Get Emails From Your Fake Girlfriend in New LovePlus

[Techno Squidgy]

Dear Japan,
WHAT THE FUCK??
Sincerely, The Rest of the Earth

 

[Proverbial Jon]

...while an endless stream of virtual schoolgirls tilt their heads to one side like dogs trying to comprehend an abstract painting.

Yeah, there does seem to be an awful lot of that, doesn't there? It's the same expression I had the whole time I was watching the video.

Snippy!

After watching that, I know exactly what you mean. It was all fine and innocent until the people popped up and were prancing around sharing their waifus with the same amount of enthusiasum one might have if they were simply trading Pokemon with friends. It was creepy.

The only thing I can think to explain this phenomenon is that the Japanese simply don't think of these dating sims as the rest of the world do. We look at it as being quite pathetic, that the digital woman might be in lieu of a real girlfriend, but frankly they seem so blasé about it that it can't really be a serious replacement, can it?

$4 a month for an e-mail from a pretend girl? I'm from England and can't comprehend this strange monetary system(!), but even to me that sounds like daylight robbery. But I guess it's worth whatever people will pay... and they WILL pay by the sounds of it. But could it be that this is simply considered a form of further immersion into a game just like any other?

I really think the trick to these things is perception and we're just too "Western" to really get it. Perhaps there are just some things we will never be able to comprehend as the Japanese do.

 

[Otaku World Order]

OT: This was... extremely uncomfortable to read and watch. It's not because of what the game is about, or the fact you can pay $4 a month for virtual e-mails to come your way (or to be a member in order to play if I read that right.) No, it's the fact that they have a commercial featuring guys showing off their virtual girlfriends, taking.. pics of them on the coach .. as if it was a interview for a porno (sorry but it did feel that way..) plus a girl comes in and the whole thing gets all the weirder.

I have no problems with homosexuals, or lesbians. It's just really weird seeing a girl into a virtual girlfriend and showing off to two other guys while they're showing off their virtual girlfriends. It's just so bizzar for me, and that they would actually pay monthly to have e-mails popping up. To me, games should cost an amount just for the purchase alone and that's it unless it has multiplayer in a big open space like WoW or something. Yet, $4 a month for virtual e-mails at random? Sounds like a rip off.

Yes, I doubted Katawa Shoujo at first too when it was news but giving it a chance it was one of the most deepest, romantic yet dramatizing stories i've ever engaged in. Each arc does that fairly well and I love Hanako overall. Yet, this game... the females look almost the same and despite not being able to read the dialogue.. they seem like the typical cliche' girls that get on you yet do whatever you want. I hate that.. girls should have deep personalities, flaws, free will, and actually give you challenges in trying to bond with them like Katawa Shoujo did for me because they felt like real girls overcoming their disabilities. These girls.. seem the same. That's just me though so I can't judge unless I play it but I won't. I'm not paying money monthly to feel some love everyday from a girl designed to love me for the wrong reasons. In Katawa Shoujo, the storyline makes it very believable as to why the girls fall in love with Hisao, the character protagonist... so yeah.

Sorry for the ranting, it's just sort of bugging me, and creeping me out to an extent. Won't get on people's cases for wanting this game, but just wanted to let that out because I feel like the publisher's are taking advantage of people who want to have a relationship with unique 3D girls that have good graphics that interact with the player. That is all..

Well, that pretty much says it all actually.

Having never played Love Plus, I can't really compare it to Katawa Shoujo, but from what I can tell the difference is that KS is about actual characters in an actual story and Love Plus is more like an anime girl Tamagotchi.

Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's what it looks like.

And really, if you're paying for generated e-mails, I have to ask...

 

[Paragon Fury]

OT: This was... extremely uncomfortable to read and watch. It's not because of what the game is about, or the fact you can pay $4 a month for virtual e-mails to come your way (or to be a member in order to play if I read that right.) No, it's the fact that they have a commercial featuring guys showing off their virtual girlfriends, taking.. pics of them on the coach .. as if it was a interview for a porno (sorry but it did feel that way..) plus a girl comes in and the whole thing gets all the weirder.

I have no problems with homosexuals, or lesbians. It's just really weird seeing a girl into a virtual girlfriend and showing off to two other guys while they're showing off their virtual girlfriends. It's just so bizzar for me, and that they would actually pay monthly to have e-mails popping up. To me, games should cost an amount just for the purchase alone and that's it unless it has multiplayer in a big open space like WoW or something. Yet, $4 a month for virtual e-mails at random? Sounds like a rip off.

Yes, I doubted Katawa Shoujo at first too when it was news but giving it a chance it was one of the most deepest, romantic yet dramatizing stories i've ever engaged in. Each arc does that fairly well and I love Hanako overall. Yet, this game... the females look almost the same and despite not being able to read the dialogue.. they seem like the typical cliche' girls that get on you yet do whatever you want. I hate that.. girls should have deep personalities, flaws, free will, and actually give you challenges in trying to bond with them like Katawa Shoujo did for me because they felt like real girls overcoming their disabilities. These girls.. seem the same. That's just me though so I can't judge unless I play it but I won't. I'm not paying money monthly to feel some love everyday from a girl designed to love me for the wrong reasons. In Katawa Shoujo, the storyline makes it very believable as to why the girls fall in love with Hisao, the character protagonist... so yeah.

Sorry for the ranting, it's just sort of bugging me, and creeping me out to an extent. Won't get on people's cases for wanting this game, but just wanted to let that out because I feel like the publisher's are taking advantage of people who want to have a relationship with unique 3D girls that have good graphics that interact with the player. That is all..

Well, that pretty much says it all actually.

Having never played Love Plus, I can't really compare it to Katawa Shoujo, but from what I can tell the difference is that KS is about actual characters in an actual story and Love Plus is more like an anime girl Tamagotchi.

Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's what it looks like.

And really, if you're paying for generated e-mails, I have to ask...

Like I said:

fake e-mail from a virtual girlfriend is better than no e-mail, ever.

 

[srm79]

This is the same nation that sells schoolies' knickers in vending machines. In other words, a totally different culture. What shocks and surprises us is nothing to them, and likewise I expect there are many things we don in the West that are equally alien to them.

On the other hand...$4 a month for fake love letters is just...wrong...in so...many...ways.

 

[kouriichi]

If people who bought this game looked THIS GOOD.... i doubt they would have need to purchase this game....

But then again, i could use the email service to totally punk my wife. I know she doesnt sign out of my yahoo account when she gets on the computer! > Oh the fun i could have with making her completely distrustful of me.

 

[Lt. Rocky]

Sometimes I think the whole 'virtual girlfriend' shtick is part of an elaborate scheme by either a cruel official or another country to try and wither the Japanese population, presumably to take over the country after their numbers are too few as a result of no one reproducing, too busy tending to their waifus to make any children. At this rate..it's only a matter of time..

 

[DracoSuave]

Four dollars a month to get emails from an internet-capable appliance.

Just saying.

I mean, it's not even using their server, if it's done right.

 

[K_Dub]

I'm reading this during my class right now. I've never had to work so hard to stifle so much laughter. This whole idea is hilarious, sad, and a huge rip off, all rolled into one depressing use of technology. And couldn't laugh at it harder if I tried!

 

[Draconalis]

That's so cute!

Where do I sign up?!

 

[dalek sec]

I need to start practicing on my Forever alone face

Like wise here, god...

As sad and lame as I am even I wouldn't stoop to doing something like this ever.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to work on my alone face.

 

[Risingblade]

This is the saddest most pathetic thing I've ever read...today

 

[z121231211]

Like I said:

fake e-mail from a virtual girlfriend is better than no e-mail, ever.

I would say it's worse, because that would mean you're so alone that 1s and 0s are pitying you.

 

[Soak]

It's acceptable to use computers to live out heroic war fantasies, exploration of the unknown, unlikely friendships, global conspiracies, murders, heists, familial turmoil and daring escapes, all portrayed with depths ranging from shallow to artistic.

But as soon as a relationship is on the cards, it's for sad losers who should all be more like me, charismatic stallion that I am.

Every kind of escapism is available in games and I see no reason to treat relationships any differently, however tempting it is to feel smug and superior.

The difference is: You can actually find love in the real world. You can't pick up an AK47 and gun down every ************ in front of you for nine hours straight, you can't mow down endless streams of zombies infesting a shopping mall using a sledgehammer nailed to a fire-axe, and you can't throw fireballs at people's joy departments. These things just don't work in the real world.


Video games are a way for us normal folk to do things normally impossible. Finding love isn't on the list.

I can hardly say it any better than you did TestECull... but i want to try

All humanity seeks for "something", including love and entertainment.
When i play a game, throwing magic and battling with swords against demonic creatures, unleashing a hail of bullets or plasma balls at extraterrestial beings, commanding armies, building or razing cities, saving a world or destroying it to my delight, etc. that's simply entertaining and something not possible in real life while i'm not even hurting anybody. Some games are in between, like racing, flight, or "modern war" simulators and such, while you could do those in real life, but not everyone is able to simply afford to fly a plane, or drive a racing or fast and expensive car, expecialy not through cities and while some might see shooting other people in a digital world as some kind of "comprehension" i'd rather let them continue it "digital" than in real life. Sometimes, in addition to all that you may experience a birlliant story, pretty pictures or alluring music. Sure, the last things mentioned are also accessable as part of many other activities, as a usual part of art, but when an entertaining game also wants to be artistical, or even art by itself, why not?
All those things are part of peoples lifes, some prefer to play video games, some play live action role playing games, some read books, i like to do all of those.
Now, if you want to discuss the matter how far digital social interaction for example in MMOs resembles to other social interaction, or how far for example some "dating sims" (or call it as you want to) should be considered entertainment or art (like many mentioned in the discussion about Katawa Shoujo [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.337056-Disabled-Girl-Dating-Sim-Katawa-Shoujo-Finally-Available#comment_form]) i will gladly join.

But there's NO SENSE in seeking affection or even love in digital entities, part of a program and non-sentient (come again when AI becomes sentient, maybe in another few centuries), you could put just as much effort into loving a stone (edit: if you believe in shintoism, even this might be more rewarding), it would be even more effective to care for another being, like a cat or even a gold fish.
But why seek and reject love for another being/human at the same time? There ARE always chances to find love with another person and when the wicked boundaries of society are hindering you to find that love (you feel rejected, not fitting in, not like a "charismatic stallion" prefered by most people), push those boundaries away, it is always possible in several different ways, makes more sense than getting lost in the illusion of love for somthing not capable of it and is much more fullfilling.
If someone want's to play the game for entertainment or something, i won't argue, even if i don't like it myself and find the idea to pay for made-up emails ridiculous, if you realy need it, better save it to pay for sex (call me smug for that if you want to), but seeing it (or any other game) as a substitute for love won't change anything for the better but only support and recreate false ideals and i call anyone accepting those self enslaved - and i prefer to be a smug instead of a slave and state this to be an intercultural truth (well, excluding "submission-subcultures").

 

[dalek sec]

Like I said:

fake e-mail from a virtual girlfriend is better than no e-mail, ever.

I would say it's worse, because that would mean you're so alone that 1s and 0s are pitying you.

Actually it's even worse than that. You have to pay the 1s and 0s to pity you at a going rate of four bucks a month! So yeah, I'd rather be alone than live with the fact I have to pay something to send me fake emails.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

I'm so glad I've got a real woman in my life to send me love letters.

Wait...

She doesn't do any of those things, the closest thing I'd get to a note is her reminding me to do the laundry.

She does make me tea though.

Who could ask for more?

Your mum doesn't count Daystar!
I kid, I kid. I'm really just jealous you get tea made for you... or that you get tea really.

OT: This really helps the 'forever alone' stereotype of gaming, doesn't it?!

Now that I think about it.

My mum does those things too...

Hmmm, Freud would have a field day.

That would be rather hard, on account of his dead'ness.
And seriously. Screw you. It took me over 3 minutes to try and get this page back to normal. That button is mean.
OT its creepy, but i have some /real/ friends....Navi counts as a girlfriend..right?

 

[azurine]

Give it a decade, the machines will take us over.
They're already trying to seduce us.

 

[Zio_IV]

It's topics like these that make me wonder if I'm really the only person that honestly likes not being in a relationship. I certainly am out of all the people I know in reality, but I'm positive I'm not the only one altogether.

I mean, what drives a person to seek companionship so badly that they will pay a monthly fee to get emails from a girl, real or fake? I just don't know. I'm not condemning them for doing so (it's their life, after all, they can do what they want) but I don't understand WHY.

People buying this game is fine, and so is the game itself. I just wish I could grasp the reason why people would absolutely need this.

 

[TWEWER]

I object to the word "fake". Mai waifu is real.