As a story-oriented gamer, I naturally gravitated toward the recently popularized dating simulator genre of video games—“dating sims.” ScreenRant places games released within the last ten years as 27 of the best 30 dating sims. Aside from some mechanical differences, dating sims share the goal of situating the player as the interest of one or (usually) more written love interests, and they generally fall into two categories: route-based, like Class of ’09, where the game plays like a choose-your-own-adventure novel with decisions at junctions in the story; and points-based, like Monster Prom, where the game repeats an activity loop to gain affection from love interests to reach certain milestones. Despite my affinity for them, dating sims have some heavy shortcomings, namely their reduction of interpersonal relationships to prewritten scripts and point values. Specifically, dating sims portray a limited, formulaic, and perfectionist view of romance that falls far short of reality.
Already inherent to the romance genre, these flaws are exacerbated in dating sims by constraints such as budget and time, as well as an aim toward player engagement through gamification. Many dating sims are developed by small studios or even individual people, with far less (or no) institutional support from the video game industry, in contrast with many other forms of media like print and film, where teams can range from tens to hundreds of people. This is a feature of the accessibility of dating sims, particularly visual novels, which can get pretty far with only a few art assets and a half-hour-long script. Thus, dating sims are limited in the complexity they can show in romance, which is decidedly one of the most complex emotions in humans.
Further, dating sims guide the player through scenes and outcomes that mimic reality, but through formulaic mechanisms that stray pretty far from it. In this way, dating sims can veil their unrealistic tendencies from uncautious players. While the decision junctions of visual novels at least simulate a human activity, points-based games are laughably reductive. The idea that relentless pursuit and grinding for affinity are good ways to develop romantic relationships can be very harmful if it influences actual behavior too much.
As a consequence of their enjoyment factor, dating sims tend to portray only the happiest and most exciting, if not sensationalized, aspects of romance. To achieve fun and excitement, dating sims usually guide the player smoothly through a whirlwind romance, maybe with a couple of hiccups, on to a happy ending. Often, the more mundane aspects of romance are not just glossed over, but omitted completely. This again creates an illusion of romance that obscures the complexities of the real thing.
To an avid consumer (like myself), dating sims may influence the actual views of their players, albeit slightly and tentatively, in such a reduced direction. Players should take extra care not to conflate gameplay with the behavior of real people. The best way to practice that? Spend more time with real people, especially the people you’re dating!