Talk:Dating sim

Newcomer
As a newcomer to this whole area, I have a couple of queries: Arigato! - Eyeresist 09:50, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
 * In the "Technical definition" section, it says: "'dating sim' applies to any sort of romantic anime game, including those which might be specified as ren'ai games" Since ren'ai game literally means 'romantic game', isn't it inaccurate to call it a sub-genre of "dating sim"? Isn't it actually the other way around?
 * Could someone please add a specific list of games that are available in English?

Renai games are not dating sims.
Ashibaka's argument is basically "it's not English and since 'dating sim' is an excellent equivalent we should be using that". It's not. The games aren't about dating. The games are not simulation games. That's it, really. Omgwtflolz 08:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I have pointed out multiple times that you are wrong and I am right. I know I am smarter than you, ergo my point of view is better than yours. In all seriousness, bring in some extra voices to this before you start reverting. Ashibaka tock 21:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
 * How about "romance sim"? I know "dating sim" and "love sim" have both been much more common in English up until now and deserve mention, but, from my experience playing these games and following Japanese otaku media, "romance sim" seems both to describe them better and to correspond better with "ren'ai simulation game." Usually not much of these games covers dating; what's simulated is mostly trying to win over characters (through one's own self-improvement efforts, everyday conversation, etc.), i.e., romance. "Love sim" suggests a simulation of the experience of being in love, which, while it may be so for many players, many, on the other hand, don't take them as seriously as that suggests. "Ren'ai simulation game," in Japanese usage, sounds more like a type of simulation game than a simulation of love, in part because it is often abbreviated in the context of galge to "simulation game"-->"simulation"/"SLG," not "ren'ai simulation." "Aijou simulation game" would sound more like "love sim." This may seem extreme given precedent, but how about changing the headword to "Romance sim," redirecting from "Dating sim," and noting common English-language usage at the beginning of the article? Doesn't giving an accurate description of the subject take priority over following English-language convention? After all, this is not supposed to be a dictionary (though people still will be able to find the page through "Dating sim"), but an encyclopedia giving "a worldwide view of the subject." Skyworm (talk) 01:44, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If you take a look at, there is a list there with more than 120 games: most of them are Ren'ai, while only some are actual Dating sims. I hope this list might help clarifying the difference. To put a couple of clear examples, The Question is a Ren'ai game, while Summer Session is a Dating sim. There are, of course, many hybrids that blur the line between both categories, like the The Nettestadt Troll, which mostly runs as a typical Ren'ai visual novel but at a certain point starts including DS elements. As an even clearer example of hybrids, Elven Relations is a Ren'ai VN that incorporates some RPG-like combats. In other words, Ren'ai applies to any anime-style, romance-oriented game; but Dating Sims are specifically about simulating dating. Neither is a subgenre or subcategory of the other, due to a quite simple reason: Dating Sim is a mechanic-based classification: all DS's have many points in common in the kind of game-play and user-interaction they handle; while Ren'ai is a thematic and visual style classification: games that focus on romance and use anime-style sprites are considered to be Ren'ai, regardless of the game mechanics they involve. A Ren'ai game can be a Dating Sim, or a Visual or Kinetic Novel, or any hybrid point between these and maybe other categories. A Dating Sim will also be a Ren'ai game if it's romance-oriented (most probably, all DSs are) and has an anime-like visual style (which most DSs are). A DS that uses, for example, an American-comicbook visual style would (that wouldn't be usual, but is perfectly possible) be still be a Dating Sim, but wouldn't be a Ren'ai game. You may take a look at the Ren'Ai archive for an example on how these games are normally categorized (they tag the games listed by type of gameplay, by kind of relationship, and by thematic genre). I'm not sure about how much "authoritative" can the archive be taken as a source, but I can't think of a better source, at least in English. --Eduard Pascual (talk) 12:23, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Impropper use of Artifical Inteligence
The article says "The gameplay involves conversing with a selection of artificial intelligence-controlled girls" this is somewhat incorrect. There is no artificial intelligence involved. It is all a set of predesigned pathways for you to take and its just differing depending on your choices. A pick-a-path book is _not_ artificially intelligent. :p Edited to reflect this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ergzay (talk • contribs).

What happened here?
I just noticed someone removed the BL game and GxB pages and reverted them here. Now, not only is this page a mess, but the "gender focus" section on the sidebar is obsolete /and/ people are getting confused - I just saw that Angelique had been placed in the "Bishoujo games" category (there are no official Angelique games that involve a male main character dating females). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.193.31.19 (talk • contribs).

Contradiction with visual novel
Since it's basically been settled that dating sims and visual novels are different genres, there's confusion in this article due to visual novels also being called dating sims in the West. Tokimeki Memorial is a dating sim. Kana Imōto is not. I'm going to try and remove the content I can figure out is referring to the other genre, but I'm not quite sure what all of the games mentioned are, so it's rather hard.--SeizureDog 10:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The box descibes Kana Imoto as a dating sim. Shii (tock) formerly Ashibaka 06:37, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Which box, English or Japanese? -Seventh Holy Scripture 19:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The one in the image. Shii (tock) formerly Ashibaka 04:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, 加奈_～いもうと～ describes it as a ren'ai adventure game. Then again, I'm arguing in favor of English genre definitions on the English wikipedia on Talk:Visual novel, so I can't rightly favor the Japanese source in this case just because I personally agree with it. Still, I'd like to replace the illustrative thumbnail of Kana Imōto in this article with one of Dokyusei or Tokimeki Memorial, which most people agree are the archetypical dating sims. -Seventh Holy Scripture 07:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure of what changed, but I really like the description of sims being based on statistics, and visual novels being choose your own adventures. I thought that was the clearest description I've seen and the easiest distinction. Perhaps we could make that distinction more obvious. 198.96.180.245 17:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree here. Dating-sims usually have a statistic system while visual novels are more choice/flag dependent. Yes there is some meshing but Kana Imouto and most if not all of the other g-collections games are not dating-sims just marketed incorrectly as such. Often a schedule element is included from what I have read? We should have a section on both pages explaining the difference between visual novels/AVGs (yes they are technically different but in English the same) and dating simulations. Jyuichi 06:18, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Where are all information about different genres?
First off, this talk page was a mess. People didn't post their comments in correct order and forgot to sign their posts. I have to move things around a bit to make it easier to follow, hope that doesn't violate any talk page guidelines.
 * Please sign your posts!

Now on to the topic, I think there is too little information regarding different genres of dating sim. I would like to ask for all your opinion before making such a big restoration (especially from SeizureDog.) If this is indeed a mistake, then we should restore the section using the most recent copy (and maybe add some information from Yaoi game which was left after the first merge into BL subsection as well.) However, if it was deleted on purpose, I would like to know the reason behind it since it makes the article much shorter and not very informative. - DTRY 18:30, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * At first, each genre have their own separate page: BL (which was merged with Yaoi game since 2005), GxB, and all pairings (BxG is just a redirect to Bishojo game, BxB redirects to BL, and GxG doesn't exist.)
 * Then on 11 January 2007 SeizureDog redirected all 3 pages to this article. All important information from those pages was merged into the new Gender matching section. People has constantly improved upon this section since then.
 * On 13 March 2007, for the reason unknown, this section was removed completely by SeizureDog. I don't know if it was just his honest mistake in trying to delete the See Also section. Now the only reference to different genres of dating sim is a very short paragraph consists of 4 sentences.

P.S. note that the Japanese Wikipedia has separate articles on BL and GxB (no all pairing though), each has as much content as this current article. Perhaps English eqivalent articles could be revived if people can put more information into them?


 * Three weeks have passed without any explanation. I've recovered all the deleted texts and put them where they used to be. - DTRY 23:27, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that the Otome game page has a suggestion on it to merge with dating sim. Personally, I don't think it's a good idea, as otome games are targeted towards a total different audience compared to most games referred to as dating sims, and 'dating sims' an accepted genre anyway? I thought there was confusion about what's a sim vs. a visual novel, renai game, etc. -- Lijakaca (talk) 22:00, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow! Seriously, there is an angry HOMOPHOBE who delete every Yaoi article. It has been getting on my nerves. Really. If you're concerned, please talk to my page. Oh! And I would also like to restore the old BL Games page. Thank you.--Jonica c (talk) 17:33, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal
It has been suggested (I don't know by whom) that Otome game be merged with this article. I support this merger. SharkD (talk) 01:15, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I support this proposal. The entire visual novel family needs to become more consistent. These two are made for each other. Do it soon. ... I'd add that may this entire article should be merged with "Visual Novel", since they largely talk about the same thing. A few stats like charisma and cash on hand are sprinkled throughout the visual novel genre, and make a distinction really useless. Dating sims and visual novels are the same thing. 65.95.157.129 (talk) 17:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think visual novels and dating sims should be together. Yes, some mostly visual novels have a bit of stats in them, but it's usually quite different - sims have real choices about how to develop characters on an ongoing basis, whereas novels only have dialogue or action choices in a few places. Sims are much more complicated than novels. As for otome games, I don't see why they need to be merged. I'm afraid that if it happens, the information in that page will be lost. It's already hard enough to find info about otome games on the web, why does it need to be stuck in with such a broad category? Lijakaca (talk) 21:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I also oppose this. Not all visual novels involve dating... there are many visual novels that attempt to tell dramatic stories, with the dating aspects removed, or at least minimized to the level of an action film. Similarly, there are a number of dating sims that don't really fit into the visual novel mold. It's best to leave them separate. — PyTom (talk) 10:11, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I support the merge proposal. Since all of these genres have been so rightly confused and stuff, if they were all in the one article the similarities and differences between the specific genres can be outlined much clearer, and most disputes (I think) will be resolved and we are all happy. Cybersteel8 (talk) 23:44, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Simulation?
The term simulation implys some level of realism. I find it not to apply in this case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.148.24.235 (talk) 17:35, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You mean you haven't attracted a girl by remembering how much she weighs? ;-) DanBishop (talk) 04:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Commercial title (like Tokimeki Memorial) raely has stupid question like amateur flash games that plague internet. No, the girl never directly ask you "What is my favourite color?". Instead, when shoping with protagonist, she will ask to pick a piece of good and player will get choice of colors. Persona 3's social link question are good example to this. Take it as life simulation that focus on dating, at least in good games. L-Zwei (talk) 05:53, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

About the unreliable sources tag
Dani Cavallaro's publications have been designated as generally unreliable sources in this discussion at the reliable sources noticeboard. Citations to her work can be replaced with more high-quality ones or removed, and the tag can be taken off once complete. — TechnoSquirrel69 ( sigh ) 20:05, 6 June 2024 (UTC)