SweetieGames

In the early 2010s, otome games were lesser known over here in the west. I found out about them purely through looking for anime games for girls on the app store, and I found barely anyone online talking about them. When Mystic Messenger exploded onto the scene in 2016, it was the first time I had seen a large amount of people playing and trying out otome games for themselves. With that came new fans, but also people looking to mock the dating sim genre, especially as the game was targeted primarily at girls.

Today, Mystic Messenger still has a sizeable fanbase, but it’s Love and Deepspace that has overtaken as the mainstream dating sim game for women. Last month, for the first time in otome game history, LADS snatched up the award for Mobile Game of the Year at Gamescom, winning alongside AAA titles such as Resident Evil: Requiem and Donkey Kong Bananza.

As a long-time otome fan, I was delighted to learn about this. When I’d watch popular YouTubers talk about Mystic Messenger back in the day, they would often put it down or make jokes about it; as men, they saw these games for women as beneath them, either consciously or unconsciously. They couldn’t take a dating game not made for them seriously. Now, we have genuine recognition for a popular otome title, and why shouldn’t it get the recognition it deserves? It has over 50 million players worldwide!

I think that games like Love and Deepspace show of the potential of the otome genre; these games aren’t just visual novels, they can also be incredibly immersive and borrow from other gaming genres such as RPGs. Just because otome games are primarily for women, doesn’t mean that they should be seen as lesser quality or boring. Nearly 50% of gamers are female, and LADS creators Infold have taken advantage of the fact that there’s a huge demographic that don’t have as many games catered towards them in the mainstream. In order for otome games to continue to get the recognition they deserve as fantastic stories with charming characters, they need to continue to break boundaries, break records and not be afraid to subvert the genre in the way that LADS has. Having the genre be taken seriously at Gamescom is a great start, as it means that people are open-minded enough to consider otome games for awards on a global stage! I hope that the genre can continue to develop and be recognised in such a way.