I dunno about that, because there have been some really fun ones. Alternate Dimansion Diary, Treasure Hunter Claire, Evening Starter and several more. Don't sell the stories or the gameplay short on these. Also, it's a bit unfair to think a game can't have erotic scenes and good gameplay. Rance and Evenicle prove that. Once again, you're forgetting the dialogue, the story, the lewd jokes, the soundtrack and some of them can have really fun, addictive gameplay. Evening Starter had me hooked.

Also, I don't play these to get off. That's what I have stuff like How To Live A Healthy Hentai Lifestyle for. Yes, words do get me off - you can say "just like a woman and a romance novel" fine, I've accepted that. But I like images and words, you know. The image demonstrates what gets you off in the dialogue. None of these have ever gotten me off, but that's not why I play them. I like sexy stories in general. Doesn't have to necessarily get me off. That's not what the ero genre is about to me, otherwise I'd just go watch hentai. I think you have the wrong assumption as to why people like these games.

One more thing so I can be downvoted even further by the bots. I hear it a lot in the visual novel-eroge community that it isn't enough to see the CG. Readers often want to know the context behind the CG. For you, a couple of images to fap to might be enough. But for several of us, many of us into this hobby, the pictures alone are not enough. If you're going to throw out the writing on these games, then you've missed the point.