I have never seen a study been published on whether or not dating simulation video games actually improves ones behavior and/or chances with the opposite sex but either way such games have a following for some reason which eludes me. I find them to be on the creepy side, not like building your own robotic female companion, but creepy nonetheless. A new dating sim arcade game by Konami is no different, but from the looks of things on AM-Net, quite a few people were excited to check out Love Plus Arcade when it was on location test in Akihabara yesterday. The loctest version allowed players to participate in three mini-games where they try to win over the virtual 3D cel-shaded girl. It uses a touch screen, a card system and even has little barriers to keep others from watching your screen. Maybe if they had real women on the other side that male players could try and win over it would be less strange but perhaps I am missing something here and they are fun games that some guys seek out solely for entertainment purposes; or maybe they are effective for some individuals. I still would have zero confidence in a guy trying to win over my daughter in the future with ideas and expectations he learned off of a dating sim. But to each his own, there are worse methods out there, especially on the internet, for people to learn how to interact with one another.
AM-Net has several links on sites posting about Love Plus Arcade with more pictures on this than we saw with Super Street Fighter IV. There’s an official site for it as well.
