Why so few yuri games compared to BL game?

[kencana]

"I know a few female fans and they all like both yaoi and yuri. But I don't see any straight men praising the yaoi gods. If anything, yuri should be way more popular!" I've often heard that argument

Yaoi is an older genre and has a very focused niche (straight/bi women). Yuri is a newer genre, and has the intriguing problem of not having a unified audience, so what appeals to the straight men, straight women and lesbian may differ significantly, which splits an already niche audience up further.

Women many want romance, but men (seem) to prefer sex. It's a bit difficult to satisfy both genders of the viewers. Yuri themes don’t consistently appeal to a large female audience, nor do they appeal to a large male audience. In effect, not only is the audience for yuri in both America and Japan smaller than the audience for yaoi; it’s also splintered.

[gekiganwing]

There was a similar discussion thread which began in 2014, and which was active as recently as May 2016. For what it's worth, I enjoy girl x girl relationships in fiction, though I also like a number of other things.

In effect, not only is the audience for yuri in both America and Japan smaller than the audience for yaoi; it’s also splintered.

Keep in mind that fandom is not limited to a couple of nations. A piece of fiction can find an audience in dozens of nations.

[Imperf3kt]

You've missed Bara and just lumped all BL games together as Yaoi.

[Sonomi]

Yuri themes don’t consistently appeal to a large female audience, nor do they appeal to a large male audience.

Interestingly enough, I read through the entire thread that gekiganwing linked and I didn't come across any statistics supporting this idea.

My opinion is that the absence of a genre does not indicate a lack of interest. There is no way to judge popularity by only looking at what developers are releasing. Maybe a wide poll of the audience could prove beneficial in this regard.

To make an analogy, let's say you want to buy sweets and the convenience store only sells chocolate bars. You personally may enjoy lollipops, some of your friends may also enjoy lollipops, but there's only one option to choose from at the store and there is nothing more to buy. That doesn't mean you don't like lollipops! It only means that the store isn't selling them. And this would translate to a market that has not been reached. Not a market that doesn't exist.

I don't have any stats either, so please don't mind me too much!

[Morhighan]

I've noticed a rise in yuri titles. At the very least, Yurijam seems to help with this once a year.

I myself have two shoujou-ai/yuri-esque games in production at this time and am always looking for more to read. Whenever I talk to women about my games, they show a keen interest, straight or not.

I've also seen data that over half of EVN devs identify as female or non-binary, many of which are afab. In 2014 61% id'd as female. I'm sure a good percent of them are attracted to women in some degree. As EVNs gain popularity (as well as developing them) I'm pretty sure this will reflect in the produced visual novels.

Yuri is a newer genre

I highly doubt that. Women have been with women since....women.
Sure, western devs may only just be exploring the genre more, as of recent. But I wouldn't say it's younger, just less experienced. Even in Japan there was an Utena visual novel on Sega saturn in the 90s. Though I'd argue it's more of a bisexual romance than anything, but it is very heavy with its lesbian themes.


I guess my problem with your proposal is the use of umbrella terms like "yaoi" and "yuri". Saying that Yuri themes don’t consistently appeal to a large female audience, nor do they appeal to a large male audience is very likely incorrect unless you want to specify it. Though I also recognize that people rarely make the distinction.

Girl's love themes can appeal to a largely female audience, while lewd lesbian fantasies might appeal to a largely male audience. I'd need more data to say that for certain, but my guess is that the previous sentence may be somewhat true.

I guess it comes down to who your target audience is.

EDIT: Have a history of yuri.

[hanging shade]

You answered your own question. There are exceptional yuri VNs that rise above that divide, but the creators making them are a small group and the hits are few in number, as expected.

I've noticed exceptional titles still contain content that's unappealing for the other side of the audience, but they counterbalance that with great content in other areas. However that's not something that can be reproduced at scale.

To see real change, yuri fans have to engage with the other side constructively. They aren't going to make the game you want, but they can still make something with cross-appeal. And success cultivates success.

[Jain]

Hm. No clue. I'd imagine since it all started with JVN's, and JVN's usually had male protagonist/dating, as a medium it just continued with a large head start and Yuri games have some catching up to do?

[papillon]

While the full-price JVNs have more to offer for BL than for yuri, in English there is now a TON of yuri stuff available that, afaik, vastly outnumbers the amount of BL available in English. Just for a quick overview of the situation:

vndb's Girls Love Only list: https://vndb.org/g1986?fil=tagspoil-0.tag_inc-1986
4chan's yuri games list: https://pastebin.com/Pgksn5ke
other forum's yuri games list: http://brokenforum.com/index.php?thread ... men.10036/
Steam games-with-lesbian-content list: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/6 ... ella-Yuri/

(All of these lists have some overlap but each has some games the others don't)

[Honimilk]

Yaoi is an older genre and has a very focused niche (straight/bi women). Yuri is a newer genre, and has the intriguing problem of not having a unified audience, so what appeals to the straight men, straight women and lesbian may differ significantly, which splits an already niche audience up further.

WOW nope. Girls love in Japan as a literary genre has roots from the late 1800's, the first yuri manga was published on the 1950's.

But overall, your problem seems to be more about echo chambers. There's quite a lot of yuri games, specially more licensed & on major platforms such as steam, that are intended for both straight males and lesbian women. However, there's a wide arrange of yaoi games as well, it really depends on your circles and communities that are familiar to you.

What I think there is very little of, is Bara games, both in Japan and the West. I'm much more into Bara than yaoi, and hotdamn is it hard to find them. It's real easy to find furry bara games, but not bara real heavy big bara vns :/ but that goes as well for manga or even anime which really has 0 adaptation of bara.

[deevilj]

agreed! would love to see a LOT more Bara content. So far I only get CaptainGerBear's Bastard Bonds game and Tumblr for content.

[Scribbles]

agreed! would love to see a LOT more Bara content. So far I only get CaptainGerBear's Bastard Bonds game and Tumblr for content.

There is "Let's Meat Adam" I believe it's considered Bara
https://soulsoftea.itch.io/lets-meat-adam