Does anyone else feel like full 3D sex genre has temporarily failed/died down?

[jameswerder]

~5+ years ago we saw Wildlife, VaM, Monster Girl Island, Operation Lovecraft, Carnal Instinct, Breeders of Neph etc. explode onto patreon or otherwise, along with the Skyrim SE mod scene going strong. I imagined by now we would have a buffet of VR sex games and full 3D sex scene creators available or in development. 

 

Now in 2025 most of those games are either dead or SLOWLY trickling out updates and milking patreon subscribers, and we honestly havent seen a lot of other contenders. Oblivion remastered probably isnt going to get the kind of modder love that Skyrim did, even fast forwarding a couple years I doubt it will have a lot going on. 

 

Wildlife is solid but honestly will never release at current speed of development.

 

Project Helius/Lovecraft did a bait and switch and now is a weird laggy multiplayer gacha game and bans people from their forums who complained.

 

The rest either died or limp along, with breeders of neph being pretty complete if thats your thing (not really for me)

 

As someone who wanted full 3d and doesnt give a damn about visual novels etc (these arent games), can anyone explain why the true 3D porn game industry seems to have just not taken off at all? 

[Miauzi]

Vor 13 Minuten sagte jameswerder:

Vor über 5 Jahren erlebten Wildlife, VaM, Monster Girl Island, Operation Lovecraft, Carnal Instinct, Breeders of Neph usw. einen explosionsartigen Aufschwung auf Patreon oder anderswo, zusammen mit der boomenden Skyrim SE-Mod-Szene. Ich hätte mir vorgestellt, dass wir inzwischen ein Buffet an VR-Sexspielen und kompletten 3D-Sexszenen-Erstellern hätten oder in der Entwicklung. 

 

Jetzt, im Jahr 2025, sind die meisten dieser Spiele entweder tot oder bringen nur LANGSAM Updates heraus und melken Patreon-Abonnenten, und wir haben ehrlich gesagt nicht viele andere Konkurrenten gesehen. Oblivion Remastered wird wahrscheinlich nicht die gleiche Modder-Liebe bekommen wie Skyrim, und selbst wenn wir ein paar Jahre vorspulen, bezweifle ich, dass da viel passieren wird. 

 

Wildlife ist solide, wird aber bei der derzeitigen Entwicklungsgeschwindigkeit ehrlich gesagt nie veröffentlicht.

 

Project Helius/Lovecraft hat einen Lockvogeltaktik angewandt und ist jetzt ein seltsames, langsames Multiplayer-Gacha-Spiel und verbannt Leute aus seinen Foren, die sich beschwert haben.

 

Der Rest ist entweder gestorben oder schleppt sich dahin, wobei die Neph-Züchter ziemlich vollständig sind, wenn das Ihr Ding ist (nicht wirklich meins).

 

Ich bin jemand, der komplettes 3D wollte und sich einen Dreck um Visual Novels usw. schert (das sind keine Spiele). Kann mir jemand erklären, warum die wahre 3D-Pornospielindustrie anscheinend überhaupt nicht in Gang gekommen ist? 

 

Ask the porn game industry directly - here is a modding site

[jameswerder]

The mods have also died down, what is the cutting edge for 3D sex modding? Nothing has come close to Skyrim, and it has slowed WAY down in terms of mods and updates, and nothing has replaced it, nothing is even getting off the ground. 

[MadMansGun]

skyrim was just right time right place, but now everyone that worked on it is burned out, and having unnecessary updates continuously break everything did not help things.

 

just one look at FO4 or 2077 makes most of us go "no i already made that mod, i'm not going through that again".

hell i myself ported deathclaws & nightstalkers into skyrim just so i would not have to re-learn how to animate for FO4.

[steelpanther24]

1 hour ago, jameswerder said:

The mods have also died down, what is the cutting edge for 3D sex modding? Nothing has come close to Skyrim, and it has slowed WAY down in terms of mods and updates, and nothing has replaced it, nothing is even getting off the ground. 

The rise of Visual novels.   Being a DIK is a pretty popular game.   RenPy has flooded the market, making an already small market group even more fragmented.   

 

 

[Daftbunny]

Yeah it sucks that games like Wildlife and Carnal most likely will never become full games as we think of. But games are harder too make then I think most ppl think and it costs alot of money too make, even more the more complex you try too make it like a mordern 3d games.

[jameswerder]

25 minutes ago, Daftbunny said:

Yeah it sucks that games like Wildlife and Carnal most likely will never become full games as we think of. But games are harder too make then I think most ppl think and it costs alot of money too make, even more the more complex you try too make it like a mordern 3d games.

 

Some of the other ones went full on scam mode so at least Wildlife trickles out animations and content, but I havent subscribed for a new build in a couple years cause there just isnt much added. I think I scratch my head at them making full games rather than just focusing in on sex. They will never be able to compete with a normal RPG and also be a great porn game.

 

2 hours ago, MadMansGun said:

skyrim was just right time right place, but now everyone that worked on it is burned out, and having unnecessary updates continuously break everything did not help things.

 

just one look at FO4 or 2077 makes most of us go "no i already made that mod, i'm not going through that again".

Hell I myself ported Deathclaws & Nightstalkers into Skyrim just so I wouldn't have to re-learn how to animate for FO4.

 

This is a good answer and thank you for your hard work in the past

 

2 hours ago, steelpanther24 said:

The rise of visual novels. Being a DIK is a pretty popular game. RenPy has flooded the market, making an already small market group even more fragmented.   

 

 

 

I guess where Im at id rather watch normal porn than watch a 2D novel. The part of the 3D games that makes them worthwild is the control of the camera and content. I do NOT understand the appeal of the novel format

[belegost]

53 minutes ago, jameswerder said:

I do NOT understand the appeal of the novel format

I went in for the porn, but stayed for the story. Hell, it even came down to this: I started skipping all the porn sections because the story was just too good to waste my time on watching CGI voxels have sex. I got Skyrim for that part.

 

The "game" is Eternum.

 

 

[Gameplayer]

I am hoping that Skyblivion will freshen up the modding scene for adult content.

[NymphoElf]

There are a few major problems with Porn games:
 

1. You're very unlikely to get any "AAA" quality porn games due to the difficulties marketing such things, and the resulting lack of budget. It's effectively impossible to find a welcoming market that can compete with the ability to advertise to the overall public. You simply can't advertise "Turbo Slut Sex Island" in the same way you can advertise Skyrim, or Mario Kart, or the like.
    
2. Many sex game developers are inexperienced and rack up technical debt in their projects until they reach a point of no return and the game either sucks dick (in the bad way) as a result or otherwise can't improve any further because the technical debt has anchored it to its current state. Therefore, many use it as a learning experience and a side hustle until they can get a "real job". Similarly, porn projects are not exactly the most favored on job resumes and therefore have an extremely limited talent pool because those that ARE talented tend to work on more resume-friendly projects.
   • A prominent example of this is Wicked Island. The guy has been working on this game for 5-ish years or more and clearly has very little clue of what he's doing. He's claimed to have fixed the same bugs numerous times and they still keep coming back. He's making over $200K/year from last I checked yet he can't even fix a simple UI bug. If I didn't know any better I'd say what he was doing is borderline criminal, but I digress.
      
3. The current states of porn, privacy, and national laws are in conflict with each other, which further discourages development of pornographic games and is also starting to stifle the overall market for them - both for full fledged games and mods. So, yes - right now in particular is a very BAD time to be an NSFW developer. The proverbial pond is rather shallow right now, and it may be that way for a while (another 5+ years).
    
4. Sex games have to focus on a narrow band of kinks in order to be able to provide any reasonable level of quality. The sexual spectrum is simply too large for any game to properly accommodate them all. Therefore each sex game appeals to an even smaller number of people than you can market to as mentioned in point #1. So despite the fact that "sex sell", not all sex sells to everyone.
    

So yeah. THESE are the real issues affecting everything.

Edited August 4, 2025 by NymphoElf

[Miauzi]

Vor 16 Minuten sagte NymphoElf:

Es gibt einige große Probleme mit Pornospielen:
 

1. Aufgrund der schwierigen Vermarktung und des damit verbundenen Budgetmangels ist es sehr unwahrscheinlich, Pornospiele in AAA-Qualität zu finden. Es ist praktisch unmöglich, einen attraktiven Markt zu finden, der mit der Möglichkeit konkurrieren kann, die breite Öffentlichkeit zu erreichen. Man kann für „Turbo Slut Sex Island“ genauso werben wie für Skyrim, Mario Kart oder ähnliche Spiele.
    
2. Viele Sexspielentwickler sind unerfahren und häufen technische Schulden in ihren Projekten an, bis sie einen Punkt erreichen, an dem es kein Zurück mehr gibt. Das Spiel ist dann entweder (im negativen Sinne) schlecht oder lässt sich nicht mehr verbessern, weil die technischen Schulden es in seinem aktuellen Zustand festhalten. Viele nutzen es daher als Lernerfahrung und Nebenverdienst, bis sie einen „richtigen Job“ finden. Gleichzeitig stehen solche Projekte nicht gerade im Vordergrund von Bewerbungen und sind daher nur in einem sehr begrenzten Talentpool verfügbar, da Talentierte tendenziell in lebenslauffreundlicheren Positionen landen.
   • Ein prominentes Beispiel dafür ist Wicked Island. Der Typ arbeitet seit etwa fünf Jahren oder länger an diesem Spiel und hat offensichtlich kaum eine Ahnung von dem, was er tut. Er behauptet, dieselben Fehler schon unzählige Male behoben zu haben, und sie tauchen immer wieder auf. Soweit ich weiß, verdient er über 200.000 Dollar pro Jahr, kann aber nicht einmal einen einfachen UI-Fehler beheben. Wenn ich es nicht besser wüsste, würde ich sagen, dass sein Tun an der Grenze zur Kriminalität liegt, aber ich schweife ab.
      
3. Die aktuellen Bestimmungen zu Pornografie, Datenschutz und nationalen Gesetzen stehen im Konflikt miteinander, was die Entwicklung pornografischer Spiele zusätzlich behindert und den Markt dafür – sowohl für vollwertige Spiele als auch für Mods – zu ersticken beginnt. Also ja – gerade jetzt ist eine sehr schlechte Zeit für NSFW-Entwickler. Der sprichwörtliche Teich ist derzeit ziemlich flach, und das könnte noch eine Weile so bleiben (noch weitere 5+ Jahre).
    
4. Sexspiele müssen sich auf ein schmales Spektrum an Vorlieben konzentrieren, um ein angemessenes Qualitätsniveau bieten zu können. Das sexuelle Spektrum ist einfach zu groß, als dass ein Spiel alle befriedigen könnte. Daher spricht jedes Sexspiel eine noch geringere Anzahl von Menschen an, als man, wie in Punkt 1 erwähnt, vermarkten kann. Obwohl „Sex sells“, verkauft sich also nicht jeder Sex für jeden.
    

Also ja. DAS sind die wahren Probleme, die alles beeinflussen.

 

There are approximately 110,000 mods for Sykrim on Nexus alone – 10,000 of which could easily be deleted or "hidden" due to the tightened "child protection" policy.

In addition, there are many mod authors who have their "erotic" creations on sites with "paywalls" – probably 10,000 or even more.

 

I already have a very specific sexual niche with various clothing fetishes or BDSM preferences – but with the help of several thousand mods, I can create even the most bizarre sex scenario in Sykrim in a way that none of the porn games produced so far can.

 

And VR sex is, in my opinion, utter nonsense... until (sometime in the distant future) there is a "full-dive" technology (like in "SAO").

 

---

 

In the porn industry, "class" aka "quality" has never been used as a benchmark for a production... to this day, the rule remains -> cheap junk brings in the cash.

 

There have been tentative attempts from time to time to bring something like "mass-market" porn games to this specific market... the risk of wasting a million-dollar investment is simply too great.

 

Every year, "Venus" takes place in my hometown of Berlin - one of the largest porn trade fairs in the world... Computer games are not a topic for the industry!

(I wonder why I referred to the porn industry in my first post?)

[DarkBlade13]

It is a sad thing. I would like to see some 3D open world games.

[Faolon]

 

Sandbox/Open World games are ridiculously hard to do. Too expensive, time intensive, and just straight up difficult to make and maintain. Then you have to add the fact that there are a lot of crazy people on the internet who will harass and attack developers if they don't get their way. It's just way too much stress to willingly take on.

 

It's also less daunting for new developers to pick up things like Renpy or Twine. There are programs you can buy to make things easier for you. And with ai getting better literally by the second, it's even easier for new people to have a go at a html game.

[Blehbreh]

It takes a great deal of artistic passion to make a game, let alone a game that involves sex. Since you mostly get indies working on titles that involve sex, there won't be much budget available so such a task would take a huge amount of time from a developer, larger teams don't really exist for adult games at the current time period especially when payment for any work that an additional member of a team would have to come post launch, or a tight window of development time and a personal loan would have to be drawn out on a gamble. You can't openly advertise adult games on most platforms, especially at the moment with all the changes to the policies of sites going on.

 

Even if someone were to single handedly make one of the best 3D adult games to ever have existed, many wouldn't be aware of it and therefore the game wouldn't make a return on the investment. That or it could be poofed out of existence by a payment processor and it wouldn't make any return at all.

 

Our best bet at this point would be the way of Skyrim. Someone makes a game that can be marketed and advertised, which doesn't include adult content in itself, but the game is straight forward and very accessible to modders. Fans of the games or developers of paid mods could then add whatever they wanted to the game until it's an adult game (subjectively to whoever owns it).

 

This would still take a long time, and probably a completely custom engine OR an available UE custom build project that is downloadable somewhere. With the latter option, the developer runs the risk of not making any money because anyone could just playtest the game and have it for free from inside the unreal editor. This is all completely hypothetical of course because actually completing development of a game at anywhere near the scale of Base Skyrim would still be a Herculean task for a single developer.

Edited August 17, 2025 by Blehbreh

[Lulasmut]

14 hours ago, Faolon said:

 

Sandbox/Open World games are ridiculously hard to do. Too expensive, time intensive, and just straight up difficult to make and maintain. Then you have to add the fact that there are a lot of crazy people on the internet who will harass and attack developers if they don't get their way. It's just way too much stress to willingly take on.

 

It's also less daunting for new developers to pick up things like Renpy or Twine. There are programs you can buy to make things easier for you. And with ai getting better literally by the second, it's even easier for new people to have a go at a html game.

Many people don't realize the amount of work it takes to create decent real-time 3D games.

I'm a developer myself, and to be honest, I regret dropping everything to create something.

Too many people are delusional, like when you hear people use arguments like "milking their Patreon." These people usually don't understand anything about development and will never do anything in terms of development.

As for Wildlife, I've been following this project since the beginning. They're still in development, they have a team of about 10 developers, they make some money, but given their location, the cost of rent, energy, taxes, and salaries, you can be sure they don't have much money left over after everything is paid.

Their developers are employees; they certainly have weekends off and don't work more than 10 hours a day. But most people expect them to work 80 or 100 hours a week or pay 100 developers with a budget for 10 developers of 40 or 50 hours a week...

There are even people who compare an independent studios to Rockstar, comparing a billion-dollar company with games budgets in the hundreds of millions and thousands of developers to a small development team or just solo one.

As if Rockstar could do it for GTA 5, a team of a few people with limited resources could do the same...

Or people that compare work of indie games to modding scene as with skyrim or sims, where it's more than 10 years that thousands of people are doing several mods. and on the top of games also developed with pretty huge budgets by hundreds of developers over several years....
People looking at indie games expect faster and more than also an area where there's thousands of people involved, for mods, anim, models etc.. and all that coming from solo or small dev team in shorter time.. 

What I always say to those who complain...
Just try to develop something yourself...

If you do things after day work and/or weekend, having to learn 3D, animation, and start getting to grips with something like Unreal Engine, it will easily take you ten years to start getting good at it and knowing what you're doing... you still won't be an expert at that point.

And you'll already be spending all your free time doing that...

 

[Zorai]

On 8/17/2025 at 5:53 AM, Lulasmut said:

Many people don't realize the amount of work it takes to create decent real-time 3D games.

I'm a developer myself, and to be honest, I regret dropping everything to create something.

Too many people are delusional, like when you hear people use arguments like "milking their Patreon." These people usually don't understand anything about development and will never do anything in terms of development.

As for Wildlife, I've been following this project since the beginning. They're still in development, they have a team of about 10 developers, they make some money, but given their location, the cost of rent, energy, taxes, and salaries, you can be sure they don't have much money left over after everything is paid.

Their developers are employees; they certainly have weekends off and don't work more than 10 hours a day. But most people expect them to work 80 or 100 hours a week or pay 100 developers with a budget for 10 developers of 40 or 50 hours a week...

There are even people who compare an independent studios to Rockstar, comparing a billion-dollar company with games budgets in the hundreds of millions and thousands of developers to a small development team or just solo one.

As if Rockstar could do it for GTA 5, a team of a few people with limited resources could do the same...

Or people that compare work of indie games to modding scene as with skyrim or sims, where it's more than 10 years that thousands of people are doing several mods. and on the top of games also developed with pretty huge budgets by hundreds of developers over several years....
People looking at indie games expect faster and more than also an area where there's thousands of people involved, for mods, anim, models etc.. and all that coming from solo or small dev team in shorter time.. 

What I always say to those who complain...
Just try to develop something yourself...

If you do things after day work and/or weekend, having to learn 3D, animation, and start getting to grips with something like Unreal Engine, it will easily take you ten years to start getting good at it and knowing what you're doing... you still won't be an expert at that point.

And you'll already be spending all your free time doing that...

 

 

This is absolutely the reason why I'd go into 2D if I could make a game. And why I genuinely believe this is the reason why 2D just works better for it in the long term. Flip Witch is a good (imo) NSFW game that is completed, and doesn't have any issues to it. Kincaid is another that's still in the works and it looks great so far as well. I get pixels aren't to everyone's tastes, but for me it has a better charm to it then 3D can at times. Mainly because a lot of 3D games flood the NSFW market and a lot of them aren't too great, to really poorly made and get abandoned. And that's not me complaining, more so stating that people tend to be over ambitious in making something and they don't realize that its a lot harder then it looks. Inexperience and/or over ambition are what mainly causes these issues. And its easier to go the route of 2D then 3D, which is why a lot of the better NSFW games are 2D.

 

The appeal to 3D is nice, but as you've said, it takes way too much time for a small team to get it off the ground, let alone a single person, and there's going to be a ton of issues with it as time goes on (Bugs, clipping issues, lighting problems, making/getting assets, etc.). Hunt and Snare is a pretty good 3D furry game that's looking good, but taking a lot of time to develop as well due to the scope that a lot of 3D games have, and its unfortunate. Especially, as you said, when people wanna complain and not understand how hard these work and the time and effort it takes as well. All it does is lower that passion to work on the project.

[belegost]

On 8/4/2025 at 2:54 AM, NymphoElf said:

The proverbial pond is rather shallow right now, and it may be that way for a while

Pray to whatever deity you believe in, it doesn't turn into a puddle.

 

Or dry up completely.

[Lulasmut]

5 hours ago, Zorai said:

 

This is absolutely the reason why I'd go into 2D if I could make a game. And why I genuinely believe this is the reason why 2D just works better for it in the long term. Flip Witch is a good (imo) NSFW game that is completed, and doesn't have any issues to it. Kincaid is another that's still in the works and it looks great so far as well. I get pixels aren't to everyone's tastes, but for me it has a better charm to it then 3D can at times. Mainly because a lot of 3D games flood the NSFW market and a lot of them aren't too great, to really poorly made and get abandoned. And that's not me complaining, more so stating that people tend to be over ambitious in making something and they don't realize that its a lot harder then it looks. Inexperience and/or over ambition are what mainly causes these issues. And its easier to go the route of 2D then 3D, which is why a lot of the better NSFW games are 2D.

 

The appeal to 3D is nice, but as you've said, it takes way too much time for a small team to get it off the ground, let alone a single person, and there's going to be a ton of issues with it as time goes on (Bugs, clipping issues, lighting problems, making/getting assets, etc.). Hunt and Snare is a pretty good 3D furry game that's looking good, but taking a lot of time to develop as well due to the scope that a lot of 3D games have, and its unfortunate. Especially, as you said, when people wanna complain and not understand how hard these work and the time and effort it takes as well. All it does is lower that passion to work on the project.

Devs should make what they prefer and used to..
I was 3d guy and animator before start to dev my game(s).
2D is not my cup of tea at all, and I'm also much more used to 3D. I had skills for 3D that I do not have for 2D..

Several years ago, people was still understanding the complexity of development, now many people do not seem to want to understand anything..
Remain some people, but as the message I answered first,  lot of crazy people on the internet who will harass and attack developers if they don't get their way.

This point is really true too..
I do not know what happened, but most of the issues are more from people who do not want to understand the most logical and elementary things...

And so what, because there is a bunch of people like that, all devs need to make quick games, lower quality, make all only 2D.. 
Well it will be a sad world with even less diversity in term of games and originality, and such people contribute for that, then you see them ask questions as why,
while they are for many, part of the reason of the 'why'.. 

Personally I still try to do something, something that I would like to play myself, it's also a big reason of why I make my own, I have about no interest in 2D games, VN and such..
If I had to make that because it's ONLY what some people want, to be honest at this point I prefer do nothing at all, or get totally out of nsfw to make something else that interest me to create.
 

[belegost]

On 8/4/2025 at 3:28 AM, Miauzi said:

In the porn industry, "class" aka "quality" has never been used as a benchmark for a production... to this day, the rule remains -> cheap junk brings in the cash.

Correct.

 

I remember attempting to watch "Pirates XXX" or whatever the title of it was, way back. It definietly had good production and high budget, but I wasn't sure who this was made for.

 

If I was to judge it as a movie, it wasn't a particularly good one. It felt like some film school graduate side-project that had been given too much money. As a porn, it had too much other things going on and the scenes were too few and far between and they were boring.

I quit about a third way through after getting there in two sittings, skipped through the rest of the scenes just to see if I was missing anything interesting (I wasn't) and deleted it.

 

I'd rather watch a 10-minute clip with bad camera angles made with a vintage cell phone and forget it ever existed 5 minutes later, than be subjected to full 2h movie with sex scenes, that tries to be artistic. Mate, I ain't watching porn for this.

Especially since, in contrast to a good movie, a porn can only be enjoyed once, maybe twice if the chicks are pretty and are actually enjoying themselves instead of "acting", before it gets old.

 

Cinema and porn do not mix.

Edited September 10, 2025 by belegost