>>84656
Yeah, that's fair and valid. I mean, even non-fetish games have to deal with that kind of concern. You typically won't find much overlap between the stardew valley and elder scrolls fanbases. That being said, I would ask the question, if you are going to make an uninspired game for the sake of delivering fetish content, why make a game at all? Use some other medium and avoid all the hassle of gamedev entirely.
>Do you have any specific criticisms of the 'good' games you mentioned?
It's been a minute since I played either, but from what I recall, just overall bad gameplay elements, balance, pacing, etc.
- the fights are a slog, bland mechanics, grindy, stupidly long in the beginning (no beginning enemy should take more than 1-2 hits imo), leveling up doesn't feel meaningful
- game mechanics are tedious, fetch quests, boring maps... They didn't feel like they drove the narrative forward. I remember one quest in Cyriaan where you had to light 3 torches or some shit in 3 mountains and each one was this samey longwinded maze. And it's like yeah, isn't that what most games are like? but the key is disguising them to make the player feel invested and maybe don't waste the player's time with 3 of them.
What's a good example? There's one jrpg where there is a quest involving the player going to the beach, picking up fish, and delivering them to an old man. Which you have to do multiple times. Sounds dumb, right? Except it's not because the world has just ended and your character and the old man are foreseeabley the last two survivors. And your character was raised in a fascist military dictatorship and has no concept of family or relations. And this old man happened to be one of the lead scientists who infused your character with magitek and has helped you many times in the past so he is something of a grandfather figure, And he got sick taking care of you post end of the world... and I could go on, but that's how you make a compelling fetch quest.
>'tank and spank'
I love Etrian Odyssey, which lends itself to building entire teams around tanks and cannons. Again, it's not the concept itself that's bad, it's the implementation.
>>84659
Like I said above, it's a valid concern. I would ask a similar question, are you trying to reach the most people? Then skip the game aspect entirely. If you want to make a game, then make the game.
I mean, to some extent, I feel like you both are kind of putting the cart before the horse: worrying about people skipping the game to get to the content, before there is even a game or content. No one makes Undertale on their first try, just create, learn, create again, repeat.