Thus, more than regular games, the main employees required by bishōjo game companies today are not programmers, but artists and writers. In the early nineties the atmosphere in Japan became more and more hostile towards bishōjo games. In 1989 serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki was arrested and was revealed to be a consumer of lolicon manga, causing widespread opposition to pornographic manga, otaku and anything similar. 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. Several prefectures began classifying games as obscene and pulling them off the shelves.įaced 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. This organization tamed down the most objectionable content in the "wild west" of the 1980s. Thus free from controversy and fueled by continuing improvement in technology, in the 1990s the bishōjo game industry underwent a decade-long boom. The first major title of the 1990s was Tokimeki Memorial, released in 1994 by Konami which was on the verge of bankruptcy, the platonic dating sim becoming the first major bishōjo game since Koei's release of Night Life. In 1999, Kanon was released by Visual Arts/ Key. While the title was another eroge title targeted at males for its sexual content, the players began to identify with the protagonist and the idea of overcoming "the emotional trials and tribulations of pure love." A late PlayStation 2 port removed the sexual content and sold better than the original, leading eventually to two anime adaptations. Ī turning point was ELF's Dōkyūsei (1992). Dōkyūsei, whose gameplay focused on meeting girls and seducing them, established the standard conventions of the dating simulation genre.
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