# Is it off putting if a game doesn't have romance? **URL:** \ **Category:** Writing and Content\ **Created:** [September 3, 2026, 8:57pm UTC](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/is-it-off-putting-if-a-game-doesnt-have-romance/179104 "2026-09-03T20:57:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 111
**Author:** ![Lan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/choiceofgames/user_avatar/forum.choiceofgames.com/lan/32/80851_2.png) [@Lan](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/u/Lan)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 8:34am UTC](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/is-it-off-putting-if-a-game-doesnt-have-romance/179104/111 "2026-09-23T08:34:40Z")
You may appreciate reading the responses in [Do you NEED romance options, personally?](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/do-you-need-romance-options-personally/83564) I don’t care if a CSG has romance or not, unless it was inaccurately advertised as having romance when it didn’t. (Or, I suppose, as being romance-free when it isn’t.) However, lacking romancable NPCs will decrease popularity. - 39% of respondants in [this poll](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/poll-thread-romantic-interests/139654) said it’s almost essential to have a romantic interest. - 30% of resopondants in [this one](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/polls-about-cog-hg-and-if-games/49125/227) said deep friendships/non-romantic relationships wouldn’t be enough to interest them in a game with no romance. - And in [this one](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/polls-about-cog-hg-and-if-games/49125/211) roughly 25% said they wouldn’t play a game with no romance. I don’t think that means you need to or should change anything. Write what you find fun. If writing some romance in would be fun, then yes, it’s absolutely worth the effort. Otherwise, I wouldn’t worry about it. * * * > [@LiliArch](#): > > the [official definition of interactive fiction](https://iftechfoundation.org/frequently-asked-questions/) > **sucks.** > > Granted, defining IF is hard. > > > The IFTF defines interactive fiction—IF, for short—as a kind of video game where the player’s interactions primarily involve text. > > (Welcome in, [Bookworm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookworm_(video_game)).) > > > Choice-based games are another well-known form of interactive fiction. […] Choice-based games can be […] physical, like a _**[Choose Your Own Adventure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure)**_ book. > > Paperback CYOA novels are video games. QED. * * * > [@cup\_half\_empty](#): > > I don’t think the term “interactive fiction” was a thing yet. I think it was coined around the time parser games became a thing I think the consensus is the term “interactive fiction” became widespread through Infocom’s marketing in the 80s. The term “gamebook” was probably coined by Puffin in 1982 with the publication of _The Warlock of Firetop Mountain_. > [@cup\_half\_empty](#): > > Paper gamebooks already existed, and any sane person would agree they were the pioneers of IF While books we can retroactively label gamebooks existed before parser games, the commercially successful gamebooks most people are thinking of when they invoke “gamebooks” are really not much older. [Adventure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure) came out in 1976. [Zork I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork) came out in 1980. The first [CYOA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Choose_Your_Own_Adventure_books) was published in 1979, the first [Fighting Fantasy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy) in 1982. I think it makes more sense to see them as contemporaries. * * * > [@Brian\_Rushton](#): > > I think Choices and Episode were the best-selling IF for a long time; at one point they each brought in more than $80,000 a _day_. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised given mobile F2P is pretty lucrative; Candy Crush makes a billion dollars a year, or roughly $2.7 million a day. This should probably be spun off into another topic, but why? Is it the heavy romance focus? Mobile availability? The pictures? Accessible prose? I tried Episodes and it didn’t appeal to me. Objectively expensive and subjectively not the greatest writing. However, it obviously appeals to a lot of people, so it must be doing something right. * * * > [@Havenstone](#): > > CoG/HG/HC – the most commercially successful IF company of the last couple decades _Is_ COG/HG/HC the most commercially successful IF company of the last couple decades? It’s not clear to me this is true, and I’m not taking about Episodes/Choices/etc (I don’t consider primarily image-based visual novels IF). --- _[View the full topic](https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/is-it-off-putting-if-a-game-doesnt-have-romance/179104)._