STAR2 - Feb 27 - Japanese book editor Miho Takeshita is a fan of romance simulation games, a booming market in Japan that is winning the hearts of women looking for some unconventional loving. "It's very addictive," Takeshita said. "Even though the game characters aren't real, you start to develop feelings towards them." That is the whole point, said Natsuko Asaki, a game producer at Cybird, which created the popular series Ikemen – a Japanese term for handsome guys. The Ikemen app has been downloaded ~15M times since its launch five years ago, and the firm has also released an English version. Some 80% of fans, including a growing number of married women, play just before bed, a Cybird survey found. The Ikemen app lets players escape into a world where they create their own love story with digital hunks.
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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team
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