The impact of H-scenes on Visual Novels

[Kurisu-Chan]

That's the stigma yes, but pedophiles and sexual molesting is better than yakuza activity? That's where I am confused. Damnit Pulltop...

 

I don't know how Japanese mafia works, but if they are like Russians or Italian Mafias, well they have bad activities.

[Bolverk]

Hehe, you don't seem to understand the nature, origin, and target audience of this medium at all. H-Scenes are the biggest hurdle? No, they are more or less what keep the medium alive. Hentai gamers? Yes, why not, we were "perverts" to begin with. 

.....

Now there are Nukige, straight porn, there's nothing to argue about those. Most VN, however, tell a story and allow readers to familiarize with the characters. When the HS actually comes, these are characters you care about and probably like, what's wrong with a couple to have sex?  If we take the VN as a romance simulation, the sex is an important and most likely inevitable part of the relationship. Think depicting it is immature? I'll tell you what's immature: the panty shots and lame fanservice in anime and manga.

VNs are one of the few mediums that allow full length story telling with explicit sexual descriptions. I'm not saying anything without HS is bad, it all depends on the needs of the story and the purpose of the HS.

 

.....

It's accurate to say that the main people who buy vn's in Japan want h-content. If there was no demand for it, it wouldn't be there. It's not like it ruins the story or something.

I ctrl through mostly all of my HS. But depending on the heroine I might enjoy reading it lol. We are all pervs B) I honestly don't think it's a big deal deal OP.

 

Personally I'd just prefer the sex to be implied or very limited number of HS in most vn's. Many vn's waste a lot of potential CG use because of number of HS CG's they have. Subahibi had brilliant use of CG's imo, a lot of stuff was said simply by the CG.

[Clephas]

If you are reading VNs for H-scenes, you are a nukigamer, though you probably don't want to admit it - unless you are as open as Steve is.  If you believe that h-scenes ruin VNs, you probably shouldn't be involved with otakudom at all. 

 

The proper answer is 'h-scenes are the frosting on cake and the mold on bread'.  A proper VN-reader shouldn't consider them to be important either way, as h-scenes at best are no better than frosting on a cake and at worst, mold on otherwise edible bread.

 

Edit: I know that first paragraph sounds pretty... assholish?  However, it is a fact that if you are placing too much importance on the existence of or non-existence of h-scenes in VNs, you are probably way too far to one side or the other.  Sometimes I want to play a VN with no sexual focus, like Tokyo Babel, and at others, I feel like something with an ecchi atmosphere, such as Erect.  However, regardless of how I feel at a given moment, I don't place any significant interest in the existence of h-scenes.

 

Edit2: To be honest, I don't like seeing this ancient debate getting revived at all.  Tay already made a similar thread last year, and it was argued to death, so seeing this argument resurrected is rather unpleasant.

[Okami]

It's accurate to say that the main people who buy vn's in Japan want h-content. If there was no demand for it, it wouldn't be there. It's not like it ruins the story or something.

I ctrl through mostly all of my HS. But depending on the heroine I might enjoy reading it lol. We are all pervs B) I honestly don't think it's a big deal deal OP.

 

Personally I'd just prefer the sex to be implied or very limited number of HS in most vn's. Many vn's waste a lot of potential CG use because of number of HS CG's they have. Subahibi had brilliant use of CG's imo, a lot of stuff was said simply by the CG.

 

No it's not accurate to say that main people who buy vn's in Japan want h-content. as if that ware a case we wouldn't have so many VNs without them. And yes they do ruin both story and characters, it's just that perverts don't seem to care for that as long as they get their fap material.

 

And you are most obviously a pervert  just like you say but don't label the rest of us with you.

 

If you are reading VNs for H-scenes, you are a nukigamer, though you probably don't want to admit it - unless you are as open as Steve is.  If you believe that h-scenes ruin VNs, you probably shouldn't be involved with otakudom at all. 

 

 

So what you are saying that all of us who hate H-scenes and acknowledge that they ruin VNs and who hate ecchi content shouldn't a part of otaku culture? Otaku culture is not about perverted things, sure there is many pendering to perverts cause it gets money but it most definitely is not all about that.

 

 

That being said, sex is sex. Like it or don't, it can go both ways. People love Game of Thrones and other series on HBO, so it's just a matter of putting cartoon girls with unrealistic proportions in sexual situations that causes fluster. Ah well.

 

Game of thrones has some nudity it's can't be compared with porn like H-scenes from VNs. If it had actual porn it wouldn't be nowhere near as popular I guarantee it.

 

 

 

1 - If they have sex, they are hentai games, I mean, simple logic here. It's not any less good or any less bad, you can advertise a visual novel as just a visual novel if it doesn't have h-scenes and be successful with it too, why are visual novels with h-scenes making you look bad?

 

That is a very bad logic there, you can't call a whole work a porn if it has 15-20 min of porn scenes in 50h+ story (that are only there for better sales to begin with), and it is an insult to our community as what you are saying is that we all here are perverts gathering to talk about porn.

Visual novel with porn make you look bad because porn is for perverts, and people who aren't perverts will most probably stay away from it unless they somehow get into VNs before finding out about them.

 

 

 

PS: I newer stop being amazed at seeing how perverts can ignore all the obvious facts and defend porn with everything they have.

[ServeTheServant]

Well, that was predictable.  I'm just amazed we made it to page 2 before Okami started calling everyone perverts.

 

...mold on otherwise edible bread.

Off- topic... but aren't you supposed to throw out bread if there's any mold you can see, since the roots go deeper than the visible part?

[theboxcarracer]

Okay, look. I personally kind of enjoy H-scenes.

 

That doesn't mean that I think they are good for the medium as a whole. People seem to be saying that things don't need to change because they don't care what other people think; it doesn't matter if the rest of the world looks down on them and refuses to play them because you still enjoy it.

 

I don't think it's that simple, you know? As someone who doesn't read Japanese, I would love it if more VNs got officially translated and released in English, but that's not ever going to be a common occurrence as long as most outsiders to the medium only see VNs as porn. I also would love to have conversations about VNs with people outside this bubble, but that just isn't possible for me at the moment. I would really like to recommend games like Ever 17 to members of my family, or even to friends with no context for this sort of thing, but I can't do that because if they dig even a little bit deeper into this stuff, they'll find that 90% of the genre has pornographic content in it and be upset with me for liking this form of storytelling.

 

It's not just a matter of "I don't care what other people think." I mean, I feel like the pornographic content (or the perception that VNs exist only for such content) is keeping VNs from being popular in the west. And I would actually like this medium to thrive out here. There are some absolutely fantastic stories that have been told this way,and people are missing out.

[Guest]

Depends what you are looking for.

 

For example, I don't like seeing female characters getting their personnality destroyed just to become the slutty dirty girls which would make a male reader horny.

That's the main problem.

 

The H-scenes feel like they aren't part of the game, that they are just there for the sake of targeting a male audience who wants some.

 

Sure it's kind of understandable, but I think that it both reduces the quality of the story by introducing out of place scenes which are rarely relevant and which normalizes the female and male characters. Not that it's not how it would really happen, I mean you act quite differently druing sex than usually, but in a Visual Novel, where characters have a specific personnality which defines them in the story, it just feels wrong. I mean, I didn't see Saber the same way after that weird stuff ... Fate Stay Night could have been a 9.5 without these.

 

As for the relevancy, as said in the previous discussion, I think erotism can be relevant as it was in Katawa Shoujo for example when you almost never see any penetration act. Sex as in the action of showing love can be relevant, unfortunately, very very very few VN's do that. Most of the time the objective is to show as much genetalia as you can in completely impossible, mystical, innovative positions and just showcasing the fact that they are having the time of their lives.

 

Edit : And I agree with Clephas, this is just re-opening an old wound and restarting the endless opinion battle.

[Okami]

Well, that was predictable.  I'm just amazed we made it to page 2 before Okami started calling everyone perverts.

 

 

Off- topic... but aren't you supposed to throw out bread if there's any mold you can see, since the roots go deeper than the visible part?

 

Not everyone just those who really are perverts, and as you can see loth of them don't even deny it, in fact they even call themselves perverts. So how am I wrong here?

[Clephas]

Well, that was predictable.  I'm just amazed we made it to page 2 before Okami started calling everyone perverts.

 

 

Off- topic... but aren't you supposed to throw out bread if there's any mold you can see, since the roots go deeper than the visible part?

Rule of thumb is cut around it by a ratio of two to one, if it is just a few spots.  If it is a solid patch of mold (with no bread showing through) the size of your thumb, you might as well toss out that particular slice.  I thought it was a good analogy for nukige, myself...

 

Edit: Also, just as a side note, perversion is the natural state for the male brain.  People with low libidos are the exception, not the rule.  The ones who pretend otherwise are either lying to themselves or to others... or both.  I don't deny the idea of restraint, but I do find prudishness to be as disgusting as people who like reading rape scenes.  Both do their best to corrupt everyone around them with their way of thinking and both will never admit they can be wrong.

[Eclipsed]

Okay, look. I personally kind of enjoy H-scenes.

 

It's not just a matter of "I don't care what other people think." I mean, I feel like the pornographic content (or the perception that VNs exist only for such content) is keeping VNs from being popular in the west.

Yeah. I think many can agree that H-scene content in VNs do indeed act as a gatekeeper that prevents a good amount of people around the world from ever wanting to try out a VN.

But that makes me wonder.. why is sex considered a taboo in the first place?

I want to ask everybody who flat out refuse to read VNs solely because of H-scenes what their reasons are.

[Clephas]

Abrahamic faith influence, mostly.  In America, we have the lingering corrup- *coughs* cultural influence of the Puritans, the Catholic Church's idea of marriage is as restrictive as an animal cage, and I'm not even going to into what Islam says about sex outside of marriage...  To be blunt, this is a Western thing.  If it wasn't for the westernization that occurred in the nineteenth century, there wouldn't have even been a concept of marriage as we understand it in Japan.

 

Edit:  The commoner Japanese were frequently in states that were similar to common law marriage, but no one was going to waste money or time on a ceremony for it when there were crops to be planted or harvested.  Noble, samurai, and craftsman marriages were solely for the sake of providing heirs, alliances, and keeping the skills alive.  Romantic marriage was a nonexistent concept and divorce and de facto polygamy were common.

[edwd2]

I think that in short run little companies that don't have a a big budget and aren't that popular can lower a chases of failure (business/money failure not a quality failure) by adding H-scenes as even if people don't like it there will always be those who will buy them just for H-scenes. In a long run whoever they destroy them self, and they even lower a popularity of VNs that don't have H-scenes by being known as hentai-games. [...] So yes it's an easy way to earn some fast/easy money witch is the only purpose of H-scenes to begin with but in long run it has an extremely negative impact.

 

Your assumption could be valid if most VNs on sale do (or did) not have HScenes and by featuring HScenes, your game is different and will thus attract that specific group of consumers. That is clearly not the case, most commercial VN releases are R18 and buyers choose between these R18 VNs. The market is best characterized by monopolistic competition, firms sell similar products but product differentiation plays a major role in determining demand. Each game offers its own plot, art, set of characters and CVs that distinguishes itself from other games and, along with reviews and recommendations, affect the consumer's choice. Small companies do not "add" HScenes, they were meant to be part of the game to begin with, and it isn't just "little companies", the well known companies feature it too, Eushully, Alice, Akabei, N+, August, Light, etc. Take a look at the top sales from last year:

 

All of them feature HScenes, and assuming prices are stable after first press, sales are directly proportional to revenue. I can pull out another chart that totals sales from 1996 to 2008, but the R18 VNs are still an overwhelming majority. This implies that the majority of the market demands games featuring HScenes, if not, companies would have removed them and spent the budget elsewhere to increase profitability long before now. Thus it is only natural for companies competing in this market, large or small, to include, not "add" in HScenes. Now, it could be true that, had the terrible game not included HScenes, it could do even worse. This is because we would be considering a slightly different market with consumers that either do not want or do not care about HScenes, demand in general would be lower, causing an even lower revenue than the alternative, but a bad game will do bad either way. You claimed that, in the long run, these companies would eventually self destruct but never gave a reason. I don't see why a company that makes R18 VN can only profit in the short run. Going back to the chart from 2013, Giga, August, Purple, Pulltop, Alice, these are brands that used to make and still make R18 VNs they still succeed. Over time, if releases are appealing, a small producer will gain some degree of brand loyalty and become more widely known, it can create child brands (minato carnival, pulltop latte, etc.), produce FDs for its known works (see that 大空翼), and so on. Even nukige producers that focus almost exclusively on sexual content can grow large and profit, take Softhouse, Cyclet, or Lilim as examples. So how does including HScenes lead to and what is this "extremely negative impact" you speak of?

 

 

 I mean just how many people would newer even consider giving a VNs a chance after seeing or hearing about H-scenes, I myself if I had known about them before I stared reading VNs I would probably newer even get close to VNs.

 

So most VN players were fooled and only started playing VNs because they did not know about the presence of R18 content?

Ok, I don't know what to say here lol, this is just too ridiculous.

 

Even if you managed to avoid all of these, you can still quit upon the first HScene.

 

 

 

I would say that you are the one who doesn't understand those things, by pointing out how eroge are a center of a VNs as a medium you just show how little knowledge you in fact have about a topic.

 

Oh but they certainly are, in terms of sales and quantity. In the end, I'm the one who doesn't know?

 

P.S. Work on your English, it's a pain to read.

[Guest]

 

Yeah. I think many can agree that H-scene content in VNs do indeed act as a gatekeeper that prevents a good amount of people around the world from ever wanting to try out a VN.

Yes

But that makes me wonder.. why is sex considered a taboo in the first place?

Cause we aren't animals ?

Sex is something private and I'm glad society brainwashed me into thinking this way.

[Okami]

Rule of thumb is cut around it by a ratio of two to one, if it is just a few spots.  If it is a solid patch of mold (with no bread showing through) the size of your thumb, you might as well toss out that particular slice.  I thought it was a good analogy for nukige, myself...

 

Edit: Also, just as a side note, perversion is the natural state for the male brain.  People with low libidos are the exception, not the rule.  The ones who pretend otherwise are either lying to themselves or to others... or both.  I don't deny the idea of restraint, but I do find prudishness to be as disgusting as people who like reading rape scenes.  Both do their best to corrupt everyone around them with their way of thinking and both will never admit they can be wrong.

 

It's also natural to go naked because you are born naked, to eat raw meat, to live in caves, to kill other males when they enter your territory, to have sex by raping, for physically stronger male to take anything he wants, to resolve deputes by fights, cause that is all nature, but we are humans we have intelligence and we can use it to not do things the way our instincts tell us to.

[nohman]

Let's keep the discussion away from what kind of people enjoy h-content (as per the OP and to avoid beating a dead horse like was done in the other topic) and instead focus on their place and impact in VNs.

 

 

 

 

 

[Chronopolis]

Edit2: To be honest, I don't like seeing this ancient debate getting revived at all.  Tay already made a similar thread last year, and it was argued to death, so seeing this argument resurrected is rather unpleasant.

 

I agree. More interesting, I think, is the way and extent in which VN heriones are idealized.

[Eclipsed]

TL;DR Sex is portrayed as a negative thing because people are conservative with their beliefs and so because of this negative view people are repelled from entering the world of visual novels due to the H-scene content.

~~~
Psst maef, that doesn't explain my question. Sure, sex is a private thing. So how does that translate into people having this negative view towards any medium that portrays sex?

[hellish]

So the shit finally hit the fan. Fuwa civil war imminent.

For me, I only read VN on console where it's mandatory for game companies to remove all H scenes. And I never feel off, or that something is amiss in the story. This is expected because H scenes are generally fillers targeting a certain audience which I don't belong to.

But since I can't change other people's opinion, I just hope all VN companies include an option to allow players to turn off H content so everyone would be happy.

[Okami]

Your assumption could be valid if most VNs on sale do (or did) not have HScenes and by featuring HScenes, your game is different and will thus attract that specific group of consumers. That is clearly not the case, most commercial VN releases are R18 and buyers choose between these R18 VNs. The market is best characterized by monopolistic competition, firms sell similar products but product differentiation plays a major role in determining demand. Each game offers its own plot, art, set of characters and CVs that distinguishes itself from other games and, along with reviews and recommendations, affect the consumer's choice. Small companies do not "add" HScenes, they were meant to be part of the game to begin with, and it isn't just "little companies", the well known companies feature it too, Eushully, Alice, Akabei, N+, August, Light, etc. Take a look at the top sales from last year:

 

All of them feature HScenes, and assuming prices are stable after first press, sales are directly proportional to revenue. I can pull out another chart that totals sales from 1996 to 2008, but the R18 VNs are still an overwhelming majority. This implies that the majority of the market demands games featuring HScenes, if not, companies would have removed them and spent the budget elsewhere to increase profitability long before now. Thus it is only natural for companies competing in this market, large or small, to include, not "add" in HScenes. Now, it could be true that, had the terrible game not included HScenes, it could do even worse. This is because we would be considering a slightly different market with consumers that either do not want or do not care about HScenes, demand in general would be lower, causing an even lower revenue than the alternative, but a bad game will do bad either way. You claimed that, in the long run, these companies would eventually self destruct but never gave a reason. I don't see why a company that makes R18 VN can only profit in the short run. Going back to the chart from 2013, Giga, August, Purple, Pulltop, Alice, these are brands that used to make and still make R18 VNs they still succeed. Over time, if releases are appealing, a small producer will gain some degree of brand loyalty and become more widely known, it can create child brands (minato carnival, pulltop latte, etc.), produce FDs for its known works (see that 大空翼), and so on. Even nukige producers that focus almost exclusively on sexual content can grow large and profit, take Softhouse, Cyclet, or Lilim as examples. So how does including HScenes lead to and what is this "extremely negative impact" you speak of?

 

 

 

So most VN players were fooled and only started playing VNs because they did not know about the presence of R18 content?

Ok, I don't know what to say here lol, this is just too ridiculous.

 

Even if you managed to avoid all of these, you can still quit upon the first HScene.

 

 

 

 

Oh but they certainly are, in terms of sales and quantity. In the end, I'm the one who doesn't know?

 

P.S. Work on your English, it's a pain to read.

 

No they do add them, most of the times they aren't even illustrated by the same artist and written by the same writer, not to mention that it is just obvious in most VNs that H-scenes aren't part of the story/aren't meant to be there and are forcebly added there. You know that this is a fact, you just deny it because like I said, perverts tent to ignore the facts and defend their porn no meter what.

 

Those are all PC VNs companies and in Japan it's consoles games that get most attention, witch most of VNs that get good sales eventually go where they don't need H-scenes.

 

I newer said that H-scenes don't give money to companies or that there is no demand for it, there are lot of perverts so there is a demand and that is a way for companies to get insurance that even if people don't like the story there will always still be pervert who buy just for H--scenes.

 

No not most of VNs players, just the decent ones who are not perverts. Well that is for a west in Japan there is many VNs that don't have H-scenes so that's a whole different story.

 

And once you already get into VNs you can't just quit because you found out about H-scenes it is not that simple, don't pretend you don't understand that.

 

True I did make a mistake it's not that you don't know it's just that you don't want to accept the truth.

[Clephas]

Okami.  VNs are generally considered differently over there than they are here.  It is true that in almost all areas - except MMORPGs - consoles beat out PC gaming over there.  Not only that, but most gamers are on portables, which is why the Vita isn't dead. 

 

First, it would be more appropriate to say the existence of sexual content hurts VN sales over here, not in Japan.  Second, there are precisely two major VN studios that do almost-exclusively unique non-ero VNs over there that aren't Otome game companies (better than nine out of ten otome-ge being non-ero).  Those two are 5pb (associate of Nitro+ that did Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate),  and Visual Arts (owns the Key brand).  The rest are usually anime and normal video game derivative VNs (example: official Oreimo VN). 

 

Third, VNs are played primarily on the PC over there, consoles being preferred for 'normal' gaming, such as shooters, sports, and rpgs.  Better than ninety out of every hundred VNs are produced on PC and their sales almost always (outside of the works by the two companies above) outstripped by the cream of the PC crop.  To be blunt, VNs are only barely considered to be games at all, and because they are mostly seen as a 'sit down and play' genre/medium, they are generally relegated to PC as a result.  Portables, which make up the largest portion of the gaming market over there, generally only receive those anime-derivatives and the occasional conversion or port.  There is a market over there for the non-ero romantic games(galge), but generally the people playing those make the 'transition' to the ero ones if they don't drop it altogether before they hit 18 or their parents give permission (if they wait for permission *smiles dryly*).  As my friend once explained it to me 'eroge are safe, porn is dangerous'.  エロゲーは安全だけど、ポルノはけっこうヤバイよ。　

 

I should also add that ero-content hurting sales over here is relative and also a recent development (as in the last two or three years) because it limits who it can be sold to too much.  Until relatively recently, nukige made up most of the imported VNs and almost all of the sales.

 

Edit: Also, stop looking for global absolutes when it comes for gaming preferences.  They don't exist.  If they did, the US VN market would be as glutted as the one over there.

 

Edit2: Oh, I'm not posting in this thread or even going to look at it again.  Being the つっこみやく　to Okami's ぼけやく　is a lot more tiring than I thought it would be.

[crunchytaco]

 'h-scenes are the frosting on cake and the mold on bread'.  A proper VN-reader shouldn't consider them to be important either way, as h-scenes at best are no better than frosting on a cake and at worst, mold on otherwise edible bread.

 

I think having a healthy libido is a good thing and there's nothing to be ashamed about. But I wouldn't play a VN that is only focused on H content. I'd rather just look up the scenes on an image dump for hentai or similar. But an involving VN that makes me care for its characters makes H Scenes more than just frosting on a cake. It's a thirsty requirement like when girls read a chick flick and wonder, "When will he just kiss her already?" 

 

Sure H scenes are mostly written for an audience of Otaku in mind so the standards aren't Hollywood-esque, but I like to know when our MC and our Heroine entwined with love and passion nontheless. I'm a visual person, so just imagining it alone isn't enough - hence Visual Novel.

 

I don't know how people here can be so "chaste" about their VNs. They remind me of my parents who prefer their movies without any kissing involved. 

 

I want the WHOLE PACKAGE. 

[TheFantasm]

So this thread has now devolved to Okami labelling everyone who disagrees with him as perverts. Cool.

[Giki190]

Honestly, people get too butthurt (no pun intended) over Hs, if you don't want to see it than just fast-forward but you don't have to curse everyone who likes to see it and the same goes for vice-versa 

Y'all need to move on from this H shit, and just enjoy VNs with of all it's beauties and qualms

[Parallel Pain]

No they do add them, most of the times they aren't even illustrated by the same artist and written by the same writer, not to mention that it is just obvious in most VNs that H-scenes aren't part of the story/aren't meant to be there and are forcebly added there. You know that this is a fact, you just deny it because like I said, perverts tent to ignore the facts and defend their porn no meter what.

Fact. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

 

Maeda Jun gave his own thoughts on what he aimed for when writing each Hscene of Tomoyo After in the visual fan book.

 

Taking Little Busters! EX：

Komari and Midori's Hscene are the traditional Key wtf bad end.

Kudo's Kurugaya, first Haruka, Mio, Saya, Sasami, and Rin are normal making love between lovers.

Second Haruka and Kanata add to their character and plot.

 

Now take Sakuya 18+ version. Of 4 Hscene, 3 are plot important. And the only reason the 4th isn't is because it's tucked away in an after story.

 

No not most of VNs players, just the decent ones who are not perverts. Well that is for a west in Japan there is many VNs that don't have H-scenes so that's a whole different story.

What Clephas said. Also please stop pushing your own morality onto other people. And please don't project your own values onto a people who highly prized Shunga.

 

And once you already get into VNs you can't just quit because you found out about H-scenes it is not that simple, don't pretend you don't understand that.

Sounds like sunk cost fallacy.

[Okami]

So this thread has now devolved to Okami labelling everyone who disagrees with him as perverts. Cool.

 

Everyone that disagrees with me? not at all, just those who are perverts, and as you can see lot of them are not denying it, and some are even calling themselves perverts.