…Nn. Mou, asa?

I’ve noticed there seems to be a group of people who say they read eroge and another group who say they play them. I wanted to do a quick comparison between potential reasoning for people using each term and decide which fits the genre best.

Let’s just ignore the fact that the -ge stands for game since a lot of people in the English translated community call them visual novels. I’m going to focus on their properties, not their names.

Defense for “reading”: Eroge have a lot of emphasis on the text, and  basically the only thing the audience does is read. So they’re basically like books or manga — they’re read.

Defense for “playing”: Eroge have text, pictures, sound and usually at least some interactivity, therefore they’re akin to games and are played.

I’m part of the latter group. In case you haven’t read my previous “Thoughts” article, I wrote about the defining characteristics of eroge and why we play them. Voices, in particular, are a significant contribution to my enjoyment of the genre. So if we exclude interactivity for now, including voices, pictures, and text makes eroge close to foreign subtitled movies. Do people say they read them? No. They watch them.

So now let’s add interactivity — choices. If our baseline of text, voices, and pictures equals watching, we already eliminated reading as a potential verb. Adding interactivity would logically bring it closer to  traditional video games, which includes text, voices, pictures, and interactivity. We say that we play traditional video games, therefore it seems to me that we should also say we play eroge.

Some people may argue that the interactiveness is weak, but it’s still there. It’s still an important aspect of the genre. Most people probably want to decide which path they’re going to end up on and the order they play them in.

Yes, there are exceptions to every example I provided. There are movies and eroge without sound. There are eroge without choices. But in general, most modern eroge and movies fit my description. Instead of focusing on the outliers, focusing on the most common example makes sense. And from what I’ve argued, “playing” eroge makes more sense.

I’ve been looking for new eroge to play, and the question of what I’m looking for in an eroge kept popping up. Why do I play them? What qualities do they have that make me choose a certain one over another? Why do I prefer eroge over other types of media?

I decided to look into what I think are potential reasons for why people play eroge, and then I’ll see where I fit.

Romance. One of the more obvious factors. People could play eroge because they like romantic stories or want a change of pace from typical games that usually feature war and stuff. Or maybe the girls in eroge represent an ideal that players want in real life but can’t obtain. This leads to the second point.

Alternate reality. People want to live a different life. Eroge provide a method to experience different worlds or new relationships. If romance is the key property, this could come from a lack of romance in real life, dissatisfaction with real life relationships, or simply a desire to try something new. Maybe Micchi the player wants a loud, jealous, energetic, and annoying brat imouto that they don’t have in real life. Or maybe the player wants a radically different world with magic and stuff, something that the real world can’t provide.

Story. Maybe romance isn’t your thing. Maybe the reason one plays eroge is for the story. Many eroge have epic stories that can be achieved due to the length of the game. The only other form of media that provide as much of a focus on story are books, which lack many properties of eroge, which I’ll discuss later. Another strength of eroge is providing a slice of life story.

Characters. This can be another part of an alternative reality. Players may find characters they like so much that they want to spend a lot of time with them. People who care mostly about characters enjoy the experience of daily life with a character they like. It’s not necessarily the story that they like, but the process of going through it with a character they really like.

Ero. This may sound self-explanatory, but I think it goes deeper than that. In other forms of media like anime and manga, relationships feel a bit underwhelming because they often move too slowly or don’t develop as much as real relationships do. In real life, people have sex. We wouldn’t be here otherwise. (Did I just make people think of something they didn’t want to? How about now?)  In most anime, you’d probably be lucky if characters ever kissed, let alone have sex. And don’t get me started about shounen romance manga. In eroge, relationships actually move forward, though not all of them do so realistically. Sometimes the ero is forced in the story, but if it’s done right, it can be satisfying and rewarding. Or some people just want sex. And lots of it.

Now let’s move on to the more technical aspects of eroge.

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