Post 12: Boy’s Dating Sims Vs. Girl’s Dating Sims

Did you ever experience dating? What is dating for you? For me dating is where you experience a private moment with your dating partner. Dating is the chance to know each other more, spend time together to strengthen your relationship and experience wonderful moment with him or her that you will never forget.

There are various way how we handle and prepare our date. A perfect date blooms passionate feeling in every relationship. How about in the virtual world what ways can we develop a romantic relationship in our chosen partner? Dating simulation games are the types of games created to developed a romantic relationship in a virtual world. There are different genres of dating simulation games that are popular for males and females.

Dating sims for girls and boys are different in many ways in its genres, story board, and art-style. But it also similar in some ways like the process of playing the game, choosing an answer and game application. The famous genres for males are the Bishojo and Eroge games. According to this research article by Patrick W. Galbraith called “Bishojo Games: ‘Techno-Intimacy’ and the Virtiually Human inJapan”, states that bishojo games became the source of intimate relationship and opens the possibilities of becoming with a technological “companions species.”  Just like eroge games, bishojo games also have pornographic contents that became popular for males.

“As machines become embedded ever more deeply into life and even flesh, the line between human and nonhuman increasingly blurs. So does that between material reality and the image making we rely upon to see, know, and interact with our world(s).”

- Anne Allison

As I searched for an example of popular bishojo game, I came across to an article written by Alex Mahan called “This Japanese Dating Sim Lets Players CreateTheir Ideal Wife” about a bishojo game where the players are allowed to choose their ideal wife and experience a real look of having a wife.

Girl’s game on other hand are more “pure” and light based on the content of the gameplay. The most popular dating sim for female is the otome game, where it composes in more romantic relationship rather than intimate relationship. The first ever otome game is the Angelique, according to this article written by Heidi Kemps called “Game for Girls”, Angelique is the first truly successful female-oriented game ever created. Composed of interesting gameplay, fantasy-based story line and gorgeous guys design by shojo artist.

From my own perspective each gender has their own perspective in choosing what genre they want to play. We can freely choose what kind of game we are going to play that provides satisfaction with our own needs.

Post 11: Anime Adaptation and Vice Versa

“We first make our habits, then our habits make us.” 

― John Dryden

I love anime! And I’m proud of it! As long I remembered I started liking anime at the age of 12. I can say that I have the habit of watching anime or reading mangas every day. Being addicted in anime gave a lot of reason in my chosen path of career in Multimedia Arts. It helped me to discover my talents in drawing in many ways and continues to develop as I learned.

 The growing trends of anime in society build a great impact in various media. Alongside the continuing growth of anime series also helped the popularity and success of dating simulation games. According to the article by Feal ”Popularity in Anime - The wall that divides Japan and the world”, popularity and success of anime defined in different ways.

“When an anime is successful? After a bit of talk we convened that raw success for an anime series is obtained by watching to the sales number of the anime DVD/BD in Japan that is the main source of sustenance for the anime production industry that allows us to get more and more anime series every season.”

“When an anime is popular? An anime is popular when it has a big quantity of followers and fans, when communities get created for the sole purpose of talking over it and is measured mainly by the raw quantity of people who watched (through different means) and liked a particular anime series.”

From my perspective, popularity and success of anime goes along the fans who made the great impact in the growth of anime fandom that lived up adaptation of dating simulation games from anime.  Many dating simulation games are based on anime and anime based on dating simulation games.

From my experience of playing otome games, what makes a good adaption frequently comes up in the art-style of anime character and storyboard. Some basic example of dating simulation games based on anime is the Naruto anime series. On this article written by Damian Cross “Naruto Games Online: Naruto Dating Sims Game”, states the big popularity of this anime series to create an innovative application that allows the fans to play online created by Fejro Production.

With the help of the internet many dating simulation games became popular that start to create annime adaptation. Some of these are the popular bishojo games; Photo Kano, Amagami, and Koi-Ken!, popular otome games; Hanayaka Nari Waga Ichizoku, Hakuoki: Demon Of The Fleeting Blossom. The Idea Factory's historical RPG Hakuoki: Demon Of The Fleeting Blossom will be North America's first widely available "otome".

Overall, the creation of dating simulation games gave a great impact in the world market of Japan especially the different industries that continues to improve in providing their consumers a better look in their selling games. 

Post 10: Personalities Behind the Players of Dating Sims

Summer season is now approaching. Also the season of romance is now circling in the wind breeze of the warm heat of sand and splashing waves. As a college student we need to have break in our busy schedule, so I play otome games to have relaxation and source of happiness. But there are still a lot of reasons why some people play dating simulation games. Either male or female we find dating simulation games interesting in various ways.

For both female and males the looks of the characters are the most important in choosing your partner in every route you choose. Second are the personality of the characters and lastly the hobbies or the likes of your choosen character. As for me I choose the guy wearing eye-glasses and tsundere type of personality in every game character because it is more appealing to me.

As I searched for any information about the types of dating games characters for males, I came a crossed to an article written by Kim Moss called “You KnowWhat’s Gross? We Often Play Nice Guys In Games With Romance Options”, where it states that all males act to be good in a dating sims in achieving the character they like but in the main reason is having an intimate scene with their chosen character.

“These people see all other women as potential love interest in the game of life. Well, not all other women. Just the ones that meet some arbitrary level of attractiveness by their undoubely sexist standards.”

In my opinion, some of the players are just looking for the pornographic part of every gameplay and when they finished in one character they proceed to the next with one main goal. As for the female dating sims, we tend to have more look in the ending and life lessons of every game character and experience a romantic relationship rather than looking in pornographic content.

According to the research study written by Emily Taylor called “Dating-Simulation Games: Leisure and Gaming ofJapanese Youth Culture”,  states that the popularity of different genres of dating sims identifies the otaku from the non-otaku culture. It clarifies that not all persons who play dating simulation games are fans of anime, mangas, and dating sims but some are interested in the story board of simulation games that varies a lot.on this article also identifies the common personalities who play dating simulation games  including the male figures of the  otaku (geek, nerd) and  hikikomori (social shut-in) as well as the currently hot topic of “parasite singles”—unmarried men and women who live with their parents while working and who have substantial disposable incomes to spend on luxury items .

“The interconnection between fantasy and reality is a key element of otaku culture. As a rejection of societal expectations for them to get married and support a household, an ideal based on the salaryman figure (the man who dedicates himself to his company to support his family), otaku choose instead to delve into a fantasy world of anime, manga, and video games.”

Overall, there are different states of liking the otaku culture in every person. The game flow of dating sims are based on each genre. There are a lot of different kinds off person in the otaku world but also in real world.

Post 9: Reasons Behind Why We Love the Virtual World

The advancement of technology development gave a great impact in the field of technology. Various application and gadgets where made along to the growth of technology. Besides the continuous invention of gadgets a virtual world was born. A virtual world is classified as the opposite of reality, you represents yours self as one of the characters in the game and controls it.

Many people this days where encourage in playing computer games and indulge their selves as part of that game that develop connection in their real life personality. Computer games, internet, or media evolves throughout the years that cause a great outcome in changing of one’s living. Based on my experience, I was comparing the beauty of anime in a real person and started liking anime guy characters instead in a real one. It helped me in positive and negative way, in a positive way because I learned a lot of lessons and in a negative way because of being addicted that cause a bad result in my schedules. There are still a lot of reasons why people where influence in the virtual world.

Searching for the explanations, I came a crossed an article written by Liu Yun called “Why do we love Role-Playing Games --- Human’s Original Need of Presence”, where it discussed about the importance and factors of presence that are found in role-playing games.

“All in all, the original reason of human needs about presence can be divided into two main reasons: 1. the human curiosity; 2. the human’s desire of control”.

On this article, discussed the meaning of presence in the connection of technology in people lives, is the illusion of the media users that a mediated experience is not mediated defined by Lomband and Ditton in their article about “TheConcept of Presence”. 

      Escaping the reality was one of the major reason why they embrace the beauty of a virtual world. They leave their problems, loneliness, stress and negative emotions in reality and enter the virtual world in order to see the relaxation and happiness. It state also in the article written by Michelle Castillo called “Study: Virtual Reality personas InfluenceHow You Act in the Real World”, where it talked about the usage of your own avatar or character’s personality in the game that applies also in your own interaction in real life. 

      Overall, I realized that being carried away in using the game character in game influence your attitudes for communication. So we must balance the usage of playing games and build a defensive wall to avoid the effect of using different personality.

Post 8: Art-style of Western Culture

As years passed by, various cultures influence the life of people. People adapt to their surroundings in order to continue living. Influence was defined as the power of effect to one another just like the adapting the styles of dating simulation games in Japan and was spread throughout the world, especially the western country. Western country as we all know was part of American civilization and one of the outstanding countries towards technology, but Japan was now the most outstanding country in technology advantage. Not only technology became the center of influence among the world country but there are still various approaches in the process of influences.

As a student in college, I can already say that I myself was influence by different hobbies of other people. One of the major influential people for me are my friends, they greatly gave me different hobbies or ideas that was adaptive by me, like being addicted in animes and otome games. There are positive and negative effect in the knowledge I gained. Positive on the way that it gives you relaxation, comfort, and happiness, but also in negative way where it consumes your available time for important works and became addictive to a certain activity.

Dating simulation games, being one of the popular games in youth this days in Japan, advances its uniqueness to other countries as source of entertainment. As I browsed through the internet, I came a crossed about the article by Brian Ashcraft called “Do Japanese and Westerner Have Different Tatse in Men? ThisGame Thinks So”, an article that talks about an otome game of Japan transformed into realistic version of art-style, Be My Princess a dating sims call as a “royal romance” users in transforming of anime style.

“There seems to be vocal players in the West who prefer the original anime males, but the change might've been brought on by lackluster sales—perhaps there weren't enough of these passionate players. These new hunks do show a marked difference between Japanese and Western aesthetics”.

Overall, anime art-style was still the major selection of many fans in dating simulation games. It felt more comfortable communicating in anime like character rather than a realistic one. The looks have big difference for passionate fans of anime even ones who are not a fan of anime.