that have no choices.
If i want to play a game i want to do something, not click through text.

1. a good game design is the most important feature for me, and by that, i mean that the game should feel smooth, no traps, incomprehensible riddles, jokes making your life hard (take the wrong turn and die for no reason without any warning), ridiculous grinding ( i don't mind a bit of grinding, but it needs to keep the interest high), paywalls (really?). So a bad game design is a real deal breaker for me.
The second most important feature is the visuals: if it's a porn game, it better have good H scene, the top is if sex mechanics are part of the game loop. If you don't know how to draw, use a 3d software, if you can't use DAZ to make decent renders, well do something else, or improve your skills and then make a decent product.
I can tolerate a lot of minor problems and small bugs, we all know the vast majority of these products are made by single developers and it is really hard and time consuming to make a game, so if i can understand what you mean and the bugs are not bad i can live with them.

2. This is a though question, every day there are new games being uploaded that i will never try. But of all the game i tried from these site i'd say a solid 25% of them where good, if we extend to meeting minimum requirements i'd say half of what i tried where at least playable. But these are percentage already filtered by cherry picking the games. Of all the game present in the site, i'd say less than 10% would qualify as meeting minimum standards.

3. Gold standard for my preferences are: Karryn's Prison and Cyberslayers. Both are made in RPGM but it is just a coincidence, there are a lot of good games in every game engine.

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

Is that too hyperbolic a statement?

Yes. I don't really get the argument that the existence of a lot of terrible games makes it more difficult to criticize decent ones. Like, in what way? "Be grateful that something came out that isn't total dog shit, so don't risk pissing off the dev by uttering the slightest criticism"? I mean maybe some people think like that, but that's really weird and counterproductive. I have often given a game a high rating but like 50% or more of my review was me bitching about all the things I thought were wrong with it.

Where do you "set the bar" for what is and isn't a garbage game (e.g. is poor English a deal breaker for you?)

I value writing above any other aspect of a game, but it depends what your definition of "poor English" is. It also matters how good other aspects of the game are. If the game has an interesting concept, good characters and kinks I'm into I can forgive some typos and the occasional grammar mistake. But if the characters sound like their dialogue was translated from Chinese to French and then to English, even the greatest renders in the world and all my kinks in the game won't make me play it longer than 10 minutes. Also poor English isn't the only way writing can be shit, there are plenty of native English speakers who just write really shitty and lame dialogue and narratives. Just because your game technically features "good English" doesn't make it not a garbage game.

 

[Semetrika]

1. Depends which game or visual novel. I try make difference with good and bad work based on many factors like story, characters, genre, visuals, gameplay, animations, atmosphere, consistency etc. But for me problem start, when developer clearly lie about his work or on site is vague description. Then i try find more info and based of that i criticize whole game or visual novel concept. I too avoid games or visual novel which are not build for my taste or i don't see much from them, so i stay out of any criticize.

2. I don't play enough garbage to answer it. Atleast i found some, but i play them only few minutes. It mostly happen when developer don't use rule: show, don't tell. I understand many of them have not powerful PC to render hundreds images, but they do this mistake even on images which clearly show what happen, but they still tend write it like i'm blind idiot.

3. I don't have enough data for it, so i can't write. I find gold standard more subjective, than objective if we talk about porn genre.

 

[Zardoz23]

Yes. I don't really get the argument that the existence of a lot of terrible games makes it more difficult to criticize decent ones. Like, in what way? "Be grateful that something came out that isn't total dog shit, so don't risk pissing off the dev by uttering the slightest criticism"?

No, I don't mean avoiding pissing people off. I mean the volume of garbage in the porn-game niche genre lowers expectations. It's not exactly the same but are you familiar with how the standards for Olympic athletes have changed over the years? I'll post a short video if not.


Now imagine for a moment you're watching the Olympics and all the gymnasts are from the 1950s except 1 modern one. The modern one stuns the crowd doing impressive shit they've never seen before. The judges votes are coming in 10, 10, 10, 10... 9 from the French judge. Why? The dismount was slightly off so they didn't want to give a perfect 10. Everyone hates that French judge but their opinion isn't necessarily wrong.

It feels that way with games on this site sometimes. There's so much bad that when something good comes along, even if it is flawed, the natural inclination is to say 10/10 great game. All because the bar for what is good is set low.

Alternatively we could imagine an alternate reality where 80% of the games on this site are well written (at least gramatically), with decent art, and possess a rudimentary plot. Standards for what is and isn't considered good would rise. People would become more critical of design choices like save file availability, whether or not there are multiple routes that add choice and replay value etc.

You know, there is a lot of "shovelware" on Steam. Soulless asset flips that are just terrible. But most people don't really encounter them much and the sheer volume of good games on the platform outweighs the garbage. But imagine if you loaded up Steam one day and 8 out of every 10 games you saw on the storefront was absolute shite. I don't know about you but when I go to play and review those games that are actually halfway decent my perspective of them will be tinted by how rare they are.

 

[Goeffel]

huh?

I feel the example you gave is actually from the other side - where some modern games (2020 athlete) would be so excellent that all other games (1950s athletes) would never get a good rating even though they deserve/d it in their own right.
--------

else, I do not believe in one standard for them all. (kinetic novel, dating sim, rpg, 3d-gameplay, sidescroller, cards play, chess ... is there a chess porn game? most likely there is ...)

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

I mean the volume of garbage in the porn-game niche genre lowers expectations.

It feels that way with games on this site sometimes. There's so much bad that when something good comes along, even if it is flawed, the natural inclination is to say 10/10 great game. All because the bar for what is good is set low.

Maybe people like that exist but that is such an alien concept to me. It's also kind of contrary to what I see in reviews. Games consistently get criticized if their render quality isn't top notch or the animations aren't perfect or, god forbid, non-existent. Also, idk, yeah, sure, you have more crap games getting released now, but you also have more good games being released. I've been on this site since 2017, anybody who acts like "everything was better back in the day" is mentally ill. Yeah, you had less absolute crap getting released, but you also had like 50 games in total instead of thousands and most of those 50 were also kind of shit by the standards of today.

 

[Zardoz23]

Maybe people like that exist but that is such an alien concept to me. It's also kind of contrary to what I see in reviews. Games consistently get criticized if their render quality isn't top notch or the animations aren't perfect or, god forbid, non-existent. Also, idk, yeah, sure, you have more crap games getting released now, but you also have more good games being released. I've been on this site since 2017, anybody who acts like "everything was better back in the day" is mentally ill. Yeah, you had less absolute crap getting released, but you also had like 50 games in total instead of thousands and most of those 50 were also kind of shit by the standards of today.

I don't know how things were back in the day but that isn't my intent. Although your comment does remind me of something I said as part of my original rant. I don't think you could compile a Top 100 Games on F95Zone without listing some real stinkers near the end. Maybe I'm wrong. But it certainly seems like it would be difficult.

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

I don't know how things were back in the day but that isn't my intent. Although your comment does remind me of something I said as part of my original rant. I don't think you could compile a Top 100 Games on F95Zone without listing some real stinkers near the end. Maybe I'm wrong. But it certainly seems like it would be difficult.

I mean, yeah, maybe? But also no matter how much it has grown, this is still a niche "industry" mostly inhabited by hobbyist solo devs. Also it's kind of subjective, lots of people would argue there are stinkers on the AFI Top 100 Movies list and that's an industry that has existed for like 100 years. I'm still not sure what your point ultimately is. There should be more good games but there aren't because... people aren't critical enough of bad games? I mean there are a lot of mediocre/bad games that somehow have a lot of fans and get overhyped, but again, people have wildly different tastes. Some people think the Transformers movies were the pinnacle of entertainment.

 

[Zardoz23]

I'm still not sure what your point ultimately is. There should be more good games but there aren't because... people aren't critical enough of bad games? I mean there are a lot of mediocre/bad games that somehow have a lot of fans and get overhyped, but again, people have wildly different tastes. Some people think the Transformers movies were the pinnacle of entertainment.

Nah. My point is just that the standard of what is considered good on average is low. That's all. Maybe you disagree with that and that's okay. As far as personal tastes go I agree but when I talk about so many games being garbage I'm not saying it's because they don't cater to my desires. If I'm not into X or Y kinks I'm not going to play it even if it looks like a well developed game. But I can acknowledge something appears to be better than average even if I don't want to play it personally.

 

[Semetrika]

Problem is people funded still this type of shit. So why devs bother do anythink better? I know one developer who he thinks he do good job with his visual novel, but it's garbage, yet people pay him and he see only praise on his discord. And it's not really about taste. No wonder they are still here.

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

Nah. My point is just that the standard of what is considered good on average is low. That's all. Maybe you disagree with that and that's okay.

I don't know if I agree or not because this is kind of a nebulous and unknowable statistic. Whose standard is too low? Everybody's? Obviously not. So what's the percentage? I'm not saying there aren't people who play shitty games and somehow think they're good, but again, people like shitty movies too.

If I'm not into X or Y kinks I'm not going to play it even if it looks like a well developed game. But I can acknowledge something appears to be better than average even if I don't want to play it personally.

How? Just based on screenshots, summary and reviews? I thought reviews sucked and nobody had standards.

 

[Zardoz23]

I don't know if I agree or not because this is kind of a nebulous and unknowable statistic. Whose standard is too low? Everybody's? Obviously not. So what's the percentage? I'm not saying there aren't people who play shitty games and somehow think they're good, but again, people like shitty movies too.

Can we step back a moment and would you mind answering one question for me? Do you think porn games are held to a higher, lower, or equal standard to what regular games are? Because I would say it's pretty clear they're held to a lower standard in general. And frankly I think you're focusing too much on the review side of this issue, I'm not bitching about the reviewers being wrong per se. More that the state of the genre is so low that we're all hedging our expectations.

How? Just based on screenshots, summary and reviews?

Well, yeah. Some games are so bad you can just tell looking at the main post. Of course you can be wrong doing that, the old "can't judge a book by it's cover" adage stands. But surely you've seen at least one example of a game on the site where you didn't have to download it, or even look at the reviews, to know it was bad. I mean maybe you're going to suggest that's not the case but I'd be surprised. The inverse is also true. Steam occasionally recommends me adult games that look good but I'm not interested in because I'm not into gay or furry content. But I can still look at the main page and get a sense of whether or not it appears to be shovelware garbage or not. I've seen plenty of games that look good but just weren't for me.

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

Can we step back a moment and would you mind answering one question for me? Do you think porn games are held to a higher, lower, or equal standard to what regular games are?

They are held to a lower standard obviously, as they should be. Regular games have tons of billion dollar companies pumping millions of dollars into them every year, while we're sitting here debating if Bob from Wisconsin didn't do enough work on his animations.

Well, yeah. Some games are so bad you can just tell looking at the main post. Of course you can be wrong doing that, the old "can't judge a book by it's cover" adage stands. But surely you've seen at least one example of a game on the site where you didn't have to download it, or even look at the reviews, to know it was bad. I mean maybe you're going to suggest that's not the case but I'd be surprised. The inverse is also true.

No, I don't think the inverse is true. I definitely agree that you can look at a game's presentation on F95 and decide that it's not even worth downloading. I don't think you can go "wow, these 5 screenshots and that 3 sentence summary have me convinced this is a quality game."

 

[Zardoz23]

They are held to a lower standard obviously, as they should be. Regular games have tons of billion dollar companies pumping millions of dollars into them every year, while we're sitting here debating if Bob from Wisconsin didn't do enough work on his animations.

I know you know there is a thriving indie game scene in just about every sub-genre on Steam. Please don't pretend all non-porn games are massively funded. And while some people would argue that indie games are held to a lower standard than AAA games just as many would call bullshit on that. Tons of game reviewers will flat out tell you a game being AAA is far from a guarantee it will be good, or even playable in general. Sometimes a AAA game is routinely panned before it's even out just because the publisher is known to be shitty.

These days the indie devs are more or less held to the same standards as so-called AAA games. I see no reason to expect less from a solo porn game dev than I would a solo indie game dev. But that's where we're at because naturally a game is going to be judged in part by the metric set by it's competitors. Which is a very low bar when it comes to porn games.

No, I don't think the inverse is true. I definitely agree that you can look at a game's presentation on F95 and decide that it's not even worth downloading. I don't think you can go "wow, these 5 screenshots and that 3 sentence summary have me convinced this is a quality game."

Well, to be fair I was speaking about Steam there. Usually there's a bit more involved on those store pages than 5 screenshots and 3 sentences. But I digress.

 

[Living In A Lewd World]

I know you know there is a thriving indie game scene in just about every sub-genre on Steam. Please don't pretend all non-porn games are massively funded. And while some people would argue that indie games are held to a lower standard than AAA games just as many would call bullshit on that. Tons of game reviewers will flat out tell you a game being AAA is far from a guarantee it will be good, or even playable in general. Sometimes a AAA game is routinely panned before it's even out just because the publisher is known to be shitty.

These days the indie devs are more or less held to the same standards as so-called AAA games. I see no reason to expect less from a solo porn game dev than I would a solo indie game dev. But that's where we're at because naturally a game is going to be judged in part by the metric set by it's competitors. Which is a very low bar when it comes to porn games.


Well, to be fair I was speaking about Steam there. Usually there's a bit more involved on those store pages than 5 screenshots and 3 sentences. But I digress.

I think, there is a general problem with comparing "adult games" to "normal games" beyond the fact, that adult game devs have much less money for production and are in general rather single persons than groups.

In the "adult gaming industry", most games are "visual novels", which have in my opinion more in common with comics than with the most games, I use to play and may be held rather to those standards. The demand for this games might be actually quite high here, higher than for actual gameplay-heavy games. I think, most of the players are here rather to see their sexual fantasy outlived in a series of 2D or 3D-images than having complex gamedesign or a complex story and that's what drives the scene.

For me, my interest in finding interesting visual told lewd stories was the thing, that brought me into the "lewd game scene". Something, that I totally miss in porn. Engrish is not really a deal breaker, as long as I can enjoy the visual told story. So I really like e.g. Coming of Age despite there were quite some spelling mistakes when I started to play. I liked the overall idea that was presented. I find the lewd ideas presented quite creative. The writing is simple, but very lighthearted and somehow very appealing. In my own exploration of "writing adult fiction", I once even started to rip the game files, read the pure text, corrected the errors and sent the corrections to the dev, who implemented them.

But actually I also think there is a big amout of not that good games, especially from the early days of the forum which got lots of praise and revenue, but which I would today not try for long, as they may come around e.g. as too grindy. But I think, it is not the big amount of bad games/VNs, that lets the mediocre games shine, but rather the low amount of very good games/VNs from that time, that let those mediocre games shine. You can see this e.g. in the development of "Big Brother", which was a Top game in 2017 but which successor got abandoned only one year ago because is was not profitable anymore, while less grindy but better told games like "Being a DIK" or "The headmaster" can still drag the masses.