Here's a question which will need to be answered at some point as this database is filled out.

My physical collection contains some games of the eroge genre (eroge is Japanese for "erotic game"). These titles are visual novels which sometimes include cover art that shows exposed breasts and other body parts.

Obviously, these games should not just immediately display their box art when you visit a page. My question is to whether these images should be stored in any way at all or not. One potential solution is to hide an image by default unless a user opts in to view it (see VNDB: https://vndb.org/v3458 - nsfw). Another is to have a custom boxart which is used for all games with explicit covers.

I feel we should include these games, as they are needed for a complete database, but am curious about the implementation.

We've already got a few... risqué games in the database. None of them have nsfw covers to them afaik though.

Whether a game gets added or not is pretty much up to moho_00, and so far he's been of the mindset to try and cater to the masses as best as possible. In that case, if we do end up adding more of these sorts of games that don't have sfw box art, then I would expect we'd lean towards using a generic sfw cover since it would be the easiest solution to implement.

I definitely don't mind including adding these games to the database, especially given the influx of (censored) visual novels on Steam and as they're included in more and more bundles. I know I've picked up a few random ones from bundles myself (though I think they're censored).

Up to this point, I've cropped NSFW artwork such that anything explicit is removed. This means sometimes just including the name / text, but it's better than nothing. I agree with dhobo in that for now we'll probably just continue to crop or use a generic cover, if necessary. If we end up having to censor a lot of games, I'll probably look to build a NSFW flag and potentially do something like VNDB.

As a side-note, if you have a physical copy of Season of the Sakura...that's awesome! I played that game many years ago and it's the best visual novel I've ever played (though I haven't played very many).

dhobo: I was not aware there were already some titles of the sort on the site, but it's good to see you folks are thinking ahead! Cropping certainly works, haha. I agree, a default coverart for these things sounds like the easiest solution (as opposed to creating something akin to VNDB).

moho: Aw, no I do not have a copy of Season of the Sakura. As it turns out, visual novels (in physical form) are super hard to come by the older they are. It seems collectors of those games aren't keen on ever giving them up :P.

I agree with the idea to hide an NSFW image by default unless a user opts in to view it, as is done on VNDB, and the integration of a generic cover image as a placeholder would fit well with that and make the site look nice.

P.S. Why not import vndb itself? They do have an api: https://vndb.org/d11
DMM too: https://affiliate.dmm.com/api/guide/