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Created page with "===Definition=== A dating simulation, or dating sim, is a video game genre in which the player's objective is to develop a romantic relationship with one or more characters, generally through dialogue choices, statistic management and the allocation of limited time. The genre is predominantly Japanese in origin (''renai'' games, from 恋愛, "romantic love"), and overlaps heavily with the visual novel, though the two are distinguishable: a visual novel is defined by its..."

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===Definition===
A dating simulation, or dating sim, is a video game genre in which the player's objective is to develop a romantic relationship with one or more characters, generally through dialogue choices, statistic management and the allocation of limited time.

The genre is predominantly Japanese in origin (''renai'' games, from 恋愛, "romantic love"), and overlaps heavily with the visual novel, though the two are distinguishable: a visual novel is defined by its narrative presentation, a dating sim by its simulation mechanics.

===Structure===
Most dating sims share a small set of components:

* '''Time as the scarce resource.''' A calendar of finite days, each divided into blocks. Time spent building one relationship is time not spent on another, or on the statistics that make a character attractive to a given love interest. This is the genre's central design idea and the source of whatever strategic interest it has.
* '''Statistics.''' The player character has attributes — intelligence, charm, athletics, kindness — raised by activities and checked against thresholds. ''Tokimeki Memorial'' (Konami, 1994), the genre's commercial breakthrough, established this template.
* '''Branching dialogue and affection values.''' Choices adjust hidden affection counters, which gate scenes and endings.
* '''Multiple routes and endings.''' Replay is assumed. A single playthrough sees a fraction of the written content.
* '''The bad ending.''' Failure states exist and are frequently the most memorable content, ''Tokimeki Memorial''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s infamous "Doom Bomb" being the standing example.

===History===
The lineage runs from early Japanese PC titles in the mid-1980s through ''Tokimeki Memorial'' (1994), which established the modern form and sold in the millions; the ''Sakura Wars'' and ''Persona'' series, which folded dating-sim mechanics into other genres; ''[[LovePlus]]'' (Konami, 2009), which removed the ending and made the relationship perpetual; and the Western independent scene from roughly 2010, in which the genre's conventions have been used for satire (''Hatoful Boyfriend''), for formal experiment (''Doki Doki Literature Club''), and for work about relationships the mainstream games industry does not otherwise depict.

===Why the Genre Is Anthropologically Interesting===
Three reasons, independent of any judgement about the games themselves.

'''It models relationships explicitly.''' A dating sim must state, in code, what makes a person likeable and what actions increase affection. Whatever theory of relationships a culture holds tacitly, this genre is obliged to write down — which makes it unusually legible evidence about assumptions that are otherwise never articulated.

'''It makes time the currency.''' The genre's core mechanic is an accurate model of a real constraint. Relationships are built by allocating finite attention, and the genre's discomfort — the sense that being nice to one character costs another — is a discomfort about something true.

'''It exposes the reciprocity problem.''' A simulated character's affection is a number that responds reliably to input. Real affection does not, and the gap between the two is where most criticism of the genre lands. The interesting version of that criticism is not that players confuse the two — research consistently finds they do not — but that a system offering reliable reciprocity trains an expectation that reality will not meet.

===Relevance to Cyborg Anthropology===
The dating sim is the oldest continuously developed body of design knowledge about making people care about a system, and its techniques have migrated well beyond games — into companion applications, [[Chatbot|chatbots]], gacha mechanics and engagement design generally. What was worked out here in the 1990s is now the substrate of a much larger industry.

===Related Reading===
* [[Virtual Girlfriends]]
* [[LovePlus]]
* [[Chatbot]]
* [[Sherry Turkle]]
* [[A.I]]
* [[Attention Economy]]

[[Category:Digital Culture]]
[[Category:Japanese Concepts]]
[[Category:Cyborg Anthropology]]

Dating Sim - Revision history