>>713798726
People like the game-ified parasocial aspect. It simulates intimacy without asking the player to do any of the difficult things that intimacy requires.
Case in point, I was living abroad for a year when I was younger and I started unconsciously treating my relationships like social links. It wasn't a conscious decision, I was just very proactive about socializing with both other foreigners and natives because I felt like I had a limited time to build those relationships. In the back of my autistic mind I'd feel like I was leveling up a social link whenever I'd decide to spend the day with this or that person and something interesting happened or we had a deep conversation. Let me put it this way: if Persona 4 were realistic, Kanji would hate the MC for rejecting him even though he's clearly trying to date Chie, Chie would agree to go on a date and then cancel the day before, and Yosuke would betray you at rank 9 when gets blinded by pussy. At no point did I do anything "wrong", but it was a shitshow. Persona treats relationships like a linear treadmill, and that appeals deeply to autists.
