A Discussion on the Individuality of Virtual Wives

            The Wall Street Journal wrote an article in 2007 about a man who was more dedicated to his virtual wife in the game “Second Life” than his real wife, who was threatening him with separation. However, the man still claimed “the virtual marriage is only a game.” In this case, his virtual wife was a real woman somewhere else in our world, and she took their marriage very seriously.

            Now, in 2009, we have our first widely recognized instance of a marriage between a real person and a truly virtual character; one that isn’t an avatar belonging to a human being, but a character designed by the game’s developers. Nene Anegasaki is a character in the game Love Plus, and a man only known by his online handle “Sal9000” has married her. Criticisms and ridicule have been fired at him from all over the United States of America, ranging from the obvious (“I’m sure they’ll have a very large and healthy family,” Technically Incorrect) to the skeptical (“this is most likely little more than the looniest publicity stunt we’ve seen in some time,” Yahoo! Games).

            However, one criticism fired in this week’s episode of NoobToob stands out as especially poignant. A viewer pointed out his statement that he was “going to remain faithful” was especially sad because he knew that there was no way Nene could make the same commitment; every time someone else plays Love Plus, Nene will happily fall in love with the person playing the game. This raised the question, “Is your virtual wife a unique entity?” Having done some research on this specific game, it is easier to qualify a claim stating that she is indeed unique.

            Love Plus’s main innovation is that the game doesn’t end once you’ve won the girl; while most visual novel dating sims close after the player wins the girl, Love Plus focuses more on what happens after you’ve won her over. Apparently, the player can “email her, call her via the DS mic, and study together,” (VNWiki), and more importantly, the player can set how the girl addresses them, and “over time she changes to match the players’ likes and dislikes,” (VNWIKI). Thus, with this in mind, it is more feasible that Sal9000 sees Nene as “his Nene,” a unique girl who is unlike all the other thousands of copies of her being played throughout Japan.

            The problem with this, of course, is the limits programming could have on this character design, especially on the Nintendo DS. According to VNWiki, Nene only has three personalities; Orange, Green, and Pink, each with two variants as to attitude. While the players’ likes and dislikes are liable to be different and therefore lead to her treating them differently, the girl does not in fact change personality outright. Therefore, it is impossible to declare her personality “unique”, lending to the argument that she cannot be faithful to him.

            It boils down to a simple argument; are a difference in likes and dislikes enough to differentiate Sal9000’s Nene from the thousands of others that have been shipped out? Assuming the event is to be taken seriously and not as a publicity stunt, the answer must be yes. It’s hard to believe that by now insults haven’t been volleyed toward him, with messages from pranksters along the lines of “I was with your wife last night,” and that he hasn’t taken them seriously. However, the lack of a follow-up story detailing his divorce from Nene illustrates that he’s accepted this. The Nene that other players have been dating are not “his Nene,” and therefore don’t matter.

            This leads to one more question, raised by Tobin Cozaihr; “If he’s on the train and somebody stole his bag with his wife in it, would he buy another copy?,” (NoobToob 170). The answer from the church is no; he’s married to her by a priest, and so he’s married to Nene till death, and until they can prove that she is outright dead (whether it be by virus or a dead cartridge), that specific card’s data for Nene would be the girl he is married to. However, it’s impossible to say whether or not he can continue with a “reset” of Nene; is it permissible for him to start a new file of Love Plus so long as he remains loyal to Nene? The only response that seems natural is to treat her as an “amnesia patient”, but if he restarts the file, does that make it a forced amnesia? If the file is corrupted, does that count as death, or is he allowed to create a new file and “resurrect her” from the dead?

            While it’s still hard to believe that Sal9000’s wedding is to be taken seriously by the rest of the world, the fact that the commitment even might in the slightest be  honest and meaningful makes this discussion interesting, if not necessarily relevant. Sal9000 has had a number of virtual girlfriends before Nene, and it wouldn’t be surprising that the pressure implemented from the outside world will cause him to break things off with Nene. However, if this is a publicity stunt, it also makes for an interesting sociological study; the world condemns Sal9000 for his marriage to Nene, and either demonizes the man or declares their pity for his stupidity and loneliness.

            Why is his action necessarily one of destitution or depravity? By performing this outrageous act, he has earned the ire of people worldwide through the Internet, and perhaps that’s what he’s been seeking all along: the reactions of those to his eccentric action. Perhaps he does it with a bit of a grin, knowing that his marriage should be taken with a grain of salt; maybe he doesn’t truly love her, but he does have a strong dedication to the skillfulness displayed in the character’s writing. Perhaps it’s like Annie Wilkes’s obsession with Misery in the Stephen King novel.

However, whether money or love is the incentive, he is dedicated till death.