What’s the point of forming relationships with video game characters? After all, they’re not real, and everything is only happening inside the confines of the virtual world of the game. Well… that’s not entirely true: video games offer guidance and rehearsal spaces for how we interact with people in the real world — without risking judgment from other people in the process.

The above theory was offered during the Decades of Digital Love panel at PAX West 2025, courtesy of moderators Jennasis and Virvada, hosts of the weekly Two Girls One Ship podcast. After guiding their audience through the occasionally rocky history of video game romance and relationship play for the past 40 years, they wanted to talk about the way those games influence the people who play them.

“When you romance in a video game, unlike in real life, it's attractive,”