BL game without smut

[Pierrae]

Hello, i am planning to make a BL visual novel without 18+contest, more like shounen ai.But i Have the feeling that people actually do not have much interest in bl without smut. What do you Think about it?iam not sure if Its worth the time And work. The genre Is mystery,fantasy in victorian-like era.

Thank you for your answers

[AstralWire]

There are quite a few successful BL VNs without smut. For example, Legend of Rune received $29,000+ on their KS despite having no 18+ content. So, it's really up to you.

[High]

I tend to think that there's an audience for everything, no matter how niche. But the thing is, I don't know what audience size you would consider satisfactory. What is your goal for your novel? What numbers do you want it to do? What does success mean to you? Ultimately the only person who can tell if your novel's success is worth the time and work you invest in it, is you.

[ShokumaNatsu]

I'd say that smut isn't strictly necessary and you'll find people who'll enjoy your game regardless. Over ten years ago, when the EVN scene was much smaller and the (afaik) only localized big titles from Japan were pretty hardcore, the lack of non-smutty stuff actually kept me from giving BL a try for a long time, simply because I was more into fluffy and/or story-focused stuff. So I think it's great that there's a lot more variety nowadays and would absolutely like to see what you'd come up with because mystery and victorian-like era sounds neat! BUT I have to admit that I've got no clue if it would be profitable. (Now I'm kind of wondering if someone ever made a survey about how people feel about BL with and without smut...)

(Uh, also! Of course I don't want to imply that smutty stuff can't have a great story too!! Just saying that easily-flustered teenage Natsu would've been far more inclined to give BL a try if there had been more "beginner-friendly" games back then.)

[Selidor]

I don’t care about whether or not there’s smut, and I don’t think I’m a particularly unusual BL fan. As long as the writing and/or art is good, I think people will play it. There are plenty of popular otome games with no adult content at all, and the audience there isn’t so different from the BL audience. There are also plenty of successful BL manga with little to no adult content.