Hentai games

[[Hun]Lepto]

Anywhere else than a visual novel forum, whenever an eroge is brought up, people put the label "hentai game" on it. It's so goddamn annoying, it completely puts a bad spotlight on most of the great eroges. They call it that simply, because there are sex scenes, which is the dumbest shit I have ever seen. Are people seriously that unaware of the medium that they can't differentate them?

Edited July 5, 2020 by [Hun]Lepto
Overexaggerated title

[Plk_Lesiak]

It's not intuitive for an average person in the West for porn games to offer anything more than a bare-minimum story. Porn and meaningful stuff just don't go together in our culture and romance itself is not a particularly respected genre either... So unless someone has decent insight on what high-budget eroge actually look like, disregarding them as dumb fodder for horny weebs is the most natural thing to do.

This might change with time, as Japanese eroge get more prominent in the West and people stop being such prudes... But I wouldn't hold my breath. :>

[Yuuko]

i love hentai

[wheelchair goku]

they call it a hentai game cause it is a hentai game 

[Templarseeker]

No hentai no life!

[Zalor]

18 hours ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Porn and meaningful stuff just don't go together in our culture

What bothers me is when people dismiss VNs because of H-scenes, but then they will turn around and talk about how Game of Thrones and many other TV shows which frequently show sex scenes are their favorite shows. Especially when it comes to 18+ ploge, the amount of sex scenes they typically have is fairly comparable to the amount of sex scenes in many western dramas. So not that much. Therefore I see it as no reason to dismiss them for that alone.

[droganpc]

According to Wikipedia:

" With the usage of hentai as any erotic depiction, the history of these depictions is split into their media. Japanese artwork and comics serve as the first example of hentai material, coming to represent the iconic style after the publication of Azuma Hideo's Cybele in 1979. Japanese animation (anime) had its first hentai, in both definitions, with the 1984 release of Wonderkid's Lolita Anime, overlooking the erotic and sexual depictions in 1969's One Thousand and One Arabian Nights and the bare-breasted Cleopatra in 1970's Cleopatra film. Erotic games, another area of contention, has its first case of the art style depicting sexual acts in 1985's Tenshitachi no Gogo. In each of these mediums, the broad definition and usage of the term complicates its historic examination "

so, eroge is a subgenre of hentai

Furthermore, "hentai game" or "sex game" are more popular words than "eroge" 

"eroge" (erotic game) is also a Japanese term, how do you call an erotic game outside of Japan ?

[[Hun]Lepto]

7 hours ago, droganpc said:

According to Wikipedia:

" With the usage of hentai as any erotic depiction, the history of these depictions is split into their media. Japanese artwork and comics serve as the first example of hentai material, coming to represent the iconic style after the publication of Azuma Hideo's Cybele in 1979. Japanese animation (anime) had its first hentai, in both definitions, with the 1984 release of Wonderkid's Lolita Anime, overlooking the erotic and sexual depictions in 1969's One Thousand and One Arabian Nights and the bare-breasted Cleopatra in 1970's Cleopatra film. Erotic games, another area of contention, has its first case of the art style depicting sexual acts in 1985's Tenshitachi no Gogo. In each of these mediums, the broad definition and usage of the term complicates its historic examination "

so, eroge is a subgenre of hentai

Furthermore, "hentai game" or "sex game" are more popular words than "eroge" 

"eroge" (erotic game) is also a Japanese term, how do you call an erotic game outside of Japan ?

Hard to see it as a subgenre, considering how different they really are. For example, even some of our western games have sexual scenes, can they be called porn games when their main theme doesn't rely on porn, but just merely serve as story- and/or character-related materials?

Also, erotic games were in the west even before eroges became a popularity, why would there be any difficulty in calling them "ero games" for example in the west? It's not like the term "erotic" comes from Japan.

[Mr Poltroon]

12 hours ago, Zalor said:

What bothers me is when people dismiss VNs because of H-scenes, but then they will turn around and talk about how Game of Thrones and many other TV shows which frequently show sex scenes are their favorite shows. Especially when it comes to 18+ ploge, the amount of sex scenes they typically have is fairly comparable to the amount of sex scenes in many western dramas. So not that much. Therefore I see it as no reason to dismiss them for that alone.

Whilst I'm not contradicting any of what you say, because I do not disagree, I am fairly convinced that H-Scenes as we regularly see them in VNs and sex scenes as present in Western games or shows are simply not on the same level in terms of imagery.

VNs frequently use extreme angles, exaggerated proportions, and direct shots into (often pixelised) genitals that are clearly not comparable to anything in mainstream Western media.
At least that is my impression. Does anybody have any examples to the contrary in the Western mainstream?

Whilst I doubt this is the cause for the dismissal (the presence of a few bad eggs and frequent fetishised proportions in most anime art are more likely culprits), it may still be a factor to have in mind.

[adamstan]

19 minutes ago, Mr Poltroon said:

VNs frequently use angles, proportions and direct shots into (often pixelised) genitals

Yeah. And it gets tiresome after a while. I disliked most of the WagaHigh's HCGs because of that (and weird nipples).

For the contrary examples, some HCGs from Aokana come to mind - some of the Misaki's scenes use angles that don't show genitals at all. It actually feels pretty refreshing.

[sanahtlig]

In a Venn diagram counting releases (especially Japanese PC), "hentai games" and "visual novels" have a great deal of overlap.  However, "hentai games" includes a variety of games without a narrative focus, including gameplay-focused titles and sex sims.  These are more familiar to some audiences than visual novels.  "Visual novels" include non-adult releases, especially in English.

Which term is used also signals what is most salient or important to the speakers.  To the casual onlooker, the presence of hardcore porn in this genre is more striking than the narrative format in use.  To someone who doesn't appreciate the narrative format or is ambivalent about it, there's little reason to emphasize it (except to distract from the adult content).  From my perspective, whether the games contain porn or not, it is striking that the vast majority in this genre focus on the interaction of the protagonist with pretty girls (or guys).  Given that, whether the games contain porn or not is almost a technicality.

Edited July 7, 2020 by sanahtlig

[Stormwolf]

It has porn, it is a hentai game. Go ahead, play one of those with normal sound levels while your parents are watching or close by. You'd be thanking me if you didn't know.

Edited July 8, 2020 by Stormwolf

[[Hun]Lepto]

1 hour ago, Stormwolf said:

It has porn, it is a hentai game. Go ahead, play one of those with normal sound levels while your parents are watching or close by. You'd be thanking me if you didn't know.

So is then any western game that has sexual scenes aswell. All of them are porn games, the good gameplay is just extra.

[Stormwolf]

12 hours ago, [Hun]Lepto said:

So is then any western game that has sexual scenes aswell. All of them are porn games, the good gameplay is just extra.

I assume you havent played many western games if you don't realize the difference between the two.

[[Hun]Lepto]

3 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

I assume you havent played many western games if you don't realize the difference between the two.

Giving it more thought, western games actually don't have as much focus on the sex scenes as eroges do. Whatever, I got tired of this debate, let's call all 18+ visual novels just very long animated porn novels and be done with it.

[littleshogun]

To answer OP here, while granted that it can be quite irritating if people mistaken great eroge as hentai, there's nothing much that we can do other than tried to convince the people who call eroge as hentai to play the Steam version of the eroge first (There should be quite a number of examples as of now). Personally I wouldn't take some offense to the people who call the great eroge as hentai because it's what the people who wouldn't know VN medium would perceive eroge is, but it's mostly come from my experience in that I find VN through asking some recommendations from the people who happen to have some hentai game. But if you feel offended by that, I'm sorry.

Lastly, rather than get annoyed by some people who probably wouldn't want to understand what a great eroge is because of hentai label, the easiest way to get around of it would be just don't mind on what people called on the eroge and just focused on enjoying it. Plain and simple.

Edited July 10, 2020 by littleshogun

[[Hun]Lepto]

2 hours ago, littleshogun said:

To answer OP here, while granted that it can be quite irritating if people mistaken great eroge as hentai, there's nothing much that we can do other than tried to convince the people who call eroge as hentai to play the Steam version of the eroge first (There should be quite a number of examples as of now). Personally I wouldn't take some offense to the people who call the great eroge as hentai because it's what the people who wouldn't know VN medium would perceive eroge is, but it's mostly come from my experience in that I find VN through asking some recommendations from the people who happen to have some hentai game. But if you feel offended by that, I'm sorry.

Lastly, rather than get annoyed by some people who probably wouldn't want to understand what a great eroge is because of hentai label, the easiest way to get around of it would be just don't mind on what people called on the eroge and just focused on enjoying it. Plain and simple.

Meh, to be honest, I was kinda just triggered when I made that post, because I saw 2-3 posts that day that mentioned eroges and was really annoyed when 70% of the comments mentioned hentai game instead. Usually I'm not that short-tempered.

[littleshogun]

Considering that the discussion might be held in a place where more general people come (ie the people who may only either play casual games, play mainstream games, or not really a gamer in the first place), in that case it's not really their fault if they call eroge as hentai because it's pretty much what people think. While granted you was angry because of that, to me it's still not quite worth to get angry over that matter because it would be very hard to change the calling of hentai games. Or rather if you think that it's worth to get angry over, perhaps you should try to teach them in regard of eroge and VNs although I know that it's easier said than done.

Edited July 11, 2020 by littleshogun

[Stormwolf]

There is nothing to teach regarding eroge. As long as the vn has porn scenes of "my pussy feels good, cum inside me, your dick is so good" while looking at a porn scene of a guy sticking his dick in her vagina then the game can be considered a porn game, regardless what other content it has. Instead of wrongly trying to teach people what an eroge is and isn't, focus instead on showing them games that don't have this kind of content.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Stormwolf

[[Hun]Lepto]

8 hours ago, littleshogun said:

Considering that the discussion might be held in a place where more general people come (ie the people who may only either play casual games, play mainstream games, or not really a gamer in the first place), in that case it's not really their fault if they call eroge as hentai because it's pretty much what people think. While granted you was angry because of that, to me it's still not quite worth to get angry over that matter because it would be very hard to change the calling of hentai games. Or rather if you think that it's worth to get angry over, perhaps you should try to teach them in regard of eroge and VNs although I know that it's easier said than done.

It's mainly an anime meme group on Reddit (mind you, there's many trash memes there, so I only search for the rare good ones), so I hoped there would be a bit more knowledge for people there. Guess I was not right.

[[Hun]Lepto]

4 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

There is nothing to teach regarding eroge. As long as the vn has porn scenes of "my pussy feels good, cum inside me, your dick is so good" while looking at a porn scene of a guy sticking his dick in her vagina then the game can be considered a porn game, regardless what other content it has. Instead of wrongly trying to teach people what an eroge is and isn't, focus instead on showing them games that don't have this kind of content.

Sadly, this feels more like going around the problem rather than solving it. Showing them non-eroges still won't fix the issue, because they will still be more shy with normal eroges without knowing what content they can offer despite them also having some erotic content aswell. Imagine that a masterpiece like Majikoi should not be shown, because it has some H-scenes for each heroines while the majority of it has almost zero focus on romance or any erotic content.

Edited July 11, 2020 by [Hun]Lepto