The Influence of Otome Game on Women’s Thought in China

Xun Zhang

College of Media and Communication, University Of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia

Keywords: Female Independence, Female Staring, Social Relationship Development, Feminism.

Abstract: Otome Game have become increasingly popular among Chinese female players, not only because of its

aesthetic appeal and famous voice actors, but also because its plot and character design are in line with

contemporary women's pursuit of independence. Through multi-modal narration and immersive experience,

such the game provides a virtual world for female players perfect partner image, strengthen female

independence consciousness, and provide a space to female players for self-identification and social

relationship development, reflecting contemporary women's pursuit of equality and respect. As the number

of female gamers increases and the gaming market expands, Otome Game is becoming a cultural phenomenon

that promotes social progress and focuses on women's rights. In the meantime, the female characters show

the phenomenon of "staring" in the game, including the mutual staring between women and women become

the main body of staring, which is the outstanding feature of the current Otome Game under the growing

development of feminism. Through its unique narrative and interaction, Otome Game giving a space for

female players to develop self-identity and social relationships, while entertaining players. The game reflects

contemporary women's pursuit of equality and respect, and promotes social progress and concerns the realistic

rights and interests of women.

1 INTRODUCTION

Otome Game is a love simulate game targeting

women players. Such games are characterized by

beautiful pictures, beautiful roles, and majority of

them have famous dubbers throughout the dubbing.

All of them are love themed games, but Otome

Games can not be equated with love games, Because

the female game is often accompanied by friendship,

family and other emotions, as well as the female

career line and other plots of personal life, different

from the love game in which the female can only rely

on the male life. According to the latest statistics, in

2019, the number of women users is 300 million,

accounting for 46% of the total game users in China,

and the marketing revenue is 526.8 million,

accounting for 22.8% of the total revenue. In fact,

prior to 2017, women represented a smaller share of

the gaming market due to product development,

operations, and fewer female-only mobile games.

However, this situation changed in 2017, because the

appear of highly representative Otome Game lovers

and producers led to the development of the female

mobile game market, in the Chinese game market the

consumption scale of female users grew rapidly from

312.3 million yuan in 2016 to 430.7 million yuan in

2017. Data statistics as of February 2018, women

mobile game users penetration rate reached 34. 6%,

the users size reached 2. 900 million. The average

number of installs per female mobile game user is

approximately 3. 77 mobile game apps. Among them,

the local Otome Game in China Love and producer

with a high penetration rate of 66.9% ranks second on

the list of female users' preference (Chen, 2020).

Through the data can be analyzed, in contemporary

society, Otome Games are more and more popular

among women, because modern and contemporary

women pay more cautious about the idea of women

independence, so Otome Games help women bring

the perfect partner in their minds to reality, also guide

or support the idea of female independence through

the plot. The popularity of these games is also closely

related to the changes of the times and the young

generation's view of love and mate selection, which is

a kind of fast food emotional consumption and

subjective practice. Otome Game can use the role to

express and construct their own views of love and

mate selection, and the game experience also gives

the player a richer and more fulfilling life experience.

Similarly, these games construct a new social

structure for women in which the status of women is

promoted, and in some games the female figure can

Zhang, X.

The Inﬂuence of Otome Game on Women’s Thought in China.

DOI: 10.5220/0014116000004942

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

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Applied Psychology and Marketing Management (APMM 2025), pages 391-395

ISBN: 978-989-758-791-7

391

be the pharaoh of Egypt, the queen of the empire, or

the leader of the game of flight and death. They use

this plot design to help women pay attention to their

social status, while emphasizing women's rights and

interests, and through these events, feminism has

become a hot topic in society recently. The research

topic of this thesis is about the influence of Otome

Game on Chinese women's thoughts and the

promotion of feminist development.

2 DEPICTIONS OF WOMEN IN

OTOME GAMES

The women character images of Chinese women in

the game show the female subjectivity consciousness

and the post-feminist thoughts of striving for

women’s individuality, autonomy. Breaking the

patriarchal barrier in physiognomy, ability setting,

professional identity and character. At same time, the

female roles in each game are completely different,

reflecting the diversity of female social images

(Ganzon, 2022). Such as the game Light and Night ,

the female image is an intern designer who opens her

own brand step by step through her own efforts. In the

game Pending Matter Book is an administrative

lawyer. And professions such as lawyers or designers

are generally considered to have a strong degree of

independence. So that independence has gradually

become a prominent feature of women characters in

games, and women characters have not only achieved

economic independence, but also have independent

personalities and thoughts. At the same time, the

female characters exhibit the phenomenon of staring.

This kind of gaze not only includes the female gaze

between each other, but also includes the female to

become the main body of the gaze, which is the

outstanding feature of the current Otome game. When

creating a female role, women will be given more

choices, such as contact with different pursuit objects

at the same time or make choices. This practice makes

women the subjects of the gaze and men the objects

to be stared at. It can be seen that in today's media

culture, the objects to be stared are no longer limited

to female, and everyone will experiencing "staring

and being stared at" (Liu and Cheng, 2024). With the

appear and progress of Otome games to a mature

stage, female characters in games gradually grasp a

higher right to speak and initiative, from the weak

position at the edge of the game to the core position

of controlling the game orientation, feminism has

become a new daily. To a degree, the female

characters in Otome games embody the

characteristics of female individuation, independence

and autonomy advocated by feminism.

3 THE INFLUENCE OF OTOME

GAME ON WOMEN

3.1 Support for Women to Cultivate

Independent Thought

First of all, game is a time-space medium unlike any

other. In the virtual space created by computer, the

game integrates multi-modal narration such as video,

image, sound and text, which has the characteristics

of time and space. Like other video games, Otome

Game are interactive and expressive in a virtual

electronic space. Compared with the mass media such

as movies and novels, Otome Game have more spatial

characteristics. As a medium of time and space,

games can interweave players' time through multiple

layers of space to form play ability, more complete

reconstruction of the female player's experience in the

Otome Game (Yan et al., 2024). By this means, the

player is immersed in the process of reading the story,

and unconsciously accepts the female survival rules

from different situations. Such us, in the game Light

and Night, when the heroine is faced with a forced

marriage from her family, she does not choose to

accept the constraints of inequality and unfreedom.

On the contrary, she chose to give up the benefits

brought by his family, escaped from his marriage,

came to the city independently, and participated in the

design competition on his own ability. After failing in

the competition, he joined Wanzhen Group and grew

step by step from the most basic intern designer to the

studio brand manager. In Otome Game, although the

female master's career can not be completely

consistent with the real professional identity of all

game players, the excellent quality of the female

protagonist can make most players into it. Similarly,

in the game, the men ignore factors such as

appearance and social status, and fall in love with the

master with excellent quality, providing a perfect

situational space for the player to obtain an immersive

experience (Li and Li, 2024). This perfect situation

space is the world view built by the game company,

taking the world view of love and producer as an

example, in this world, the player as the heroine needs

to run the company, unlock the story and explore the

truth of the world. After her dad's death, the she take

over her dad’s film and television company. In order

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to complete the agreement with her father and save

the company that was about to close down, she

devoted herself to the company's operation and

program production after graduation. In the process

of making the program, the female protagonist has

met five male characters which can earn their

favorability, and teamed up with them to find out the

truth and resolve the crisis.

Otome Game creates story plots with female

protagonists, break female stereotypes, and show

another discourse system under the male-dominated

social system. In the process of narrative, women play

the protagonist and can choose the dialogue content

by themselves, and the choice of dialogue content

affects the direction of the plot of the game. This

realization of women's right to speak carries a certain

factor that can transcend the private sphere and the

fictional sphere and establish women's dominant

position in the emerging public circle. Female players

are given the power to choose their own words, but

also burdened with the mission of growth, "love and

dreams must be matched" fully reflected in the game

plot. The female protagonist played by the player not

only has the right to speak, but also strives to chase

dreams and love, representing the gender power

advantage of women in the game, demonstrating their

efforts to express female discourse and construct

female subject status (Zeng and Zhong, 2022). So, in

fact, one of the motivations of Otome Game is to help

players gain self-identity and the confidence to

develop social relationships.

3.2 The Help of Female Social

Relations

The experience of female game is a kind of "cloud

love" for single female players, by satisfying players'

needs for narrative aesthetics and aesthetic

audiovisual, satisfying female players' physical and

mental needs from multiple angles, and building a

new model of emotional satisfaction. The emotional

satisfaction can help individuals complete self-

construction in the virtual society and establish new

pseudo-social relations; From the perspective of

channels, the rise of Otome Game has brought new

ways for female groups to meet. At present, the

concept of "no marriage, no love" is increasingly

popular among young groups. Studying the current

situation and ways of single women's emotional

satisfaction for Otome Game can effectively reveal

the new characteristics of emotional satisfaction

brought by Otome Game. Therefore it can explore the

emotional needs of current single women, and

understand how single female players in Otome

Game are affected by internal and external factors,

build a bridge from emotional needs to emotional

fulfilment (Wang and Yang, 2023). At the same time,

the popularity of Otome Game reflects the spiritual

dilemma and unmet emotional needs of modern

independent women. However, this void is structural

and cannot simply be filled with the pleasure of a

certain type of game, but should promote the progress

of the whole society, encourage people to pay more

attention to the reality of women's situation, and

pursue the real rights and interests of women.

3.3 Analysis of Otome Game Audiences

The majority of users of female games are young,

urban women. In daily life, they experience the

pressure of study or career, also encounter difficult

problems, and become curious about the world

outside their contact scope. In this psychological

state, the player enters the game from the first

perspective, in addition to pursuing the perfect love

relationship, but also is given a new identity, can

achieve certain success in the career field different

from reality, and enrich individual life experience. At

the same time, they are also touched by the good

qualities of the characters in the game, so that they

look forward to becoming better themselves in real

life (Hu, 2022). The virtual world of Otome Game

gives players the opportunity to explore the infinite

possibilities of "another self ", which helps women to

break the old role norms, regain the possibility of

mastering their own fate in parallel space, and even

overturn all existing choices and try again, which

shows the help of Otome Game for women to build

their subjectivity. In reality, ladies may have

emotional difficulties or fail to find someone who

understands them. The characters in Otome Game

often provide psychological support, encouragement

and understanding for female players, thus becoming

the emotional support for women (Pan, 2024). This

virtual emotional relationship can bring comfort and

warmth to women.

3.4 The Emotional Impact of Otome

Game on Users

The relaxed and pleasant plot in the Otome Game,

such as dating, traveling, etc., can help female players

relax and feel happy. The plot of Otome Game often

involves interpersonal relations, such as conflicts

between friends, communication skills and so on.

Through story setting and character interaction,

female players can learn and improve their emotional

The Inﬂuence of Otome Game on Women’s Thought in China

393

intelligence and interpersonal skills in real life (Hao

et al., 2025). The game can also reflect the gradual

change of women's views on mate selection, from the

original trend of conforming to parents, only

choosing the right spouse to choose according to their

own will, no longer go with the flow. At the same

time, their own requirements are no longer arbitrary,

such as the appearance of their spouse, personality,

family history and so on (Han, 2023). With the

increasing awareness of gender equality in today's

society, the relationship of mutual respect has become

the emotional consensus of contemporary women,

and the game has well helped women realize such an

idealized love model. In the game, the male

characters show respect for women, or even hope to

be "taught", and are in a passive position in the love

relationship, which is in sharp contrast to the image

of men as assertive and superior in traditional literary

and artistic narratives. In the game Love and Deep

Space Xinghui Shen's classic line, "You seem to

know everything, so teach me", responds to women's

desire to break away from traditional situations and

become the dominant party. In Light and Night , the

male protagonist Chen Lu once reflected and refuted

the traditional idea that "the girl is the most beautiful

on the wedding day" : "If the girl is difficult to return

to the beauty of the bpast after marriage, the marriage

sounds like a disaster... I want you to be stronger and

more confident every day. That's what makes you

beautiful. So I see you getting more beautiful every

day". The concept of love and marriage conveyed by

the game reflects contemporary women's emotions of

"the pursuit of gender equality and the desire to obtain

due status and respect in love". Each discussion topic

of the game is not only seen by women, so the rise of

the heat of these topics will affect the whole society

to discuss it, and the status of women is also rising in

the discussion

4 DISCUSSION

4.1 The Innovation of Women's Games

Under Feminism

The traditional system regards men as symbols of

power and dominance, and women as passive and

submissive categories. The awakening of feminism is

a question to the inherent gender power structure,

which makes women begin to consciously pursue

gender equality, reflect on gender stereotypes, and

strive for economic independence and social voice. It

is not only a subcultural phenomenon, but also a

cultural product under the change of gender concept,

behind which is the manifestation of female main

body power and the catharsis of aesthetic desire (Li,

2024). Otome Game are innovative from the female

perspective. As the main body of the Otome Game,

female players can judge and stare at the male

characters in the game, and play the roles that are

assumed to be the role of men from different angles,

thus challenging the traditional gender narrative and

presenting a more open and inclusive gender writing.

4.2 Otome Game Long-Term

Development Method

The first is the relationship between game mechanics

and feminism. In Love and Producer, further

development of a relationship with a virtual lover

depends on the acquisition of a game story or new

cards. If the company wants to continue to make

money in a feminist environment, it will need to

eliminate the male gaze from the story and the story

of the new cards, and add some depiction of the

female protagonist's personal abilities. Secondly, the

emotional aspects of female players are also

important. As a long-term partner and incentive,

players can be accompanied and encouraged here,

and even meet the love needs of some players, so that

strong women can also experience sweet love (Liu et

al., 2021). Therefore, it is necessary for the company

to maintain the positive word of mouth of the game in

the long term, introduce some effective activities to

reward players, and most importantly, ensure that the

character image of the male protagonist is fixed, and

do not change frequently. The author thinks the above

two points can help oome Game to have a long-term

development under feminism.

5 CONCLUSION

Otome Game aimed at female gamers have grown

significantly in popularity among Chinese women.

These games are known for their aesthetic appeal and

the involvement of famous voice actors, going

beyond mere romantic themes. The emergence of

games such as Love and Producer has boosted the

female mobile gaming market. The female characters

in the game show the female subject consciousness

and post-feminist thought, pursuing individuality,

autonomy and breaking through the shackles of

patriarchy. Resonating with contemporary women

who value the idea of female autonomy, they provide

a virtual representation of the ideal partner through

their narratives and reinforce the idea of female

independence. Through multi-modal storytelling,

APMM 2025 - International Conference on Applied Psychology and Marketing Management

394

such as video, images, sound and text, the game

creates an immersive gaming experience that allows

players to experience different rules of survival in a

virtual space. Otome Game provide a "cloud love"

experience for single female players, meet their needs

for narrative aesthetics and audiovisual aesthetics,

meet the psychological needs of female players from

multiple perspectives, help them complete self-

construction in the virtual society, and establish a new

pseudo-social relationship. Through its unique

narrative and interaction, Otome Game provide

female players with a space for self-identification and

social relationship development while entertaining,

reflecting contemporary women's pursuit of equality

and respect, and becoming a cultural phenomenon

that promotes social progress and pays attention to

women's realistic rights and interests.

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