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HTML Trends & Future Developments: A Discussion

mimusstudios

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Game Developer
Apr 19, 2022
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I've personally started developing an HTML game about a month and a half ago, and since then I've done a lot of market research, and I've noted a lot of interesting trends that I wanted to get some more insight on.

Specifically, with HTML games I feel that a couple of genres are more common than with other agmes:
  • Female protagonist
  • Sissification
  • NRT
  • Futa
  • Transformation
  • Real porn
Now that's not to say that these genre's don't exist in other engines, they most certainly do, but I am immensely curious as to why the HTML engine would gather such a collection of genres. In fact, it's less that all futa/sissification/transformation content is HTML, but more that HTML games have a much higher probability of containing them (so a little A given B vs B given A action). Now there are some obvious ones, for example the large amount of "real porn" in HTML games can be attributed to the fact that embedding gifs and images via a webpage is very easy, one could even have them be sourced from an external database.

What I'm more curious about are the amount of sissification/transformation, NRT, female domination and futa content out there. Is it because of how niche the content is, people without development experience are willing to throw in the glove to make it happen (since Twine 2 has a very low barrier of entry)?

Why is so much of HTML content female centered in opposition to this majorly male-oriented target audience? Is it because females tend to be more okay with text-based games while guys just like to look at pretty images and art?

If anyone has any theories, ideas, or statistics I would be greatly interested!
 

Meaning Less

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Sep 13, 2016
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Well, text-based games are usually closer to tabletop roleplay games, so people that are into them probably expect more freedom, being able to do things you normally can't in a normal game is one of the main selling points of text-based games.

So it probably isn't that those games are "focused" on that but more that those games "also" allow that because of the added freedom when not having to render a different scene for every single choice the player makes.

But it could also just be that because it is more emotional and less visual, not sure.
 
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mimusstudios

Member
Game Developer
Apr 19, 2022
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Well, text-based games are usually closer to tabletop roleplay games, so people that are into them probably expect more freedom, being able to do things you normally can't in a normal game is one of the main selling points of text-based games.

So it probably isn't that those games are "focused" on that but more that those games "also" allow that because of the added freedom when not having to render a different scene for every single choice the player makes.

But it could also just be that because it is more emotional and less visual, not sure.
I see, yeah I guess what I'm pointing to is that many HTML are in-fact focused on these aspects. Like the proportion of HTML games that are transformation focused outnumber the same for Renpy games for example.

But I also agree that one major factor is probably difference in propensity to enjoy text-based between genders.
 
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Meaning Less

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Sep 13, 2016
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I see, yeah I guess what I'm pointing to is that many HTML are in-fact focused on these aspects. Like the proportion of HTML games that are transformation focused outnumber the same for Renpy games for example.
Well, it could just be a preference of people that tend to choose this engine.

Maybe a more emotional and well described erotica might work better to depict transformation instead of just showing a few images? Honestly I'm not sure because I'm not that into HTML games.

But I know that a similar effect exists with RPGM games, where you usually see a lot more female protag games than their counterpart in renpy, probably because people that play rpgm want to look at a girl picture while they move her around the map.
 

Rafster

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Mar 23, 2019
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I'm also a fellow HTML developer. I'm getting my game out this month, I hope.

Why is so much of HTML content female centered in opposition to this majorly male-oriented target audience? Is it because females tend to be more okay with text-based games while guys just like to look at pretty images and art?
Consider that most of HTML games are real porn. Male oriented straight porn focuses heavily on women, just showing a floating dick on screen, so it can be immersive to have a female protagonist who also gets every type of sex imaginable.

Of course, other games go the opposite way, and center more on the female npcs and have a token male MC. For me, this is the way to go, it allows the game to have a huge cast of female characters. Good examples of this? Love & Vice, conficence man, become alpha or the monastery. I'm using this approach for my game, but I'm cheating since my game is 100% gay focused, so yeah, dicks everywhere :LOL:

What I'm more curious about are the amount of sissification/transformation, NRT, female domination and futa content out there.
I wonder that too. I mean, come on, I get the correlation between femdom and sissification for example, but it's still a niche market. And I wonder... if straight players are so afraid of dicks, why seeing someone dressed as a girl with a tiny pink chastity device turns them on? I'm gay, I like dicks (who would have guessed) and I can't get into this fetish, at all. I mean, I have a huge chastity play fetish, but the moment I see the guy dress like a girl and put makeup on, it's the moment I'm out.

Futas are an entire topic by itself, there is a thread around about it :LOL:
 
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mimusstudios

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Apr 19, 2022
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I'm also a fellow HTML developer. I'm getting my game out this month, I hope.



Consider that most of HTML games are real porn. Male oriented straight porn focuses heavily on women, just showing a floating dick on screen, so it can be immersive to have a female protagonist who also gets every type of sex imaginable.

Of course, other games go the opposite way, and center more on the female npcs and have a token male MC. For me, this is the way to go, it allows the game to have a huge cast of female characters. Good examples of this? Love & Vice, conficence man, become alpha or the monastery. I'm using this approach for my game, but I'm cheating since my game is 100% gay focused, so yeah, dicks everywhere :LOL:



I wonder that too. I mean, come on, I get the correlation between femdom and sissification for example, but it's still a niche market. And I wonder... if straight players are so afraid of dicks, why seeing someone dressed as a girl with a tiny pink chastity device turns them on? I'm gay, I like dicks (who would have guessed) and I can't get into this fetish, at all. I mean, I have a huge chastity play fetish, but the moment I see the guy dress like a girl and put makeup on, it's the moment I'm out.

Futas are an entire topic by itself, there is a thread around about it :LOL:
So for you personally what was the reason why you chose to go HTML rather than let's say Ren'py? I personally went HTML because I'm making a prequel and I wanted to keep the game in the same engine. I feel like HTML is actually quite limited and you need to do a lot of hacks to get things working (I know from experience).
 

Rafster

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Mar 23, 2019
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So for you personally what was the reason why you chose to go HTML rather than let's say Ren'py? I personally went HTML because I'm making a prequel and I wanted to keep the game in the same engine. I feel like HTML is actually quite limited and you need to do a lot of hacks to get things working (I know from experience).
That's an easy question. I'm a lone, starting developer. My machine is unable to run Daz without exploding and I had no prior experience with python, or HTML/JS . It doesn't help that my two direct inspirations (well, 3, but the last one I'm not sure what it was made of) were HTML sandboxes made with Twine/Sugarcube. So yeah, I started with HTML.

For my second project, I'll probably use sims 4 for pics/videos. Game wise? I'll stay at twine/HTML. With my experience on twine, I'm sure I can make something decent. Changing to ren'py would mean starting learning from zero, and I'm not eager to do that.
 
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