How crucial is a waifu game storyline?
So, with the recent craze in waifu games, I've decided to try my hand at making one. I have a semi-intricate plot with twists, and some events planned with their own snippet of story. Problem is, I have no idea if it's even necessary. I mean, a lot of people are going to be in it for the waifus, and not at all for the story. So, should I even bother?
Background: a waifu game is a game where the main point is to collect fighters or characters, typically sexy anime girls. Examples are Azur Lane, Girl's Frontline, and Valkyrie Crusade.
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Yes, you should absolutely care about the story, and the gameplay as well, because those are what will keep people actually comming back.
Art (and music) should always be secondary to making the gameplay good, and the story as well, even if you are using art as the premise of the game or as part of the gimmick. Even in waifu games, the art is there to draw the player in initially, and add some extra reward to help keep the engaged in the actual game.
Looking at this from a simpler angle, if the player is only there for the barely SFW art of attractive girls (or guys, or animals, or robots, or whatever else the target audience is interested in), then why play the game? Why not just look at screenshots of the game? If you want to create more than just an irritatingly complex photo gallery of your art, you need to have something beyond that to keep the player wanting to actually play the game, and a good story is the second most reliable way to do that (gambling via micro-transactions is the most reliable, but that's risky legal waters in some parts of the world).
Think about what thoughtful reviewers actually mention liking about 'normal' games (RPG's, MMO's, even FPS or RTS games). While art and/or music is often on the list, it's almost always icing on the cake. Nobody sane is playing Dead Space, or Destiny, or Borderlands, or GTA, or even stuff like Mario or Sonic games for the art, they are popular games because they either have engaging gameplay, a good story, or both.
Taking this story focus to the extreme, I would encourage you to look at why Ōkami is as highly acclaimed of a game as it is. On the surface, much of the appeal is the sumi-e art style, and part of the game mechanics even directly involve art (you literally paint your best attacks, and also use the same mechanic to interact with much of the world). Despite that though, what really pulls people in consistently isn't the art, it's the fact that it's a good story that's uniquely different in numerous ways from your run-of-the-mill RPG, combined with that unique (and good) art and 'unconventional' (not really, it's just that every other game that did this kind of thing was either a flop or only a cult-classic) game-play gimmick that makes it as good of a game as it is.
You can also easily find examples of games that were lacking in some way despite good art that did horribly. Generation Zero is going through this right now, the art is amazing, and the story is decent (not amazing, but not really bad either), but the gameplay has issues, and the game itself is buggy as hell, so a lot of the people they drew in with that amazing art don't play it anymore, or only play it rarely (or are not playing it until it gets fixed).
Where this gets interesting though is when you are trying to focus solely on something everyone else is already doing very well. You do, of course, need to cover that aspect, but if that's your only draw, then there's no reason for people to even try your game, because your competitors are just as good. Looking again at Ōkami, the art-style didn't make the game amazing or keep people playing, but it did draw people in to what was otherwise a mostly standard RPG with only a few gimmicky unique aspects to it by making the game look different in a big way. You'll have to find a similar balance yourself whereby you can actually draw people in with your advertising (mostly art in this case of course) but then retain players through other means (ideally other than gambling, because that brings all kinds of potential legal troubles). That player retention is actually more important for getting new players than the initial pitch, the truly successful games out there consistently get more new players because of referrals from happy players who like the game than they ever will from their own advertising.
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Do it for the sake of storytelling
If you're asking yourself "should I bother", then you're not thinking of it as a passion project, like an artist would, but you're thinking of it as a way to make a quick buck, like a CEO would. It's not a bad thing, fine art seldom pays the bills, while cookie-cutter media is quite profitable.
Just look at how many iconic video games are getting remastered, or how many movies are getting a sequel or live action adaptations. It's an easy, quick, but soulless way to make money.
Talking about Japan specifically, how much anime is generally adaptations of already existing manga/novels, and is essentially a 25-minute long advertisement for the source material. Investing in an original franchise is a risky move, that could cost a company bankruptcy, since their profit margins are already quite thin.
But you're not a CEO, you're not under this kind of constraints -- unless, of course, they are self-imposed. If you think you have a good idea, an idea that's worth showing others, you should develop it, and leave it for others to witness:
Iceland’s love of the written word has deep roots. Runic inscriptions from times of the Icelandic settlement show that the settlers could read and had thoughts they believed were important enough to (quite literally) set in stone. This feeling that our thoughts are important enough to be printed, to be preserved for generations to come, has not left us.. (source)
Take pride in what you created
Even if you don't succeed, your game doesn't sell or become popular, you can still take pride in the fact that you put honest work in bringing your vision to reality, that you saw it through until the end.
You can have cute, an intricate story, and elaborate gameplay all at once
Nothing is stopping you from making a narrative-heavy "waifu game". You can have a visual novel with an intricate plot and cute heroines, and try to break the stereotype that "cute" means "dumb". Just look at Puella Magi Madoka Magica, I haven't watched it myself, but from what I've heard, it's pretty heavy psychological stuff.
You can have gameplay mechanics and story-lines change based on what girls the player has unlocked or is using, sort of like Pokémon (you're trying to collect all the heroines) and Fallout (quest-based, open-world) or Deus Ex (branching storylines based on your decisions). Deus Ex in particular has an intricate story with some interesting themes, and Adam Jensen does fit some definition of cute (*winks at the camera*).
You could have additional story-lines available as DLCs/microtransactions, too.
Gameplay, narrative, fanart
The games you mentioned are gameplay-heavy: the focus is on obtaining girls, not on the story. Azur Lane has some visual-novel-like cut-scenes between the levels, giving you some kind of idea as to who is the villain, and what they're doing, but the narrative is quite bare-bones. People don't play those games for the story, they're playing them because they're addicted to the gacha mechanic (see this article on "whales", those 10% of people who are heavy spenders).
On the other hand, look at how much fan-art Kancolle or Touhou have, even though they're gameplay-heavy. If you create an interesting world and/or characters, fans will definitely want to expand on that. You may end up with a community that will keep your game alive. From there you could plug a crowd-funding plea, too, to fund further development.
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There are plenty of genres that exist solely for a particular purpose or to deliver a type of scene.
- Pornography (no comment).
- Slasher (mostly films, all about gory ends to stupid or unfortunate people).
- Romance (two people get together, often against all odds. Characterization matters in this genre, but not plot).
- Action (fight! fight! fight!)
- Some children's books (I'd say see the Rainbow Magic series but I wouldn't wish it on anyone...if you have a child into it, you'll already be familiar with the single plot in every book)
In each genre of this type, badly written books (or movies or comics) sell. Works with no plot at all, confusing sequences, cardboard characters, even stories that break the laws of physics (yet aren't SF) or have zero logic.
And works that are so-so written will also sell. If you grab the reader/audience in a certain way. Or if you're backed by a publisher/producer with great marketing. Or you get lucky.
Honestly though, poorly done material usually doesn't do well. Some things take off like hotcakes, but they're the exception. I keep thinking of the awful (horrible writing!) 50 Shades of Gray, which was a blockbuster novel and is becoming a movie. But I can't think of another one. Except for outright porn (where the actors matter more than the story), works without good writing are generally ignored.
I'm not familiar with gacha or waifu, so I don't know what the market is like. You may do better getting something (anything) out there while the market is hot and there isn't much competition (if that's the case). In general though, a thoughtfully composed work is going to do better than one slapped together.
If you choose to write a real story you can attract viewers (players?) in two basic ways.
- Bring in more viewers who enjoy the genre but also care about quality. Let yours be the one they talk about. The one they tell their friends to try.
- Bring in viewers who have so far been turned off from waifu. An obvious audience here is women/girls. If the genre is about "collecting" sexy female characters, that's not going to attract most women (even gay women are generally annoyed by that premise). If your version has a real plot, characterization, and an interesting story beyond treating characters like Pokemon cards, you'll attract viewers (not just women) who like videogames and anime but so far haven't found much to bring them into waifu.
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