Analyse Female College Students' Emotional Needs from The Otome

Game Perspective

Ye Song

School of History, Culture and Tourism, Huaiyin Normal University, Huai'an, Jiangsu, 223001, China

Keywords: Standards in Choosing a Mate, Spiritual Bonding, Equal Relationship.

Abstract: Scholars have found that, to some extent, female players satisfy their emotional needs through the Otome

Game. This text will take the female college students as the object of the study and explore the influence of

the Otome Game on their views of love through in-depth interviews with a few female college students.

According to the research findings, on the one hand, the Otome Game makes up a certain extent of female

college students' emotional needs. On the other hand, there are also some findings that have presented those

female college students with new views on the standards of spouse selection, love attitudes, love purposes,

and so on. Female college students they should keep sober cognition all the time and contact more with

realistic males. Besides, the Otome Game needs to strengthen content review to enrich the plot and the

character design.

1 INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the game industry has released a

dating sim game, which has been very popular,

relying on diverse elements such as abundant plot

designs, perfect protagonist images, exquisite

pictures, and so on. The player will play a female role

who can experience love stories with different heroes

and choose different dialogue options to promote the

improvement of the story and complete it in the end

(Li, 2024). These games are called the Otome Game,

which has attracted many female college students.

Female group is the main audience of the game

because it can satisfy their appreciation of beauty,

interests and emotional needs. According to the latest

data in Qimai, as for October 2024, the estimated

amount of trade of Otome Game: Love and the Deep

Space, Like a kite, Outside of the world, Light and

Night ranked in the top four with the amount of 324

million, 288 million, 71. 4 million and 45. 12 million

respectively, which have reached 728 million. In

addition, according to the data from Frost&Sullivan,

the market size of Otome Game has increased

continuously and its proportion in the overall gaming

market has increased from 19% in 2018 to 32% in

2023 (Fang & Tian, 2024). Thus, it can be seen that

the Otome Game is rapidly rising.

There was a scholar who once analyzed the

generation and maintenance of Otome Game in his

article, and he also thought the game uses symbol

systems like language, narration, and interaction to

make players indulge in the "Pure Love Utopia" of the

game and complete the compensatory satisfaction of

emotions as well as identification (Ding, 2023). At

the same time, there was also a scholar who focused

on studying single female players who satisfied their

aesthetic and self pleasure through the game.

Moreover, he found a new emotional satisfaction

mechanism and concluded that the process of

emotional satisfaction has broken the dimensional

wall and has extended to real life by changing the

game mechanics. In synthesizing domestic and

foreign researches, a few researchers analyse

emotional operation mechanism hiding behind the

game from the generation and maintenance of

players' emotional perspective in domestic. While

some foreign scholars has found that the game

gradually became a medium which help the new era

women to make announcements. More studies

focused on feminine emotions to analyse the

connection between the game and feminine emotions

and explain the specific content and playing methods

of the game. However, this article will explore the

influence of this game on female college students'

love values and analyse their emotional needs

nowadays through interviewing a few female college

Song, Y.

Analyse Female College Students’ Emotional Needs from the Otome Game Perspective.

DOI: 10.5220/0013999600004912

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

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Innovative Education and Social Development (IESD 2025), pages 473-478

ISBN: 978-989-758-779-5

473

students to promote further improvement of this field

in the new era. As the female college students is the

immature minded group, so it is definitely important

to guide them to establish healthy and correct love

values today because their experience and ideas are

different from each other for the game.

2 METHOD

2.1 The Concept of Undoing Gender

Theory

Undoing gender theory is the extension and

development of Doing Gender Theory, it says that

people proceed social interaction and carry out tasks

according to their roles not the fixed gender norms.

As fixed social norms and the characteristics of social

structure are been highly questioned and have

mobility, so people do this to eliminate gender

difference in daily life (Pinho & Gaunt, 2021).

From a traditional perspective, people think

"Women should lead inside while men should lead

outside", just like girls should choose dancing or

drawing as their hobbies while boys should like

outdoor activities such as playing football, basketball

or cycling. However, in today's rapidly developing

era, there have appeared many new phenomena on

vocational choice, family role division and some

other aspects. For example, males can be stay-at-

home fathers to take responsibility for taking care of

children and cleaning the house, while females can

also be a professional elite who is the economic pillar

of the family (Pinho & Gaunt, 2021). Boys can

choose dancing as their hobbies, and girls can be keen

on playing football (Hills et al., 2021). Changes in

these phenomena are presenting Undoing gender and

interpreting people challenging traditional gender

norms as well as gender inequality. One individual

does something or generates some kind of behaviour

is due to his/her interest or ideal not the fixed gender

norms. As the female college students of the

millennial generation, their views of love and

marriage appear differently to some extent to

traditional love views. In addition, the Otome Game

has prevailed among female college students to what

extent these games will impact their emotional

attitudes. As a result, based on the influence of

various factors, using the Undoing gender theory to

analyse how female college students proceed undoing

on their love and emotional appeal of women in new

era, which may help to know further about women

today and also to some extent develop Undoing

gender theory.

2.2 Research Design

This study mainly used semi-structured interviews,

starting with female college students who play the

Otome Game to analyse the impact of the game on

their views of love. By voice calls and video calls

online or just by an offline face-to-face conversation

with female college students to learn about their

thoughts, attitudes, and views. The interview method

is pretty flexible so it can help to understand more

information about interviewees deeply. For example,

this method may help to guess students' mental

thoughts through their micro expression changes and

adjust issues timely on the basis of their answers and

reactions.

This research mainly choose 7 female college

students who have played Otome Game not less than

6 months as interviewees (As shown in Table 1).

There is more than one reason for choosing them as

interviewees, not only the female college students are

the major players of the game but also they are more

typical and symbolic to show women's views of love

and emotional needs in the new era.

On the basis of their answers on motivations for

playing the game, achievements they got from the

game, opinions on the game and so on, design the

outline of questions. The questions mainly involve

the duration of playing the game, how to contact with

the game at first, the reason for insisting on playing

the game, different experience on virtual love and real

love and so on. The interview time for each

interviewee is about 30 minutes.

Table 1: Information of each interviewee.

Number Age Duration of playing

game

Relationship

status

S1 21 8 months Singe

S2 22 half a year In love

S3 21 1 year Single

S4 21 1 year In love

S5 21 two and a half years Single

S6 23 8 months Single

S7 21 1 year Single

IESD 2025 - International Conference on Innovative Education and Social Development

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3 RESULT

3.1 Analysis of The Influence of Otome

Game on Female College Students

Learning from conversations with interviewees, the

contact with heroes in the game has influenced them

in some aspects and they represent their unique ideas

about love as new era women.

3.1.1 Improve Self-Confidence and

Self-Identification

Players have improved self-confidence and self-

identification through Otome Game and at the same

time, the game also develops their positive attitude to

life. Each interviewee said that the hero in the game

is almost perfect, even the appearances and characters

of all heroes are consistent with players' ideal type.

The hero's personality charm and sexual tension

increase students' motivation to play the game.

Except for the hero's good looking and good shape,

what is most important is that the hero respects and

takes care of female players. They give players

unconditional love, companionship, understanding

and sufficient emotional value in various stories. All

the heroes centered around players and praised them

for making players grow up to be loved. For instance,

Xu Mo, a hero in the game Love and Deep Space,

once told a player that "You are the only colour in my

eyes". Acclaim and recognition like this are common

in Otome Game, which will improve the self-

confidence and self-identification of players

gradually. From S5's saying "This is a game that helps

me become a better and more confident person to love

this world. " Meanwhile, the positive attitude that

heroes show to players also makes female college

students feel they are valuable, cherished and

important, so they should love themselves more and

strive to become better.

3.1.2 Higher Standards in Choosing a Mate

When players usually interact with a nearly perfect

hero, those female college students may project the

hero image standard onto reality, thus increasing the

standard and requirement that they look for a mate in

real life. They may compare the image of heroes in

the game and males in reality, which can be analyzed

by the theory of network mimetic environment. The

concept of pseudo-environment is proposed by

Walter Lippmann who thinks the information

environment formed by mass media is not the mirror

reproduction of the objective environment, but a

reshaping pseudo-environment created by symbolical

events or processed information (Xu, 2023). The

image of those heroes in the Otome game is a

recreated pseudo-environment. If female college

students interact with these perfect virtual heroes,

they will put the standard of men at a higher level.

Although female college students may know that

perfect people like in the game hardly appear in real

life, their subconsciousness dominates their

behaviors. Once their standards on men reach the top

of the pyramid, they may be hardly willing to lower

standards in their minds. Just like S5 once said that:

"I have met such excellent men in the game, so it is

sure that I don't want to meet a boy who has common

abilities or even worse." Otherwise, there will be a

sense of unevenness in her mind. What is even worse

is when students find there isn't anybody who

matches their standards in their minds, they may feel

disappointed about men in real life and devote

themselves to virtual love, which will strengthen their

dependency on virtual emotion.

3.1.3 Pursuing Soulmates for Spiritual

Bonding and Equal Relationship

In the traditional world, people think that women

should choose men who have similar or even higher

incomes economically (Shu-Li & Ying, 2024).

However, findings from answers by interviewees

show that female college students long to find an

equal relationship of love with a soul mate who has a

spiritual understanding with them. After interacting

with heroes deeply in the game, what appeals to

players most is not the hero's good looks and shape

but the love and esteem that heroes give to female

players (Ni & Zhang, 2023). For example, the hero in

a game called Like a Kite once said a sentence "The

destiny ought to fall in women." Notably, the hero

doesn't oppose women's struggle for power, but they

support women to do everything that they want in the

game society. Similarly, Guang Lingwang, a role that

a female player plays, is an intelligent and

independent heroine in the game. She dares to love

and hate with stable emotions, not a traditional

woman who is mild and submissive under the

patriarchal system but dares to be herself by

challenging traditional social norms on her behaviors,

which shows people how she is undoing gender.

Guang taught each female player that soft and

obedience are never pronouns of women, females

Analyse Female College Students’ Emotional Needs from the Otome Game Perspective

475

should live for themselves, just like the saying, "The

ending of Otome Game is to teach each girl to love

themselves more, loving myself makes me feel happy

and warm." (S4, as shown in Table 1).

Heroes in the game never look at themselves with

a higher status, not to mention that they oppose

heroines to pursue their dreams and careers. Besides,

the female player can be a supporter who stays with

the hero facing difficulties to encourage him to cheer

up. The love between them is pure and simple; they

are lovers who make joint efforts for a better future.

Female college students gain a spiritual

understanding and experience an equal relationship of

love from the hero. As a result, in a society full of

fierce competition and distant interpersonal

relationships at present, female college students want

to find a soul mate who can achieve spiritual

resonance with them, not just satisfy the economy

simply (Li, 2024).

3.1.4 Be More Rational and Positive Times

Love

The Otome Game makes female college students

more rational and positive to love. The full emotional

values and excellent love experience provided by the

hero have made up single female college students'

emotional absence to some extent. When the student

has a date with the hero, she also learns about a

healthy method of love, which will help to improve

their recognition of playboys in reality. Moreover,

female college students become more rational about

love than before because they have been looked after

well by heroes in the game, so they know what true

love is, which will help them reduce the possibility of

choosing a playboy as their boyfriend. In addition,

female students become more peaceful to love. They

don't want to fall in love with a boy hurriedly or

casually but just let the nature to take its course. It is

also glad that they are more positive about love than

before S1 said: "Before playing Otome Game, I'm not

interested in falling in love with others, I think I can

look after myself well. But after playing it, I have

found that I'm looking forward to finding a boy who

can give warmth and love to me. Maybe he just stays

in a corner of the world; I haven't met him yet." The

interaction with the hero has made female college

students have no expectations of loving, be more

positive about love, and look forward to finding a boy

to take care of them.

3.2 Problems

At the same time as Otome Game is bringing a few

positive influences on female college students, there

are also some problems and irregular phenomena

generating, which should not be ignored either.

3.2.1 Increasing the Difficulty of Finding a

Lover

An immersive experience in virtual love for a long

time will make female college students bring the

perfect image of the hero into reality unconsciously

and increase the standards of spouse selection in real

life. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses in

reality, so it is impossible for real men to do

everything perfectly as those heroes in Otome Game.

If female college students keep that high standard in

mind to find boyfriends in reality, it will even

increase the difficulty of finding a suitable lover and

generate a sense of unevenness by comparing the

image of males between the virtual world and real

life. If students can't address the sense of unevenness

well, they will even rely on virtual love more than

before to gain emotional needs and become resistant

to real men.

3.2.2 The Irregularity of the Plot in the

Otome Game

In addition, the Otome Game is designed for female

players to play. However, some games' production

teams are mostly composed of male producers, and

there are some irregular phenomena, such as opening

yellow guns and talking rotten memes in individual

games, which spread unhealthy and incorrect loving

values to female college students. Female players also

feel uncomfortable with some heroes' inappropriate

behaviors (Peng et al., 2023), it is harmful and

disrespectful to female college students.

4 DISCUSSION

4.1 Increasing the Interaction vs. The

Real World and Understanding of

Real Men

Female college students should control the playing

time of Otome Game, and when they enjoy it

temporarily, they ought to return to real life and

contact real men positively and actively. The hero is

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shaped nearly perfectly in the game that has a large

gap with real men in reality. Besides, the para-social

interaction shaped in the process of interacting with

heroes in virtual love caters to female college

students' emotional needs (Wang & Yang, 2023).

However, it is unavoidable that the Otome Game may

make students out of touch with reality because some

students are immature and addicted to the game

(Zhang & Chen, 2022).

There are more than 2/3 of interviewees recharging

in the game, and the money spent on the game is

roughly up to 2000 or even more yearly. Some of the

students think it is time-consuming and energy-

consuming to have a date in reality, so they are

attracted by the comfortable zone of the Otome Game

(Ding, 2023). However, the essential purpose of the

game is to pursue profit and efficiency, does the game

solve single women's emotional problems

fundamentally? The answer is not. Female college

students are becoming involved in the "Emotional

McDonaldization" system when they recharge and

complete tasks in the game (Ding, 2023). The money,

time, and energy that players pay in the game are

converted into cold numbers that lack human

feelings. Their emotional need is satisfied at that

moment merely, but when players face troubles and

ask for help in reality, it is clear that those heroes will

not jump out of the screen to give help or care to

players in a timely. As a result, female players should

draw boundaries between the virtual world and real

life as well as learn to accept and understand real men.

Thus, it can reduce the sense of unevenness in players'

minds possibly.

4.2 Regulate the Game Plot and Spread

Healthy Values

For the Otome Game to spread correct and healthy

values, it needs to regulate the pot and enrich

character design. Learned from interviewees that

there are some irregular phenomena, such as opening

yellow guns and talking rotten memes in individual

games, and players feel uncomfortable with some

heroes' inappropriate behaviors. To eliminate these

phenomena, on the one hand, it is significant for the

production teams to review character role settings

more carefully and innovate the heroes' images

diversely, which may help to avoid the aesthetic

fatigue of players. When designing the heroes'

personalities, designers can also integrate the

characteristics of real men to strengthen the reality in

the game and avoid bringing one-sided cognition of

men's image to female players (Peng et al., 2023). On

the other hand, game developers should check plots

carefully to ensure that the contents of the stories

ought to meet women's psychological needs and

represent respect and equality of love. The developers

can add some cases happening to real couples in life,

which will strengthen the truth of interaction between

heroes and players as well as spread healthy values of

love to female college students. If the game designers

and developers can innovate and check the details

discussed above, it can not only promote the

sustainable development of Otome Game but also

guide female college students to view love in real life

positively and correctly.

5 CONCLUSION

This study has found that female college students

have built a mutually respectful and equal

relationship of virtual love where students have

gained sufficient emotional needs and excellent

experience of loving with heroes. The warmth and

care provided by heroes in the game make players

improve self-confidence and self-identification. They

have also realized their values and are known to love

themselves more than before. Meanwhile, the game

impacts students' views of love and marriage

gradually. It is concluded that they become more

positive and rational about love, but their standards of

spouse selection are higher than before. What's more,

they pursue finding a soul mate who has spiritual

resonance with them and wants to construct healthy

relationships with their boyfriends. In general,

playing Otome Game promotes the consciousness of

women to awaken and boost the growth of females in

a new era. However, to prevent players from

indulging in the virtual world, female college students

are asked to improve self-control while playing the

game and build correct, realistic cognition. Besides,

the coordination of game designers is not neglected,

they should stick to resist vulgar phenomena and

ensure the spread of correct values to players. With

the rapid development of the era, the emotional needs

of female college students are becoming more and

more complex, and the influence factors of their

loving values are becoming more varied. There is still

a need for comprehensive and in-depth studies on

how to ensure their healthy growth and satisfy their

diverse emotional needs in the future.

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