I’m in the middle of writing a story where the relationships the player has are important, but they’ve all been platonic so I haven’t written in any options to engage in romance.
I’m not necessarily ruling out the option for the player to have romantic relationships entirely, but because of the nature of the story it would be a bit of a hurdle to add them in.
So, my question is, is it off putting/ a deal breaker if a game doesn’t have any romance options or doesn’t have too much content for it?
Unfortunately, in my experience the vast majority of interest and discussions surrounding works stems from the romance. People love 'em. I don’t know that I would use the word ‘off-putting’ to describe a story without them, but it means you’ll most likely have to accept a large majority of people clicking on your post, scrolling down to the RO list, then clicking off when there isn’t one.
My story has two love interests, both with relatively sparse romantic content, and the amount of beta feedback about those romantic scenes as opposed to…everything else… is staggering. Especially if your characters are well written. People will want to get to know them intimately. And that usually means romantically these days.
I personally don’t require a story to have romance, and I bet you’ll find many people saying something similar, but a lot of people do.
I’m also fine with it if there’s no romance, and I don’t really have it in my WIP, though I do have a “pseudo-RO” (with another to be introduced a little later). Romance doesn’t really fit into what I’m doing, and there really isn’t time for it, but there are the barest hints of it.
No, not for me. As long as it’s clear in the description and the blurb that there isn’t a romance happening or any romance options, I’m fine with it. Where I have a problem is when it feels like a bait and switch, like everything was leading up to a romance, everycharacter has spent a majority of the time flirting, oncoming sexytimes are implied…and instead MC and their bestie go cuddle hedgehogs or something.
That’s an interesting one. I don’t require a romance options in every game I play or story I read. So it’s definitely not off-putting to me.
That said, it almost seems to be key to have multiple ROs for commercially successful games. I’d go so far as to say that as far as success/engagement goes the actual story sometimes seems secondary. If you just write as a hobby, I’d argue you should still write the story you want to write. Might make it more likely you finish it as well.
There’s definitely going to be people who don’t engage with your work if there’s no romance, but they wouldn’t be your audience anyway if they’re mostly interested in the romance, so I wouldn’t worry too much about that; I also feel like there are people out there who are kind of sick of the romance-focused projects or who will just be excited to experience your story and the characters you’ve introduced to us (that’s me!).
Personally, I find I don’t really enjoy when it feels like the romance is an afterthought or if romance sort of feels like a begrudging addition on the author’s part and this is one of many reasons I will always advocate that you tell the story you want to tell, the way that you want to tell it.
If that doesn’t include romance, then that’s just fine. You just gotta be up front about the no-romance thing to help ensure you’re pulling the right people to your WIP.
I enjoy romance, but it’s not what brings me to IF, and I don’t always pursue a romance even in games where it’s possible, especially if I’m playing a self-insert. A lot of people won’t want to play your game if there’s no romance, but those same people will complain (justifiably) if you tack on a romance you don’t actually care about just to be able to sell to them. Tell the story you want to tell, and be true to your characters.
Thanks for replying.
My story starts the player off as a child and has them age up slowly as the events play out, so they’d be an adult by the end, so any romance would happen towards the end, so if I did include it there wouldn’t be as much content on it.
I’m not opposed to writing in romance I just wanted to know if it was worth the hassle of writing it in haha
Does sound a bit frustrating that romantic scenes are what get the majority of feedback though.
Thats good to know. Guess it all just depends on the individual, I just wanted to get a general idea of if it was worth including it.
Good luck with your wip : )
Thats fair enough, I’ll keep that in mind while I’m writing my wip then : )
I can definitely see how that would be frustrating, my story starts off with the player as a child and yhen slowly ages them up as the events of the story unfold, so it wouldn’t be until the second half of the game where the player is an adult that any romance would happen if I decide to include it.
Thanks for the reply.
I’d say this was more so a hobby for me but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care if no one was interested in it st because I have put a lot of time into it. (Wouldn’t be the end of the world and at the end of the day this was just for fun)
Tbh I just wanted to get a general idea of if it was worth the inclusion of it. If I do put it in though it won’t be until the second half of the game.
thank you for the advice.
Tbh I just wanted to get a general idea of if it was worth the inclusion of romance, since if I were to include it by the nature of my characters/story it would change dynamics/other aspects of the story.
My story starts off with the player as a child and then slowly ages them up as the events of the story unfold, so it wouldn’t be until the second half of the game where the player is an adult that any romance would happen if I decide to include it.
At the end of the day I’m just writing this for fun/as a way to ground myself during my breaks at work haha
Thank you for the advice, I’ll keep that in mind if I decide to add in any romance into my story.
Tbh I just wanted to know if it was worth the inclusion of it since it would mean adding in a lot more content.
Romance has certainly become an expectation and many people will likely be disappointed but… expectation is not necessity, if romance doesnt fit into your story dont force it otherwise it could ruin things or read as awkward, if you want to add some then try to do it in an organic way that works with the story
If you explicitly state that the main character is aromantic then you’ll get people saying how bold and interesting the choice is.
Some will, but those will probably be people who would have wanted to play it anyway. Considering how many people are willing to nag authors who are actually aromantic in real life and choose not to include romance in their games because they’re not comfortable writing it, I’m not really optimistic that an aromantic character would be welcome. At best, there’d be a lot of “What a bold and interesting choice! The game definitely isn’t for me, because there’s no way I could possibly use my imaginitive faculty to enter empathetically and vicariously into the life of a person that different from me, so I’m gonna replay my old favorite where I’m a 500-year-old vampire instead. But such a bold and interesting choice!”
Yeah it won’t translate to sales lol.
I suppose you would know all about sales, William Loman. 
The Gray Painter was heavily praised for the bold and interesting choices I made and sold zero copies.
Hey, I know for a fact it sold one!