Are You a "Princess Maker?"

Have any of you ever heard of a computer game called “Princess Maker?” As most of you are aware, the animation and game market is huge in Asia, and growing up I was exposed to a variety of computer and video games, especially due to geographical and cultural similarities to Japan where the game industry is largely based. Like in the states, first person shooter games such as Halo and Sudden Attack were obviously very popular, but real time strategy games including Starcraft, gained immense popularity in Korea, and so did a bunch of games of different kinds. One of the genres that became really big in the late 90s was Role playing games (RPG), and Princess Maker was a revolutionary RPG that people of my generation loved regardless of gender and age.

So the basic idea of this game is that you, the player, are the patron of a young, female character, and the goal is to help the child reach her adulthood to become the princess of the country. There are many different factors that come into play in becoming the princess, but basically you have to get the child a good education, make her compete in the pageant (miss kingdom contest, etc.), and raise her properly to become a lady-like female who is fit to become the princess.

Princess Maker was so popular that it had four sequels following its original release in the early 90s, and each version has a different main character, story plot, and paths that lead to the successful ending. The one I played the most was the third version named “Princes Maker~Fairy Tales Come True~,” and it actually is the only one that has a subtitle other than just a numeric symbol indicating the sequence of release.

In this version, the main character is a fairy who wants to become a human princess, and just like other versions of the game, your job as the player is to help her dream come true. There are courses and jobs available for the fairy, and everything you do (meaning, everything you choose for her to do and how you treat her) affects the little fairy’s health, intelligence, attitude, social status, and most importantly, her future. The game offers a variety of endings that corresponds to the fairy status ranging from a prostitute, gambler, or criminal to a princess, hero, or prime minister.

There are many factors that made this game so appealing to different groups of people in Japan or Korea, but I think of one of the reasons was that it allowed people to project their fairy tale fantasies to the main character. Not surprisingly, Princess Maker attracted many young females who were formerly not the main target consumers for video games, and by raising the game character to become a princess, girls can vicariously experience and fulfill their subconscious fantasy. It may sound a bit odd to say that the game was also quite popular among the male gamers, but I think this game might have stimulated the male sense of duty to seek out and help guide the female character to become a princess. Another guess is that the young, pretty character brought out their fatherly senses, especially since in most versions of the game the patron is specifically called “father” by the game character.