This is second of fifteen essays contained within the fourth issue of the Adult Analysis Anthology, a collection of longform writing that seeks to expand the breadth of critical discourse around adult games and adult game culture. If you’d like to support the creation of more high-quality writing about adult games the full anthology is available for purchase on Itch! Anthology logo by Pillow!
Written By: Stanley Baxton
If you’re reading this, there’s a high chance you’ve played an adult game. There’s also a high chance you’ve played an adult game where losing might be, in many ways, desirable. Consider BDSM games where losing makes your master angry and subsequently punishes you, fantasy games with bondage monsters that tie you up when you fail a quicktime event, and PvE games where arousal is a status effect building to a disabling orgasm. It’s such a common thread in adult games that it almost feels disingenuous to hone in on one to do a specific case study.
Here’s a question I’d like to raise: How many times have you seen this done in a triple-A game? Not the porn aspect necessarily, but the fact that these are games where losing, opposed to winning, is designed explicitly as a state the player might want to achieve. Adult game designers aren’t stupid; they are fully aware that people are losing their games on purpose to reach them. Why are they designing for failure? Instead of dismissing this, I’d like to ask the opposite question. Why aren’t triple-A games designing for failure?