I am once again looking to sate my curiosity. This time I not only seek answers from BL gamers, but the whole visual novel fandom. This survey is not affiliated with any publisher.

If you or someone you know play visual novels, you can answer it here: https://forms.gle/6QBcZ4FVbduh7i5b6

I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s answers!

Six years after the game was first teased by Nitro+CHiral and a year-and-a-half after its Japanese release, English publisher JAST USA finally released Slow Damage today.

Slow Damage tells the story of Towa, a hedonistic artist living in a yakuza-controlled city of the near future. Intent on painting people’s darkest desires, Towa seeks out extreme sensation and seedy underworld connections. But in exposing the truths of those around him, Towa may have uncovered more than he bargained for…

Yesterday, the massive wave of players downloading their purchase of the game made the JAST storefront crash. It is however back up now and you shouldn’t have issues on the website now.

As a reminder, Slow Damage is not (yet) available on Steam, but the JAST store applies regional pricing, meaning you the game is actually still cheap if you buy it from, say, Argentina.

• Slow Damage official English website
• JAST store page
• J-list (physical version)
• Nitro+CHiRAL official website

Developer Argent games is once again working in collaboration with writer Theo Southgate to create the MMORPG-themed BL game called Guilded Heart under their side-brand, “Gallium Games”.

They previously worked on Western-themed BL game Dead Man’s Rest, which is was released earlier this year.

All things considered, Julian (name changeable) lives a pretty normal life.

He does online university work, is hopelessly single (but has a habit of crushing on cute boys), and spends most of his free time on a fantasy MMO – Lost Heroes.

Little does he know that Lost Heroes will be what pulls him into a new, budding romance…

Whether he pursues the arrogant pretty boy Guillermo, his charismatic roommate Casper, the coy store clerk Archie, or his mysterious guildmate Verdant, join Julian on an unexpected journey of self-discovery, heartache, and love.

At the time of writing, there are only 4 days left to the Kickstarter campaign, with $6340 out of the $8500 goal reached. A demo is available on Steam and itchio.

Links

• Guilded Hearts Kickstarter
• Get the demo on itchio
• Guilded demo on Steam
• Gallium Games’s official website

Nitro+Chiral’s latest BL game Slow Damage will release on November 14th at the f*cking low price of $20 USD, with a 10% reduction on pre-order and an adjusted price depending on your country.

Slow Damage tells the story of Towa, a hedonistic artist living in a yakuza-controlled city of the near future. Intent on painting people’s darkest desires, Towa seeks out extreme sensation and seedy underworld connections. But in exposing the truths of those around him, Towa may have uncovered more than he bargained for…

According to the Visual Novel Database, Slow Damage is very long: 60 hours of gameplay on average is needed to finish the game. This may be -partially- due to the player’s ability to make Towa investigate various places in the city and overall featuring a bit more gameplay than its BL game predecessors.

Slow Damage had first been announced back in 2016 and released in Japanese in February 2021. JAST Blue has been working closely with Nitro+ for several years now and they together encountered various obstacles that pushed back its release in English language, one of which, I suspect, is Steam.

Steam is strangely absent from the list of stores that will offer the game this month, despite JAST and Nitro+ working on a “Safe For Work” version that they hope will conform to Steam’s inconsistent policy on sexual content. Their official statement on the matter is simply “JAST BLUE is currently exploring a Steam release in the near future as well.”

You can pre-order the Slow Damage’s digital version right now on the JAST store with a price adapted to your region; and a physical version is also available for pre-order on J-list. GOG will also apply regional pricing on the game’s release.

• Slow Damage official English website
• Pre-order the digital version on JAST store
• Pre-order the physical on J-list
• Nitro+CHiRAL official website

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!

Useful links

• Google Forms results, uncleaned
• Cleaned results spreadsheet
• Previous survey results

On July and August was held the 6th Yaoi Game Jam, a video game jam held on itch.io since 2016 where BL game creators, new and old, come together and create a BL or LGBT-themed game in the span of two months.

The year 2022 sets a new record with 41 entries, which is 7 more than the previous record set back in 2020 in the middle of worldwide COVID confinement!

Below are 3 titles picked from the submission list.

Quinn & Flynn by Stanwixbuster

Semi-linear romance/mystery VN. Catch a criminal while pursuing a poet. You will get both of them. You have to.

It’s a text adventure you can play directly from the itchio page. An interesting mechanics is the ability to choose pick choices as the narration is still going. Not picking any choice until “time” is out counts as a third option.

Play the game here.

The Scribbler’s Dilemma by Saitoki

Everyone is born with some kind of unique talent in this world. Being gifted with the powers of a scribbler, Micah considers himself receiving the short end of the stick. While the scribbler occupation is not known for being able to get rich quick, Micah wanted to push forward with the skills he has. However, a run-in with a meddlesome adventurer at the dungeon entrance completely ruins his plan, and saves his life.

You might know Saitoki as the person who made that Togainu no Chi fangame a long time ago. This game is a demo and not the complete game. You can play it online in the blow link.

Play the game here.

The Cleaner by Spongey Kitty

Play as a mysterious trauma cleaner as he faces the end of society as we know it, brought to its knees by a new and unknown phenomenon that has no cure.

Having given up on most things, every day feels to him like the same sluggish chore of waking up, cleaning, going to sleep and repeating.

That is, until he receives a request like none other from a man he barely knows.

One of the most popular entries this year, Th Cleaner is a “cleaning simulator” of some sorts made in RPG Maker. Spongey Kitty warns about the game containing heavy subjects, and that a second part of the game will come at a later date.

Play the game here.

All submissions this year are free. If you enjoyed any of them, be sure to let their creator know!

Dear Monster is a years-old project that dates back to at least 2018, started by BL artist Jouvru. This year they teamed up with Polish creators Justyna Pustelnik (creator of Sentimental Trickster) and Lukasz Skubek, as well as American creator and publisher Y-Press Games to finally bring the game to life.

Summary from the Kickstarter page:

Allen thought he had his life all figured out. He just graduated university and was headed off to med school. Then a strange letter arrives from a grandfather he never knew.

He’s pulled onto a new path toward a strange mansion filled with even stranger creatures.

These fantasy beings shouldn’t even exist–and yet, they’re somehow familiar. Allen has no time for mysteries, but when he tries to leave he realizes he’s trapped, and so are the magical monsters!

Allen must solve the mystery of his own past while learning magic by “bonding” to one of the fantasy creatures. Otherwise he’ll never get free!

A NSFW tale of magic and love between man and monster with art by the famous bara artist Jouvru! Will Allen escape the magical mansion and continue the life he planned–or has his entire world been turned upside-down?

At the time of writing, Dear Monster raised a whopping $76 805 USD, covering its base and first stretch goal.

While this amount may seem like a lot to you, keep in mind that any excess money that might be left after everything (art assets, programming, etc…) is paid for will most likely have to be split between all the creators of the project.

The game will contain 5 routes, and the campaign ends in just 4 days!

Useful links

• Dear Monster kickstarter
• Demo on itch.io
• Y Press Games’ official twitter
• Jouvru’s twitter

This survey is 6 years overdue. I’ve been meaning to do it back in 2016 but only gathered enough motivation to make it and publish it in January 2022. It was partially inspired by Tailor Tales’ In-depth Otome game survey as well as Mangagamer’s annual licensing surveys.

I asked 54 question to BL gamers about where they come from, their gender and sexual orientation, how they discovered the genre, what they like and what they don’t, etc… Some answers were expected, others I found quite surprising and debunked some beliefs I previously had.

I received a total of 636 answers but had to remove 7 of them, the most common reason being that their answers made it clear that they had never experienced any BL game and thus do not belong in a BL gamer survey. This survey is thus based on the 629 survey answers I deemed valid.

If you missed this survey and would still like sate my curiosity, I made a new survey with new questions here.

Where BL gamers come from

The vast majority of respondents come from Twitter, with about 30% of them following my Twitter account. Another sizeable portion comes from Reddit, where I posted a link to the survey in several places (/r/gaymers, /r/blgames, /r/yaoi and /r/boyslove). 13 answers come from 4chan’s /y and /jp boards.

Geographically, I received answers from 71 countries. A whopping 37% of answers came from USA alone though, most likely because the survey is in English and was posted on Twitter.

For convenience, I made a map where all countries cited at least once in the survey are colored:

37% of the answers were from the USA alone. Curiously, nobody from Portugal answered, but Brazil was cited 24 times!

The most spoken non-English language among respondents is Spanish (19%), followed by French (9,2%), German (8,9%) and Portugese (8,2%).

Taking that graph and concluding that the most non-English spoken language used by all BL gamers of the planet is Spanish would be a mistake though. Think of the thousands of Chinese and Japanese, and perhaps even Korean people who didn’t answer this survey because they didn’t find it, or don’t understand English. As such, I’d advice you to take these numbers with a grain of salt.

Gender and sexual orientation

Women represent the largest portion of BL gamers with almost 43% of all answers. Men account for 37,5% of respondents, which is more than the usual 25%-ish I’ve seen in most BL surveys. For the sake of this survey, I grouped people who answered “Nonbinary” and “Other” as ‘GNC’ (Gender Non-Conforming), who represent a little less than 20% of all answers. GNCs do not include people who answered “Male” or “Female” and then answered “Yes” to being trans.

21% of respondents are not cisgender, it seems. Nonbinaries were torn between “Yes” and “I don’t know”. 35 respondents reported being trans men, and only 1 trans woman answered.

When asked for their romantic and sexual orientation, it turns out that more than 18% of women and a bit less than 29% of GNC are asexual. The most represented sexual orientation is gay men, who alone make up for 25% of all survey answers.

More women reported being attracted to “any gender” than “the opposite gender”. There are more bi/pan women than straight women. Straight women make up for 13% of all answers. In other words, there are almost twice as many gay men playing BL / Gay games as there are straight women. If anyone tells you that BL/Yaoi is created by straight women for straight women, tell them that they are lying and that there are actual numbers to prove them wrong.

Contrary to my expectations, there is little to no age difference between all 3 groups. Women are only a few months older than men and GNCs on average.

BL gamers’ age

65% of all respondents are between 20 and 29, with a strangely big spike at 21 of age. When I posted this graph on Twitter and mused about everyone’s age 8 years ago when DRAMAtical Murder took off, a few users told me that they were actually 13 when they discovered the genre, encouraged by the general hype and their groups of friends of similar age. 21 minus 8 equals 13. That still doesn’t explain what made DMMd so appealing to 13 years old in particular, though.

BL gamers’ platforms

Nearly all respondents own or use a PC, and a little over half of them also own an Android device and a Nintendo Switch. When asked what platform they’d use if they could choose, this time 76% answered PC, followed by 14% for Nintendo Switch and 6% Android. I’m a bit surprised at Android’s unpopularity, considering so many BL games, albeit oftentimes low quality ones are available on these devices. But then again, people who only ever played mobile BL games might not have found my survey. I can only guess that PC is and will remain BL gamers’ favorite platform though — only on PC you can get adult BL games, and a bigger screen is better to gaze at beautiful and sexy artpieces!

The BL game economy – buying and piracy

On the topic of physical VS digital, if they could choose, 59% of responders would rather only get a digital BL game. 25% would like both, and only 16% would rather only get a physical BL game. This is not very surprising: when most physical editions of BL game are made in Japan, the price of shipping can sometimes be more expensive than the game itself. And for the many BL gamers who are still living with family, digital means they don’t have to explain what Absolute Obedience or Hadaka Shitsuji are about.

87% of all respondents bought a BL game at least once. Among those who never bought a BL game, you will find 14 of the 20 minors who answered the survey. Beyond that age, the age curve of non-buyers is not that different from the overall age curve.

Those who never bought a BL game are only 5% more likely to pirate one. That number grows to 7% if I remove native English speakers. The highest rate of piracy I found was among non-native English speakers, who also don’t live in USA or other “rich” countries, at 82,3%.

In other word: the less privileged you are, the more likely you are to pirate a BL game.

Which brings us the question to why someone would pirate a BL game. The chief reason cited is that there was simply no buyable English version for it.

BL game localization only started to become a thing in 2015, with the official English release of the game No, Thank You!!!. In 2005 and 2006 sure we also had Enzai and Absolute Obedience, but those were complete commercial failures until the BL game genre started kicking off, around 2014; year in which they apparently started to break profit. Nitro+Chiral games only started to be available at the end of 2018 with Sweet Pool.

That means before 2015, if you wanted to get your hands on a BL game, you had to navigate your way through a Japanese website, order the physical version of a game, and pay for a proxy to grab the game and send it to you, because that JP website did not ship outside of Japan. If you were lucky, you’d find the same game on ebay, amazon, CDJapan or J-list and spare yourself the proxy fees.

In other words, until very recently, buying a Japanese game was a very long and expensive process, while pirating the same game was much faster and easier. The opposite is now true for localized games, where you only need a few clicks to purchase them on the publisher’s website or Steam, no English patch or crack necessary.

A rather high, but unsurprising amount of custom answers were in the lines of “I was too young and couldn’t ask my parents to buy it” and “I couldn’t pay for them before but now that I can, I prefer buying them”, which brings us to the next graph.

A whopping 73% of BL gamers reported buying a BL game after pirating it. The main reason cited being that the game finally got localized in English. Now, this does not mean that they bought every game they pirated, but still, that means the most straightforward way to convert a pirate into a potential customer would be to localize their favorite BL game properly. And give it an easily accessible digital version which only started to become a thing for Japanese BL games around 2016.

The BL game economy – where players’ money goes

When asked where they purchase their BL games, 63% of all answers cited Steam, followed by the JAST USA store and itchio, which both received 41% of all answers. Mangagamer is a bit farther behind, it’s hard to compete against Nitro+CHiral games I guess.

Those who voted “Creator’s website” cites BLits’ or Obscura specifically, as you can buy Camp Buddy and Coming Out On Top directly from their official websites.

I went further and asked respondents where they bought BL games that were localized by Mangagamer or JAST. These games include at the time of the survey:

• No, Thank You!!! by Parade (Mangagamer)
• Room No.9 by Parade (Mangagamer)
• Hadaka Shitsuji by Mada Kobo (Mangagamer)
• Hashihime of the Old Book Town by Adelta (Mangagamer)
• Sweet Pool (JAST USA)
• Togainu no Chi (JAST USA)
• DRAMAtical Murder (JAST USA)

Again Steam is the preferred answer, but this time not by a very long margin when compared to JAST USA store. Furthermore, only half of those Steam answers actually ONLY bought their games on Steam. A few custom answers mentioned buying a JAST-localized game on Steam, then going to the JAST Store to purchase the uncensor patch.

When asked why they bought a localized game on Steam, 57,2% of respondents cited Steam’s convenience, followed by 22,3% being unaware that JAST/MG sold BL games on their storefronts or NOT knowing said storefront existed in the first place, followed by 17,4% for lower price. Custom answers include the Steam wallet feature, in which buying with the website currency means the game does not appear on their credit card’s history. Steam achievements and time-tracking features were also mentioned. I regret not making that question multiple choices, for I suspect a number of those who cited “convenience” would have also picked other answers.

As much as I dislike Steam and the 30% cut it takes from game devs, I believe Steam also played a role in making BL games more accessibles and easy to find. Keep in mind that while a $20 game might seem cheap to you, it will be very, very expensive to someone living in Brazil where there is a high import tax, or in Russia where currency or standards of living means this game would be a luxury. As such “regional pricing”, which scales the price to a country’s currency and other factors further give BL games access to games they love from all around the world.

Note that recently, JAST USA has started applying regional pricing too. The algorithm used to determine localized price apparently differs from Steam’s, so some games will appear still a bit more expensive, or even cheaper than the same game on Steam.

Crowdfunding

On the topic of crowdfunding, only 32% of all respondents answered Yes to backing a game — either through Kickstarter, Patreon, Indiegogo or other places. Among those who answered Yes, 37,8% backed more than one game. One responder suggested I add another question that asks what would make someone back a campaign, but I believe it would be the exact same reason as what would make someone want to play a game, which we’ll discuss later.

There has been an increasing sense of doubt towards crowdfunding, as a number of creators whose campaign was successful ended-up spending all their funds long, long before they could deliver their game. I talk about this in detail in this article. Several games cited were since released.

BL game merchandise

More than half of respondents reported never buying any official BL game merchandise. Considering the majority of BL gamers would rather their game to be digital, I believe this is not too surprising: again, buying BL game merch usually means importing it from Japan where shipping costs are oftentimes higher than the product itself.

Among those who did buy merch, Artook was the most popular choice, followed by keychains and figurines. Pins and badges were not an option but were custom-added 7 times, which makes me think they wouldn’ve been higher had I added those as an option.

Interestingly, 19,5% of BL gamers who never purchased a BL game did buy merch, with again artbooks as the most popular kind of product.

On the importance of reviews

Almost 70% of all respondents never reviewed a BL game, either through Steam or through other channels. And yet, 60% respondents report being convinced to play a BL game thanks to one or more positive reviews. Those who never left a review are roughly 4% less likely to be convinced by one or more reviews.

It would be safe to conclude that those who do bother leaving feedbacks, either by talking to their friends or leaving a review on the game’s official page or Steam goes a long way to make a game and its creator grow. You don’t need to write anything long or elaborate either. Even just “I liked it!” would help and convince yet another potential player to play a BL game.

How to make new BL gamers

To the surprise of no one, with 26% of all responses DRAMAtical Murder is by a long margin the most likely title to be your first BL game experience. Following is Togainu no chi (10%), Coming Out On Top (8%) and Camp Buddy (7%).

This is where gender starts to affect respondents’ experience with BL games.

Men’s first BL game:

• Coming Out On Top: 42 (18% of all men)
• DRAMAtical Murder: 40 (17% of all men)
• Camp Buddy: 37 (16% of all men)

Women’s first BL games:

• DRAMAtical Murder: 85 (32% of all women)
• Togainu no Chi: 45 (17% of all women)
• Enzai: 32 (12% of all women)

Gender non-conforming individuals’ first BL games:

• DRAMAtical Murder: 42 (40% of all GNCs)
• Togainu no Chi: 12 (11% of all GNCs)
• Enzai: 7 (7% of all GNCs)

Throughout the survey, I noticed GNCs and women tended to have similar answers in overall experience while having distinct tastes. Men on the other hand will display vastly different BL game experiences and tastes and this of course affects the BL games they are drawn to, and thus their first experience.

All of these games have one thing in common: their popularity made them access an audience that did not expose themselves to BL games before. Enzai, DRAMAtical Murder and Togainu no Chi received an anime and/or manga adaption; Coming Out On Top is the first LGBT+ game to be crowdfunded on Kickstarter and received worldwide press coverage; Camp Buddy’s main creator, Mikkoukun, already had a large following and previously worked on Bacchikoi while he was still part of the renowed BlackMonkey Pro circle.

Full Service was only mentioned 5 times. I don’t think it means Full Service isn’t a big vector of BL game introduction. Rather, I suspect those who play Full Service and/or follow its creator Mazjojo do not seek, or aren’t interested other BL games (aside from maybe Camp Buddy) and are much less likely to answer this survey.

39% of responders report being introduced to visual novels through BL games. While the above graph may make it seem like it’s a lot, that also means 61% of respondents were already one foot into visual novels before trying BL games.

Between a person who already played visual novels but have never read BL, and a person who already read BL but has never played a BL game, I wonder which would be the most tempted to try playing a BL game.

When asked what other kind of visual novels they enjoy, 69% of women also report playing otome games, versus 65% for GNCs and 32% for men. Horror seems rather popular, coming 2d or 3rd place in all groups. Men are more likely to only play visual novels that are BL than other groups, but overall the vast majority of all BL gamers will try a variety of other visual novels.

How respondents got introduced to BL games

There was no easy way to turn these answers into a graph, so above are a table with all the results and their percentage, and a corresponding graph with shortened answers.

As you can see, answers are quite varied, but 30% of respondents discovered BL games by coming across official art or fanart. Next big answer is by hitting “yaoi” or another such term on Google or a search engine and stumbling onto a BL game. 18 separate people wrote that they actively tried to look for “games but with yaoi in it”. Surprisingly few respondents cited discovering the genre through Let’s Plays. Similarly I expected more respondents mentioning they discovered BL games by following a prominent artist who made their own BL games like Hamletmachine and Starfighter: Eclipse, but it turned out to be one of the least popular answers.

I also received a lot of amusing anecdotes of their first contact with the genre, which I posted on Twitter but won’t repost here because this article is already quite long.

Where BL gamers (try to) find BL new games

430 respondents find BL games through Twitter, but then most responders also found my survey through Twitter, so while it would be safe to assume Twitter is a big hub for BL game discovery, I am not entirely convinced it is the main place people discover BL games.

More interesting is the next most popular choice: Games stores, aka Google Play, Steam, Itchio and other video game storefronts, which represents 54% of answers.

BL games being a rather small niche, the only way you could possibly find any BL game on a general game storefront like itchio or Steam would be to actively seach of a BL game, for example typing “yaoi” or “gay” on the search bar. The same is true for VNDB – the Visual Novel Database where BL games only represent a small portion of all listed visual novels.

By calculating the total number of answers that cite either Game Store or VNDB, I get 67% — that’s the quantity of BL gamers who find BL games by ACTIVELY searching for them.

Pornhub was custom-mentioned 4 times across these last 2 questions.

I expected at least 60% of respondents to have watched a BL game Let’s Play at least once, but turns out less than 50% actually did. Perhaps most BL gamers would rather experience a game themselves?

The BL game experience

Tell me your relationship with DRAMAtical Murder and I’ll tell you who you are.

63% of all respondents played the game in some capacity and 37% actually bought it. It means that of all the people who reported playing DMMd, 59% of them bought the game and the remaining 31% pirated it without ever buying it. It’s possible that some of those who voted “I played it” actually bought it too, and that some people bought it but never played it, but either way, it’s same to assume that a number of BL gamers who played the game don’t plan on ever purchasing DMMd, althought that didn’t stop its JAST USA release from selling like in the tens of thousands on a certain marketplace.

10% of all respondents have never heard of DRAMAtical Murder. Who are these people, you ask?

89% of the 63 respondents who never heard of DMMd are male. 41 of them found this survey on Reddit. 20 of them were introduced to the genre with Coming Out On Top, 15 through Camp Buddy. Only one person got introduced to the genre with a Japanese game, and that game was Gakuen Heaven. Everyone else’s first BL game is EVN. Taking a quick look at their preferences, the overwhelming majority report avoiding “rape where the victim doesn’t enjoy it” at all costs, far more than average.

The true champs of this question however are the 6 respondents who not only played and bought DMMd, but also went to DMMd-related events like the Chiral Nights. I truly admire their dedication.

33% of women reported having never played a non-Japanese BL game before, versus only 10% of men. On the opposite side, 71% of men and 67% of GNCs reported having never played a Japanese game without any fanmade or official translation, versus 50% of women.

Amusingly, 16 of the respondents who answered “No” to ever playing a BL game later listed Camp Buddy, Full Service, Seiyuu Danshi, Coming Out On Top, Boyfriend Dungeon, Dream Daddy and Dragon Age as their top 5 favorite titles. Did they forget playing those until the question of their fave came up? Did they simply misclick, or perhaps did they think Dream Daddy was made by a Japanese team? I’ll never know.

Looking at these numbers, plus the ones above about BL gamers’ first game, you can see that men tend to be drawn towards EVNs more than Japanese games. Male BL gamers, the overwhelming majority of which are gay men, are more likely to seek games whose characters fit the Western standards of male attractiveness (square jaw, more muscles, more body or facial hair) whereas the Japanese games you usually hear about, like the Nitro+ titles will feature male characters that fit a more Eastern standard of attractiveness.

I insist on Western and Eastern standards of attractiveness instead of using the word “manly”, because the definition “manly”, be it physical or psychological doesn’t mean the same from a culture to another. Mark from Coming Out On Top is not necessarily manlier than Aoba from DRAMAtical Murder.

The answers to how many BL game respondents played were quite varied, but overall there are almost as many respondents who played 1-to-6 BL games as there are who played 7 BL games and up. A closer comparison between the 3 gender groups show that men seem to have played a bit less BL games on average than women and GNCs, but they’re also more likely to have played 20+ games.

EVNs (original English games) are known to be overall shorter than their Japanese counterpart. It’s also been established earlier that men are drawn towards EVN more than other groups. The 17,2% of men who played 20+ games are thus more likely to try out a myriad of short EVNs, while women and GNCs will play slightly fewer, but longer Japanese games. 11 of the men who picked “1-3” were introduced to BL games through Camp Buddy, which came out in 2018, followed by 10 other men who were introduced through DMMd. Looking at their answer, it’s pretty clear to me the reason these men haven’t played many games is simply because they were introduced only recently (the past 3 years) to BL games.

The ideal body type

When asking what body type respondents prefer, I cited examples for each possible choice: Koujaku for “slender, but with muscle”, Kouichi for “Buff and ‘manly-looking'”, Akira/Togainu no Chi for “Pretty and slender” and Brian from Dream Daddy for “Chubby/fat”.

Men apparently prefer their characters Kouichi-shaped, followed by Koujaku-shaped, while women and GNCs prefer their characters slender like Akira and Koujaku. Worth noting: Young and Boyish are 4 times more likely to choose “Young and Boyish” as their fave body type.

A number of respondents added in custom answers that personality is more important to them than body type. I didn’t ask any “personality” questions in this survey, but I plan to in the next one.

On self-insertion

Probably the most polarizing question in the whole survey, whether or not you self-insert, or WISH to self-insert in a BL game will affect your experience in many ways and consequently influence respondents’ other choices throughout this survey.

Only 25% of all women self-insert, or wish to self-insert in some capacity, versus 83% of all men, versus 38% of GNCs. I think there is something interesting to be said about people who self-insert “sometimes” or “most of the times” while apparently identifying as cis women, but that would be for an entirely other debate.

On the topic of protagonist customization, women and GNCs displayed virtually similar answers, so I’m combining them in the same graph.

Again the answers vary wildly depending on whether the respondent is male or if they’re female/GNC. 48% of women/GNCs don’t want any customization, versus only 19% for men. A total of 15% of women/GNCs do wish for some customization, versus 38% for men. In other words: men are more than twice likely as women and GNCs to wish for some customization.

Among the respondents who reported self-inserting “most of the time”, 67% want some name or appearance customization, which isn’t surprising: in the first place, character customization is made precisely so you CAN self-insert and become whoever you want to be.

On the quantity of sexual content in BL games

A large portion of men (34,8%) want more than 4 sex scenes per love interest, versus 12,2% for women and GNCs. Only 1.4% of all respondents would rather not see any sexual content, while 25,5% say they don’t care whether a game has sex scenes or not. All in all, it seems like a good 90% of all respondents regardless of gender don’t mind sex scenes in their BL games. And let’s not forget at least 20% of all genders don’t care either way.

For shits and giggles I ran the answers on respondents who previously wished for a customizable protagonist (name + appearance), and it turns out they’re the horniest us all, with 46% of them wishing to see more than 4 sex scenes per love interest! If I instead run the question with men who self-insert “most of the times”, I get 43% for 4+ sex scenes per LI. I’m honestly not sure if there is a real correlation between wanting to self-insert or customize and wanting more sex scenes, but I find this observation amusing nonetheless.

What attracts BL gamers’ interest and what doesn’t

The above graph ranks BL gamers’ favorite story genres, from the most popular to least popular. You can see that while “Mystery-solving” was the de-facto #1 choice for women and GNCs, it was men’s #6 choice instead. Men seem to favor Adventure, Slice of Life, Comedy and Fantasy more than other gender groups while being significantly less into Horror, Tragedy and Historical. Basically, it seems like men don’t enjoy sad stories or possibly dealing with “period-typical homophobia” that permeates a great many “historical” stories.

Keep in mind that the question was “What kinds of BL game stories do you enjoy?”. I can’t imagine so few BL gamers enjoying the Space Opera genre when Star Trek and Star Wars are a thing. I believe it’s more that there is very little BL games that fit this particular subgenre, Starfighter: Eclipse and Human Cargo being the best-known ones. Sames goes for Survival.

One of the hardest parts of being an indie game developer is making your audience know the very existence of your game. This task is much harder than you might think. Once a player becomes aware of the existence of your game, comes the second hardest part: convincing them to play it.

And for 65% of all respondents, the game’s art factors in their decision, followed by an intriguing story (59%) and appealing love interests (57%). The presence of sexual content factors in 48% of answers, but an absence of sexual content is a dealbreaker for only 23% of answers. It’s also worth noting that 29% of answers report looking forward to a creator’s new game, presumably if they enjoyed said creator’s previous title.

Separating the answers to what makes them not interested in a BL game by gender, we can see that GNC respondents aren’t picky with protagonists, but 69% of them will turn away from a BL game with unappealing art. They’re also the most likely to be bothered by a game that’s too expensive, despite having similar answers to women and men regarding buying and piracy. Men seem to prioritize appealing love interests and the presence of sexual content more than other groups. 47% of men will turn away from an uninteresting story, versus 66% of women and GNCs, that’s a 19% difference.

Even more detailed taste answers

In the second half part of the survey, I asked respondents whether they would play a protagonist with certain traits you would consider uncommon: body hair, chubby, who don’t look white or east-asian, is asexual, etc… I then asked the same questions but for love interests.

Before some of you question whether any of these traits remove the “BL” from “BL game”, keep in mind that UuultraC, I’m a Love Interest in my Childhood Friend’s Reverse Harem!!! and Dream Daddy are very much BL games, or “gay” games in Dream Daddy’s case if you’re being nitpicky.

Here are patterns I noticed from the answers of these graphs:

• Men like body and facial hair far more than women and GNCs
• Men are more likely to try avoiding literally any mentioned trait besides hair
• In particular 74% of them don’t want to see female love interests in their BL games. This is easily explained by 73% of male respondents being gay
• “Yes” was treated as the default answer for many, it seems, and aside from the woman question it was the most common answer from respondents. “Yes” just means that something is not a deal-breaker and that they’re willing to give it a try
• For a bunch of questions, respondents showed reservation toward a protagonist with X traits, and then showed enthusiasm for a love interest with the very same trait. One person explained: having a protagonist with a certain traits makes the game hit too close to home, while it’s not the case with a love interest
• Gender non-conforming respondents will apparently be okay with just about anything, from 50 years old characters to unattractive love interests.
• The least attractive prospect for them was female love interest, where the percentage of “Yes but without sexual content” and “No” was of 40%.
• GNCs and trans men are especially open to playing a BL game featuring transgender and nonbinary protagonists and love interests, far more than their cis counterpart. It’s almost like GNCs and trans players want to feel represented while playing LGBT+ games. Crazy, right?
• The most “Yes” and “Yes, give me!” answers I got were from the ‘dark-skinned’ and ‘doesn’t look white or east-asian’ question
• Aside from female LIs, the most “No” answers I received were from the “looks older than 50” question
• “You just don’t find physically attractive” is the only answer that received significantly more reservation for love interests than for protagonists.
• Like for the body type question, I got a bunch of custom replies saying they don’t care too much appearance and a previously unattractive character can grow on them if they like their personality and the story enough. Another person said they’re willing to play a female love interest’ route if it means they can unlock other routes.

What I get from all these answers is that the least popular traits mentioned are also the traits you are the least likely to see in any kind of media, not just BL games. Outside of certain indie “bara” games, I can count the number of times I’ve seen chubby or 50+ years old love interests on the fingers of one hand. It’s uncommon to see a BL game where most of the cast is dark-skinned, but it IS common to see at least one of them in any piece of media, even if they’re just the “token non-white character”. Likewise, asexual, transgender and nonbinary characters are still a rarity in BL and mainstream media.

“Visibly disabled” protagonists and love interests usually come in the shape of blind or one-eyed men, or the occasional rugged love interest who has prosthetic arms or legs. They’re not that common, but they’re not rare either, which could explain the ~60% of respondents not minding them and answering “Yes”.

It is only natural for someone to stay with what they are familiar with and avoid the unknown, but I’d rather stay hopeful and think many of the respondents who answered “no” would change their mind if they ever have the chance to encounter the right character who will end-up striking their fancy.

On BL gamers’ squicks and triggers

• Like the last set of answers, men are more likely avoid all of the content mentioned than women and GNCs, with the exception of Cheating. It’s not that men enjoy cheating more than other groups either, it’s just that 50% of them don’t mind
• Men especially seem to avoid mild and extreme gore several times more than other gender groups, followed by yanderes and psychological abuse. This is consistent with previous findings where men don’t seem to like horror in their BL games.
• On the opposite side, next to nothing seem to unfaze 3/4 of GNC respondents, be it gore, unenjoyable rape or yandere. The only exception is… Cheating!
• I expected a bigger percentage of people avoiding rape at all costs, but it turns out that with the exception of 35% of men avoiding “rape where the victim doesn’t enjoy it”, less than 20% of everyone consider it a dealbreaker. Still, 35-40% of everyone would rather avoid it somehow.
• Trans men seem to display similar answers as cis men regarding Mpreg
• The “Yandere” answers are somewhat similar to “Psychological abuse”, with a slight favor towards Yandere. Perhaps because you’re sure yanderes love you or they’re less realistic
• The most squicky question is apparently Watersport/urination, and even then 54% of GNCs are okay with it.

Now, I have a theory as to why the men who answered this survey aren’t too hot into gore and rape territory. The horror genre in general has a more even gender distribution, with perhaps slightly more men (60%) than women enjoying it, while historically focusing more on women in perilous situations, so I will rule out the theory that men in general aren’t into horror. Next, if you ever looked at Japanese geicomi and a great load of western-made gay pornography, you will see that rape is very, VERY common and oftentimes more graphic than what you see in those BL games. Hence, I will also rule out the possibility of male BL game enjoyers aren’t into rape.

Instead, I look at what introduced the male BL gamers into the genre: Coming Out On Top, Camp Buddy, DRAMAtical Murder, and a little farther down the list, Dream Daddy. Looking at men’s answers, I could see that aside from those who picked a Japanese game as their first and/or fave title, men favored Western-made titles, where, again, the male characters fit a more Western standard of attractiveness. These titles are lighter in tone, with a favor of the slice-of-life genre like Uncle Neighbor, Camp Buddy or Dream Daddy. Women and GNCs on the other hand were introduced to BL games through much darker titles like Togainu no Chi, Enzai and other Japanese games feature gore and/or rape.

If I look again at the men’s stance on “extreme gore” and “rape where the victim doesn’t enjoy it” and only keep those who answered “Yes I enjoy it” or “I can handle it”, I can clearly see a bigger favor towards Japanese games like DMMd, Togainu and No, Thank You that are otherwise not present in answers from men who avoid gore and rape.

In other words, the reason male respondents don’t like gore or rape isn’t because men, or even gay men in general don’t like dark stories. It’s just that men were introduced to BL games through different titles than women and GNCs, and thus have different expectation for what kind of BL games they would like. And the reason they play different titles than other gender groups in the first place is that they are more attracted to the Western standard of attractiveness, and are thus drawn towards more Western titles that are, so far, lighter in tone.

Keep in mind that this is only a theory.

Conclusion

Piracy plays a big role in English-speaking BL gamers, and that’s how many of us first experienced a BL game and discovered the genre. For all of its faults, the Steam store also helped people from less privileged places access those BL games at an affordable price –legally.

This survey really highlighted how much gender affects how someone experiences BL games. It is interesting to see how much men avoid darker content such as gore and rape compared to women and GNCs, and I can only theorize as to why. It is also very validating to see that so many gender nonconforming respondents’ experiences seem to echo mine: having very little triggers / content I would rather avoid and being willing to try just about anything.

I learned a lot from this survey, and I was delighted to see everyone’s reactions and replies on Twitter where I would discuss some of my findings. I hope that, in turn, you learning something too.

I also created a new survey that follows up some questions of this one. If you’d like, feel free to answer it here!

If you want to see all the answers for yourself and my (very messy) notes, check the links below:

• Uncleaned answers
• Cleaned answers
• Original survey questions

Dead Man’s Rest is a 18+ game that was first released in “early-access” back in Juni 2021, before getting a full release last week.

For the unfamiliar, Gallium Game is Argent Games’ alternate brand where they collaborate with other creators to make a game. In the case of Dead Man’s Rest, the game was written by  Theo Southgate.

Official summary:

1879, Golder’s Rock. On a clear, moonless night in high summer, the stifling heat coils around a small town in the heartland of the Arizona Territory. Not a single lick of a breeze whistles through the dark, dusty main road, as silent as death itself. 

After tracking down an old enemy for eight long years, lone bounty hunter Lee “Blackjack” McCarthy has finally pinned down his target—his eyes set only on vengeance for a past he can’t forget.

But when the town mayor is ruthlessly murdered on that fateful, sweltering  night, Lee’s plan suddenly stops dead in its tracks. 

Suspected of the killing, forced to remain in town under watch, and desperate for the opportunity to catch his quarry, Lee has no choice but to work with the townsfolk he trusts—each with their own buried pasts and agendas—to reveal the truth and clear his name. 

Then, and only then, can Lee finally chase his real target…and lay to rest the ghost that haunts his memories.

Jump into a whirlwind Western mystery as Lee finds both lovers and enemies among the mysterious townsfolk, discovers the dark truths hidden in Golder’s Rock, and ultimately takes revenge on the murderer who destroyed his life.

Gallium game warns that the story contains violence, alcoholism, suicide, sexual content, noncon, racism and homophobia.

Useful links

• Get the game on itch
• Get the game on Steam
• Gallium Games twitter

HeartCore Dev is a duo of French and Canadian developers currently working on The Symbiant, which is, to put it simply, is a self-indulgent BL game involving tentacles and a lot of porn, but also romance and friendship.

I happen to be one half of HeartCore Dev, the other half being my friend Irlana, who previously worked on and released Synthethic Lover.

Official summary:

In the year 5066, Danya and his alien friend Juniper are manning The Ameretat, a humble spaceship that transports goods across the Galaxy.

After a troubled transport gig that left their beloved ship in need of repair and their bank account empty, the team is offered a generous deal they cannot refuse: transporting a beautiful and mysterious alien who calls himself Brahve.

Sometimes at night, Danya hears strange things from Brahve’s room. What could he be hiding in there? And how will it affect the connection that’s quickly growing between the two men?

The Symbiant is a story-rich and erotic visual novel (with PG-13 version supported) about two adult men, both from vastly different worlds, embracing their sexuality and their newfound romance. It is also a tale of interstellar friendship and being gay in space!

The Kickstarter campaign ends on April 14th. At the time of writing, the project is 51% funded.

Useful Links:

• Kickstarter page
• The Symbiant demo (18+)
• The Symbiant demo (all-ages)
• HeartCoreDev twitter