Last year, I identified a total of 7 “Japan-only” social game genres, one of which are social hostess club simulations (or host club simulations).
This is how Wikipedia explains these establishments:
Hostess clubs are a common feature in the night-time entertainment industry of Japan, east Asian countries and other areas with a high east Asian population. They employ primarily female staff and cater to males seeking drinks and attentive conversation. The more recent host clubs are similar establishments where primarily male staff cater to females.
This concept doesn’t exactly sound like a solid basis for social games, but there are quite a few games using a hostess/host club theme. Depending on the title, players take on the role of a customer or (more common) a hostess or host trying to get as many customers as possible.
The most successful title, KLab’s Koi Shite Kyaba Jo, boasts millions of users across GREE, Mixi, Mobage and Yahoo Mobage (review in English).
Now Mobage offers a hostess club simulation that features real hostesses as the protagonists and real clubs as the settings. Named “Real Renai Simulation Kyaba Kura” (Real Love Hostess Club Simulation), the title is geared towards male players.
Users can choose to visit a number of virtual hostess clubs (which – again – have counterparts in the real world, i.e. this one) and talk to the virtual versions of “real” hostesses (which are shown as different photographs and have a specific “personality”).
Players need to gradually win the hearts of hostesses by answering questions like “What part of me do you find attractive?”.
If the conversation pleases the hostess, players get virtual items, i.e. power-ups that are useful when battling other customers or photographs (the game also features a virtual item shop, gacha, its own virtual currency, etc. etc).
Once the “love meter” for a specific hostess is full, players get the whole set of pictures of the lady in question.
Here are some screenshots I took:
