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BL gamer followup survey results

Have you ever wondered how many of your fellow BL enthusiasts skip a game’s dialogue just to read the sex scenes? The percentage of men who self-insert versus the percentage of women? Are you wondering whether you’re the only BL fan who started reading BL at the ripe age of 12 and watched Aoba losing his butt virginity again and again at age 14?

In this second survey that directly follows the first whose results I shared back in March, I aims to answer these questions, alongside sating my own curiosity in a variety of BL game-related topics such money, how BL gamers enjoy sexual content in their games and how exactly the define the term “fetishization”.

(The cover image comes from Gakuen Heaven 2, you’re welcome.)


Some context

This time around I received significantly less answers: 469 instead of the 639 answers I got from the last survey, despite this one running for almost 6 months. One major difference is that I didn’t promote it on the big /r/gaymers subreddit, nor on 4chan or in certain Discord servers like I did last time. It wasn’t shared by certain bigger account and creators on Twitter either. It’s also possible this survey just ran too close to the first one and a number of respondents felt sated just answering the first one. Some questions, especially regarding sexuality, may have been too personal for some respondents as well.

I promoted the survey differently this time around in order to focus more on games that explicit market themselves as Boys Love (as opposed to bara, “gay” or amare), as well as avoid possible biases related to creators sharing the survey.


Gender split

There are significantly less men this time around, 29% versus the 38% present in last survey, the main reason being the lack of answers from /r/gaymers Redditors, who were in their vast majority cis, gay men. On the flip side, I received a whopping 49 answers from trans men, which is more than the 35 from last survey!

Instead of asking whether someone is attracted to “the opposite”, “the same” or “any” gender, I instead asked whether they were attracted to men, women or “any gender”. Men still tend to be overwhelmingly gay, while all other groups gravitate towards any gender. I did receive a couple answers from respondents who custom-wrote “bisexual” or “men and women”.

There was no trans woman among respondent this time (only 1 last survey). Seeing as several trans men report finding BL content gender affirming, perhaps trans women would rather look for yuri or otome content for gender affirmation.


A bit of geography

Again, 33% of all respondents were from the USA alone, followed by more people coming from English-speaking countries like Canada, UK and Australia. In the left graph, I break the continents into major zones, such as North and South America, or Western and Eastern Europe.

We can observe that several zones represent a significant portion of BL games:

  • South America (Mexico, Brazil, Argentina…)
  • Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia…)
  • Western and South Europe (UK, France, Spain, Italy…)
  • Central Europe (mainly Germany and Poland)

Southeast Asia, perhaps thanks to their relative proximity with Japan, is a big consumer of anime and other Japanese media. Thailand and Vietnam are home to a big live-action BL drama industry and Thailand in particular is the biggest consumer of video games in Southeast Asia.

South America is the largest home to Japanese diaspora (called “Nikkei”), with Brazil alone reporting more than 2 millions of people of Japanese descent, with a hundred thousands more living in Peru.

The French (Western Europe) and the Germans (Central Europe) are huge weebs thanks to decades of exposure to Japanese media and they’re the most populated countries of Europe. (source: I’m French)

Don’t forget: this survey is written in English, so the results are also biased towards countries where English literacy is higher.


Discovering BL during middle school

Kids on the internet lie all the time about their age. YOU probably lied about yours at some point too. Also, that 18 years old bar in the current age graph is highly suspicious.

87% of BL gamers started reading BL while they were minors. That number gets down to 58% for BL games. No respondent in the survey reported discovering BL through BL games. There’s nearly always a gap of several years before someone starts discovering BL games, meaning it takes a certain amount of familiarity with the genre to start playing games labeled under it.

In the third graph, 2010 coincides with the year Togainu no Chi’s anime adaption aired. That’s actually how I discovered BL games. 2012-2014 coincide with the release of the unofficial English patch for DRAMAtical Murder and its sequel, followed by the airing of DMMD’s anime adaption in 2014. I don’t remember what happened in 2016 for that spike to happen, 2018 is when former BlackMonkeyPro member Mazjojo launched a Kickstarter campaign for Full Service, and when the first version of Camp Buddy came out. In other word, all these years coincide with the times a BL game received enough attention to reach general BL fans and not just seasoned BL gamers.

I’m impressed by the few respondents who started reading BL as soon as they learned how to read, at age 6! Someone on Twitter told me they found their older sister’s BL stash. Another person told me the same thing but with their mother’s BL stash. BL is a great mother-child bonding activity if you ask me!


Hide the homo!

When asked whether they had to hide their BL stash in the past and whether they still need to do it now, the results were similar across all gender groups, with an average of 80-something percent of respondents having to hide it before and that number dropping a good 10 percents after. In the first place, the sexual nature of a lot of BL media means they just can’t show it to, say, their very religious parents.

It’s worth noting that cis men are the most likely to hide their BL stash while trans men and gender non-conforming respondents are the least likely. My guess is that cis men are the most likely to be 1°) closeted and 2°) target of homophobia should they be found reading BL, meanwhile trans men and enbies already face challenges due to their gender identity and appearance, so them being found reading BL or ‘obscene’ material would be the least of their worries.

Some of the regional stats are to be taken with a grain of salt: answers from North Europe and East Asia were in the single digit, so the sample is too small to draw conclusions. South Americans and South Europeans are the most likely to still hide their interest in BL. All 6 respondents from Italy reported still hiding their BL stash!

79% of respondents report hiding it from their family, followed by 60% from their peers (schoolmates, colleagues, etc…) and 34% from friends.


Sharing (or not) your love for BL

Speaking of friends, considering the previous results it comes at no surprise that cis men are the least likely of all groups to have any friends they can share their BL hobby, with nearly a third of them having no IRL or online BL friends. On the other side, a whopping 92% of their trans brothers report having at least one BL friend!

There are many ways to meet fellow BL fans and connect with them. You could join the /r/blgame subreddit, or the broader /r/boyslove subreddit where discussions about BL titles you liked are encouraged. You can join the discord server of BL game developers (you can usually find them on their website, twitter bio, or store page) where you will meet fans who enjoy the same game as you. You can play the latest trendy game and you will be sure to find someone who ships the same male character as you!


BL and their different mediums

When asked what other mediums they enjoy, BL gamers will answer Manga (93%), then Anime (81%), then Fanfiction (74%). Stage Play is a fairly decent development for BL so the 10,6% aren’t surprising. All in all, these numbers are what I expected.

Amateur gay porn sure is popular among BL gamers. With at least 50% of all gender groups reporting consuming it. Cis male respondents are the biggest consumer porn consumers; it helps that the overwhelming majority of make respondent reports being gay, with a smaller minority being bi.

Women are the least likely group to consume gay pornography. A closer look at their stats by sexual orientation shows that bi/pan women were the biggest female consumers of gay porn while ace women unsurprisingly consume the least of all categories.


The most favored personality traits

When asked to pick the personality traits they like in a BL game protagonist or love interest, “Caring” and “Smart” very popular choices for both protagonists and love interests, while “Dumb” unsurprisingly ranked last. Looking at these two graphs, there is a far bigger contrast on what trait a protagonist should have, while all gender groups more-or-less agree on LI’s personalities.

I had to do a double take to make sure the 72% of “Shy” protagonists for male respondents wasn’t a mistake but sure enough, male BL gamers really prefer their player character to be shy! …Is it because they are shy themselves? After all, 65% of them also prefer “relatable” player characters. That could explain why they have less BL friends too, but then again, correlation doesn’t mean causation. On another note, the popularity of “energetic and excitable” characters among men may be due to their prevalence in works like Camp Buddy.

A great many respondents further added that any personality is fine as long as it fits the story or if the protagonist and love interest’s dynamic is interesting. It means that any trait that they didn’t pick can become interesting if well used within the story they appear in. I believe that’s also the reason why “dumb” is unpopular: if a plot, conflict or a problem are driven by a character lacking common sense and failing to find an option that’s obvious to the player, or if a story bends itself backward to make it easy for the protagonist without thinking or effort required in his part, then it’s (usually) not an enjoyable story. On the other hand, a character’s stupidity can make for very amusing scenarios, which may be why at least 1/4 of of respondents DO like dumb characters. One person cited Tamamori from Hashihime of the Old Book Town as being both smart and dumb.

“Tsundere” (worded as “cold on the outside soft on the inside”) and “Calm and collected” love interests are very popular, no surprise here.


Self-inserting in BL games

Like in the last survey, men are more than twice as likely to report self-inserting in some capacity than women. This time I asked several more questions to understand how exactly they self-insert, and it turns out the character’s (usually the protagonist) name and appearance matter for less than 20% of self-inserters. Instead, their actions and reasoning (“thinks and reasons like me”) and whether or not the player like that character account for at least 59% of respondents who self-insert.

I was quite surprised at the amount of men who report self-inserting when the character is a bottom. Bottom characters are twice as more likely to be “insertable” (pun intended) than top characters.

When asked when they self-insert, the 3 most typical answers were:

  • during the entire game, including sex scenes
  • during romantic and/sex scenes only
  • during important events, but not sex scenes

When asked what breaks self-insertion, typical answers were:

  • The protagonist doing something the player disagrees with
  • Scenes that are uncomfortable for the player (rape and abuse are cited several times)
  • The protagonist topping
  • The protagonist bottoming (rarer than topping)

Overall, it appears that these players tend to self-insert the most during the most enjoyable moments: when they are rewarded with important story points, which are usually romantic and sexy scenes. The more they enjoy a story or a character the more they self-insert. Which brings the question: are you guys enjoying this BL game because you could self-insert in it, or are you self-inserting because you enjoyed the story?

Below are a few answers in the free field I left on self-insertion.

One particular respondent had very strong feelings about BL game protagonists’ height (in cm):


BL gamers and sexual content

Only 2% of all respondents report not enjoying sexual content in BL games. The vast majority enjoy watching 2D men banging, and more specifically, are good 90% of them enjoy watching them bang several times per playthrough!

Skipping scenes, sexual or otherwise

BL gamers are between 16% and 25% more likely to skip sexual content than to skip dialogue to reach a sex scene. Women tend to skip the least content, while cis men will skip more sex scenes and dialogue than everyone else.

When asked why, the most cited reason is that they weren’t into one of the participants, followed by “another reason”. That other reason usually turns out to be “it contained gore/scat” or a variation of “I didn’t like the kink featured in that scene”. 20% skipped a scene due to it being rape. This reason culminates at 25% for cis men.


Topping or bottoming?

All BL gamers groups are more likely to relate with the bottom than the top, except GNCs. At 16%, gender non-conforming BL gamers are the group that’s the most likely to relate more with the top during sex scenes. They’re also the only group who relates less with the bottoms than the tops!

The fact that 29% of women and GNCs don’t relate with either character during a sex scene shouldn’t be surprising.

With that said, more than a third of all respondents report preferring the BL game protagonist to be in a variety of roles; neither top-only nor bottom-only or even reversible with every love interest. In fact, at 26%, women somehow are the biggest supporters of a BL game protag being reversible with everyone!

There are two possible explanations I can think of for women allegedly favoring 100% reversible protagonists: either they don’t want to fit the stereotype of the fujoshi fapping to gay men while self-inserting as the bottom and be witch-hunted online, or it’s just that queer women (who make up the majority of women consuming BL games) happen to overwhelmingly prefer switching.


On the topic of fapping…

Speaking of fapping, it turns out that 58% of women have never actually fapped to gay sex (at least in BL games), while only 8% of cis men report the same thing. However, 55% of women do report feeling sexual titillation at some point while playing BL games, even though they didn’t actually play the game with fapping in mind. Feeling some kind of sexual arousal isn’t the same as fapping after all. On the other hand, while 1/4 of cis men do report playing BL games for the specific goal of sexual titillation, the other 3/4 don’t actually play for that reason.

Perhaps these results would have turned out differently had my survey been pushed in other parts of the internet, such as the Reddit’s /r/gaymer community or other places where players have different expectations to what makes a game with gay romance worth playing.


What makes a sex scene enjoyable according to BL gamers

I love a lot of emotion and build up. Something like Motomis and Keisukes were great. All of the Lamento scenes were fantastic because of the build up. Bad end sex scenes can be amazing too like Koujakus bad end in re:connect. Also the protag not being in constant pain the whole time helps. Tetsuo and Youjis consented H scene is amazing and had so much emotion

Hot anime bois frickling. It aint that deep chief.

When they’re in love

Furthers plot or expands on characterization and relationships. Humorous sex scenes are also good (like Uuultra C).

Good voice acting is a plus

I really like consensual and either really intimate or intense scenes. I also really like rimming and oral in sex scenes.

The mix of voice acting, sound effects and art makes it enjoyable and different from other medium. I also really like rape scenes.

I just want to say, I love how Beyond Eden created these kind of explorable sex scenes, where you can interact with the CGs to produce small snippets of text describing elements of the scene. It helped take some of the burden off the main scene narration, and made the experience feel more personal. Also, interface elements turn me on. I wish I could play BL games for sexual titillation, but I don’t usually find ones that I can read that way. Games like No Thank You are sexy, but the content ratio is such that I don’t know if I would read it for that reason. When I think of titillating BL games, I tend to think of something like Hadaka Shitsuji, which is a bit too extreme for me. I would absolutely love, like, a gay Rance game, but I haven’t found it yet. Coming Out on Top may come closest so far, but even that I didn’t really play because I was horny. It doesn’t help that playing games horny is often a way to lose them? I think Hadaka Shitsuji is kind of rare in being a game where you aren’t going to be bad-ended for just CONSTANTLY saying “SHOW US YOUR COCK”. Alas, “SHOW US YOUR COCK” sometimes means “LET ME TRAUMATIZE YOU”, which I’m not so into. Oh! But I do play some Western games with gay content for titillation? Mostly things like certain routes of Flexible Survival, or certain pairings in Cloud Meadow. I guess when I want to be titillated, I usually go to more game-y games, rather than visual novels, which I realize I’m thinking waaaay too much about.

I find animated sex scenes are very enjoyable. Lots of works I understand. Banging and creampie and hardcore are my favorite.

FOREPLAY!!!!!!! PUBLIC SEX!!!!!! SEX AFTER SOMETHING LIFE THREATENING OR TRAUMATIC HAPPENS TO ONE OR BOTH OF THE CHARACTERS PARTAKING IN THE SEX!!!!!

I’m asexual so to me it feels more like watching the discovery channel. Watching two dorks perform an awkward mating dance until I go “y’all are finally banging? Good for you!”

Good writing, and character chemistry.

When they’re in love and/or it’s emotional. When they’re just fucking for no reason in particular I don’t care for the scene much but when they’re in love it’s amazing and memorable

I LOVE GAY PORN

As an ace person with female body parts I tend to feel uncomfortable reading or seeing content when female body is seen as sexual and involved in sex scenes, usually sex scenes involving a woman make me feel objectified so I rarely am interested in m/f or f/f media that show such content. As men’s body differs from mine I find it much more comfortable and enjoyable to see sex that is as far removed from portrayal of my body type as possible which means bl content of that type is the most suitable and doesn’t bring me discomfort as scenes with my body type would. Because of all the bs that women have to deal with I tend to get very annoyed with m/f sex that includes humiliation/shaming/degrading because of how much of that is already present in the society. However when such kinks are used in m/m scenarios I find them much more pleasurable as they are expressed between people that don’t experience such things and inequality because of their gender. It makes for much easier and more enjoyable consumption. Also the fact that they are fiction with styles that are easy to differ from real life because I dislike real life scenes or porn involving real people, I personally find it gross no matter what type of couple or scenario it is so characters in not realistic styles are much appreciated. I usually like scenes which include praise kink and dacryphilia, sometimes possessiveness and yandere type of character but without much violence or any gore.

I really enjoyed how uuutra c handled it’s h scenes where you got them sprinkled in thought the story in a way that didn’t take ways from the story. Story is always more important to me than h scenes, but on the same note I find myself disappointed if there isn’t at least one

I cannot cite the 250+ answers to this question, but I can see a few patterns in these answers:

  • there is a lot of buildup before the sex scene (the most common answer)
  • the participants are in love with each other
  • the participants, especially the bottom are visibly enjoying it
  • the sex scene is emotionally charged, with characters experiencing intense emotions like joy, hate, love, despair, etc…
  • that sex scene makes sense with the rest of the story, the participants stay in-character
  • appealing art (heh)
  • the sex scene is consensual
  • the sex scene contains certain kinks, fetishes or elements that the player is into, some of which involves dubon and non-con
  • the sex scene contain rare elements or fetishes that are hard to find
  • good voice acting (“voice” is mentioned 33 times)

The overall feeling I get from these answers is that rather than seeking sexual titillation from sex scenes, what they want the most is a heart boner. The protagonist having sex with the love interest is not a voyeuristic show, but rather the ultimate act of romance between them, in which their feelings are laid bare and they show the most vulnerable sides of themselves. This is probably why a large number of players in my previous survey (and one answer cited above) state that the number of sex scenes doesn’t matter as long they see the protagonist bang at least once: a single sex scene, usually happening at the climax of the story is enough to give the player the heart boner they desperately seek. It is the ultimate reward to the hours they invested reading their story and finding their way to the Good or Bad ending, and everything else they witnessed along this journey just adds buildup to that specific moment.

And this explains the previous graph about sexual titillation too: the dick or pussy boner is just a bonus to the heart boner.

With that said, keep in mind that as a good number of players stated, “making love” isn’t the only way to make a BL game sex scene enjoyable.


How much money is a BL game worth, according to BL gamers

I’m not sure what I expected by asking this question. These graphs don’t surprise me nor teach me anything new about the perceived worth of a game is usually depending on how long it is. The answers I received on Twitter about whether players would pick a long and decent-looking game versus a shorter but beautiful game with voice acting was far more interesting.

I did receive some very insightful answers in the free section about players’ BL game expenses, which are usually in answer to the question “Actually, in USD, how much was the most expensive BL game you’ve ever bought?”

unfortunately i pirate all my games…

$0, 18 years old person from Lithuania

Always on sale or with coupons

$50, 20 years old woman from Andorra

I’ll put up the cash especially now I am in fulltime work with disposable income. I have bought stuff I previously pirated to support translations/creators and show a demand for the product. I bought Patient S solely because I love Mito Togo.

$70, 41 years old woman from Australia

I’m actually broke lol

$0, 21 years old man from Switzerland

If I can find an official localization, I buy it. If I can’t I first check for a fan patch. If I can find a fan patch, I buy. If not, I wait.

$23, 18 years old woman from Canada

Im 14 and I can’t afford the higher-end BL games.

$20, 14 years old Canadian boy whose first game is Camp Buddy

I haven’t bought any BL game but I’ve spend money in-game like diamonds and other resources necessary to unlock endings much faster.

$0, 18 years old man from the Philippines

The 105 game was the Special Edition PSVita version of Omerta Code:Tycoon and it was both physical and included a lot of goodies so I didn’t mind spending that much. I wouldn’t spend that much in a DL only game. On the other hand I’m generally willing to spend +50 dollars often for physical copies that include pretty CD designs, box art, booklets, postcards, music cds, etc

$105, 26 years old person from Colombia

I bought a bundle that donated profit for the Ukranian refugees, it had 4 BL games in it. They’re good games, so I’m planning to buy one for a friend in the future.

$10, 31 years old person from Italy

I’ve spent over $1000 on BL games since 2020

$60, 18 years old man from USA

Since I live in a country where USD is super expensive, I usually don’t buy BL games from the companies’ websites. I prefer to buy them on Steam bc it’s cheaper.

$20, 31 years old woman from Brazil

I’ve spent a shameful amount on Nu:Carnival :( (over 200)

$40, 32 years old woman from USA

i hold off on bl games until theres a physical copy i very rarely buy digital and i wouldnt go over 30$ for any digital product

$250, 19 years old man from Poland

I live in argentina and here the dolar is mega expensive 😩 so I usually try to wait for discounts to buy my games

$30, 27 years old woman from Argentina

Due to wages and local cost of living, game prices in my country are extremely low compared to typical western or Japanese prices. I have purchased several BL games over the last year, but I’ve probably spent less comparatively than people in western Europe, NA, Japan, etc due to the pricing difference. Games that sell for upwards of $30 USD in NA can cost ~$5 USD for me.

$40, 25 years old woman from Cyprus

I’ve only ever bought one, which is The Divine Speaker. The rest were all pirated.

$30, 22 years old woman from Spain

I tend to buy games on sale (mostly because taxes makes almost the double when paying for a game full price in my country), but if I feel like I really want X game I can manage to pay it full price, I’m planning to do that with Slow Damage soon.

$40, 24 years old man from Argentina

used to pirating games when i didn’t have a stable income (and due to awful RUB to USD rates), and just when i started affording buying stuff like that… well i hope that time will come when i’m able to support at least indie devs

$0, 25 years old woman from Russia

My husband bought us one that looks SUPER cute and fluffy I haven’t had time to play it yet tho 😭 We would have probably bought 1 or 2 more but we’re trying to save up to move.

$60, 25 years old person from USA

Regarding how much I’d pay for a certain amount of hours, i don’t think id pay more than a certain amount for something I’m buying for the sole purpose of mental arousal just bc if the fact that i usually only buy digital with no extra goodies etc. Especially since theyre just visual novels usually. Id definitely pay more if there is like. Merch, minigames, etc involved

$25, 23 years old man from USA

I watched the gameplay on Youtube for free, bruh. Ain’t nobody got the funds for all that!

$0, 18 years old person from USA

As a teenager, I mostly pirated BL games because a) I was cheap and had no money (still no excuse, please support these companies everyone!) and b) back in 2012 there were very, very few companies actually licensing these games in English.

We are spoiled for choice nowadays, because all the games I played back in the early 2010s (Lamento, DMMD, Togainu no Chi, Absolute Obedience, Enzai) all had to be downloaded from some sketchy link, and you had to follow 3 pages of extremely precise instructions from some other teenager on Tumblr.

I’ve actually gone back and paid for what games I used to play back in the day that have actually been picked up by companies.

$40, 23 years old woman from Australia

Honestly I’ve never purchased any BL games until now. For instance, “Camp Buddy: Scoutmaster Season” priced at USD 40-ish, which roughly around IDR 600k… After pirating the game, I do plan to buy the game, but as I have no decent job and income yet, I have to think a lot before deciding to buy the game. IDR 600k is basically my two weeks allowance… Too expensive…

$0, 26 years old man from Indonesia

Reading these answers, it’s interesting how everyone has their own definition of what is “affordable” or “expensive”, usually but not always determined by which country they live in. A lot of BL gamers only ever buy games on sale (the word “sale” comes up in 23 answers), unless they trust a certain developer enough, in which case they’re willing to buy the game full price. A few respondents said they intend to buy Slow Damage when the game comes out.


Staying in your comfort zone

Above are answers from various questions regarding the kind of content, sexual or otherwise, inside BL games. Again, most of these results aren’t exactly surprising to me.

What I get from most of these answers, is that players will answer with what they are familiar with: 90% of respondents who enjoy sexual content want to see both the top AND the bottom illustrated during a sex scene, because that’s what 90% of BL games and some more already do. Very few are the BL games that hide or crop out one dude’s face so you can self-insert as him. Those are a bit more common in “bara” and porn-oriented games, as well as amare games with customizable protagonists.

In the same vein, 94% of BL gamers report enjoying “anime” artstyle versus only 38% for western artstyle, because most of them got introduced to BL games through Japanese, anime-style games while Western artstyle is much more recent and thus less familiar to players.

My only surprise is the 61,7% of respondents who strongly agree with enjoying BL games featuring “dark and problematic” content, which is more than the 52.9% respondents answering the same way for “wholesome and lighthearted” BL games. This is only possible because BL gamers are already familiar with such content: virtually every Japanese BL games with an English translation/localization available right now (including all PC Nitro+Chiral games) do contain rape and other content one would deem “problematic” after all!

As my previous survey showed, men tend to avoid rape and gore more than other groups –because they are less familiar with Japanese game and their darker content.

Perhaps the reason 58% of respondents agree with wanting more “gameplay” BL games is because this way, their BL games can turn into the video game genres they are more familiar with.

Just because all these elements are familiar and within the bulk of players’ comfort zone, doesn’t mean BL game developers should solely cater to these elements alone. After all, isn’t it amazing when you play a game or read a fanfiction and discover something new about yourself? Or end-up liking that love interest much more than you initially expected? Good surprises that challenge your tastes and teach you something new about others or yourself can truly make a game that much more memorable after all. That’s how new trends arise: when something previously considered unconventional suddenly gets adopted by many and the hype spread over to new audiences.

If you look at my last survey, you will also see that the bulk of BL gamers are open to trying out elements, such as body hair, other body types, etc… that aren’t common in the genre. It’s hard say you like something if you had no opportunity to try them out after all.

These elements do exist, but are usually harder to find because they usually come from indie devs who don’t have the platform to promote their games and in turn, don’t get recommended enough.


Conclusion

Through this survey, I found that the country and society you live in will affect one’s ability to buy BL games and support their creators, be it due to the double stigma of buying adult LGBT+ content, or currency conversion making a seemingly cheap game very expensive for them. It can also affect one’s ability to be open about it and share it with your friends, particularly for cis men.

Despite popular belief, women are the least likely group to actually use BL game content for sexual gratification, and overall BL gamers tend to see sex scenes as an extension or romance, rather than pure titillation material –not that the latter is wrong in any way! Relatedly, everyone is more likely to skip a sex scene than actually skip the story, and men are more likely to skip both of these for some reason.

BL gamers enjoy “problematic” content much more than expected, despite their fair share of detractors. They’re also more likely to not buy games on sales and instead pay full price if they enjoy a game enough, or trust the developer.

Please know that I read every single answers you guys sent, and while I may not agree with all of them, I appreciate the time you took sharing your insights and your experience!


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Fable

An nonbinary BL enthusiast from France. Sharing BL game news since 2013, I also translate games in French during my spare time.

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