Recently, an academic paper entitled "AI Virtual Boyfriend Young Female Players' View of Mate Selection: Distortion, Causes and Correction" has aroused heated discussion on the Internet, attracting the attention of many domestic otome players. AI virtual boyfriends are not the same as otome games, but the quasi-realistic relationship between virtual characters and players is gradually approaching the research horizon. What is Otome? How can such a paper be used with words such as "aberration, cause and correction"? Today, Qingjun and everyone understand the world of Otome games.
What is Otome Game
"Otome" is an imported word derived from the Japanese word meaning "unmarried young girl". Most of them are between the ages of 14-18 and are in the transition from childhood to maturity. Girls have a natural desire for love at this stage, and romantic fantasies and expectations of emotion form a unique "otome culture" in Japan. The resulting "Otome game" is one of the important carriers of this culture, and it is also a form of economic capital realization of this subculture.
The "Otome Game" is a major branch of the female game, which is a game developed for female gamers. Based on the core of the "Otome culture" of love, the production of Otome games is generally a trinity of "sound, painting and text". "Sound" refers to the dubbing of the game, "painting" refers to character standing painting and scene animation, and "text" refers to the plot and character lines.
At the end of the last century, Japan's economy declined and social unrest. Due to the instability of society, the social enthusiasm of young people has decreased, the spiritual needs of the people have soared, and the cultural industry has flourished unprecedentedly. On the other hand, as an important part of the labor force, women's human rights have been given a deeper meaning under the premise of mastering the economic foundation, and meeting women's psychological needs has gradually been put on the agenda, and it is necessary to develop women's business markets. Driven by these dual conditions, the cultural industry tailored for women, the Otome game market, has emerged.
Otome Games in China
In China, the early Otome game market is still dominated by Chinese versions of Japanese games. Until 2013, Women established the game platform "Orange Light", providing a platform for Otome gamers to make and share. Since the producers are mostly individuals or small-scale teams that generate electricity for love, Orange Light games are generally based on plot text, but let people see the potential player market and the excellent production ability of the producers.
On December 13, 2017, "Love and Producer" developed by Suzhou Paper Network was launched, becoming the first Otome mobile game in mainland China. In the statistical report of the third-party market research institute "Aurora Data", as of January 7, 2018, the number of installs of the game "Love and Producer" reached 7.1113 million, while the average number of daily active people exceeded 2 million, in terms of gender distribution, female players accounted for more than 90%, in the age distribution, more than 70% of players under 24 years old, and users on Apple's App Store itunes.
After this, Tencent, NetEase, Mihayou and other major game manufacturers have come down, "Undetermined Event Book", "Love of Light and Night", "Painted Traveler in Time and Space", "Meet the Cold Water" and other works have emerged. Therefore, 2020 is also jokingly called "the first year of the domestic otome game".
Otome Games with the Female Market
People seem to have acquiesced in the beginning that video games, would have little to do with women. Game makers won't be women, and gamers won't be women. Even the pioneering work of the love cultivation game, "Heartbeat Memories", was originally released for men, and it was not until later that a female version was launched.
The otome game was born and grew up in such an environment. Japan's first otome game, Angeliko, was developed by Japan's veteran game company, Nippon Glory Corporation. Glory started with male war games such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms and won a big victory in the market test. As an independent modern woman, the honorary chairman of the honorary chairman of the honor, Keiko Saikawa, sees that the current Japanese game market is mostly a game of male violence and combat, and with the improvement of women's social status, it is necessary to see the needs of women's hearts. So she gathered female employees to launch the Ruby Party women's game development team.
In Japanese society where women are mostly housewives, it is very difficult to recruit female screenwriters and programmers, so Ms. Keiko recruited new women to join the company, starting from the training of female employees, from the perspective of female consumers to develop products, the ratio of female employees and female executives of the glorious company increased year by year, and finally in 1994 launched the first otome game "Angeliko" and won a big victory After seeing the spending power of the female market, The rest of the companies have also invested in the wave of women's game product development, gradually breaking the "game is played by men" situation.
Video games have long evolved, and women have always existed as "others" whether in the field of game participation or research. The female figure in the game can also easily fall into the stereotypical binary gender gaze. And the birth of the Otome game, silently expressed:
Women can also make and participate in games, games with themselves as the core.
With its immersive narrative framework, panoramic social experience, and Otome emotional management, Otome Games brings female players a rare emotional experience with reality. Colorful worlds, rich cultivation systems, fun gameplay, and a feeling-oriented and less difficult otome game are more suitable for most female players. The sense of love and companionship brought by different types of male protagonists is the key to the player's persistence.
Would the Otome game be a utopian, meaningless game?
The answer, of course, is no.
Otome games are female-oriented, and feminism is an important feature in addition to elements such as storytelling.
Taking the heroine of the Otome game (usually "I") as an example, "I" is not invisible or immutable, "I" have a complete social relationship except for the male protagonist throughout the story, and will experience growth and change.
As far as the domestic otome mobile game is concerned, the producer in "Love and Producer", the junior lawyer of "Undetermined Event Book", and the designer of "Love of Light and Night" are not only game settings, but also important driving forces for game mechanics and plots. In addition to the sense of accomplishment brought about by professional work, "I" also have a higher pursuit of truth, goodness, beauty, ideals and reality. For example, the popular science of PUA in the "Undecided Event Book", the innuendo to the Yuzhang Academy incident in "Light and Night Love"... Otome is not detached from reality, but has a deep concern for reality.
Female players are always an independent being in the game. Even if the otome game is based on the cultivation of love, the value of realizing the heroine is still the first.
The core of the Otome game, and the most criticized by outsiders, is the male protagonist and the love scene. People are always questioning and denouncing, thinking that the Otome game is just a honey trap, a yellow sorghum dream, and more afraid that players will not be able to distinguish between virtual and real, affecting the three views of the individual.
In fact, players clearly know the difference and boundary between the game and reality, and they also know what they are pursuing. "Paper Man" (nicknamed a two-dimensional character) is a combination of various personality traits after compression, and the gender characteristics are very weak. "He" is the author's emotional projection, not equivalence with reality. The love mode in Otome's game is the idealized emotional projection of women for love. And isn't the attraction of the game precisely to have an experience that is different from reality?
So from the perspective of the game alone, can it really lead to such a serious deviation as the article says that it needs to be corrected?
plausible? Pride and prejudice?
Returning to the paper mentioned at the beginning ("The Mate Selection Concept of Young Female Players with AI Virtual Boyfriends: Distortion, Causes and Correction"), from the academic research alone, first of all, it does not have a specific introduction to the concept of AI virtual boyfriends. Secondly, the article uses "1.18 million created in 7 days of issuance" to indicate the popularity of AI virtual boyfriends, but the article interviews only 11 people, the sample size is small, and the text interview is simply through WeChat QQ and other online interviews, and the relevant information of the interview is not clear. At the same time, the whole text only briefly and roughly analyzes the causes of AI virtual boyfriends and the influencing mechanism of the formation of female users' concept of marriage and love. The persuasiveness of the article is yet to be considered.
In fact, the Otome game and the concept of love are not unlearned. For example, the article "Otome Video Games for Female Players' Ideal View of Love", which explores how virtual characters in Otome games relate to female players and affect the specific formation of their love views from a sociological point of view. The article uses quantitative research methods, conducts adequate questionnaires and data collation, and builds specific models to explain the connection between virtual characters and female players. I think this is the scientifically rigorous way of research.
The rationality of the research results is not listed for the time being, and what makes people feel offensive is the seven sharp words in the title of "distortion, cause and correction". We agree that games have a certain degree of surreality and are closely related to real life. But will a person's concept of marriage and love really be completely dominated by the game? Can some idealized view of marriage or fantasy of marriage and love really be regarded as a deformed pathological concept, even to the point where it needs to be corrected? Ignoring the reasons for the emergence of AI virtual boyfriends, ignoring women's normal and reasonable emotional appeals, subjectively amplifying some of the performance of women's views on marriage and love, and ignoring the social factors formed by the current women's concept of marriage and love, such studies reveal a kind of arrogance and arrogance.
The Otome game is a collection of communication, sociology, psychology, economics and one thing, it is not difficult to explain or indescribable, it also needs more and more scientific research and attention. Qingjun is looking forward to a brighter path for Otome games.