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Material girl calling Virtual Girlfriend on the mobile phone
She is 20 years young, slim, dark-haired, and likes to talk with romantic men on the mobile phone. In fact, you can only communicate with her on the mobile, because she is a virtual creature. Under the name Virtual Girlfriend she works for Artificial Life, the Hongkong-based company of her father, Arthur Schoeneburg. Virtual Girlfriend is a new multimedia game for the mobile phone. In order to win the young lady’s heart, adorers have to continuously sweet talk to her and coddle her with expensive gifts. She is quite a material girl. Flowers and diamonds If you want to keep the relationship with her going, you have to invest in virtual flowers and diamonds, for which you have to pay in real money, in addition to the basic fee for the service. In return for the plentiful advertencies, you can talk to Miss VG and watch her three-dimensionally on your third-generation mobile phone in a number of everyday situations: in a café, on her way to work, in her living room, and – if you have reached a higher level of intimacy – even sparsely apparelled in the bathroom. In the course of the game, you have the chance to follow her life and unveil her secrets. However, if you neglect her communicative and material needs, the young romance may end before it has begun: “She’ll be unhappy, and she won’t talk to you,” Artificial Life’s spokeswoman Ada Fong explained.
Proud father Artificial Life plans to launch the service in English, Japanese and Korean by December. It is not yet clear, which 3G network operators will offer Virtual Girlfriend and at what price. Nevertheless, Eberhard Schoeneburg, the German CEO of Artificial Life, is very proud of his virtual daughter and believes in her economic success. “The Virtual Girlfriend is a lot of fun to play, and the game sets new and high standards for future 3G mobile games," he said. According to Mr Schoeneburg, Virtual Girlfriend combines in a unique way the company’s mobile platform and artificial intelligence technology with natural language processing in several languages. He pointed out the human-like behaviour of the game characters, the high quality and realism of 3-D animations, and the sophisticated and innovative game logic with a continuously evolving and always progressing story. Love by Mail The basic idea of Virtual Girlfriend is not new. Four years ago, NTT Docomo already offered a similar service to its i-mode subscribers. More than 30,000 Japanese subscribed to “Love by Mail”. The suitors could choose from a line-up of women that includes a bartender, a flight attendant, an office worker, and a teacher. Once they made a selection, they could start dating the woman via e-mail. These women required equal consideration as Virtual Girlfriend. Those men who promised too much or didn’t act fast enough fell from grace with the woman and received bitter e-mails from her. Likewise, those who attempted to talk about sports or offer excuses about needing to work too often also got rejected by their new love. Successful seducers, however, were rewarded by increasingly romantic e-mails from their sweetheart, in which she gradually revealed her “most intimate secrets.” “Love by Mail” was developed by Bandai, the Japanese toy company that also manufactured the famous Tamagotchi, which kept girls worldwide mothering squalling electronic pets in the 1990s. Skills versus money Apart from the advanced 3D graphics of Artificial Life’s product, the main difference between the two games seems to be that success in “Love by Mail” was more based on skill, while the heart of the Virtual Girlfriend can rather be won with money in the form of expensive gifts. Whatever the winning strategy is, the hearts of 3G network operators would leap, if Mr Schoeneburg’s virtual daughter would become everybody’s darling. After the success of “Love by Mail” in Japan, chances are that Virtual Girlfriend could also become a success in the Far East. For the European and the American market, mass success seems to be rather doubtful due to cultural differences. Artificial Life isn’t bothered by this and has already announced the launch of Virtual Boyfriend in February 2005. Up to now, it is Mr Schoeneburg’s secret, how romantic ladies could win prince charming’s heart. If I had to guess, the choice of gifts would reach from beer crates to sports cars. Please send us your comments on this article. |
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