Future of gaming: Desert Stalker & Project: Passion

[Chaos Theory]

With AI graphics improving and some talented storytelling, I really see games like this taking off beyond the niche audience they've so far had. They're more like novels, but with graphic adult-oriented sexual content-- similar to the first couple seasons of Game of Thrones.

Unfortunately due to that very graphic nature, these types of games have so far been relegated to the shady back alley of Steam, being marketed as a porn fix when in fact they are much more than that.

Desert Stalker and Project: Passion are actually really good stories, though make no mistake, they are very clearly hetero male-oriented. But if I'm right, and this type of experience increases in popularity, additional offerings in this genre will begin to cater to other preferences as well. However, if they're going to 'break out' into a wider audience, additional content, or "seasons", really need to be released at a faster pace.

Desert Stalker, specifically, was quite well written, minus some face-palming dialogue during the sex scenes. I'm not sure if it was a translation issue or just lack of erotic writing ability, but phrases like "feel her up" just break the fluidity of the scene. And there's just too much talking, in general. Producers: great job, but please find a writer who can more effectively paint the visual picture during these delicate moments.

Shani and Nadia are top-notch characters, and I hope to see them featured heavily in future seasons. I wasn't much interested in exaggerated physical features (Ain, Zahra, etc), but I realize most of the target audience may not agree with me. However it would be nice to see more variance in body types and composition, moving forward.

Having played both Desert Stalker (non-voiced) and Project: Passion (voiced), I actually prefer non-voiced. I often felt they were 'off', and sounded forced or fake. It's best to leave that kind of stuff to imagination, in my opinion. Also, voice acting adds complexity and cost to production, so skipping it would be a more efficient use of resources.

The bottom line is that Desert Stalker was an unexpectedly-good game and I look forward to more content. I hope the sales justify it.

[Fractal]

I think Steam distribution of adult games has come leaps and bounds in the 5 or so years since Valve gave the green light to this category of game.

There hasn't been a "HBO-level" mass audience breakout moment for mature games yet; but if the quality of writing and art assets keep increasing, eventually some adult game will break through the ceiling. Quality rather than speed will help with this legitimisation; especially as games across the board are taking longer to make and we simply spot this more due to the popularity of the Early Access model for indie adult titles.

Character variation is one of the trickiest to pull off well in any AVN. You can't please everyone and even the classics of the genre like Becoming a ΔIK had to be selective. I try to measure body types on plausibility for the setting, which the too-clean raiders notwithstanding, is pretty good in Desert Stalker.

Excessive branching is my biggest concern with adult visual novels. Given their relatively constrained budgets, too many characters or parallel plot threads can result in shallower content or a story that never finishes cleanly. This almost happened (or did happen depending on your perspective) for the post-apocalyptic game with similar vibes to Desert Stalker - S.H.E.L.T.E.R.

[Alfon]

I'd be careful. The world gets more conservative every day. The more successful adult games get, the more likely new regulantions and censorships end up coming down.

What's happening with Steam is an anomaly. This is not the direction porn and eroticism is moving towards in the west. I don't think it can last.

But that's just my opinion, not what I wish to happen.

[BedlamBetty]

Originally posted by Alfon:

This is not the direction porn and eroticism is moving towards in the west. I don't think it can last.

What data, precisely, are you basing this opinion on?
Porn is freely available online, and is not going away.
There are only a handful of fetishes or fantasies, at best, you would be unable to watch online legally.
Not like people can have different opinions about different issues across a spectrum of simplified "ideological" implications or anything.

[Alfon]

Originally posted by BedlamBetty:

Originally posted by Alfon:

This is not the direction porn and eroticism is moving towards in the west. I don't think it can last.

What data, precisely, are you basing this opinion on?
Porn is freely available online, and is not going away.
There are only a handful of fetishes or fantasies, at best, you would be unable to watch online legally.
Not like people can have different opinions about different issues across a spectrum of simplified "ideological" implications or anything.

A lot of small reasons.

Patreon is falling down over creators more than ever, the most popular porn sites are burning thousands of videos because they could be confused with controversial themes. Youtube guidelines are more restrictive than ever over mature content, like most media. Many big pornsites are declining and dying. The laws are getting harder towards porn worldwide. You can even see the change in casual conversations about sex. Now in many western countries those conversations are much harder to keep than 20 years ago. Nothing seems to be more offensive than sex nowadays, despite (almost) everybody liking it.

Etc., etc., etc...

There's more content than ever but that's misleading. It's because the internet is bigger than ever. But the reaction to that amount of content is happening. I am expecting a lot of outrage against steam in a not very distant future for their support to adult content. It's already happening. But the people who ruin these things are slow and they haven't agreed in how to deal with this.

I have seen this topic appearing in some political debates but they are confused about it, they are still waiting for some big political head to point his finger and say something dumb.

[Darlandra]

Originally posted by Alfon:

Originally posted by BedlamBetty:

What data, precisely, are you basing this opinion on?
Porn is freely available online, and is not going away.
There are only a handful of fetishes or fantasies, at best, you would be unable to watch online legally.
Not like people can have different opinions about different issues across a spectrum of simplified "ideological" implications or anything.

A lot of small reasons.

Patreon is falling down over creators more than ever, the most popular porn sites are burning thousands of videos because they could be confused with controversial themes. Youtube guidelines are more restrictive than ever over mature content, like most media. Many big pornsites are declining and dying. The laws are getting harder towards porn worldwide. You can even see the change in casual conversations about sex. Now in many western countries those conversations are much harder to keep than 20 years ago. Nothing seems to be more offensive than sex nowadays, despite (almost) everybody liking it.

Etc., etc., etc...

There's more content than ever but that's misleading. It's because the internet is bigger than ever. But the reaction to that amount of content is happening. I am expecting a lot of outrage against steam in a not very distant future for their support to adult content. It's already happening. But the people who ruin these things are slow and they haven't agreed in how to deal with this.

I have seen this topic appearing in some political debates but they are confused about it, they are still waiting for some big political head to point his finger and say something dumb.

Nothing you said really carries weight when placed against known facts:
1) Patreon was never meant to be a porn site. It was meant to be like kickstarter and help circumvent the traditional "investor/publisher" role that limits development. They as a business have a legitimate reason to not be confused with onlyfans.
2) Porn sites are burning hundreds of thousands of videos because of very real pedophilea and human trafficing issues. It was VERY easy on PH and the other sites owned by the same company to find BLATANTLY underage sex down to early teens. Them not controlling that has simply bit them in the a$$ and lawmakers are cracking down on the explosion of pedophilia going on thanks to the trans movement
3) Youtube was always meant to be family friendly, again you have a private business trying to NOT be confused with a porn site.
4) Yes laws are getting harsher, and thats related to 2: Pedophilia and human trafficing is through the ROOF. Right now there are more human slaves alive than have EVER existed in humany history, and the majority of them are sex slaves. The modern world is trying to stop its spread.

Steam is fine. Because a core part of the steam account is your age, they are completely protected against everything but pedophilia which is why that and NC are basically the only things they "restrict". Mature games are exploding and yes eventually it'll reach equilibrium, but if you think that the world trying to stop child diddlers is everyoen "cracking down" then you might want to re-evaluate your stance.

[Fractal]

The topic may have drifted somewhat.

These things go in cycles; computer pornography has been around since the 1980s and has survived at least two anti-pornography waves - a moral panic in the 1990s when families started going online as a sizeable demographic; and another in the 2010s when the commercialisation of user-content platforms peaked within an ostracisation ecology.

Both viewpoints could be equally legitimate and we may end up with higher quality adult video games catering to more fetishes but less of it overall with more hurdles for access. You can't really criminalise human biology - the church tried for a thousand years and failed anyway.

A given election cycle or even a given generation doesn't shape these trends on the long run. It took centuries for people to really get to grips with the printing press.

[Alfon]

Originally posted by Fractal:

The topic may have drifted somewhat.

These things go in cycles; computer pornography has been around since the 1980s and has survived at least two anti-pornography waves - a moral panic in the 1990s when families started going online as a sizeable demographic; and another in the 2010s when the commercialisation of user-content platforms peaked within an ostracisation ecology.

Both viewpoints could be equally legitimate and we may end up with higher quality adult video games catering to more fetishes but less of it overall with more hurdles for access. You can't really criminalise human biology - the church tried for a thousand years and failed anyway.

A given election cycle or even a given generation doesn't shape these trends on the long run. It took centuries for people to really get to grips with the printing press.

Oh, I don't doubt porn will survive, it's inherent to humanity in a way. It's just that the fact that games like this are on steam feels way too good to be true and I am just waiting for things to change back.

It's probably just my own cynical view of reality.

[ZT]

Hey Chaos Theory,

Along your recommendation of the mentioned two avn titles. I can also recommend this title: "Summer¨s Gone". (Just in case you dont already know of it).

[Joe Coffee]

Originally posted by ZT:

Hey Chaos Theory,

Along your recommendation of the mentioned two avn titles. I can also recommend this title: "Summer¨s Gone". (Just in case you dont already know of it).

Thanks for discussing this game. As someone who has depression, and since this game deals with mental illnesses, can relate to the MC or those around.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2240150/Summers_Gone__Season_1/

And since Projekt: Passion was in the title of the thread:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2173800/Projekt_Passion__Season_1/

Two cool-looking games that can be placed on radar. Thanks!

[Chaos Theory]

Thanks for the updates and recommendations! I've since played and strongly recommend:

Eternum (Prob #1 for me now)
University of Problems
Origin Story
Halfway House

None I believe are available on Steam. There are more out there, and I'll let you know if they are worth mentioning.

[roland.2004]

Originally posted by Alfon:

Originally posted by BedlamBetty:

What data, precisely, are you basing this opinion on?
Porn is freely available online, and is not going away.
There are only a handful of fetishes or fantasies, at best, you would be unable to watch online legally.
Not like people can have different opinions about different issues across a spectrum of simplified "ideological" implications or anything.

A lot of small reasons.

Patreon is falling down over creators more than ever, the most popular porn sites are burning thousands of videos because they could be confused with controversial themes. Youtube guidelines are more restrictive than ever over mature content, like most media. Many big pornsites are declining and dying. The laws are getting harder towards porn worldwide. You can even see the change in casual conversations about sex. Now in many western countries those conversations are much harder to keep than 20 years ago. Nothing seems to be more offensive than sex nowadays, despite (almost) everybody liking it.

Etc., etc., etc...

There's more content than ever but that's misleading. It's because the internet is bigger than ever. But the reaction to that amount of content is happening. I am expecting a lot of outrage against steam in a not very distant future for their support to adult content. It's already happening. But the people who ruin these things are slow and they haven't agreed in how to deal with this.

I have seen this topic appearing in some political debates but they are confused about it, they are still waiting for some big political head to point his finger and say something dumb.

I totally agree with Alfon, but I think Darlanda's comments reveal the views of the conservative right.
“The modern world is trying to stop this scourge”! What scourge? Pedophilia has always existed and always will. It's normal to fight against its spread on social networks, but we can never fight human nature, and like it or not, it's part of it. If it's more visible today, it's because of new communication technologies.
As Alfon says, we're in a period when puritanism and the demonization of sexuality are making a comeback.
Hentai-style adult content sometimes borders on paedophile content, and it's proliferating on Steam. Although it's not my thing, I don't see it as a real problem as long as it remains virtual. But once you start censoring, you never know where it's going to stop. Youtube and other platforms have come to censor art. That's why I'm against censorship of nudity, except of course for child pornography and explicitly pornographic content on mainstream platforms. It's not up to YouTube to decide what people can or can't see. The choice must be left to each individual. No conservative movement, churches included, has the right to impose its vision of morality on the whole world.