Calling all otome fans

The folks at Aksys Games recently posted a survey to their site in the hopes of gauging North American interest in otome games. (Take the survey here.)

For those of you who haven't the slightest clue as to what an otome game is, here's what Wikipedia has to say about the genre: "[They are] targeted towards a female market, where one of the main goals, besides the plot goal, is to develop a romantic relationship between the female player character and one of several male characters."



Although otome games tend to be dating sims or visual novels, they're not exclusively so--as evidenced by Cave's rhythm-based effort from 2008, Princess Debut (above).

Bonus: Those who complete the abovementioned survey receive the following communiqué. "Thank you for taking this survey! You have helped make our world a better, happier place. Tomorrow's children shall sing your praises."

And the (final) survey says ...

A little over a month ago (or was it longer than that?) I posed the following question in a poll that was posted along the right side of the site: How do you feel about games with gay characters and storylines?

The most popular response was "I wish there were *a lot* more of them," which earned seven votes (out of 18).

"I'd love it if they were more common, but I won't die if they continue to be a rarity" came in second, with five votes, followed by "Eh, I'm fine with the status quo" (four votes).

Somewhat surprisingly, "Ugh, keep gay characters and storylines out of my games!" garnered two votes.

If you're up for it, I'd love to hear what prompted some of you to choose a particular response. Why are you hankering for more games with gay characters/storylines--or, alternately, why are you hoping such characters/storylines stay far away from the games you purchase and play?

And the old-as-sin survey says ...

A few years ago (or so it seems), I posted a poll on the right side of this blog. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to switch it out--I guess it just slipped my mind.

Anyway, before I post a new one, here are the results of the last:

Unsurprisingly, Nintendo's portables were the most popular among the 10 people who participated in this poll, with the DS/DSlite and the GameBoy Advance garnering 10 votes each and the original GameBoy garnering eight. Also unsurprising (unfortunately): Absolutely no one admitted to owning an NEC TurboExpress/PC Engine GT or a Sega Nomad.

The next poll will be posted shortly. Thanks in advance for participating!  

And the (second) survey says ...

... a lot of you have owned Nintendo systems over the years.

(Click on the graph to get a better look at it.)

I was a bit shocked to see the Genesis/Mega Drive get so much love (12 "votes") and saddened (but not surprised) to see the Sega Saturn and especially the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine be all but ignored.

Anyway, a new poll/survey will be up in a jiffy. Thanks as always for sharing your thoughts!

And the survey says ...

About a month ago, I added a survey to this blog--in an attempt to make it a bit more interactive. To my surprise, 11 of you took the time to share your thoughts. Here are the results:

I'll post a new survey shortly. Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts!