Research on the Marketing Mechanism of Female-Oriented Gaming

Industry: A Case Study Based on Paper Games

Xinyu Li

School of General Education, Dalian University of Technology, Panjin, 124221, China

Keywords: Emotional Marketing, Operational Strategy, Mobile Games, Female-Oriented Games.

Abstract: In recent years, women’s awareness of independence and self-reliance has been constantly improving, and

their consumption ability has been continuously enhanced, which has driven the prosperity of female-oriented

game industry. In the face of accelerated competition, how to connect players through emotional marketing,

how to form brand loyalty and competitive barriers through emotional resonance, is of practical significance

for optimizing the company’s own branding and even promoting the positive development of the entire

gaming industry. The emotional marketing model of a successful brand obtained in this study is as follows,

selecting segmented markets, driving user emotions as the core, satisfying user psychology as the ultimate

goal, and finally transforming emotional marketing as a promotional tool into a deeper level of user

psychological identity stimulation strategy, in order to build long-term stickiness and brand loyalty. This

research underscores the transformative potential of emotion-driven strategies in fostering sustainable

consumer relationships, offering a blueprint not only for the gaming sector but also for industries seeking to

leverage psychological engagement in an era where authentic connection increasingly dictates market success.

By prioritizing emotional resonance, brands can transcend transactional dynamics to cultivate enduring

cultural and economic value.

1 INTRODUCTION

With the awakening of female subjectivity and the

rapid development of the “She Economy”, female-

oriented game market has become an important niche

track in the gaming industry (Li, 2022). Recently,

various categories such as dating, dressing up, and

female growth have emerged, not only meeting the

entertainment needs of female players, but also

building unique stickiness through emotional

storytelling, community operation, and other

methods.

The popularity of mobile Internet has promoted

the vigorous development of the gaming industry.

Among them, female-oriented games are increasingly

prominent in the entire gaming market, forming a

rapidly expanding segmentation. According to

statistics, from 2015 to 2019, the number of female

players in Chinese game market increased from 230

million to 300 million, accounting for 46.2% of the

total number, nearly half. At the same time, in the last

few years, the size of the female-oriented game

https://orcid.org/0009-0006-7881-9931

market in China has continued to expand, reaching

95.8 billion yuan by 2023, with an annual growth rate

of 11%, and their share in the overall gaming market

has also increased from 19% in 2018 to 32% in 2023,

indicating a very promising future. However, most of

the games currently leading the list come from giants,

or experienced manufacturers specializing in female-

oriented games, leaving little room for emerging

small companies. Even for large ones that have

already accumulated a certain number of users, how

to extend brand lifespan, continuously attract and

retain target users, and how to enhance user loyalty

through emotional connections are still key issues to

occupy a favorable position in competition (Gao,

2021). Furthermore, the current audiences of female-

oriented games are still mainly concentrated in East

Asia, represented by China, Japan, and South Korea,

that is, countries and regions with similar cultural

patterns centered around Japan, the origin country of

the Otome Game (A kind of love simulation game

targeting young women) industry, while Western

countries such as Europe and America have fewer

Li, X.

Research on the Marketing Mechanism of Female-Oriented Gaming Industry: A Case Study Based on Paper Games.

DOI: 10.5220/0013832900004719

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on E-commerce and Modern Logistics (ICEML 2025), pages 76-81

ISBN: 978-989-758-775-7

users and poorer market performance (Zhang, 2024).

For manufacturers targeting the Western market,

facing the reality of significant cultural differences

and the pessimistic development of Eastern models,

how to combine their products with Western elements

and capture the emotional needs of female players in

Western countries also needs further consideration.

Based on the summary of current literature,

existing research has focused on the user

characteristics, market size, and cultural influence of

female-oriented games. Some scholars have explored

the relevant content of game design and marketing

strategies. However, current research mainly focuses

on game content itself, and the analysis of how

marketing mechanisms shape user emotional

resonance and enhance brand value is still relatively

limited, especially lacking a systematic summary of

marketing practices of leading enterprises. In view of

this, this study takes the Paper Games as a case study

and adopts the process tracing method to conduct

research. Firstly, the development process and

operational situation of the Paper Games are

reconstructed. Then, the focus is on how it constructs

long-term user loyalty and competitive barriers

through precise market segmentation, brand building,

and emotional marketing strategies. Finally, the

marketing mechanism is summarized in order to

provide reference and guidance for the future

development of female-oriented gaming industry and

to look forward to the future research direction of its

marketing.

2 CASE INTRODUCTION

Paper Games was established in August 2013 and is

a game company primarily focused on female-

oriented game creation. The current company has two

main product lines, the Nikki Series and the Love

Series. The Nikki Series includes Nikki UP2U-A

Dressing Story, Nikki UP2U-World Traveller,

Miracle Nikki, Shining Nikki, and Infinity Nikki. The

Love Series includes Love and Producer and Love

and Deep Space. And there are also two ongoing

games, The Perceiver and Ballad of Antara. The

company’s mission and development goal is to focus

on gaming IP and continue to make efforts in multiple

fields such as animation, movies and derivatives,

creating new interactive entertainment experiences

on a global scale. It has been proven that the operating

strategy of Paper Games is very successful, and its

games have performed outstandingly on the female-

oriented gaming list and even in the entire mobile

gaming market. Taking the Love Series as an

example, the first month’s revenue of Love and Deep

Space, which was launched on January 18, 2024,

reached about 500 million yuan. Just one week after

its launch, it ranked fifth on the IOS best-seller list

(Chen, & Zhang, 2024, Xu, & Wu, 01-29-2024), the

third-party platform estimated that the annual revenue

will be close to 6 billion yuan. Even the old work,

Love and Producer, which has been in operation for

about eight years, still has an annual revenue of over

100 million yuan and was once nominated for the

“2021 Top Ten Annual National IP Selection Activity”

(Li, 2022). The new game in the Nikki Series, Infinity

Nikki, is the first game developed using Unreal

Engine 5 and logged into the mobile platform. Within

6 hours of pre-download, it topped the free list in 34

countries and regions as well as the game category list

in 108 countries and regions (Xu, & Wu, December

9, 2024). Along with other games in the Nikki Series,

it contributed more than one billion yuan in revenue

to the company in 2024.

3 TARGET USER AND

POSITIONING OF PAPER

GAMES

3.1 User Gender

The main target users of Paper Games are women.

The Nikki Series and the Love Series games under its

umbrella have a “female-oriented” tag in app stores,

and rank in the female-oriented game list when

assessing the revenue.

Taking Love and Producer (one of the Love

Series Otome games) and Shining Nikki (one of the

Nikki Series dress-up games ) as examples, in order to

make further profiling of Paper’s users. Li Siyu

(2022) from Guangdong University of Finance &

Economics conducted a questionnaire survey on

players of Love and Producer in December 2021 and

March 2022. Among the 307 valid questionnaires

collected in the two surveys, female players

accounted for 98.68%, while male players accounted

for only 1.32%. Li Wenting (2023) from East China

Normal University issued an interview invitation to

players of Shining Nikki from June to December

2022. Among the 20 selected interviewees, 17 were

women, accounting for 85.00%, and only 3 were men,

accounting for 15.00%. (The user profiles in sections

3.2-3.4 are still mainly based on the research of Li

Siyu and Li Wenting).

Research on the Marketing Mechanism of Female-Oriented Gaming Industry: A Case Study Based on Paper Games

3.2 User Age

Among the 307 valid questionnaires surveyed by Li

Siyu (2022) on Love and Producer, players aged 18-

25 accounted for the vast majority, with a percentage

of 71.05%. A survey report released by Aurora

Mobile in 2018 showed that among the players of

Love and Producer, more than 90% are under the age

of 30, and the vast majority aged 20-29 accounted for

75%, mainly students and white-collar workers. In

addition, through statistics on Li Wenting’s

interviews with 20 players of Shining Nikki in 2023,

it is known that 18 of them are in the age range of 18-

25 years old and mainly work as college students or

have just started working. Based on the above

information, the user age of Paper Games is mainly

distributed in the 18-30 age group, and their

professions are mostly high school students, college

students, and young office workers.

3.3 User Geographic Location

Among the 307 Love and Producer player survey

questionnaires collected by Li Siyu (2022),

Guangdong Province, Shanghai City, and Jiangsu

Province were the top three in terms of player

distribution. According to a survey conducted by

Aurora Mobile within one year after the official

launch of the game, the top ten geographical

distribution of players are in terms of Shanghai,

Beijing, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Nanjing,

Chongqing, Tianjin, Hangzhou, and Fuzhou.

Meanwhile, through the interview results of Li

Wenting with 20 players of Shining Nikki in 2023, it

was found that the most concentrated geographical

location of these player are large coastal provinces

and cities such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and

Shandong, as well as developed inland provinces and

cities such as Henan and Sichuan. That means, the

users of Paper Games are mainly distributed in first

and second tier cities.

3.4 User Income Situation

Miao Shenguang (2023) from Nanjing University of

the Arts conducted a survey of 1346 players among

Chinese female-oriented games in February 2023,

and found that the highest number of people with per

capita disposable monthly income in the range of

1000-4000 yuan was over 55%. Li Siyu (2022) found

through statistical analysis of 307 valid

questionnaires collected from Love and Producer that

the number of players with consumption amounts

between 1000-5000 yuan is the highest. Besides, the

author (a fourth year college student) conducted

interviews with Paper’s players in her social circle as

well as combined the salary situation on recruitment

website, and calculated that the average disposable

monthly income of Paper’s users is mostly in the

range of 1500-3000 yuan (after tax reduction). The

characteristic of this type of user is that they have a

certain degree of independent economic ability, but

cannot afford high consumption. Therefore, they tend

to recharge small products such as monthly cards

(ranging from a few yuan to tens of yuan) in games

and consume them multiple times in a row, rather

than recharging large products at once.

3.5 Target User Positioning Method

The target users of Paper Games are mainly

positioned by capturing their psychological and

emotional needs.

Based on the characteristic profile and summary

of the target users of Paper Games in sections 3.1-3.4,

it can be concluded that their target users are young

women with certain economic independence in first

and second tier cities. For girls in this age group, their

desire for beautiful appearance and loyal romantic

relationships is relatively strong. The founder of the

company, Yao Runhao, seized this characteristic and

successively created the Nikki Series focusing on

beauty and the Love Series focusing on romance,

which became popular overnight (Zhang, 2021).

Although Yao Runhao believed in his early

interviews that his success was due to luck, it was

more due to his keen insight into market gaps and

seizing opportunities, which gave him the chance to

lead the less developed Chinese female-oriented

gaming market more than a decade ago, and maintain

a leading position in the long-term competition

through his first mover advantage.

4 MARKETING ANALYSIS OF

PAPER GAMES

4.1 Social Media Marketing

4.1.1 APP Boot Animation and Trending

Topic Promotions

Taking games launched after 2015 (when various

popular social media apps were fully operational) as

an example, Love and Producer (2017), Love and

Deep Space (2024), Shining Nikki (2019), and Infinity

Nikki (2024), all of which are under the umbrella of

ICEML 2025 - International Conference on E-commerce and Modern Logistics

Paper Games, have conducted boot animation

promotions for social apps represented by Sina

Weibo. Due to the fact that the main audience for

Paper Games is young women aged 18-30, who are

also the main users of social apps, daily boot

animation can effectively attract the attention of

potential players. Unlike lengthy traditional

persuasive advertisements or other functional

introduction advertisements, Paper’s advertisements

mainly adopt the concise poster style of exquisite

character portraits and eye-catching romantic lines in

the game. Even without any promotional language, it

can effectively utilize young women’s inner longing

for a perfect relationship that is “harmless compared

to reality” and their need for respect and attention

(Liu, 2024), attract them to download the game to

experience, and even establish long-term stickiness.

4.1.2 Interactive Marketing

Taking Sina Weibo as an example, the official

account of Paper Games often posts “forwarding this

post, and you will get a chance to win monthly cards

through the lottery”, “sending tokens to all players

after reaching a certain number of comments”, and

activities such as inviting new players to join and

receiving welfare packages. These interactive

approaches can effectively utilize the social needs of

female players, using them as a medium to spread

widely in their friend circles and communities,

thereby establishing a strong social circle among

people with similar interests, making players feel

approved, recognized, and loved, further

consolidating their sense of identity and belonging in

the community, and forming brand loyalty (Chen,

2024).

4.2 LED Screens Advertising

Paper Games will place advertisements on LED

screens in densely populated areas such as the centers

and commercial districts of first and second tier cities.

These advertisements are usually characterized by

exquisite visuals and attractive copy, which can

quickly attract the attention of passersby. These

locations located in downtown areas usually attract a

large number of tourists from all over the country and

even the world every day, and such advertisements on

LED screens can rely on large and gorgeous graphics

and short but accurate promotional slogans to leave a

deep impression on them, thereby promoting the

game to all over the world.

4.3 Co-Branding Cooperation

Paper’s games are not only enthusiastic about

collaborating with physical brands (such as Love and

Producer and Burger King jointly launching

packages with peripherals), but also enthusiastic

about collaborating with cultural IPs from all walks

of life (such as Shining Nikki and Yoneyama Mai

jointly launching limited edition sets within the

game). Whether it is physical products like fast food,

milk tea, cosmetics, or well-known cultural IPs like

Disney and Empresses in the Palace, they are highly

sought after and loved by young people, especially

young women, which is in line with the company’s

positioning of targeting young women. What’s more,

Paper’s games have also collaborated with

DUNHUANG INSPIRATION, Yue Opera, and

others for promotion. In today’s era where traditional

culture is increasingly valued, the strategy of Paper

Games has successfully broken the zone of its games.

4.4 Peripheral Products and Doujin

Competitions

The online direct-sale store “Paper Presented”

operated by Paper Games sells peripheral products

such as acryl stands and badges for its various games

that are loved by young people. And Paper Games

often holds Doujin (It means the re-creation of

existing works) competitions, the award-winning

works not only receive generous prizes, but also have

the opportunity to be made into merchandises for

further promotion. This firmly grasps the social and

self actualization needs of young people, especially

young women. For example, if a girl player purchases

a badge in Paper’s online store, she is likely to pin it

onto an itabag (It means a bag full of anime character

badges and dolls) and bring it to school or company,

which will attract the attention of her classmates or

colleagues to the game characters and form a social

circle centered around the game. The prize money and

promotion of winning works in Doujin competitions

such as short article creation and painting creation can

greatly stimulate the creative desire of young women

with literary and painting talents. After they create

satisfactory works, they can increase the exposure of

their works by posting them on social media or

interacting with Paper’s official accounts, gaining

more attention from people who have similar hobbies

and even attracting outsiders, thereby enhancing their

self-worth and self-esteem (Miao, 2023).

Research on the Marketing Mechanism of Female-Oriented Gaming Industry: A Case Study Based on Paper Games

5 MARKETING MEDIA

SELECTION UNDER GENDER

PREFERENCE DIFFERENCES

According to a report released by Forbes in 2010,

female users often account for a larger proportion

than male users on social media platforms, especially

those focused on life sharing and emotional

communication. Another survey on the differences in

social media usage preferences between genders

shows that compared to male users who pay more

attention to independent expression and information

gathering when using social media, and have a

weaker tendency to choose text or image information,

women tend to be more concerned about finding

social identity and establishing intimate relationships,

and especially like to post pictures and photos related

to themselves. Based on this, the author analyzes the

marketing media selection strategy adopted by Paper

Games, in terms of online media selection, according

to the report on the age and gender distribution of

China’s major social apps released by the third-party

platform, the current apps dominated by young

female users mainly include Sina Weibo, Rednote,

Tiktok and LOFTER. The characteristics of these

apps are to support the publication of a large number

of image-based posts, with the main interactive

content being life experiences or emotional records.

At the same time, they support similar users to gather

together for real-time interaction or establish

communities for communication. The social media

promotion of Paper Games is also mainly aimed at

these platforms. For the short video platforms, taking

Tiktok as an example, Paper Games has made

continuous efforts in this marketing channel in recent

years, such as the release of the video creation task

for the characters’ birthday in Love and Deep Space,

watching the Shining Nikki live broadcast of the

Spring Festival and receive welfare packages. One

the one hand, the characteristic of this type of short

video platform is its proficiency in algorithm

recommendations and topic challenges. It can

mobilize more users to participate and promote

through task posting, meeting the needs of young

women who crave interaction and friendship. On the

other hand, compared to static images and text, short

videos have more memorable features in terms of

sound and animation. Nowadays, where young

people face high life pressure, fast pace, and lack of

time to focus on reading long texts, the promotion

method of subtly implanting sound and animation

into users’ minds has a powerful effect.

When selecting physical media, compared to

male-oriented game and general game companies,

Paper Games pay more attention to the placement of

mall advertisements and LED screens outside the

walls of downtown buildings. The main reasons for

selecting such media are not only the direct visual

impact and the fact that women pay more attention to

image information, but also the high activity

geographical location of the target users. Compared

to men, young women are more inclined to go

shopping with friends at the above-mentioned

locations. Advertising placement in these places can

attract the interest of target and potential target users

on a large scale, improve promotional efficiency, and

further expand influence through “Take a selfie with

these game characters and post it” activities on the

Internet. Moreover, Paper Games also focuses on the

brand collaboration of its products. Based on the

collaboration of commonly used props for women’s

social activities such as milk tea, beauty and snacks

(while men’s social activities do not tend to use these

products), it particularly emphasizes the collaboration

with well-known cultural IPs, intangible cultural

heritage skills, and historical relics

. This type of

linkage can effectively enhance the reputation and

raise the level of Paper’s products, apply traditional

elements to the game itself, improve the beauty and

connotation of the graphics, and enhance the cultural

literacy and inner superiority of its users in today’s

focus on promoting traditional culture. It enables

users to meet the emotional needs of improving their

own taste and gaining attention from others in the

process of making friends, and in turn, it affects the

brand and makes users become more loyal.

6 CONCLUSIONS

In today’s environment where consumers

increasingly value personalized needs and

psychological satisfaction, emotional marketing has

become one of the core strategies for the success of

modern brands and has attracted more and more

attention from brand owners. By summarizing the

case of Paper Games, it can be seen that the emotional

marketing of a successful brand mainly includes the

following three characteristics.

Firstly, brands should focus on segmented

markets. Brands provide tailored products and

services for specific consumer groups through precise

market positioning. For example, female players

prefer exquisite graphic design and gentle and loyal

game characters. By understanding and meeting this

demand, Paper Games creates emotionally resonant

ICEML 2025 - International Conference on E-commerce and Modern Logistics

consumer experiences, thereby forming strong brand

loyalty.

Secondly, brands shall prioritize emotional

stimulation as their core driving force. By providing

consumers with products and services that align with

their inner needs, brands aim to stimulate emotional

resonance and cultivate long-term consumption

habits and loyalty.

Thirdly, brands must make satisfying the

psychology needs of users their ultimate goal.

Through precise emotional marketing strategies,

brands can create a positive and comfortable

consumption environment for users, thereby

enhancing user satisfaction and brand loyalty, and

achieving long-term market competitiveness. At this

point, emotional marketing is not only a promotional

tool, but also a core strategy that can stimulate deep

psychological identification.

The significance of this study, from theoretical

perspective, which can expand the application of

emotional marketing theory in the female-oriented

game market, deepen the research on the relationship

between market segmentation and brand building,

and provide targeted marketing mechanism analysis

for women to the gaming industry. From practical

perspective, this study can provide marketing strategy

recommendations for optimizing brand building and

strengthening user emotional connections for female-

oriented game manufacturers, in order to enhance

user stickiness and promote the sustainable

development of female-oriented gaming industry.

The limitation of this study is the lack of in-depth

market research and intuitive data. In future research,

it looks forward to conducting offline interviews or

questionnaire surveys to gain a deeper understanding

of user psychology and highlight the heterogeneous

attributes of different types of female players, in order

to further explore how companies can adopt different

strategies to meet the needs of different types of users.

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Research on the Marketing Mechanism of Female-Oriented Gaming Industry: A Case Study Based on Paper Games