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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

Actually. Sometimes it is. The actual problem is that you're trying to figure it out at all. If you're trying to engineer the perfect product, it will always be a shit game. Good games come from passionate developers who have an idea, not from board meetings and focus groups.

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.

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

I really enjoyed my Shepard and Liara romance during the Mass Effect trilogy, but I don't think it's particularly well executed in most other games.

If they want sex they'll go to pornhub

SIGNALIS is a game about romance and I loved it, it is one of my favorite relatively recently released games.

Maybe you're doing it wrong?

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