Did the dating sim genre die?

[Mochi Panic]

As I was playing “tokimeki memorial”, I thought about how you don’t really see these types of games be advertised or even mention at all. Sure some games like the Persona or Fire Emblem franchise have dating sim aspects. But the entire game doesn’t revolve around dating, only like a cute bonus that helps.

 

[VampireLord1024VampireLord1024's icon]

Could dating sims not be as popular as they once were years ago?

I've also played a bit of Tokimeki Memorial, the Beneath the Tree of Legend one, though I haven't played it since late October/early November this year.

 

[ATenderLad]

Aren't they just primarily on PC now?

I looked up the tag "Dating Sim" on Steam (in a private window, don't need the algorithm getting ideas on what I want for Christmas), and sorted by release date. Ignoring demo's and DLC, every month of 2024 has seen roughly twenty new releases in that category.

I'm sure there's some debate as to which ones "count", but that's still a massive output.

 

[Clippy]

I haven't followed the genre in ages but from what I've seen in recent years it seems that Korea and China like to produce dating sims with real life models/actresses. Y'know like the FMV games of old but in HD. Also, there have been a few for VR I think?

We need a Ganguro Girl remaster, stat!

 

[Karnik]

you don’t really see these types of games be advertised or even mention at all.

Because many of these titles fall under the more general category of Visual Novels, of which they are a subcategory; often featuring characteristic hentai, ecchi, nukige (in other words, porn) scenes. They are far from extinct; you just need to know how to look for them. Obviously they are exclusively for PC, but some playable on Android via specific apks.

 

[Chofi1515]

I think that's the problem, tokimemo was a game with mechanics focused on dating, while newer dating sims lack them, so the difference between a vn with dating elements (or porn) and an actual dating sim is slimmer

 

[Gorse]

I thought about how you don’t really see these types of games be advertised or even mention at all.

When I read this line, my eyes just about popped out of my head! These games are friggin' everywhere nowadays, and I'd argue that they're actually more popular than ever – everyone was talking about the TokiMemo remake when it was announced on that Japanese Nintendo Direct, and they were also talking about that Date Everything Switch game that the equivalent English Direct announced at the same time.

And that's just Nintendo! Think of how many Japanese-influenced American indie games include references to dating sims, nowadays – they're everywhere, and I'm pretty sure anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the gaming scene is aware of them. And they're getting translated (probably poorly) all the time, too – remember the whole Muv-Luv translation that happened recently? And then that YU-NO anime series just came out a few years ago...

That all said, I think the modern incarnation of "traditional Japanese-developed dating sims" are all either A) straight-up pornographic PC games or B) mobile games aimed at late-20s/early-30s women, of which the iOS App Store is rife. I'm not really au fait with any dating sim (aside from May Club <3), but even an ignorant lummox like me knows that games where you "date" fictional characters are probably bigger than they've ever been.

As someone who isn't a fan of this genre, I'm not sure what could draw me into it beyond generally well-written characters, which are anathema to most dating sim games (by design). Every generation beyond Gen-X seems to have lost the ability to perceive legitimate romance, let alone write fiction about it.

 

[Bonkers225]

Nope. Just not as popular as it was in the 90's-2000's. Plus alot of games in different genres like RPGs incorporate some sort of date function into them, making it not so special/unique as it once was.

 

[kamille]

its not dead but the visual novel/dating game genre is populated by disgusting deconstructions that have zero love for the genre and try to gaslight people who play them about feeling bad for playing them.

 

[MrHtuber]

I've actually been watching a couple videos about dating sims recently and from the looks of things they were only really a thing in Japan and peaked during the PS1 era, with Tokimeki Memorial 3 being such a disasterous trainwreck that it killed the idea of a big budget home console dating sim forever. Then the genre kinda kept going on the PSP until that eventually ended around the 2010's, and from there the dating sim genre has just divided itself and put bits and pieces of itself into different genres like VNs and RPGs

Overall really unfortunate since the genre never got a real chance overseas, which has led to most gamers being very illiterate when it comes to what a dating sim even is or what its defining games are. Maybe one day fate will change and we'll get some big AAA dating sim on modern consoles, that would be really neat.

For the time being I'm just gonna play Amagami or something.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I think they are in the same category as graphic adventures: the focus has shifted away from them, but they never stopped being made.

 

[Zeb89]

I feel like almost all modern dating sims are made specifically for girls (AKA the otome genre). There's still a few where you date a girl, but...well, they're more like visual novels with a sprinkle of romance

 

[RageBurner]

Possibly. I think part of the problem is that the genre carries serious stigmas; in part because characters are often written as plain, shallow caricatures of real people, for one. Little more than walking TV Tropes pages.

The more prevalent, more serious stigma is that the genre is often associated with hentai, even though that's hardly the case with more high quality works.

Also the action is minimal and most people expect games to be action packed bombastic head turners.

While the really good dating sims don't lean heavily or at all into this, the market is still filled with low hanging fruits that very much do, which causes the quality games in this space to be ignored along with the bad.

As such, this results in a cascade effect of people not being interested to play and thus devs not being interested in making them, by and large.

 

[CrydersMakesMeJump]

I feel like its in a similar boat to point and clicks where its still existing somewhat just infinitely nicher compared to how it was booming in popularity years earlier. not to say its completely dead just there isn't much super big ones being made and mechanics from them were combined with other genres of games. (albeit with point and clicks there isn't corny joke games made by geniuses where its "WHAT IF DATING SIM.... BUT YOU DATE INSTRUMENTS" or some stupid overly cynical thing like that.)

 

[Ain_Gamer]

Some one made a really good topic about this subject.

From my undertanding the Datingsim died , because of Market saturation and increase of development coast in the 6 generation.

They seems to be really interesting games, I love games where you manege time, but sadly most of them are japan online with no fan translation.

 

[MrHtuber]

Some one made a really good topic about this subject.

From my undertanding the Datingsim died , because of Market saturation and increase of development coast in the 6 generation.

They seems to be really interesting games, I love games where you manege time, but sadly most of them are japan online with no fan translation.

Yeah, this is one of the vids that really helped educate me on the topic. Really good video, also really funny and I def wanna check out TokiMemo 2 whenever I either get good enough at Japanese or when/if it gets a fan translation (god bless whoever takes up that task)

 

[Another Iori]

In the Japanese Sega Saturn catalog they produced so many, that I can't even remember them all, but unfortunately the automatic translation in video games isn't as widespread as it is for textual products or subtitles, so, there's always this damned Babel's curse, which forces us to wait for an amateur team for any game or genre that ever existed in the past.

Anyway, have you tried 'Doki Doki Literature Club!'? (It might not really be what it seems on the surface ?).

 

[Saoi]

As I was playing “tokimeki memorial”, I thought about how you don’t really see these types of games be advertised or even mention at all. Sure some games like the Persona or Fire Emblem franchise have dating sim aspects. But the entire game doesn’t revolve around dating, only like a cute bonus that helps.

I really like all the tokimeki memorial games (girls side 1,3 still favorite)
Psp,vita and ds have really good otome/dating games.When I was younger I played a lot but ofc in japane because they were not translated :c (but at least now I have almost maxed out the language xD)