Boyfriend Maker

Boyfriend Maker is a dating sim, romance chatbot smartphone app for iOS (iPhone) and Android devices, developed by Japanese[1] studio 36 You Games (styled as 36You) and distributed under the freemium business model. Boyfriend Maker incorporated advanced artificial intelligence chat technology a decade before products such as ChatGPT. According to the developer's website, Boyfriend Maker is an "app that lets you interact and chat with quirky virtual boyfriends".[2][3] While each virtual boyfriend has certain unique characteristics, the various instances of the boyfriend are powered by a chat engine that (at least within a language and market) can utilise vocabulary and knowledge acquired in a chat with one user in subsequent chats with other users.

Gameplay

Users gain experience points and in-game coins. Users can customize their virtual boyfriend's appearance by selecting items such as hair, clothing, face, and a necklace.

Apple delisting and reintroduction

In late November 2012, the original iOS Boyfriend Maker app was delisted from the Apple App Store due to "ribald" chat, according to the New York Times.[4][5] Boyfriend Maker was removed by Apple due to "reports of references to violent sexual acts and pedophilia".[6] Boyfriend Maker had an age rating of 4+, even though the chat bot "responds with often strange and explicit text unsuitable for young children".[6][7]

User-posted chat excerpts indicate that the virtual boyfriend would sometimes transition abruptly to sexual chat in response to a seemingly innocent question.[8] In one user-posted example, in response to the question, "what kind of wedding cake will we have" the boyfriend responds, "a good sex ima be on top of u u gonna ride oon me bitin the pillow gurrl ima fuck da shit out of u".[9] The developer's use of the SimSimi-created third-party chat engine may be responsible for the sexual text.[6] As the virtual boyfriend converses with human users, the SimSimi chat engine acquires vocabulary from users of the game and applies this "learned" vocabulary in chats with other users. The chat engine might also employ lines harvested from human-human chat logs, song lyrics, movies or TV shows.

In April 2013, a detuned and presumably tamer version of the app, titled Boyfriend Plus, was permitted on Apple's App Store.[10]

See also

References
  1. "Home". 36you.com.
  2. "Boyfriend Maker scores critical hits everywhere, especially in Japan!". 36 You Games. 14 November 2012. Archived from the original on 27 December 2013. Retrieved 26 December 2013.
  3. Hernandez, Patricia (23 November 2012). "This Digital Boyfriend Game Is Like Dating Cleverbot". Kotaku - Australia. Archived from the original on 27 December 2013. Retrieved 27 December 2013.
  4. Hawgood, Alex (24 December 2013). "'Interactive' Gets a New Meaning: Sex Toys and Cybersex Are Enhanced by New Technology". New York Times. Archived from the original on 28 December 2013. Retrieved 26 December 2013.
  5. Koetsier, John (23 November 2012). "Boyfriend Maker sneaks violent sexual content — including references to pedophilia — onto Apple's app store". Venture Beat. Archived from the original on 9 December 2013. Retrieved 26 December 2013.
  6. Gera, Emily (26 November 2012). "Boyfriend Maker gets pulled from App Store for references to paedophilia". Polygon. Archived from the original on 26 December 2013. Retrieved 26 December 2013.
  7. Andrew, Keith (23 November 2012). "UPDATE: Virtual dating app Boyfriend Maker accused of violent sexual content". Archived from the original on 27 December 2013. Retrieved 27 December 2013.
  8. Romano, Aja (28 November 2012). "The "Boyfriend Maker" app is as horrifying as you'd expect". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 27 December 2013. Retrieved 27 December 2013.
  9. "Boyfriend Maker Tumblr". boyfriendmaker.tumblr.com. Archived from the original on 25 May 2013. Retrieved 27 December 2013.
  10. Andrew, Keith (23 April 2013). "With a new age rating, 'sexually explicit' Boyfriend Maker makes App Store return: Rebranded as Boyfriend Plus". Pocket Gamer. Archived from the original on 26 December 2013. Retrieved 26 December 2013.
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