While our growing industry has more interesting companies than ever before, I direct your attention specifically towards Erogames, who these days develop their own eroge.
It was after I played Naughty Nyx, its complex puzzle design the stuff of legends, that I realized something’s up with this company. There was a spark of emerging brilliance.
You see, most eroge companies target the casual market. They make mind-numbingly easy games, you’re not learning anything from playing them. Casual games are like candy, low on nutrition.
Erogames is different. I had to write an entire essay praising the puzzles of Naughty Nyx. Intended or not, the developers absolutely provided for a neglected market with this brain teaser.
Then I played Neostesia 2200, a brilliant PvP card game with a dark sci-fi aesthetic. What makes this game unique is the sheer massive variety of playstyles and the complexity of the decision-making process. It’s like chess and Magic: The Gathering combined. Complete epic madness!
That said, Neostesia has some problems, but they are problems that emerge in contrast to enormous potential. When you raise the standard on the complexity of things, you suddenly deal with unique challenges few others have tackled. Blizzard Entertainment always had the same problem with their games being riddled with hard-to-even-specify issues, I compare this company often with them.
Why do I talk about Blizzard in the same breath with Erogames? Because in some areas, the similarities are striking. Both companies focus on just a few live-service games. Both companies focus on gameplay complexity. I see a shared obsession with the quality of visuals too. Also, they are rigid corporations that are not easy to communicate with. But this is where the fans come in.
When a company is attempting something exceptional, they are up against resistance. This struggle must be recognized and respected, and their efforts in this battle supported religiously.
I assert, truly excellent media triggers obsessive compulsive behavior in its fanbase. I have personally played some games for over 10 years and re-watched some movies tens of times. Exceptional media made with love has virtually infinite interesting angles to derive cerebral pleasure from.
If you care about quality games, you have to be active members of gaming communities. You need to gather and organize, reach out to developers together, write feisty essays to them, meet the team in person if they attend any conventions, and lead the conversation. Don’t just sit back and wank!
The games I enjoy most had years of polish added to them, such as World of Warcraft. I still remember writing on Blizzard’s forums 20 years ago several threads highlighting various issues, sometimes I wrote guides and discussion threads. I often saw my ideas implemented to their games.
Your voice matters! I can personally attest to that, as I have shaped the hentai games industry in my decade here, the shaping process only just beginning as Hentai Cooperative LLC gears up to ambitious community initiatives that will set the foundations for the next century of hentai gaming.
Before I close this rant, let’s briefly mention something about Erogames. From my conversations with representatives in the company, I have some knowledge of their future releases that I can’t disclose. But there is super hype-worthy stuff in the pipeline. Keep these guys in your radar.
