I don't really know what but there's something that really pissed me off about this game. I think at the core of it, it's that, I know some women who are influencers or streamers of various scales, and I think about this game and wonder "does this game do any justice for the kind of stuff they deal with online and offline, or the kind of social conditions that even pushed them towards that stuff in the first place? Does it primarily push a player to consider those things deeply?" and my answer, regardless of any interpretative gymnastics aside, pretty much comes down to: "No."
I think humans are generous and thus you CAN find something good in this game. But I don't think the game is, itself, meaning to be 'good' towards the types of people it takes up as its subject manner.
I guess one way I can frame it is, what if the premise of the game was flipped a bit and it was something like "Desperate Asian Girlfriend?" We play as a boyfriend of some unspecified age who has surprising control over an 'unstable' asian girlfriend. Through your choices you can lead her to all sorts of terrible endings! In fact the game revels in that - the endings are flashy, 'cool,' and a big selling point for the game, more than any look into why this 'asian girlfriend' is 'unstable' in the first place, historical precedents, etc. That's just what this feels like but for I guess, young Japanese women who use the internet a lot or something... like are we really playing this to somehow get a better look at mental illness and the internet? Or for something else?
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As a "princess-raising" style game it's a bit flat-feeling - having to go through the same motions of opening the messages, twitter, etc each day make replaying stuff a bit of a slog.
Beyond that idk. I understand how people could see themselves in this character and the pressures of the internet, but there's just something to the way that feels a bit more like a exploitative look at "various kinds of mentally ill streamer women" - I think, because of the way the game really pushes you to do things like overdose her on drugs, push her stress to the max, as it places (!) icons on all sorts of options. I would wager that more endings than less have these sort of schlocky, shock-value endings.
Does the game think that women who become streamers are stupid, emotionally unstable and manipulative? Does the game think that streaming is an exploitative system that perpetuates loneliness amongst viewers and streamers while video companies profit?
It honestly doesn't particularly argue for either, but it definitely plays into the shock value to increase its sales, and it takes advantage of players' preconceived notions expectations as to what hope to see happen to the character. It barely looks into Ame as a character outside of a malleable doll tumbling towards any one of the bad endings.
It ironically plays entirely into the streamer and social media fodder that partially creates the space for people like Ame to suffer, or creepy dude producers like P-chan to take advantage of young womens' streamer labor for money or sex.
I don't really know what to say but young women struggling through life or the internet aren't lab rats to be categorized and put on display in these kinds of bizarre simplified archetypes. I understand that women could find themselves represented in this game and I'm not faulting them for liking it, but to me that just feels like a slight positive to the game rather than an argument for the game's holistic goodness.
I'm not against a more nuanced take on the struggles of streaming, but I don't think it should be done through this cliche of the 'huge big streamer' - what about the majority of streamer, people who perhaps - are equally unhappy - but with small audiences in the 100s or even 10s, working each day towards... what exactly?
I don't know. The kind of latent misogyny I feel from this just pisses me off for some reason, something that is just profiting, via spectacle, off of the whole culture of fame and whatnot that makes a lot of people I know suffer
I think humans are generous and thus you CAN find something good in this game. But I don't think the game is, itself, meaning to be 'good' towards the types of people it takes up as its subject manner.
I guess one way I can frame it is, what if the premise of the game was flipped a bit and it was something like "Desperate Asian Girlfriend?" We play as a boyfriend of some unspecified age who has surprising control over an 'unstable' asian girlfriend. Through your choices you can lead her to all sorts of terrible endings! In fact the game revels in that - the endings are flashy, 'cool,' and a big selling point for the game, more than any look into why this 'asian girlfriend' is 'unstable' in the first place, historical precedents, etc. That's just what this feels like but for I guess, young Japanese women who use the internet a lot or something... like are we really playing this to somehow get a better look at mental illness and the internet? Or for something else?
---
As a "princess-raising" style game it's a bit flat-feeling - having to go through the same motions of opening the messages, twitter, etc each day make replaying stuff a bit of a slog.
Beyond that idk. I understand how people could see themselves in this character and the pressures of the internet, but there's just something to the way that feels a bit more like a exploitative look at "various kinds of mentally ill streamer women" - I think, because of the way the game really pushes you to do things like overdose her on drugs, push her stress to the max, as it places (!) icons on all sorts of options. I would wager that more endings than less have these sort of schlocky, shock-value endings.
Does the game think that women who become streamers are stupid, emotionally unstable and manipulative? Does the game think that streaming is an exploitative system that perpetuates loneliness amongst viewers and streamers while video companies profit?
It honestly doesn't particularly argue for either, but it definitely plays into the shock value to increase its sales, and it takes advantage of players' preconceived notions expectations as to what hope to see happen to the character. It barely looks into Ame as a character outside of a malleable doll tumbling towards any one of the bad endings.
It ironically plays entirely into the streamer and social media fodder that partially creates the space for people like Ame to suffer, or creepy dude producers like P-chan to take advantage of young womens' streamer labor for money or sex.
I don't really know what to say but young women struggling through life or the internet aren't lab rats to be categorized and put on display in these kinds of bizarre simplified archetypes. I understand that women could find themselves represented in this game and I'm not faulting them for liking it, but to me that just feels like a slight positive to the game rather than an argument for the game's holistic goodness.
I'm not against a more nuanced take on the struggles of streaming, but I don't think it should be done through this cliche of the 'huge big streamer' - what about the majority of streamer, people who perhaps - are equally unhappy - but with small audiences in the 100s or even 10s, working each day towards... what exactly?
I don't know. The kind of latent misogyny I feel from this just pisses me off for some reason, something that is just profiting, via spectacle, off of the whole culture of fame and whatnot that makes a lot of people I know suffer