Virtual reality games usually promise shoot 'em up adventures but in Hong Kong Friday lovelorn tech fans donned headsets to go on imaginary dates.
The city's annual Ani-Com and Games fair sees thousands queue to try out the latest consoles or buy up comic book collectibles, often dressed up as their favourite characters.
But for those who had spent too long alone in their rooms, a new VR smartphone app offered some romantic solace.
Users can choose between four female models and spend a vacation with them in either Japan or Thailand, joining them on trips to cafes, hot springs and karaoke.
They slot their phones into a plastic headset and are then immersed on a date, during which they can choose options for activities.
Promoters of the Hong Kong-made app, which is known by its Cantonese name "leoi yau" or "VR travel friend", said it was to help what they called "Otakus" to practise their dating skills.
The name is a Japanese term for obsessive manga or anime fans.
"We want to allow more people to try out what it's like to date a girl because there are a lot of Otakus who don't know how to communicate with girls," Margaret Ming, the app's communication officer, told AFP.
"This game can teach them how to get to know girls," Ming said, adding that there is some flirting involved in the story arcs with the models.
Helpful, or sad?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday July 29 2017, @02:13PM (1 child)
The acceptable solution for alienation is always more technology, spending money, more progressive acceptance of experimentation, more artificial experience, more distraction.
Anything, to avoid asking why society is geared to always increase alienation and who's doing it and why.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday July 29 2017, @02:27PM
That's because cynically everyone has been trained to believe that the only things in life that are real or valuable have a price tag. It's why billionaires are fawned over and paupers are despised. It's why riches are measured in dollars when real wealth is something any of us can have.
It's a sociopathic system that promotes sociopaths and therefore ontologically cannot produce an optimal outcome for humans.
Washington DC delenda est.