Video Game Makers? Are you reading? I have two simple words for the magical question, the great conundrum, on how to get the average teenage girl interested in video games, and better yet, what is a game that would get girls interested in other games? The answer is: Dating Games.

Why it has not occurred to you, I cannot fathom. The Japanese video game market has made it clear enough. Why have Dating RPGs not been widely spread in the U.S.? Could someone answer me? I am an average 15 year old girl (although I am not talking about myself, because I play a lot of games, even ones targeted toward a more male audience) who knows what female teenagers who aren't interested in playing video games wants. We're teenagers, is it so hard to figure out that we want something that would have to do with dating?

My 17 year old sister has absolutely no interest in playing video games, but she does watch me play on occasion, and when I got the Harvest Moon game for GBA she was more than skeptical. What got her hooked, and what made her interested in most of my other video games (watching but it was a start) was the fact that you DATE and MARRY! The HM series is now something she plays herself, but her favorite games are the Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon side series and it's not hard to understand why: The art style is so much better, more attractive, and it makes it a lot more fun to look at the graphics of the characters when they aren't some unattractive chibi-style emoticon and are a fully fledged person. Now what you might be thinking is, "Well, the Harvest Moon series isn't extremely popular," but that is because the pitch is all wrong. It focuses on the farming part of the game, not the dating part, and rightly so, because dating and marriage isn't a major part of the game. But if it was, I am sure that many girls would pick it up and play their first video game just to see what the dating was like.

Regardless, I am not targeting the Harvest Moon creators, but every video game maker. If you made dating video games, made the art style really good (maybe anime styled, maybe more realistic looking) and the actual game storyline was good enough, I am sure many girls would pick it up. Besides my sister, I know many girls who would never dream of buying a video game over buying a purse, or something like that, but I have told a few of them about the dating aspect of the HM series and it got them all interested enough to borrow their brother's DS, or GameCube, and play it. And can you guess their reaction? Correct, now they are all HM addicts, and a few of them even play other video games.

If this isn't enough proof, try this on for size. When I play video games around my sister, or friends interested enough in video games to watch, can you guess the video games they want me to play? RPGs, such as Final Fantasy, Devil May Cry and Kingdom Hearts. The reason is that while I battle demons, and heartless, they get to ogle at the good looking heroes, like Cloud, Tidus, Dante, Nero, and Sora. They could care less about the story line, and even less about the female characters (unless there is a romance, in which case they are all ears), but my point is that if you make a game romantic, pretty, and put attractive characters in it, you have almost half of the female population at your disposal. How you tell them about this wondrous video game, that's your problem, but the idea is sound.

If you're wondering about female gamers that like 'boy' games, like me, never fear. We eat them up too, those games that make you swoon because of the dreamy heroes and villains (there is a reason I picked up some of those RPGs in the first place). If a dating game, even one of those 2-D dating games where it's basically stills and dialogue, came out in America, I would be first in line to buy it.

I hate to generalize, because I know many girls, both gamers and non-gamers, would never play those games, but many of us would. The ones not interested are most likely satisfied with their romantic life, or they hate romance, or for many other reasons. But the common mold for girls, even girls with boyfriends, is to want romance, like romance, pine for romance. Why do you think we read romance novels, from the cheesy ones to Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice, and everything in between? We like to fantasize about our perfect guy, and in Japanese RPGs, like reverse harem games, you have many different styles of guys to like and choose from. Ouran High School Host Club is a perfect example of the female market of Japan: Everyone has their favorite guy. I know we are talking about American girls, but for TV shows, movies and bands, all widely accepted media, many girls have crushes on guys. The only reason anime and video games are not so popular in the U.S. is because for the longest time it has been looked down on for being a nerdy thing to like. But times are changing, and now everyone is high-tech, and most men, from jocks, to nerds, play video games, because their market is so highly developed. What about the girls? Where are our Maddens, our Halos? If the market would be concentrated on, and you would learn from Japan, where girls and boys play video games equally, you could make money on us unsuspecting Americans. It may take a while to take off, like most good things, but eventually it will be a major market. So stop making video games for TV shows that are basically trivial fetching games, and discovering over and over that no one will buy these games because it has nothing to do with why we like the show.

I know that this all sounds very shallow, girls wanting to buy video games just because of hot guys, but the reality is, most girls are shallow in one way or another. The fact is, were attracted, just like men are attracted, to the opposite sex. We can't help it, its nature, but if you just played in to this aspect, video games would take off for many girls. To target male audiences, girls in video games basically wear bathing suits and high heels while they spin around in the air, wield swords and shoot the crap out of bad buys with guns. This is all very attractive for guys, and it makes them like the game all the better. Girls have the same base quality, except we want different things from the guys in our video games. It's not difficult to imagine what, anything will do, from a fantasy setting to a high school one.

Basically, take the most popular Dating RPGs from Japan, translate them, and sell them on a global market.

Oh and on a side note, try to take all the pornographic qualities out of it. Girls don't usually dig that stuff. A shirtless guy, yes, a wet shirtless guy, hell yes, but a butt naked guy starts to go a little far, and sex is way too far. Also, having rivals in these games makes it all the better, but make sure our character is cuter than her, because girls care about that stuff. Also, having stuff like dates, shopping and getting dressed (if it has to do with the guy liking us, like wearing his favorite color), anything like that is usually good, but if it's tedious, it gets annoying.

So there you have it. The hardest thing in the video game industry, getting a girl to play a video game has been solved for you, but now you need to make it happen.