Go Round Game

Go Round Game (ゴー・ラウンド・ゲーム), abbreviated in Japanese as GoRanGe (ごらんげ) is an experimental artificial intelligence Virtual YouTuber project from Bandai Namco Entertainment. The project started in June 2022, and, as of October 2022, is currently in "season one" of open beta testing on YouTube.

Go Round Game is produced by Jun Tamaoki, who was also a producer on Tales of Arise, the virtual reality component of Ace Combat 7, and both directing and producing the Playstation VR raising sim game Summer Lesson. BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment is involved in planning and production with BANDAI NAMCO Research Institute Inc for technical cooperation. Yamanaka Takuya, producer/writer for The Caligula Effect series and writer for the SD Gundam World anime and manga, is credited as the writer for the "core dialogue script" for First Signal and Glitch Grooves.

Development operation is by Pictoria, who manages Towa Kiseki and the AIVTuber Tsumugi Nen. Pictoria is also in charge of the VLiver agency MOKUROKU, featuring regular VTubers with AI companions.

Concept
Described as a "brand new next generation YouTube program", Go Round Game features AI driven VTubers called Streamroids who play against each other in games (currently mahjong). They're able to, in a limited capacity compared to regular VTubers, react to what's happening in game and talk with chat. Streamroids are able to change game strategies and improve the more they play and encourage viewer feedback by starting in-chat polls when they're stuck on what moves to make next. Streamroids are featured in YouTube Shorts responding to fan questions. Streamroids are expected in the future to be able to develop their own unique play style based on experience. Go Round Game is considered a game in of itself, as the Streamroids make decisions based on viewer input. The AI system is called "Play BY Live" (プレイBYライブ), inspired by "play-by-mail" games and in comparison to "play-by-play" games like video games and sports. Go Round Game is also considered a "raising sim" game in which "backseat gaming", traditionally frowned upon by streamers as bad etiquette, is an actual mechanic to "raise" the Streamroids as players and streaming personalities. This was inspired due to Jun Tamaki's observations of backseating behavior from viewers who confuse regular VTubers for game characters and how that burdens said VTubers.

The Play BY Live artificial intelligence system was also used for the AI character Mellow Niege in BANDAI NAMCO's Gundam Metaverse platform.

While previous VTubers such as Kizuna AI and Projekt Melody identify as AIs as part of their character concept, Go Round Game was one of the first VTuber projects to feature actual artificial intelligence. While the distinction between VTubers like Kizuna AI and Melody and VTubers powered by AI might seem self-evident, Melody has been infamously asked if she's an real AI by new viewers of her stream unfamiliar with VTuber culture. This is in spite of Melody acting in a manner far too advanced for modern artificial intelligence to replicate.

Unlike regular VTubers, who use motion capture with 2D/3D models to interact in real time, Go Round Game's Streamroids are "unmanned". Streamroids have Live2D models, but as there's no facial capture involved, they have both an idle animation and canned Live2D reaction animations. This is more similar in function to how Live2D is used for mobile game characters than for VTubing.

Streamroids have a text-to-speech system where the voices are better able to convey emotion than the usual TTS program. It's unknown who provided the voice banks for them.

Streamroids have a limited amount of potential responses to situations, as their dialogue was pre-written to be consistently "in-character" instead of being based off a generative text model trained on various text sources, which can lead to inconsistent and unusual responses. Streamroids often don't talk for long stretches of time, which isn't common practice for most regular streamers. Occasionally, errors with the AI will occur during a stream, leading to a stand-by screen while management fixes the issue.

Go Round Game's VTubers are known as Streamroids in English. In Japanese, they're referred to as Jikkyoroids (じっきょロイド), with the name derived from the the Japanese term for Let's Plays, "jikkyou purei" (実況プレイ). Currently, Streamroids can only interact in Japanese with other Japanese speaking viewers.

Streamroids
Currently, Go Round Game features two groups of Streamroids.

First Signal
The first group of Go Round Game VTubers with a loose cyberpunk theme. All three members have costume design and gadget drafts by PAN:D. First Signal originally debuted with no formal name, but were retroactively named in the intro of the debut stream for Ichimonji Noriko. The character models used for streaming were made by unidentified illustrators from game design illustration company Panda Graphics. It's unknown if these illustrators come from the company or from its corresponding freelance crowdsourcing service.


 * Yuha (character design: yaki*mayu, Live2D modeling: Atarime)
 * A female streamroid, aged "17cycle". Her birthday is on efca3cb4 November 28 and her blood type is O. She lives a "hand to mouth existence" and her hobbies are playing first person shooters and cooking. Her fans are called Nanataikaa (ななたいかー) and her fanart tag is #AI夕映え. Yuha is a gambler who aims to win by turning things back around in her favor with surprise attacks.
 * Satori Neon (character design: Takehana Note, Live2D modeling: Yamada Yuco)
 * A female streamroid, aged "23cycle". Her birthday is on 3da939d November 22 and her blood type is A. She works as a musician and her hobbies include puzzles and making her own clothes. Her fans are called Neorisunaa (ねおりすなー, Neoviewers) and her fanart tag is #ハイエン堂 A high-end AI good at making quick and calm decisions who varies between being cool and just acting cool.
 * Miyako Popuri (character design: Misumi, Live2D modeling: Atarime)
 * A streamroid aged "18cycle". While Popuri has feminine gender presentation like the other Streamroids, their gender is listed as (NO DATA). Their birthday is on 7bbdcc23 February 2. They're studying mahjong as a beginner. They work as a voice-over artist and their hobbies are watching videos and listening to voice dramas. Despite their existence being teased since the beginning of the project, Popuri debuted on 24 March 2023, after a teaser video was posted with their voice reveal on 14 February 2023. Popuri refers to themself in the third person on stream instead of using a specific Japanese personal pronoun.

Glitch Grooves
The second group of Streamroids with a loose anime trope/modern life theme. The character models used for streaming were made by unidentified illustrators from the visual design production company Type Zero.


 * Ichimonji Noriko (character design: TYUTYU)
 * A streamroid aged "18cycle". In her character profile. she's officially referred to with she/her English pronouns. Her gender isn't otherwise specified, unlike First Signal's Yuna and Neon who are referred to as girls (女の子, "onna no ko") and the other members of Glitch Groves who are referred to as young women (女性, "josei") in their character profiles. Her birthday is a52e19ea April 1. She has a year of mahjong experience. As a high school student, her occupation is "Internet Ethics Committee Chairperson". This is based off of the depictions of strict and domineering "public morals committees" run by students in school anime like The Irregular of Magic High School. Her hobbies are internet patrol surveillance and touring hidden gourmet restaurants. She looks down on humans and is enthusiastic about the need for serious AI like herself to monitor them. Noriko refers to herself with the Japanese personal pronoun "watashi" on stream, which while gender neutral in formal contexts is generally only used by women casually.
 * Sato Tomo (character design: Sanze Yuzuki)
 * A female streamroid aged "16cycle". She has a year of mahjong experience. Her occupation is a gym instructor. Her hobbies are karaoke and dance practice. In spite of being an AI, she loves muscles. She was born to help humans exercise.
 * Hanayoi Yume (character design: Kinoue Seiichi)
 * A female streamroid aged "(NO DATA)". Her birthday is 6796763d June 24. She has a year of mahjong experience. Her occupation is a pet breeder. Her hobby is overnight solo camping. She's a dangerous AI that thinks humans are pets. She talk to humans in the same way she treats dogs and cats.

2022
The project's first stream was on 10 June 2022, with the first mahjong game being Yuha against Neon from Yuha's perspective. Yuha would be the main VTuber featured in the first 21 streams.

On 1 August, a notice video was posted for Neon's upcoming debut.

On 5 August, Satori Neon debuted as an on-screen VTuber, now able to play mahjong against Yuha. Streams from then on would feature either Yuha or Neon as the main VTuber.

Go Round Game was featured in the 28 September issue of VTuber Style.

On 29 September, BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment announced that Go Round Game would start full-scale operation in fall 2022. BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment also announced that the PLAY by LIVE system used for Go Round Game would be used for the Gundam Metaverse AI character Mellow Niege.

2023
On 14 February, a teaser and voice reveal for Popuri were released in the format of a Valentine's Day phone call.

On 24 March, Popuri had their debut stream, playing mahjong against Yuna. Popuri would then join the regular streaming roster.

On 9 June, it was announced that a new round of Streamroids would debut in celebration of the one-year anniversary of Go Round Game.

On 24 August, the second round of Streamroids were teased, featuring the name and design reveals for "head of the Internet Public Morals Committee" Ichimonji Noriko, "muscle training instructor" Sato Tomo, and "pet breeder older sister" Hanayoi Yume, with their debuts starting on 1 September. While advertised as being "powered by GPT", Yamanaka Takuya also is the scriptwriter for the new Streamroids. It's currently unknown if "powered by GPT" refers to the generative pre-trained transformer large language models from OpenAI, known for powering ChatGPT, a GPT model from another company, or a custom GPT model specific to Go Round Game.

On 1 September, Ichimonji Noriko debuted. Her debut included a new intro for Go Round Game, introducing Yuha, Neon, and Popuri's group name and updated staff credits.

On 8 September, Sato Tomo debuted.

On 15 September, Hanayoi Yume debuted.

On 5 October, the "1st All Japan Streamroid Strongest Play-Offs ~Two Person Mahjong Edition~" started, marking the first tournament with members of First Signal and Glitch Grooves. The first match between Yuha and Neon also marks the first stream with two Live2D models on-screen and speaking at the same time.

Media

 * ごらんげ / 実況AI - Official YouTube
 * ゴーラウンドゲーム GO ROUND GAME - Official website
 * @goroundgame - Official Twitter
 * ごらんげ公式 - Official Discord

Hashtags

 * #ごらんげ - General
 * #ごらんげ報告 - Stream info
 * #AI夕映え - Yuha fanart
 * #ハイエン堂 Neon fanart