An unlikely game has made its way to the top of Steam’s bestsellers list in Japan: a strip mahjong game. Not only has Super Real Mahjong Venus Returns, the latest entry in a series that dates back to PCs and arcades in the late 1980s, become a surprising sales hit, but it’s also become an online obsession on social media as fans share suggestive clips and reminisce about their childhoods playing older entries, something its producer has come to address in a new interview with Automaton West.

This latest entry took a lot of work to bring into existence: news of the planned revival of the series, with support for both traditional screens and VR, came through a Campfire crowdfunding campaign in Japan that raised 33.8 million yen (about $216k), 1690 percent of its goal. The premise is simple; it’s you and four attractive female characters playing mahjong, with victory leading the other characters to remove an article of clothing till they are entirely naked. It’s a simple mix of typical simulated mahjong and sex appeal, but social media has helped propel the release to new heights.

Beginning in the late ’80s, the series found an audience in the arcades with mostly-young and horny teenage boys thanks to its risque content, according to producer Kentaro Matsui, who attributes the game’s existence and success to society being more permissive about sexual content in spaces like arcades at the time of the original game’s release. “From the late 1980s into the 1990s, this country was, for better or worse, an extremely permissive place, and the idea of keeping adult content confined to adult-only spaces barely existed.

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