It’s very important, I prefer a coherent and compelling story with fetish elements rather than just fetish porn with a plot attached.
I want a good story that integrates its fetish, but not in a meta-narrative or self-referential, ironic way.
It depends on the plot and the specific fetish/I like it either way.
I’d prefer to have my fetishes front and center, with a convincing and conveying plot weaving them together, rather than them being the special feature.
I’m here for the smut, the story only has to act as a loose framing device.
While I very much prefer an actual plot in my games, it does also depend on the type of game in question.
RPG/Visual Novel? Story needs to be front and centre.
Platformer? Gameplay above all else.
Simulation/minigame? Fetish is the clear focus.
That’s not to say these are the only aspects you need for each genre, but they are the ones that will keep me playing the most. And please, avoid the trap of the fetish being the punishment.
I mean, I think it heavily depends on the genre. If it’s an RPG or visual novel, then I think a cohesive and interesting plot underneath all the fetish elements really elevates the experience. But, if it’s a simulator or anything more gameplay focused, I think no story is completely fine.
Ultimately I just need it to be a Good Game. If that means story and plot, cool. If it means strong mechanics, also cool. But if the only thing compelling me to keep going is more lewd material? Nah.
Like everyone has said, it really depends honestly. Tbf, I would differentiate 2 kinds of games.
smut, where you really only want to see WG, or whatever festish you want to see and don’t care for any story or plot. I would compare it to porn, you play it for one thing and one thing only… (I don’t need to say what). Let me clarify, I don’t dislike this. Sometimes I want a fast session without havening to go through a bunch of story.
and then there are “normal” games that gave WG or the fetish on question integrated into them. Would it make sense including story on a Tetris games where you stack blobs ? I don’t think so. An RPG ? The story is half the game, so… Yeah.
I can’t vote, because all options related only to story and fetish elements. I am that one guy who mostly care about gameplay in video games and don’t care about story.
My most honest answer is “it depends”, for the reasons people already stated. I like the whole range if it’s done well! But that’s not very informative, so I voted in the story direction, for two reasons:
good sims are easier to find than good stories
stories “go stale” while sims keep their replay value
It seems like the choices are meant to be a linear scale from most to least story-based, but options 2 and 4 sound the same to me. I would have picked 1 but “with fetish elements” sounds like half-measures, so 2 it is.
If the gameplay is fun i’ll power through for the fetish content and ignore the story.
good example: anything burgerkurger. gameplay is always first and the games are unique, fun, and minigame sections don’t overstay their welcome
honeypot hauler was fun as fuck, fetish was intrinsic to the combat, didn’t have/need a story
If the story is the focus, and its something lame like an rpgmaker game, or i’m giving up on it
good example: nerds1/some bullshit team. RPGmaker is boring as hell but the writing and plot for the game are interesting enough to hook you in + the fetish is tied with the plot
good example: fatgeria. the gameplay is a slog which is why they added a skip combat button so it turns into a VN which was great.
if it’s all fetish and story/gameplay aren’t the focus it usually is an empty sandbox and it gets boring real fast. there’s no foreplay man. it’s a sandwich without bread.
mods for games like skyrim/starbound/etc - you gotta make your own adventure in these otherwise its a pump and dump mod