'These kids do not care about romance': Game devs want to know what today's teens want, and surveys say sex and romance isn't it

That's right "industry execs" — you just need to turn down the romance by 40% and the sex by 15%, add 50% more friendship and 25% more adventure, control for the desired level of political correctness, add just the right variety of behavioural feedback loops, and you'll have a maximally profitable game.

maximally profitable game

See, it really is just an algorithm that can be nailed down perfectly, and I've got an entire floor of statisticians and market analysts that agree it'll make me berjillions!!!1!!

Lpt: they're also telling me more statisticians and market analysts will help boost my numbers too! Jackpot!

-an executive, somewhere, in nearly every corporate office
Yes daddy
- What part of turn the romance down by 40% didn't you understand?

You’re starting on the wrong end.

People want games that the devs care about making. Whether it has sex or friendship or romance or relativistically-accurate jiggle physics.

People don’t know what they want until it’s in front of them, but devs know what they wanna make.

I think you hit the nail on the head with those points.

I've seen 5+ clones of Papers Please. I doubt that if you surveyed people describing the mechanics that they would be interested especially if Papers Please never came out.

For the original Halo they surveyed people who played who pretty much universally described the AI on the harder difficulties as being significantly "smarter". In actuality the only thing changed was enemies health pools and damage output and it was identical AI.

Gamers usually have a holistic experience with the games they are playing. There's definitely a place for user feedback to work, but devs don't look at a game the same way that people playing them do. Asking people who don't know how something works for feedback will give you perspective, but it doesn't necessarily lead to informed design decisions.
- "I've seen 5+ clones of Papers Please. I doubt that if you surveyed people describing the mechanics that they would be interested especially if Papers Please never came out."
  
  I think this is a great example. You can't distill things down to a formula because these things exist in conversation with each other. An example that comes to mind is the game "Not Tonight", a Brexit themed Papers Please clone. Mechanically, it does very little to distinguish itself from papers please, but narratively, that's sort of the whole point: It being a clone specifically leverages the energy of "Glory to Arstotzka" to satirise the UK's institutional racism.
  
  Surveys don't capture that games like this aren't just clones of Papers Please, they're actively in conversation with Papers Please

Just because you really enjoy golf doesn't mean you want every movie to have a half-assed awkward golf game stuffed into it.

It's not just games, it's TV and movies too.

Cramming sex into everything made sense when we weren't constantly 5 seconds away from being able to see pretty much any kind of porn someone could imagine.

Now tho, that stuff isn't a reason to watch a show. If you just cared about that, you'd watch the clip online
- lol are you equating romance in media to porn
  
  Like do you watch the x files and whip out some porn every time the two mains chars have romantic tension
Also, everyone plays golf differently and someone will watch a pro take a swing and so try it themselves, only to fail awkwardly and in public. The lessons to be learned are misconstrued as golfing lessons when in fact it's just an exciting story about how hard that kind of shot really is. Folks don't seem to understand that a story isn't giving directions but advice.

When there isn't a need, there isn't a reason. And egregious golf is gross.
Oh my god, yes, this! So much this! We all know what teens want, and it's Olympic curling and nothing else.

I enjoy well-done romance in games. It's just a taste thing.

Does that exist?
- I still miss Judy from Cyberpunk 2077 so yeah...
- Mass Effect did it quite well (at least some of them like Tali), although with a touch of cringe
  
  And The Witcher obviously
  
  And of course some story games like Life Is Strange, but they're character-focused so it makes sense
What is the flavor of romance?
- Salty milk and coins.
- Like warm apple pie.
What's your fave?
- I've played so many it is hard to have a favorite. I like when different games try to incorporate romance, but I still prefer visual novels. I have played so many where you are a guy romancing women (these usually are bad quality and an excuse to see sex, I am fine with sex but at least emphasize the romance) but have been getting into otome games where you are a woman romancing guys. There are still bad tropes in some of these games, like noncon (I only do consensual). There are also queer games like Dream Daddy I enjoyed.
  
  For non-VN I would say I liked Bioware's games, Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon games, Story of Seasons games, Rune Factory games, Persona games, Divinity Original Sin 2, Baldurs Gate 3 (haven't beaten yet, seems promising), Cyberpunk 2077 (Judy), Life is Strange, and Obsidian/Bethesda (sorta).
- Liara

Who cares what teens want?

They don't have any money.

Is that why no one cares what I want? Because I don't have any money? 🤔
- Money is the old economy. Teens have something that adults don't have that is infinitely more valuable than money: attention. This is how, despite having no money, teen taste and culture is so over-represented today.

bg3 was literally one of the biggest games of the year....

also the sims 4 has been going for years

Hades was also HUGE and I find it hard to believe it was mainly for the gameplay as even I, a gameplay purist, have always been drawn in by Supergiant’s storytelling.
The romance was the worst part of BG3, imo.

Too forced, every dialogue option is either slightly flirty (at least) or just telling them "fuck you and die".

Even when you say you just want friendship and avoid the most flirty options, it won't stop the game from trying to throw you in a romance. I hated that.
- Yep. It did depend on the companion a bit, IIRC Shadowheart and Astarion's romances wouldn't be triggered unless the PC picked the flirty dialogue. But then there were some companions who would pursue the player. I hated how I couldn't just be Gale's Bro, and Halsin is just plain creepy.
Bets that it wasn’t because of the romance.
- I completely avoided all of the romance and loved the game because it's a fantastic game.
  
  I think it's cool that it's there for people that enjoy it though.

that's only true because most of you motherfuckers do robotic gamified romances that don't feel natural, heartfelt or interesting.

kids these days don't want sex they want to be held as they curl up in a ball and cry
- Hey, me too

A romance story is good if's not half-assed and a game doesn't depend on it. 16-bit RPG's did it well.

No one wants to admit they want that stuff in a survey but those are always super popular

I mean, maybe my friends are just weird, but I'm looking at the success of mass effect trilogy, BG3, the older dragon age games, etc and a huge talking point was always all the companions and possible avenues of romance and sex. That should never be the focus of the game, but it can be a substantial part of the overall experience and add a lot.

Teens these days.

I played and enjoyed BG3 too. but I'm an adult..

Big mainstream games that are heavy on sex, like Baldur's Gate 3, are a recent phenomenon.

Heavy on sex? Just which mods did the author install?

It's fairly accurate isn't it? Every single companion (bar Minsc and Jaheira - though the Jaheira romance was cut content) lusts for you with the uncomplicated ferocity of a hormonal teenager, some after having exchanged barely a sentence or two with you (looking at you, Halsin). There is a bear fucking scene, Mizora wants you for some reason and hell, you can even bang a god damn mind flayer.
- The bear-fucking scene will always be my answer to things like this.
  
  You can't look at BG3 and go "yup, wholesome family fun for all ages"
You can romance and have sex with pretty much anything with a heartbeat in BG3.
- Yeah there's some romance, but there's barely any sex. You can only romance one character at a time and there's like one short cutscene per character, with some being a fade to black, in a 100 hour long game.
- Does it need a heart beat?
  
  Asterion?
EVERYONE!

As usual big business trying to figure out a cookie cutter formula to repeatedly make billions in profit. But games are creative, not formulaic.

Yeah it’s too bad their formula isn’t “what if we made a good game?”
- That's not how senior management approvals work. You're not allowed to pitch an opinion. Youre only allowed to make recommendations based on something that previously worked or if it's a direct request by multiple users in an official feed back form. Why do you think there is no creativity in AAA games, they call it "data driven decision making".

I mean, I played Firewatch. It's part suspense and mystery but I felt there was a possible romance angle there that is hard to deny. You can make it platonic and straightforward but I remember feeling quite connected to the person on the other line.

Then again, I'm twice the age of a "teen" so I don't know if it fits.

Maybe one day, someone in charge of making video games will ~~figure out~~ remember that compelling, unique, decently challenging and rewarding gameplay is the actual fundamental component of a video game, and that everything else is important, but ultimately secondary to that.

I know it's anecdotal, but among my students (12-18 y/o), dating sims are extremely popular. Probably the most popular genre after battle royal games. I would definitely consider dating sims romance games.

Dating sims are generally not played by heterosexual boys on Playstation or Xbox.
- Dating sims are absolutely played by heterosexual boys. Some of the weirdest, red-pill, alpha-male shit I've seen is from dating sims.
  
  But yeah, usually on PC, I would think.

I as a video game enthusiast do not want my character to experience romance. It doesn't happen in real life the way it is portrayed in media, and it's fucking boring seeing it over and fucking over again. Gimme tragedy, gimme a problem I can solve, a mystery, or a war to fight. But romance, and sex, have not a damn place in those things. Developers of apparently every damn media have gotten it drilled into their heads that we want to read, watch, play thru, and otherwise experience their mental masturbation. Well I for one, don't fucking want to experience it at all. Gimme a story, and if you can't do it without pointless sex scenes then you don't have a fuckin story, you have a story about fuckin.

Sometimes it's fun
- Well this is funny sex humor
  
  Not romance
  
  This is the same thing TV shows figured out ages ago: you give people a flirty relationship and it's generally fun to watch. You turn that flirting into an actual relationship and it's boring + usually some fan service where the authors of the show try to get their female coworkers as naked as they can be manipulated into getting. And then they always need to make that same female coworker get pregnant and force her to fake giving birth.
  
  Tldr it doesn't matter what the fans want, authors are fucking pervs.
I dunno. problems, mysteries, and war aren't usually portrayed realistically in video games, either.
Did romantic feelings have any place in Max Payne 2?
1000% agree.

Been saying this for a long time now. Romance in video games is about as batshit-cringy as it gets and is a tremendous waste of time that could have been used to add meaningful content or fix stability issues/bugs instead.

It can be cute inold school adventure games tho

I mean, that’s what fanfiction.net is for if you want to ship Bowser and Peach.

Now, I like a good romance here and there. Who doesn't?

That being said, games like Sonic 06 are very good examples of why romance isn't welcome in some places

Oh really. And what do you think he's collecting all those rings for?
- Sauron

Half-assed sex scenes (no pun intended) are probably worse than ones that are well done.

I still think a lot about one of the beats in a DA:I romance. But like... all the ones from DA:O were kind of bad. But also the one I played in DA:V was so PG-13 and sterile it wasn't any fun at all.

all the ones from DA:O

You underestimate the power of my crush on Morrigan.
- I think that you can just give them gifts until they're horny for you is like the quintessential example of poorly done video game romance.

This feels like such a non issue because games and movies these days have basically zero sex appeal or romance

It was a pleasant surprise that you could romance people in BG3

Romance in video games is fun, yeah, but it's usually just something extra. It's rarely the main focus and I'm hard-pressed to really imagine how to make it the main focus without making a gooner game. Usually romance/sex is sort of the cherry on top of an otherwise good game.

If they want sex they'll go to pornhub

Some people prefer multiplayer games.

It's always been this way.... Are people finally realizing that fan service is cringe?

This came up, I want to say last year? In regards to movies and TV shows as well.

Aha - 2023:

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/25/1208435267/sex-teens-tv-movies

"Looking for 'nomance': Study finds teens want less sex in their TV and movies"

This is where I've found myself, too. It's not that I am prudish or against the inclusion of sex scenes in shows and movies—I think some of them are pretty well done—but we're at the point where it feels like a lot of media are just adding in sex scenes for the spectacle of it without it serving any particular purpose for narrative development or characterization.
- I mean, the Marvel stuff has all been gigantic and proves you don't need sex scenes. In fact, the one Marvel movie with a sex scene (Eternals) did the worst.
- but we’re at the point where it feels like a lot of media are just adding in sex scenes for the spectacle of it without it serving any particular purpose for narrative development or characterization.
  
  This has been a thing in movies since they existed. A bit less common, but still there, in books and TV. It isn't anything new, but at least it is becoming less common.
That's because OPs article is citing the second annual Teens and Screens report from the UCLA Center for Scholars and Storytellers. Your NPR article from 2023 is citing the first annual Teens and Screens report.
- That makes sense then!