Barachoda Bloom
Why all gay NSFW media needs to label its erotic content.
Hello everyone. Today, I want to talk about something that I believe has become a problem in gay adult VNs. And that's labeling. Specifically, a lot of gay adult VNs don't say what kind of NSFW content it has before you actually download it. Can you top in the game? Bottom? Both? What kinds of kinks are in the game? Is Fat Ass Dude lying when he brags about banging every man on his street and he's actually a bottom? Can you rail the hot GILF who runs the nearby coffee shop or did he just appear in the himbo's route only to talk about how big his tits are? These are questions we deserve answers for each adult game and yet if you check a typical game page for gay adult games, it's common for none of these questions to be answered. A lot of times you'll see in the comments people asking "Can I top Chad McBaraTiddies?" and "Does Mr. Mustache Man have a route?" over and over again. So I want to give people a few brief reasons why they should answer those types of questions on the game's page.
Before I start, I want to give a quick shout-out to VN Game Den. It's this really neat website that makes fun articles about all sorts of Visual Novels. Recently, the owner of the site announced that they need $1000 per month in Patreon money to keep funding the site's staff as well as other costs. If they don't meet this quota by October 31st then the website will shutdown. Please consider becoming a patron so that we don't lose a great place to discuss Visual Novels. You can become a patron over here. Now back to the rest of the devlog.
First a couple of reasons why creators wouldn't want to answer these questions on the game page. The most obvious reason is spoilers, which is the reason why the co-writer of Dwarven Destiny, Oliver, was hesitant to reveal the sexual positions of the dwarves so early, albeit in a google doc that's optional to read. Creators don't like the idea of readers knowing what's going to happen later in the story. That's why it's a big deal when leaks of popular works of fiction come out because the creators worked hard to make sure that info stays hidden until release. In terms of NSFW content, it can certainly ruin the surprise. There's a concept used in Japan called "gap moe" where a character is made more likable because they do something you wouldn't initially expect them to do. So a very dominant, hard-working, divorced, and sexy father would become even sexier if they turned out to be a slutty, submissive bottom in bed (is it obvious that I have a type?). But the surprise would be ruined if that was said in the description on the game page. Kinks and a list of character routes would also spoil things 'cause if a character is married to a woman but the game page lists him as a LI, that would make the twist of him coming out as bisexual a foregone conclusion. Or a teacher/student romance being listed as a kink when the teacher is supposed to be a secret LI. The simple solution to this would be to put all of this in a place that would be hidden away from the game page by default. You could make it hidden by a button prompt or put it as a doc and include a link to it on the game page. The player would have the choice to look at the spoilers. Some people would worry that their fans will spoil it for other people. While some people are assholes and will spoil it for other people, generally these people are far and few between for niche games like NSFW games. They can be easily managed by either banning them or deleting their comments. Most players aren't assholes and will respect other people by discussing spoilers with the appropriate label and not in easily seen places. So I wouldn't worry too much about it if I were you. A less obvious reason is that creators simply don't see the importance. Who cares whether or not Chad McBaraTiddies bottoms? He's a hot guy and any sex scene with him would be enjoyable regardless of his position. And it's not like the game is focused on sex. I'll explain more about why their reasoning is false soon, but for now I'll say that their perspective is understandable but flawed. The final reason is just that they haven't figured out all the content that the game is going to have and don't want to set false expectations, usually by promising content that may come way later or never comes at all. This one is less hard to argue against than the others, so if this is the reason why you aren't detailing the kinds of NSFW content your game has, then I'm not going to be too disappointed in you. That said, you can circumvent this by starting out by just listing out the kinds of NSFW content the game currently has, then constantly updating the NSFW content lists as the game develops and mentioning changes in updated devlogs. I myself haven't listed out all of the types of NSFW content that Barachoda Bloom has due to how early it is in development and me still figuring out how big the game will be. Once more erotic content has been added, I'll label what types of sexual content will be in the game.
But why should you talk about what kinds of NSFW content your game has on the game page? If an NSFW game has more story/gameplay than porn, the creator is liable to call the game's SFW content its drawing points. This can be very true for NSFW games where the sex scenes are a very small part of the game (Minotaur Hotel and Killigan's Treasure being notable examples). However, a lot of people are drawn towards NSFW games because of the erotic parts. Yes, some NSFW games do become popular more because of the parts of the story that don't have erotic content than the parts that do, but there's a lot of evidence that erotic content is the main draw for the majority of people.
- Minotaur Hotel, which I mentioned had sex scenes as only a small portion of its content, has an SFW version available. Only a small of the total downloads of the game have come from the SFW version (Images come from here) Admittedly this might come from the notion that the SFW version technically has less content than the original version. Also that the itch.io algorithm pushes the original version more, but that just goes back to my original point.
- From my Bara Audience Survey, the majority of respondents were people who were interested in men. The majority of respondents also said they played games and/or visual novels. NSFW material was almost universally favored whereas SFW material was much more mixed. At least one free-form response also admitted that they initially downloaded an NSFW game for the erotic content even though they ended up playing the rest of it for the story/gameplay.
- On itch.io, the majority of downloads NSFW games get come from the itch.io algorithm, and players scroll through the site to find more games to play. A lot of the clicks come from NSFW tags.
There's just too much that points to people coming for NSFW games for the NSFW content. I know some creators don't want to admit this, but the fact that you have labeled your game as 18+ means that people are going to be most interested in the 18+ content. Even people who enjoy the story without the NSFW parts still are interested in the erotic content. So people care a lot about NSFW content.
Another thing is labeling. This issue is actually mostly a thing for gay NSFW games only. Straight NSFW games are actually really good about explaining what kinks and kinds of sex are in the game. If there's femdom in the game, it will be labeled on the game page and other game materials. I was talking about this with some other people and they were surprised that most gay NSFW games don't mention the MC's position. People don't want to talk about this but a lot of gay men do have strong preferences for topping or bottoming. It's a bit presumptuous to assume that a person who's mostly into bottoming would like the same content as someone who's mostly into topping. I would know. Live-action pornography and comics tend to avoid this divide because the people having sex tend to look similar to each other body-type-wise, and even if they don't, they have enough run-time where the people having sex can switch positions. Obviously, a lot of live-action porn and comics are heavily skewed towards specific audiences, but they make it obvious it's for that specific audience by the title and/or cover. Visual novels and games, however, tend to make the sex depicted limited to the sex the main character has, and the main character is generally drawn in a way that makes them less attractive to the target audience if they even give them a design to begin with. Because of this, the audience's preferences towards top or bottom content are really pronounced.
I feel like the secrecy of what kinds of NSFW content a gay game has is indicative of how insecure people are that they are creating NSFW games. They're making games with sex scenes but they don't want to talk about the sex, even to their own audience. Or they just don't know how important it is to talk about the specifics of their sex. They see that other gay erotic games aren't indicating anything about their game's NSFW content so they decide not to say any specifics. I think this is a shame. Being open about what type of NSFW content you have isn't shameful, it's being honest about what you're making. And it helps players prepare what content they can see in the future. Yeah, it's a little embarrassing to admit that there's a watersports fetish in the game, but it's a lot better than players being freaked out when they come across it with no indication that the kink is even in the game (although word of advice, I'd make any scenes with divisive kinks optional and say it's optional on the game's page.) Essentially it's just labeling the game the same way you'd label the game's genre. No one's going to be surprised that a romantic comedy has a happy ending because it was labeled as a romantic comedy. People are going to be disappointed that there's no dying in a horror film because it's labeled as a horror movie. So why not label the game by its sexual content? Saying that a game is aimed toward tops will weed out everyone who's not interested in a game for tops while gaining the attention of all the tops. Tops are desperate for content that fulfill their needs and are more than willing to look at a game that says that they have content for tops. And if you're saying that you don't want to scare away bottoms, why would you want to gain the attention of people who are probably not going to like your game and will write an angry comment about how the MC doesn't bottom? If there are bottoms willing to play a game made for tops, they'd play it even if it labels as a game for tops, and would be less angry if the game page indicated that. I would know that as my audience indicated just that (from my NSFW Survey results). And the same goes for tops playing a game meant for bottoms.
Ultimately, while there are legitimate reasons why someone wouldn't want to describe the game's NSFW content, I think it should be a common practice for us as gay creators to indicate what kind of erotic content our sexy games have so we can attract people who would be interested in the content we make while also making sure people aren't disappointed because they came in expecting one thing and got another. That's what she said.
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Comments
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As far as labeling, I believe the standard "this is a m/m game with explicit scenes" is fine for most games. The only time a game should include a more detailed list if it goes beyond "normal" sexual encounters (water sports, bondage, humiliation, etc).
As far as my preferences, who tops or bottoms doesn't matter as long as the story is good. I prefer a game with great story and great smut. But a game that heavily focuses on sex, I think it matters a lot more who tops/bottoms.
One thing I want people to get from this is that you may not care who tops or bottoms, but many people do. Imagine if a person doesn't care if a story has a happy or sad ending and recommends Hamlet to their friend who doesn't like sad endings without warning them about the ending. That wouldn't be considerate of them and they wouldn't have an excuse beyond "I didn't think it was a big deal". Creators should be transparent about what their story is regardless of what content they think matters or not. As for more story-focused games, yes I agree with you that I care more about the story than the sexual content of a game. However, as I mentioned in the article, sex in an erotic game is a huge draw for people, even if it's literally 1% of the game, so knowing that the erotic content would appeal to you would make you more likely to play the game. Most NSFW games don't have the privilege of reviews from the press or word of mouth and it's not like you can tell a game has good writing from just screenshots and a general blurb. So those games have to rely on the promise of erotic content to draw people in. Even if a story's really good, anticipating the erotic content of a game only to find out it's not what you're into when you actually get to it is not a great feeling. The only time I'd say it's really not important is if the sexual content is not meant to turn on the player, but that's a really questionable decision to make from a marketing perspective. It's about informing the audience so they know what to expect. People who care most about the story don't have to worry about it, while people who care more about the sexual content will know if this is something they'll enjoy.
I get what you're saying because like you mentioned in the post, there are ppl in other games that asks "Will X top Y in the next update" or similar. I was just stating my perspective on the matter. It's interesting that people actually care about that, but I can understand why. When I watch other gay media (like porn), it's VERY important that certain guys fit their roles. Some guys I can only watch top, bottom, or verse. But that only matters because I'm just trying to bust a nut. I don't have that intention with video games, (except Robin Morningwood, that game broke me.) so that's why it doesn't matter as much for me. Good discussion, by the way.
I understand where you're coming from. It can be hard to do that when you're focused on actually playing the game and reading the story. I personally do enjoy that as I feel like it's more satisfying since I had anticipation before that and I know the characters. I'm glad you enjoyed this discussion in any case.
I think some games have spoiled us. Some give us choices or make us think we have choices, but not really affect gameplay. I can see how some divisive kink scenes could be useful for advancing the story. All of these choices require more artwork to support though.
I played Coming Out on Top before it was on Steam and they even had options for facial hair and body hair for all the love interests. It's just an overlay, but really makes a difference if you are into or not into that.
Dream Daddy decides not to have any NSFW visuals.
In Uncle/Neighbor, most of the sex scenes prompt if you want to be the top or bottom with this man and you can replay that chapter to unlock the other version of that scene. There are some scenes where you don't get a choice including a double penetration where you don't get to decide who is the bottom. This game also has a visual fetish element that's addressed in the story, but you're still going to get it in every sex scene, because that's part of what the artist wants to draw.
Freezer Pops released with only 2 love interests and 4 routes, but they tell you that up front.
In Robin Morningwood, the game asks you if you are top/bottom/vers, but only uses that information for your "battle weakness" and you can change it at some point with a special beer. However, you'll still get thoroughly used as a top and a bottom by the rest of the cast including by giant characters.
Yeah, having options for condom usage, facial hair, body hair, and whether you top or bottom is really freeing for the player, but not every game doesn't have to do that. Coming Out On Top is a game a lot of gay men have played, so of course, many players set their expectations based on that game. Not everyone has the time or money to add all that, especially adding top and bottom scenes for everyone you can have sex with, as that's double both the CGs and the writing. And some people want to stick with their creative visions and not just have the player customize aspects to the characters they see as important to their character. I have more to say about this in a later devlog, but some people don't want to make one of the characters they see as a top bottom just because their audience would think it's hot, to say nothing about adding options to make a hairy character clean-shaven, or a person who values cleanliness to not wear a condom. If someone is willing to add in all those options, then good for them, but not everyone should do that. If people think those options should be in all erotic gay games, they really need to step down from their pedestal. It's probably better to ignore those people. There are also some creators who want their game to be seen as having a lot of options even when it only has a few. So they try to be coy about it when really they would have an easier time if they were honest about what their game is.
Every. Bit. Of. This. Is. Yes.
Thank you for posting this to specifically discuss this issue. I myself as a player has been frustrating over this for quite some time now, after I started my journey of playing bara games.
Take a game that I recently played for example. I asked the dev if there are player top content in their game before I proceeded to download it, because based on the art posted on the game's itch page, the game is largely player bottom content. The dev answered me saying that there is, and they are trying their best to make the amount of top / bottom content balanced. So, I ended up paying on their Patreon and gave that game a shot, and what did I find? 5 out of the 7 (or perhaps 8) interactable characters only have player bottom content (each with about 3-5 CGs already), I was left with only 2 characters with player top content. What's more, these 2 characters are the more androgenous / feminine characters of the game, while the 5 that can top the player are masculine. I was quite upset by that. Not only was there no such balance as the dev claimed to be, but also he had to cram all player top content into a drag queen character and a twink character, which are not really my preferred type. I felt scammed because I wouldn't be paying had I know I won't like it. I think this is exactly why devs should, at least, try to label what's in their game, so the players know what they are in for.
"Visual novels and games, however, tend to make the sex depicted limited to the sex the main character has, and the main character is generally drawn in a way that makes them less attractive to the target audience if they even give them a design to begin with. Because of this, the audience's preferences towards top or bottom content are really pronounced."
---- This part is very true. When the image of an MC is not given, you essentially put a bit of yourself into that MC to complete it. That's why for many people who prefer to play as exclusive top or bottom, it matters quite a lot. Not mentioning that, for games like LD, your top / bottom & dom / sub status can affect how the story progresses.
Sorry to hear that. I'm actually acquaintances with that guy you talked about. We talked a little and he said that he didn't know what your perspective was. He told me he's willing to talk about potential future content concerning sex scenes with you. If you have a Discord or Twitter feel free to DM me at either @ChellayTiger or ChellayTiger#3120 and I can get you two to talk. Or you could talk through Patreon if that's an option. But yes, I do think he should have labeled the characters' positions beforehand.
Anyways, I'm glad you agreed with my points, especially considering the value some erotic games put on roleplaying as the main character. I think it's important to make sure the player doesn't feel like the game doesn't let them do what they want to do in those cases.
Wow, thanks for reaching out to them. But just in case, I was talking about Acolytes of the Chrystle.
I have a discord but I haven't accessed it in a while, and I don't know if I still have access to the email, but I'll give it a shot.
For their game my suggestion is rather simple tho: just start slowly adding bottom scenes / CGs to those masculine characters, namely Gerdalt, Sunflower, Fuco, Donald, and Silverado. I have played other games made by Mysterious Zone and I do not think they have anything against making bottom scenes for masculine characters, but it just so happens that, for this game, they are very imbalanced. As I have mentioned, each of these 5 masc characters already have a decent amount of CGs, all of which are player bottom. So, unless the dev is going to make all of them exclusive top, I think it's a good time to add some bottom scenes for these characters.
Alright. I'll make sure to tell him that.
Thank you!
Just my two cent. I don't really care who can bottom who can top. I also accepting all fetishes (bar those morally wrong). What's important is how they are delivered.
And I Totally agree. Creators should list all the fetishes in their contents, and if possible made it so one can choose to avoid / skip certain kinks should they don't wish to see.
But Top / Bottom are not fetishes are they? Unless it's centred around one premise, like "Small on Top", or "Only I have skills", most games don't really stay on one side. Also "For every bottom there's a top". And for VNs, the story is more important than who top who bottom. Less so for role playing games, but those are normally got both covered.
Some players do want it specific, but that's not what creators should be adjust to - it's the other way around: Content creators create, consumers then go to find what's for them.
People ask stupid question without any research all the time, IMO these should just be ignored. Most of these answers are spoilers - remember different people have different "spoiler tolerance", these should be respected over those "Spoon Feeding".
It would be straightforward for me just to say, "It doesn't matter who tops or bottoms as long as the story is good" and leave it at that. However, from my experience from just talking to gay men and seeing the fans of gay erotic media talk, people do value who's the top and who's the bottom a lot. I don't know if strict top or strict bottom people are the vocal minority or not, but most people have a specific preference when it comes to position. Even verse people want to see certain characters top or bottom because that's what would turn them on. Yes, a game may have top, verse, and bottom love interests, but they're still going to be disappointed when a specific love interest doesn't top or doesn't bottom because they wanted them to top or bottom. Also from my experience, most erotic gay games aren't perfectly 50/50 when it comes to content for bottoms and content for tops. Lustful Desires, for example, generally has more content for bottoms than for tops, although Hyao is trying to balance it out. Even games that do try to 50/50 split will inevitably lean more towards one position. Adastra does let you pick if you want to top or bottom but the love interest is so dominant that it's going to scare off players who prefer a more submissive love interest. There are games that do a good job of providing equal amounts of content for both tops and bottoms, like Extracurricular Activities, but there are enough games that lean more towards one position where it's important for erotic gay games to label what positions the characters are, at least as a hidden document. I do think creators shouldn't bend to their audience's will on what erotic content they should add to the game (although a little adjustment would be welcome), however, it would be good to understand the type of audience they would attract.
Robin MorningWood also let you pick a position at the beginning, but it does not matter. The game also leans toward player sub since many of the love interests, even vers ones, are dominant. There is also a whole dungeon dedicated to player sub content.
I remember we chatted a while ago when you posted a discussion about top / bottom content, like this one, a few months earlier. There are currently more bara games catered toward bottom players than top players, which makes it even more important for the devs to indicate where their game is leaning, like OIHS did, so the players know what to expect
I think most creators of gay erotic games that lean heavily towards the sub or bottom audience don't even realize that it's an issue that needs addressing. I don't want to assume things, but I wouldn't be surprised if they thought it didn't matter whether the MC can top or bottom. That's the purpose of this article, making it clear that it is an issue. That's the first step in solving a problem, making people aware it exists in the first place. But yes, there seems to be more bottom content than top content in gay games and I can't tell you why. I know a lot of gay artists who cater towards tops, so maybe it's just a case unique to writing?
I see where you are coming from. Still, I think it's those people who have problems (about who to top / who to bottom) need to learn to deal with it.
But, I was talking about Finished games, or free games that you can make educated decisions. Just saw one victim in this discussion because the dev ain't upfront of their crowd-funding campaign. In these cases I do think we need more regulations of the liabilities of the development's transparency, like "what their WIP projects offer", "what you pay money for".
I agree, I also went overdrive and listed all the kinks in my game, some people say that I went a little too far by listing them on the FAQ section of my game's description, but I think it's good to list them all when you have very ... ah... exotic kinks, like watersports, fisting or BDSM in the game.
But I don't list when or how they happen. One advantage I have is that they can be avoided before they happen, so there's also that. Adult games really benefit by being upfront about the content in the game.
I actually did get to play your game before and I appreciate you listing out all the kinks, but I think what Chylla was referring to emphasizes more on informing the players "if MC can be in certain position with certain character".
Take your game for example, I'd say I would really appreciate it if there could be some sort of mechanisms that prevent / notify players about forced submission scenes, if you choose to play as a dom. A lot of scenes in Dalton's route, like the drug scene with Max and later scenes with Malcom, ignore players' attitude and force you to bottom, and you cannot skip them either because that would result in bad endings. The whole premise of being dominant is that YOU decide how things go, not the other way around, so those compulsory sub scenes can really kill the mood... And I'm not going to start on Garette's route. What's the point of having a dom character when literally every choice is to force you being a sub.
It's about both really. I believe it's equally important to list out both the positions of the characters (MC and anyone you can have sex with specifically) as well as the kinks of the game. I put more emphasis on defining whether a game has top, verse, or bottom content because a lot of the erotic games I've played tend to be more or less vanilla with very few kinks. On the other hand, anal sex is almost unavoidable in erotic gay games, even though some people think that shouldn't be the case, therefore the MC is either going to bottom, top, or both. So most advice saying to list out the characters' positions (and who you can have sex with) would be more important than saying to list out all the kinks in the game for most gay erotic creators. Also while I do advocate for kinks being optional, up to and including making every sex scene skippable, that's not what this article is about. If a creator wants to make a kink a thing the player has to do, I'm not going to oppose that, but I would tell them to warn them that such a thing happens before that happens.
Yeah, my game is on the contrary, very heavy on non-vanilla kinks, I should have mentioned that. That's why I placed so much emphasis on the kink listing, and ways to warn or avoid them.
But positions? honestly, when I play NSFW games I don't even care if the player is top or bottom, I just go with whatever content the game has (there so few of gay games, and even less bara games. Refusing to play a game because it has only bottom/top content doesn't work for me) and I don't even question myself about that, I enjoy both content. Unless the game throws me a kink that I don't like, that's where I start questioning. But positions? I never did.
Maybe my mistake is thinking that everyone is like me. I'm still not sure how to avoid this problem on my game. A comprehensive listing of each character is a no-no, my game is text based sandbox, it has many characters already and with each update the list grows exponentially. I see that this can work on VN that has a handful of characters with CGs.
And putting a big, red warning at the game? If I say my game have only bottom content is a lie. There is top content there. So I'm not sure how to proceed.
I can't say I have a perfect solution for you, I will admit for your situation specifically it's hard. If I were you, I'd just say "This game focuses on bottom content, but there is a good amount of top content in it as well. There are some characters in the game who can only top regardless of the position you picked. There are no plans to add scenes for them to the bottom." on the itch.io page. If you can, maybe list out all the total tops (and total bottoms if you have any) in a document that the itch.io page has a link to. An option that warns which characters are total tops (or total bottoms if any) as soon as you meet them would be nice, but maybe that's too complicated.
I like your suggestion. I'll update the FAQ section of my page and I'll consider making an external spreadsheet or something listing who's a top, bottom or versatile. I still think is kinda spoilery, but if you're warned before going there, I guess it's alright.
The warning as soon as the player meets them... I don't think I'll implement it in my current project. It's kinda like spoiling that this character will have sex with you (I still consider fun to discover that character might have, or not, sex with you. For some characters is pretty clear, for others it isn't), and I'm on a point in the development that is not possible (well, it could be. but doing that for every character would take weeks, and I can't afford that), but it's definitely something to consider when I start my second project, who knows. I'm not closed to that suggestion either.
It's good to have these discussions, there can be solutions for each case, even in complicated ones like mine.
I'm still not sold on Top/Bottom / Dom / Sub should be listed, TBH, I don't like how people stereotype "Dominant Top" or "Submissive Bottom", IMO it's too cliché and over-used. That's why "Small on Top" is high on my list (but it kinda goes to the opposite extreme XD)
But I like your idea of an "External documents" that list all the characters and their positions (or at least some hints). So people want can look into, others don't need to worry about being spoiled. IIRC, most Japanese games have this feature. And this will be more useful for WIPs and their backers.
There are few games even have a brief "Official walk-through" (For free, not those sell for more than the game itself), goes into more details about things you might wonder.
Regarding dom/sub content:
I don't agree about the whole premise of being dom is about you deciding how things go. Unexpected things happen, sometimes you think you're the top dog but then a bigger one comes. People can outsmart you, or even overpower you, having to suck up until the time is right to show off who's the boss. And that's what I tried to do on Max's scene (by the way, you can blur the heaviest content on that scene, but that was a feature that I included starting on 0.20 so you might have to bear with that on prior versions. I apologize for that). He won over you unfairly with the drug, and then you manage to come to grips with that and give him a proper beating later.
In the scene with Malcolm... remember you're infilitrating on his company. You're not in position to make demands to him. Even if he wanted to bottom, he would have used you like a human-sized dildo. It's not believable that get in his house like a gorilla and start shouting him to bottom for you. That's illogical.
Now, having said that, dom content is not my strong point, but I'm trying to improve it, and certainly I need to improve on that regard. Since it's a recurring theme in my game, you can expect more dom content in the future.
Now, back on the subject of the Top/Bottom positions:
I must admit that when I first read the article, that flew over my head, I didn't even consider it, I always focused on separating the heavier kinks from the vanilla ones, and I thought it was enough. Obviously it isn't.
It's hard to focus on both positions when it comes to the story encounters, especially on those where the MC have to satisfy an specific character and the scene is all bottom (or top, for example on Vince scene), in my game there aren't many scenes that have both positions available. When an unavoidable scene happens, and the MC needs to satisfy the NPC , it's not logical to refuse and then proceed with the scene as if nothing happened. It doesn't work that way.
But it's not the first time a player tells me about that, maybe I should take account on that when you're the one at top or bottom , I'm mostly a bottom and I tend to write a lot leaning to that side. On my next storylines (prison and Ursus) I'll do my best to balance them out. I've been working on that for months, but I still have ways to go.
But I'm not quite sure on how to solve this problem, games can't be perfectly 50/50, Chelay's game is focused on top, mine is on bottom (with some top content on it), and I've come to a point that I can't even list how many characters have X or Y preference because it would a long and spoilery list. I guess I can include a section of the FAQ in my game description about the positions... but I'm going to write it in general. I guess for VNs that doesn't have many characters a complete list would be ideal, but for larger games it isn't.
I understand where you are coming from. Of course, in real life, even if you are dominant, things frequently don't work your way. But it's a game we are talking about here, it's supposed to be unrealistic, and it should bring the players what they like to see.
It's for sure very logical that, while you are facing bigger monsters like Max, Malcom, or the UFL guys in Garette's route, you don't have much of a saying other than being treated like a bi*ch. But in these cases, the completeness of the storyline is prioritized over players' personal preference, especially that of dom players. I only speak for myself here, but I hardly find any joy in being submissive, not mentioning being subjected to it.
This is not saying that your game is poorly designed, no. Your game is great, but it very much caters toward sub / bottom players. Having a dominant role in the game is kinda pointless... considering that neither of the two love interests allow the player to top / dominate them in any way. The only exceptions are Dalton's two endings, but those are not repeatable, not mentioning to achieve those endings, dom players have to go through a lot of content they don't really like and also cannot avoid. As for Garrette, if I recall corectly, he out right become the player's master upon reaching his endings, which I'm fairly sure is a hard no for any dom player.
This is precisely why I agree with what Chellay said and, as you have mentioned yourself, that many devs are not aware of the fact players do take these position thingys seriously, so it is better to let players know what they can expect, instead of having an angy guy like me ranting about it later. I'm glad to hear that you want to balance it more when writing about Ursus and the content afterwards tho.
I'd suggest you make something like a character profile in game that documents the characters the player have met and give the player an option / warning that saying these profiles can give potential spoilers about the character's content, so they can choose for themselves whether they want to see it or not. Also, like Chellay suggested, perhaps highlight in your game intro that, currently, the game is more bottom content-oriented, but more top content will be added later.
I don't think "MC being dominant" and "YOU decide how things go" is feasible in most games, unless it's a CYOA (Choose Your Own Adventure) game, or the whole idea of the game is to dominant. Other times it'll just kill the flow or become some forced shenanigans, if not impossible to create.
Tho players with strong preferences as yourself, should be able to make educated decisions, I think that's what Chellay is suggesting.
But not listed out right, rather in some external documents that you can choose to see.
When I said, "you decide how things go", I did not mean it in a literal way where the MC gets to make a decision about everything that's going on in the game, that would indeed be nearly impossible to make. What I meant was, should you choose to play as a dominant MC, your dominance is recognized and respected by the characters in the game. This is totally feasible and it's entirely up to the creator whether they want to write a dominant MC storyline.
And yes, I agree with Chellay on that gay nsfw game devs should make information about what content is in their game public, whether to read it or not is up to the player.
I remember this one time I downloaded Only I Have Skills ignoring the warning "for submissive bottoms", and I stopped playing after "experiencing" the slime and goblins...
orz
Maybe you'll learn next time.
OIHS does make a very strong first impression to save players further misunderstanding.
After those two it's not that forced anymore, but you got the idea already :p