Bishōjo game
It was also the first to have recognizably modern anime-style artwork: its characters had very large eyes and a tiny nose and mouth but were otherwise basically normally proportioned, characteristics which today are found in virtually all bishōjo games.
The industry gradually moved away from proprietary Japanese hardware to the burgeoning DOS platform, and then later in the decade to Windows.
In November 1991 there was an incident where a middle-schooler shoplifted an adult bishōjo game Saori: the House of Beautiful Girls, resulting in increased police scrutiny for makers and retailers.
Faced with the threat of being forcibly censored out of existence by the government, in 1992 the bishōjo game industry formed the Computer Software Rinri Kikō (meaning "Ethics Organization for Computer Software", and often abbreviated EOCS or Sofu-rin), setting industry guidelines for acceptable content and packaging.
Thus free from controversy and fueled by continuing improvement in technology, in the 1990s the bishōjo game industry underwent a decade-long boom.
A late PlayStation 2 port removed the sexual content and sold better than the original, leading eventually to two anime adaptations.
Dōkyūsei, whose gameplay focused on meeting girls and seducing them, established the standard conventions of the dating simulation genre.
Tokimeki Memorial, the first dating sim, featured good graphics, full voice acting, and a role-playing game-like gameplay system.
The bishōjo gaming industry has resisted the transition into 3D graphics because of the blocky and distorted nature of characters when viewed zoomed up close.
Due to the short programming time and the relatively small amount of content required in a bishōjo game, barriers to enter this industry is somewhat low, and is the reason why every year dozens of new companies emerge.
Fans are often dedicated to particular characters within their favorite games, and are willing to pay premium prices for goods like posters, figurines and accessories representing them.
Several conventions also exist where articles oriented to bishōjo fans are sold, like the popular dōjinshi market Comiket in Tokyo, Japan.
[8] Nevertheless, from the year 2000, some developers began to expand their market, creating games directed to girls and presenting attractive young men in their cast (bishōnen).
[13] In addition, some games use various techniques, such as the screen shaking, flashing or going black, to give further immersion by demonstrating various conditions.
[14][15] The characters of these games are less realistic and often limited to only several static facial expression, gestures and occasional eye blinks, of which the former two coincide with the text displayed at the bottom of the scene and are constantly reused.
[16] [17] The basic storylines for these games center around a male protagonist whom the player controls, who interacts with various characters, notably females.
[citation needed] Pornography is prohibited in all console titles, and computer games are assigned a special classification alerting the public to its content.
[25] The main male character in bishōjo games is often rendered as someone the player can identify with, thus experiencing the story as he would live an episode of his own life.
Sometimes the only male appearance in sex scenes is reduced to a penis entering from the side of the screen, with no other visible parts.
[26][27] Bishōjo games for personal computers are usually sold in special stores or sections reserved for clients more than 18 years old.
The games are initially relatively expensive compared to the Western market of videogames, fluctuating between 8,000 and 10,000 yen (approximately $75–95) each, although soon they can be bought more cheaply second-hand.
While bishōjo games are produced in Japan for console market, that is largely not the case in the West, where enthusiasm for the subgenre is lukewarm.
[citation needed] The dōjinshi webcomic Megatokyo, popular among Western followers of anime, especially in the United States, was inspired in a large extent by dating sims.
Story of Seasons, Persona 3, the Rune Factory series, and other games like them focus on the social interaction and the romancing of attractive anime girls.
[29] However, because bishōjo games rely heavily on iconic nature, their level of perceptual immersion is diminished in comparison to mediums like virtual reality.
[31] By using a first person avatar with Japanese identity, bishōjo games offer an unprecedented means of cultural immersion that, according to Jones, travel and live interpersonal communication cannot.
[32] In addition, some English translations offer liner notes or in-game text to explain certain Japanese idiosyncrasies.
Finally, Japanese sexual culture is referenced through the usage of various institutes like love hotels, lingerie pubs and erotic public baths.
[34] There are a number of terms roughly equivalent to "bishōjo game" in use, both in Japanese and English, and there is considerable disagreement and confusion about their proper use.
The naming difficulties reflect the fluid boundaries of the genre, as well as embarrassment caused by the pornographic nature of some of these games.
