Despite the case studies and short-form documentaries of users discussing their bonds with the characters from Love Plus, it’s easy to remain skeptical.
VR KANOJO SCENES PLUS
Love Plus is the game which initially sparked all the “men marrying video games” articles mentioned above. Once the user stops engaging with the character, that avatar usually does not go on to interact with a larger game world. The character AI can respond to the player prompts but cannot act freely apart from user interaction.
![vr kanojo scenes vr kanojo scenes](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/cAc7LDKXJF9sJ8Qhr4iqpcq1GZTkeGqKdyhjUtc1PDtC1Twd_BVo8yr-He0_mjKuRA=h1024-no-tmp_kanojo_vr_the_ultimate_excitement_tips_apk.jpg)
My first dating sim encounter, like many users, was with the hugely popular Konami’s Love Plus - a video game that features the player in several scenarios with digital, anime-styled female characters, in which they must select dialogue options and use their device’s touch-screen capabilities to date and maintain a relationship with the character successfully. Instead, I opted for sincerely trying to understand these video games and the impact they might have on our “real life” romantic interactions. The world of dating sims is also steadily gaining a fascination in the West, and I’d be lying if I said, at first, I wasn’t tempted to cut together an “I Am Dating a Video Game Character for a Month - This Is What Happened!” clickbait video in an effort to capitalize on those sweet, social media, viewer-engagement algorithms. Articles firing off facts and statistics about Japan’s stagnation of intimacy and its alarming birthrates are plentiful, along with the “Men in Japan Are Marrying Their Video Games!?” shock pieces. Tokyo, Japan is arguably the hub of dating sim culture, and where the conversation around these technologies is most prominent. The HTC Vive, a virtual reality headset developed by HTC and Valve Corporation (photo by Maurizio Pesce via Wikimedia) These are a sub-genre of video games which center around the user forming and maintaining romantic relationships with digital partners through the use of VR/AR and (for now) rudimentary AI.
![vr kanojo scenes vr kanojo scenes](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DX_9kkHU0AAbiTp.jpg)
![vr kanojo scenes vr kanojo scenes](https://ytimg.googleusercontent.com/vi/eQ_bZK3tXOU/mqdefault.jpg)
Furthermore, what implications could these virtual relationships have on our current definitions of consent and appropriate romantic conduct?ĭating simulators are the most prominent example of this gamification of intimacy. In a world where digital technologies such as AI, VR, and AR, which I bracket under the heading, the “gamification of intimacy,” are developing at an unprecedented pace, I feel compelled to ask how these objects are potentially shifting society’s relationship to intimacy and social interaction. The resurgence of accessible artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies has disrupted how humans interact socially within contemporary developed society. Screenshot of the game VR Kanogo (all images by the author for Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted)