So I want to start by saying that we should be real here and cut out all the other bullshit as you read this; I know you and like you I'm not proud of myself because of that.

No, I don't know your name, where you live, your job, relationships status, goals for the future, or even your favourite color. Nothing so mundane or as uninteresting to how I know you who you truly are.

Its the part of you that I know that has always been there. Maybe more apparent or just suppressed below a surface of strained discipline but always nipping at your necks... Your vices.

Yes, all your guilty pleasures! Your real reason for getting up in the morning! Not your friends! Not your family! The real filler of life! The substance between now and the time where the finality of death finally claws you away from what truly made your minuscule time on this pebble floating in an endless expanse of this that don't measure up!

But I also know that such things also differ from person to person. Oh sure I could blurt out the casual sex, drugs, rock and roll, etc. but this is an age where we don't just settle for the classic three. No, we've grown beyond that! With the world at our finger tips we've opened up to a cacophony of guilty pleasures that we'd stab someone just to make sure no one else finds out! So join me eating this shit sundae all while trying to hide the fact your into woman's feet or drinking detergent or whatever.

Just know that I will never judge you. For I stand with you in solidarity! My life's meaning holding true in my heart even though I'd never let it be known to a single soul so long as I lived--

–It's Eroge games! Adult content! Meaningless virtual relationships!

And blurting things out to apparently

Oof! No that’s a bit strong, let's uh… let’s start back a little bit further.

So yes... like many – countless, literally countless and likely single – horny games out there, I too have partaken in the pastime of enjoying them as a tasteful and constructive pastime to get through life’s tedium through eroge games. There were just so many positive attributes and qualities that drew me too them! The… The um… The artwork! Yes! Masterfully drawn and handcrafted artwork professionally and painstakingly edited to perfection! Those program artists are like gods among men! Well, done by people by what I can assume to be slave condition programmers doing a job that would probably pay way better anywhere else.

But can you put a price on doing what you love?

Absolutely not!

They should be working quadruple overtime to keep pumping them out!

I'm not getting any younger damnit!

Actually, let's just cut the crap even more! Cut them into tiny slivers and sprinkle them like garnish on this shit sundae! We all know why people play eroge games. Especially those specially licensed uncensored versions we can get because we live overseas! Fuck ya foreign distributors! Sure the dubbing can be hit or miss but is that really important? Deep plot? Cunning dialogue that makes us think for the few minutes it takes us to get the real enjoyment out of the game? Fuck that! All we care about is whether or not we can play the game with one hand and… comb our hair with the other or read a book or do our taxes... Lots of multitasking to be had. An invaluable skill to do two things at once!

It's just a shame I never brush my hair, need two hands to read a book properly, and pay an actual professional to do my taxes for me.

Again… I’m not proud of myself.

So we’ve broken down the first reason ‘why’ eroge games are so popular. Like all my foot fetish friends out there, not all of them have neatly trimmed nails. Not all the detergents out there are cruelty free from... wherever laundry detergent is made. I assume in a vat with tiny children with comically long stirring sticks. I don't know I just use it to clean my clothes. Anyway... my point is that that all eroge games are even remotely the same; Simulations, strategy, visual novels, and even action RPGs. Just about every genre has some sort of eroge attached to it – foreign or domestic. There's a market for it no matter where you live. I'm talking to you, person who lives in the middle of the woods with an internet connection'.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

For me though there is one eroge game to rule them all. One so popular that it’s sold more copies than any other eroge game combined.

Hell, not just one, but three.

Triple overtime has paid off... for now.

It was so popular that it spawned its own continuing series where the players are rewarded for achieving 100% completion rate on the previous game and where every single choice in dialogue let to an ending that were calculated to be nearly three hundred variations. A series unlike any other where the rewards include actual unlockable characters, storylines, and plot points. Each succeeding game could be two to three times as long to finish because of that fact! It’s brilliant marketing at its finest!

Beyond the monetary sales the popularity of the series comes down to an almost unbelievable notion; A feat many eroge games until now had only dared to attempt before now! None coming close to succeeding! Just the very idea of it made many scoff! It was like saying pigs would fly and it would start raining cats! Yes! I speak of the very notion that there really could be an eroge game with an actual story! A story worth playing and enjoying beyond the games intended – Pfft! I’m sorry! I just can’t!

Ya I’m bullshitting you all! Like I was trying to make myself seem better than the detergent drinker! Laughable!

Oh sure all other stuff is true. It’s a highly rated game with a complex story but… it’s a flipping porn game! Come on! You all read the title of this! Saw the cliche looking anime characters on the cover! It’s called Love Hero Chronicles! How original and groundbreaking did you think the story was going to be? There is a generic black hair/eyes looking protagonist with some mysterious background that gets revealed as you progress through the games. Lewd situations with more female characters than I could rightly name with differences largely being chopped up to hair color and breast size. Oh ya, you’ll love this! They essentially took a janky alternate universe Japan as the setting, painted fantasy magic on top of it and put in some shadowy organization trying to rule over the world… blah blah blah!

It’s lazy writing at its finest.

Still. I’m an adult male… single, as previously implied. I have a stable job and the right to spend my hard earned money how I like. So while I'm a casual connoisseur of these types of games, I got hooked on this particular one when my friend accidentally left it at my place. While generic in story I do typically like to want to finish a story all the way through. Finished the first, went out and bought the other two and played and got a 100% completion rate on all three. Its amazing how I have developed arthritis yet.

Once again, not proud but there were crumbs of accomplishment kneaded into the shame.

But of course… There was an announcement by the company who made the game. Where there were once three, a fourth was in the works. Supposedly it was the final conclusion to this 300+ hour slog I had already dedicated more than four times that amount to. A wrap up and the reveal of the main characters hidden origin powers, why the bad guys did what they did, the graduation of the protagonist from the magical academy he attends, and whom among the plethora of thirsty female characters he’ll settle down with.

Oh man was I excited to play it! Counting down the days till there was just fifty left! It was lined up with a long weekend too. I had it pre-ordered the moment it became a available and bought a new computer to play it on the highest graphics. I was even planning to replay the older games so that my preferred choices were set and my favorite heroines were maxed out.

I wish my excitement had carried through to where I was now.

What I wouldn’t give to return to that point.

Sometimes its hard to admit that what gets you excited to get up can turn into something you'd wish you could dream away like a bad nightmare. Wishing hopelessly that your last memory before going to bed wasn't waking up in a world of your own shame. How ironic and painful life can be sometimes. Even in the most logic-defying ways there are moments that can really show that reality is just a twisted construct. That the things we love – both obscene and pure – can suddenly turn to a waking nightmare.

Fifty days. Just fifty. That’s how long I would have gotten to see the climatic end of the Love Hero Chronicles series. If I could promise a definitive number till I get to see the ending of this godforsaken story I would be lying. By a rough estimate that time was now twenty two hundred. A sentence that would now force me into going through the entire series, front to back. But the biggest question on my mind – gnawing at my insides – has been whether or not I’ll reach the end. With the ever looming terror of not even knowing if end of the story means that I can go back at all.

Perhaps… being stuck here even after the game ends... whatever that entails.

So for one last time… I’m not proud of myself. In a crude imaginary world meant to satisfy my libido I now have to stare it down with eyes that are not my own, fight it with a body not my own, and potentially die with a life that I had no wish to be living in the first place. So what now? Well, if I’m living in a world of shame, it stands to reason that perhaps I can raise the bar with some real world values.

HA! Won’t that be ironic!