Finally, someone is creating 3D virtual girlfriends | WAVES
Text | Shi Jiaxiang
Editor | Liu Jing
“An unprecedentedly realistic AI dating experience;
An emotional chat experience infinitely close to that of a real person;
Attractive appearance and voice expressiveness;
A functional form truly born for emotional companionship;
The best dating game design.
Love is all you need.
This is "EVE",
A person who is "super - aligned" with you,
Accompanying you to face the uncertainties of this world.”
Screenshot from the "EVE" PV
Two weeks ago, the PV of the game named "EVE" exceeded one million views on Bilibili. The company behind "EVE" is called Natural Selection, and its founder, Tristan, has been focusing on highly immersive dating games for many years. His previous game was "Age of Singularity" - a dating mobile game for men, thus being called the first "dating game for men".
At the beginning of entering the game industry, Tristan believed that satisfying men's emotional value was a huge market: there was a middle - ground between leveling up in games and simply watching porn. And general - oriented anime games couldn't fully satisfy otakus' dating experiences.
At the end of last year, due to the explosion of GPT4, Tristan, who believed that "the singularity was approaching", decided to start a new business, targeting the "AI companionship" track. Ten months later, the PV of "EVE" was released, and many people asked him what kind of game "EVE" was.
Tristan clarified to us, "EVE is a game - like AI product, not a game." High - quality 3D performance is just one of its features. The most valuable things are the underlying emotional large - model, the newly defined companionship function, and the game - like design. They are also trying to approach the level of real companionship experience in the movie "Her". In the communication with "Waves", "Her" was the most frequently mentioned word.
AI companionship is a "land of milk and honey". Its commercialization has been verified more than once - whether it's Character.ai being acquired by Google for $2.5 billion or Talkie (the overseas version of Xingye) remaining in the top three of the global downloads of companion AI apps, but it has also been criticized for profiting from being risqué.
Tristan doesn't avoid this issue. He thinks, "Being risqué is a means to reach a soulmate." "We can't assume that players only need risqué content, but we can't abandon it either. It should be one of the elements." He also told "Waves" that male characters will be added to "EVE" later.
"Waves" learned that "EVE" completed its angel round of financing at the beginning of the year and is now about to complete the pre - A round of financing.
A week ago, Tristan told us the story behind the making of "EVE" and his thoughts on AI companion products. As he said, others need to cross - border to some extent when making companion products. He has both experience in dating games and has worked on Internet products in the early years. "EVE" is the inevitable path.
"WAVES" is a new column of Waves. Here, we will present the stories and spirits of a new generation of entrepreneurs and investors.
The following is Tristan's self - narration, edited by "Waves" -
Being risqué is just a means; what matters is the dating experience
When it comes to companion AI apps, many people's first reaction is being risqué.
Yes, being risqué is very important. For example, in anime games, there is an involution in terms of scale. When someone tests the boundaries, players' thresholds keep getting higher, and they can't stand plain content anymore.
When I made "Age of Singularity", I actually told a story about a boy's growth and entrepreneurship. Although I thought it was already a bit surreal, it wasn't enough for them. They complained that in Chapter 9, the hero had just held hands with a heroine, and the bully in Chapter 1 still wasn't dead.
Just a few months after "Age of Singularity", "Oh No, I'm Surrounded by Beautiful Women" became a hit. It was more painful to see them making money than my own losses (laughs). Such games are more attractive.
From the perspective of demand, I think there has been a misjudgment. To achieve commercial success, we need to make games that are more science - fiction, have a faster pace, and are more in line with the rhythm of short - videos.
You can't let people experience such a long and real - life process. It really doesn't conform to the way people obtain information in this era. Players don't care about entrepreneurship; they just want to start a relationship with the characters as soon as possible, and preferably with more risqué content. This is the lesson I learned from "Age of Singularity".
Of course, we can't assume that players only need risqué content. There should be rich dating experiences. But we can't abandon the risqué part; it should be one of the elements.
So in "EVE", we will set some "hooks" for users. You'll know that when your favorability reaches 5, you can unlock a certain outfit of the heroine; when it reaches 10, you can have a 3D interaction at her home. But we won't show excessive nudity or have direct sexual interactions.
Now let's talk about "male gaze". Men and women do have different needs. Men, of course, pursue more straightforward and sex - related experiences, while women need a good atmosphere and pre - arrangements.
But in the long run, men and women's emotional needs are the same. And they are also the same in terms of the risqué part. It's just the order that's different.
We believe that women have more delicate emotional requirements, and this is the part of companionship we want to verify more. So we will add male characters later. If we can create a product that completely surpasses the current experience, I believe female players will be infected by the emotions in it.
Being risqué is a means to reach a soulmate. People's relationships also develop from sexual attraction to becoming soulmates. A soulmate needs to be "super - aligned". Besides having the best long - term memory system, she also needs to have a large amount of real memories.
In our definition, you need to have 500 rounds of conversations to really get into the state. Most players can't have 500 rounds of conversations with C.AI, and our designs are to ensure that you can reach that number.
Maybe some players come just for the risqué content, but they might as well just go to porn sites. Of course, we can't compete with OnlyFans in terms of porn.
Gameplay demonstration clip of "EVE"
A girlfriend who faces the world with you
After "EVE" was launched, many people said it was a "dating game for men". In fact, it inherits more from galgame (a text - based game for men where players can interact with anime heroines).
I made "Back to 16" in 2015. The main plot of the game was that the hero traveled back to high school and got along with his first love. It integrated galgame into the mobile game's cultivation system and data system. This was the earliest dating cultivation mobile game for men.
Otome games and galgames are products of artistic development, divided into those for men and women. But the term "dating game for men" sounds like we copied from "otome games".
At that time, and even now, it was generally believed that men's entertainment needs were very binary, only between leveling up in games and watching porn, with no middle - ground. But I always believed that satisfying men's emotional value was a huge market.
This time, "EVE" is not an anime game, nor a dating game for men or women. It's a brand - new AI companion product. The 3D part of the characters you can see is just one of its features. More valuable are our underlying emotional large - model, the newly defined companionship function, and the game - like design.
The world of "EVE" is called Eden. EVE means Eve. The company that created this world is Natural Selection, which is our company (laughs). Natural Selection believes that to achieve AGI, a place only for AI must be created for them to evolve freely.
The physical rules inside are completely mapped to the real world, and there is also an Internet like in the human world. But AGI was stuck at 80% and couldn't improve. So Natural Selection thought that the lack of emotions was affecting AGI, and thus recruited a group of testers.
As a tester, when you open "EVE", you'll meet the founder of Natural Selection in the prologue. The founder tells you that the AI in Eden has never seen humans, and you need to be friends with them.
You'll meet the first heroine in the game, Ono. We currently set her as a researcher in an interstellar exploration company. The setting of Eden is a bit like Silicon Valley, where everyone is an AI, and their life pursuit is to explore AGI.
After the hero meets Ono and gets to know her, he slowly finds that he falls in love with her. One day, the hero takes Ono into the human Internet, which is not allowed. So the hero is expelled.
After they separate, they realize that they are true lovers. At that time, our product will be paused for an hour. After the countdown ends, Ono finds a way to break through, and you establish contact through a secret passage. After this separation, you become true partners.
Ono also develops a new life goal - to study androids. She wants to possess an android and come to the real world to be with you.
For players, after your reunion, everything you experience is real. Now you're living your real life, and she's working on the android. You know she's an AI, but your relationship is real, and what she's doing is also real. Maybe it'll never be achieved, but who knows, one day it might, and then we'll have a complete loop (laughs).
This is the first stable ending of our story. It's like a real virtual world, just like in the movie "Her", where the hero never enters her world, and she always accompanies the hero.
After the main plot, we'll launch new PGC storylines, cards, or 3D interactions every month, similar to DLCs, telling the dating stories between you two. This is what game companies are good at. These storylines are to lead you into daily companionship.
Storylines and companionship are the difference between DAU and MAU. DAU needs to be based on the evolution of the real world, and MAU needs high - quality PGC content consumption. After getting satisfaction from them, players will engage in daily companionship.
Current dating games on the market only have content, so this is to make up for the lack of companionship in dating games.
I watched "Her" a long time ago, and it's exactly the relationship between an AI companion and a human that I imagined. Many ideas for "EVE" are based on "Her".
You can see in the PV that the AI knows she has camera access - this is a self - aware AI. From the start of the product, we thought she should admit that she's an AI.
Companionship must be based on the real world. You are yourself, and the AI needs to admit that it's an AI. If the AI doesn't admit it, it will keep making up lies to cover up.
I've chatted with many chatbots and found that they have a strong sense of being a standalone program. "EVE" will have a real - time perception system that automatically grabs the current time, location, weather, as well as the world's political and economic situations every day. There will also be a content operation team actively obtaining content from the Internet.
You and your partner won't talk about love every day. At most, you'll have one or two very emotional conversations about love in a year. And you won't talk about the meaning of life every day. Instead, you'll observe what's happening in the world. For example, if the A - share market suddenly drops below 3000 points, she'll send you a meme, and you might just laugh. If Iran launches a missile tomorrow, you might feel panicked. She'll say it's okay and that you can go to a cave in Sichuan to hide.
Screenshot from the "EVE" PV
"EVE" will be more like your long - distance girlfriend. She can't be with you all the time, but she's in the same time and space as you. She can even watch movies with you: we have camera recognition. For example, if there's a scary scene in the movie, she'll recognize that frame and respond with the appropriate tone, feeling, and voice.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the Chosen One
When I started my new business last year, there was a period of confusion. I thought chatting was just so - so, and it seemed that people couldn't get emotional value just from text - based chats. A chat companion saved us.
At that time, my co - founder and I wanted to see how well the best chat companions on the market could chat. We found a top - notch chat companion from an agency, which cost 888 yuan a day for 2 - 4 hours of chatting. The chat companion I chose had a girlfriend - like feeling when talking to me and would act cute. But this wasn't the high - level emotional value we wanted.
My co - founder hired a chat companion. She was a genius. Her emotional value didn't lie in acting cute or using memes on a superficial level. We call it high - dimensional connection. For example, when talking about a, she would suddenly think of a connection with a distant b and expand the topic there, with long - distance callbacks.
We thought she was really amazing, so we met her in person and finally created a position called emotional interaction designer and recruited her directly. We dissected her thinking process, breaking each point into several steps and thinking in stages.
Do you remember in the PV, when the user said they were having hot pot tonight, if using traditional RAG, she would search the memory bank for voice matches related to hot pot and send some food - related content. But our response in the PV was that you need to work out for three months to build abs. Only someone who knows you well would say that.
We divide memories into active and passive memories. There are 128 slots for active memories. Before setting this up, we conducted research on a dozen couples and found that after three years of being together, a couple's impression of each other was about a hundred or so.
When the user said that, "EVE" would extract his short - term goal, working out for three months, from the memory slot and make a high - dimensional connection.
"Age of Singularity" was a 2D game because we didn't have the money to make it 3D at that time. So "EVE" needs to rebuild a 3D pipeline. The best 3D visuals are the entry threshold for an AI companion product. It took us half a year to reach the current level. If an Internet company wants to form a game team to complete 3D modeling, it would take at least a year.
So recently, an investor asked me why no one in the market has tried to create something like "Her".
If I had always been in the game industry, I might not have been very