School Code 10459

Student Number or
Application Number
201722074011417 Confidentiality
Level

Professional Master's Degree

Thesis

Game Mirroring and

Identity: A Study of Female
Players in Female-Oriented
Games

author Author Surname Name: Zou Jingchen

guide Teacher Name：Li Jinglei Associate
Professor
Name of D e g r e e P r o g r a m : Master
of Journalism and Communication
Training Name of Specialized Degree:
Master's Degree in Journalism and
Communication School of Journalism
and Communication Department: School
of Journalism and Communication
complete Finished Date: May 2019
 A thesis(dissertation) submitted to
Zhengzhou University

for the degree of Master (Doctor)

Mirror image in games and identity.

The research of Female gamer in female game

ByZou jingchen
Supervisor: Prof. Li jinglei
Master of Journalism and Communications
School of Journalism and Communications
April 2019
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 summaries
In the era of the continuous development of China's game industry, female-oriented
games, with women as the consumer group, have begun to show their prominence in the
game market. Different from the previous default games made from a male perspective,
female-oriented games are designed with women as the main body, and made with
women's needs as the starting point. These games are usually equipped with easy-to-
follow game mechanics, beautiful game graphics, beautiful characters, and interesting
storylines. Such female-oriented games gained the attention of female consumers as soon
as they hit the market, and more and more game makers have begun to produce such
female-oriented games with women's needs as the main content. This paper takes the
feminist perspective as the entry point, analyzes the textual content of female-oriented
games, and combines the network observation method, questionnaire survey method and
in-depth interview method to explore the gender issues in female-oriented games and
the game experience of female players.
Chapter 1, mainly through the combing of existing literature and the organization of
feminist theory, to find out the theoretical basis used in the article, and then carry out the
research design, clarify the research ideas and methods, and clear up the ideas for the
following research; Chapter 2, firstly, to provide an overview of the female-oriented games
and their development, to clarify the object of the study, and then analyze the content of
female-oriented games from the perspective of the reconstruction of female subjects and
the hegemony of male discourse. Then, through the analysis of the content of female-
oriented games, we analyze it from the perspectives of the reconstruction of female
subjects and the hegemony of male discourse, and deeply analyze the ideological kernel
implied in female-oriented games; Chapter 3 is an empirical research on female players,
which investigates and analyzes female gamers through the network observation method,
questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews, and summarizes the results of the research from
the three perspectives of the user profile of female gamers, the propensity of female gamers
to choose male game roles, and female gamers' identities. Chapter 4 analyzes the gender
problems encountered by female gamers inside and outside the game from the three perspectives of
the shaping of social discourse on women, the constraints of male discourse, and the awakening
of women's subjective consciousness, and explores the identities that female gamers obtain in
the game.
In this paper, we found that female-oriented games are games with women as the first
perspective, reflecting women's subjective consciousness, and the female characters in the games
are also in line with the current position of professional women, but the male characters and the
core of the stories in the games are still the traditional masculinist values. In the empirical
study of female gamers, it was found that female gamers are mostly young and educated students
or white-collar workers, who have feminist subjectivity and pursue their own development,
and that female-oriented games satisfy their desire for love, and at the same time, they gain
identity as female gamers in the games. In general, female-oriented games reflect women's needs
and are women's discourse. Even though they are mixed with masculinist content, it does
not prevent female-oriented games from becoming a women's exclusive object and a way
for women to express their right to speak.
Keywords: feminism, female gamers, female-oriented games, identity

I
 abstract
In the era of the continuous development of the Chinese game industry, women
who use women as a consumer group have begun to show their prominence in the
game market. Unlike the games that were made by the default male perspective,
women's design concept is based on women. The main body, a game made from the
needs of women. These games are usually equipped with simple game mechanics,
beautiful game graphics, beautiful game characters, and fun gameplay. This kind of
female-oriented game has gained the attention of female consumers as soon as it goes
public. More and more game makers have begun to make this kind of female-oriented
game with a focus on women. More and more game makers have begun to make this
kind of female-oriented game with female demand as the main content. This article
takes the feminist perspective as the starting point, analyzes the text content of
women to the game, and combines the methods of network observation,
questionnaire and in-depth interviews to explore the gender problems of women in
the game and its implications for women. This article takes the feminist perspective
as the starting point, analyzes the text content of women to the game, and combines
the methods of network observation, questionnaire and in-depth interviews to explore
the gender problems of women in the game and the game experience of female
players.
The first chapter mainly finds out the theoretical basis of the article by combing
the existing literature and the research of feminist theory, then carries out research
design, clears the research ideas and methods, and clears the way of thinking for the
following research; In the second chapter. First, an overview of women's game and its
development, clear research objects, and then through the analysis of women's content
to the game, from the perspective of female subject reconstruction and male subject
reconstruction to female subject reconstruction. In the second chapter, First, an
overview of women's game and its development, clear research objects, and then
through the analysis of women's content to the game, from the perspective of female
subject reconstruction and male discourse hegemony, in-depth analysis of women to
the game and the core of the thought implicit. the third chapter is an empirical study
of female players, through the network observation method, questionnaire survey
method and in-depth interview method for female game players to investigate and
analyze the content of the game. The third chapter is an empirical study of female
players, through the network observation method, questionnaire survey method and

II
in-depth interview method for female game players to investigate and analyze, from
the female player's user portrait and female player's game role . The results of the
study are summarized from three aspects: the female player's user portrait, the female
player's game character selection tendency, and the female player's identity. The
results of the study are summarized from three aspects: the female player's user
portrait, the female player's game character selection tendency, and the female
player's identity. The fourth chapter is about the female players in the game from the
three aspects of social discourse on women, the restraint of male discourse and the
awakening of female subject consciousness. Examining the gender issues discussed
and exploring the female players in the game Identity. Examining the gender issues
discussed and exploring the female players in the game Identity.
In the study of women's game texts, this paper finds that women's game is a
game with women as the first perspective, which reflects the female's subjective
consciousness. At the same time, the female character setting in the game is also in
the context of women's games.

II
I
In the empirical research on female players, it is found that female players are young
educated students or white-collar workers. In the empirical research on female
players, it is found that female players are young educated students or white-collar
workers. They have feminist subject concepts and pursue their own development.
Women satisfy their love for love. At the same time, they gain identity as female
players in the game. In general, women reflect the needs of women to the game. They
are women's words. Even if they contain masculine content, they do not prevent
women from becoming a female exclusive item. Even if they contain masculine
content, they do not prevent women from becoming a female exclusive item.
Key words: Feminist; female gamers; Female game; identity

I
V
 catalogs

Abstract....................................................................................................... I
Abstract...................................................................................... Abstract.
Catalog...................................................................................................... V

Introduction................................................................................................ 1
Section I. Background to the selection of the topic............................................. 1
Section 2: Significance of the study..................................................................... 2
Chapter 1 Research foundations: theory, methodology and research ideas 3
Section I. Literature review................................................................................ 3
— Current status of foreign research.......................................................................... 3

II Current status of domestic research......................................................................... 5

Section II. Sources of Feminist Development.................................................... 8

— Feminism's "Three Greats"............................................................................ 8

II Postmodern Feminism........................................................................................... 9

Section III. Research Methodology and Research Ideas.................................. 13

Chapter 2 Game mirroring: content presentation in female-oriented games 15
Section 1: An Overview of Feminist Games and Their Development.............. 15
— Overview of female-oriented games................................................................... 15

II The Development of Feminist Games in China.................................................... 17

Section 2: Presentation of Content in Feminist Games..................................... 18

— The Reconstruction of the Female Subject.......................................................... 19
II Manifestations of Male Discourse Hegemony...................................................... 21
Chapter 3: An Empirical Investigation of Female Gamers....................... 24
Section I. Research design................................................................................ 24
— Sample Selection............................................................................................... 24
II. Questionnaire design.......................................................................................... 24
III Interview design................................................................................................. 25
IV Research hypotheses........................................................................................... 26

Section II. Findings........................................................................................... 26

V
 — User Profile of Female Gamers.......................................................................... 26
II Female Players' Preference for Male Game Characters........................................ 28
III Identity of Female Players.................................................................................. 31
Chapter 4 Conclusions and Discussion of the Study................................. 35
Section I. The Shaping of Women in the Social Discourse.............................. 35
Section 2: The Binding of Male Discourse....................................................... 36
Section III. The Awakening of the Female Subjective Consciousness.............. 38
Conclusion................................................................................................ 40
References................................................................................................. 41
Appendix.................................................................................................. 43
Curriculum Vitae Academic papers and research results published during the course of
study......................................................................................................... 46
Acknowledgements.................................................................................... 47

VI
 preface

Section I. Background to the selection of the topic

In recent years, China's game industry has continued to develop. The 2018 China Game
Industry Report shows that the actual sales revenue of China's game market in 2018
amounted to 214.44 billion yuan, up 5.3% year-on-year accounting for about 23.6% of the
global game market. Games are no longer a niche hobby, but have turned into an
entertainment item closely linked to the daily life of the masses, especially with the
development of the Internet, games are no longer an in-depth experience that can only be
carried out in front of a computer; they have entered the mass-popularized platform of cell
phones, becoming a bit of a pastime in people's fragmented time. As games have shifted
from PC and console to mobile, the audience of games has also changed, with more
young people joining the camp of game enthusiasts, and the female player group has also
become a force to be reckoned with.
In the game consumption market, male players used to dominate, however,
according to the January-June 2018 China Game Industry Report jointly released by
China Association for Audio and Digital Games (GPC) & Gamma Data (CNG), "The
consumption scale of female game users has been increasing in recent years, with the
consumption scale of female users in January-June 2018 was 24.15 billion yuan, up
13.5% year-on-year. The consumption amount of female users continues to grow, and
has become an important force driving the game market to maintain rapid growth."
The consumption scale of female users in China's game market i n 2018 was
49.04 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.8%. the scale of female users in
China's game market in 2018 was 290 million, a year-on-year increase of 11.5%.
Traditionally, the gaming market has always been a male dominated market, and the
vast majority of previous games were designed for men from a development standpoint,
often focusing on linear level mechanics or complex gameplay, often with the goal of
allowing players to achieve a sense of accomplishment through complex maneuvers to
get through the game. Even when female gamers come to experience male-oriented
games, they are marginalized by male gamers as rookies by default. However, female-
oriented games have changed this situation by taking women as the main audience of the
game, changing the hardcore gameplay of male-oriented games in the past, and instead
putting in enough effort on graphics, plot, and voice-overs, so that female gamers can
easily get the fun of the game.
As many game makers have noticed the money-sucking power of female-oriented
games, more and more female-oriented games have appeared on the market. This kind of
game developed specifically for the female audience is different from the previous games
developed mainly for male players, it focuses more on the experience of emotions in the
game, the gameplay is easier to operate, and the tone of the game is softer. And one type of
this type of game is Otome Game with love experience as the content of the game, and the
mobile game Love and Maker, which exploded on the Internet in early 2018, is a
representative of this, in which the game provides female players with emotional
interaction and satisfaction through the simulation of love scenarios.

1
 Section II. Significance of the study
Feminism as a trend of thought, a social movement for the liberation of women,
has gone through three waves. Beginning with the French Enlightenment, for more than two
hundred years, feminism has been committed to appealing to the value of women as human
beings and fighting for women's equality with men. The first wave of feminism fought
for women's equal rights with men to vote, to employment, to education, to inheritance of
property, and so on; the second wave of feminism eliminated the gender differences between men and
women on the basis of women's physiology and psychology, and demanded that the public sphere be
opened up fully to women, so as to minimize the differences between the sexes. The third wave of
feminism emphasizes that men and women are not dichotomous, but rather that diversity
and difference should be addressed from a "female" perspective. "The third wave of
feminism emphasizes women's concern for themselves, their attitudes toward life, and
their choice of lifestyle."
After three waves of feminist thinking, modern women have already possessed a
preliminary sense of independence. For Chinese women, after the founding of New
China, the idea of "the times are different, men and women are the same" has ignited a
spark for the emancipation of Chinese women, but in this social environment, women
have a tendency to hide their "femininity". However, in this social environment, women
have a tendency to hide their "femininity". After the reform and opening up, Chinese
women regained their "femininity", but some of them were confined to the private
sphere of the family. By now, Chinese women's gender role perception has gone beyond
the stage of role enlightenment, Chinese women have already possessed an independent
personality consciousness, no longer the traditional feudal society in which women were
subordinate to men, Chinese women have entered a new stage of independence and the
pursuit of personal development. In mainstream film and TV dramas, there are new
women in the workplace who are smart and capable, relying on their own ability and
unremitting struggle to become social elites. In the urban family emotional drama "All's
Well", which started broadcasting in January 2019, Su Mingyu, the youngest sister of
the Su family, went through all kinds of trials and tribulations in the patriarchal family
and finally became the general manager of the group, which is a representative image of
contemporary women in the workplace in film and television dramas.
However, judging from the content of female-oriented games nowadays, the plot of
the game is not set to highlight female characters, but rather to interpret the stories of
male characters from a female perspective. The male characters are still in a dominant
position in the plot of the game, and this kind of game content is not entirely consistent
with the general trend of equality and independence of women. Therefore, this paper
attempts to explore the female identity of female players in the gaming experience from a
feminist perspective, based on the interpretation of the content of female-oriented games.

(1)
Wang Lihua, Dissenting Voices in the Context of Globalization: A Critique of Feminism, Beijing: Peking University Press, 2008, p. 46.

2
 Chapter 1: Foundations of the study: theory,
methodology and research ideas Road
The research basis of this paper includes a review of domestic and international
literature on feminism and female players, a compendium of feminist genres, and a
formulation of the core theories of feminism used in this paper. Theory is the perspective
and analytical tool for problem research, and research method is the path to realize the
research intention. This chapter focuses on the literature review, theoretical tools, and
methodological tools that form the basis of the research.

Section I. Literature review

The study of female-oriented games and female gamers is inseparable from the
exploration of feminism. Therefore, the keywords of the literature review in this paper
are "feminism" and "female gamers", and we will sort out the previous research results
from these two perspectives, and organize them from both foreign and domestic
perspectives, so as to lay the foundation for the following research.

-Current status of research abroad

(i) Feminism
Chenming Zhang (2019) ② argues that feminism arises from social change and
social work arises from the practice of altruism. The urgent need to solve real problems
combines feminism and social work. Feminist social work theory initially focused on the
reconstruction of women's social identity. As practice developed, this attempt was
gradually replaced by a more personalized feminist-oriented social work theory that was
grounded in discourse enhancement and achieved a contemporary transfer of feminist
social work. The combination of feminism and social work has had many positive effects.
Since then, feminism has shifted from theoretical research to wider practice, contributing
to the development of contemporary women's rights and interests protection, and social
work has taken on a new connotation and direction, and has gradually matured under the
guidance of correct theory.
Jill Blackmore (2019) ③ explores feminism in education, rethinking the neoliberal
discourse of education centered on human capital theory through Yeatman's democratic
framing of social liberalism and Nussbaum's view of competence, tracing the historical
conditions of neoliberalism in 'pro-British countries'. The historical conditions of
neoliberalism in 'pro-British countries' are traced. Feminists advocate for a just
democratic society that focuses on relationships, rights and responsibilities, criticizing
classical liberal social, political and economic theories and the gender binary in
everyday social relations.
Carleigh J. Davis (2019)4 argues that digital spaces, even male-gendered ones,
whether implicitly or explicitly, rely on feminist rhetorical practices as their functional and
theoretical foundation. While

②
Chenming Zhang. a Study on the Contemporary Turn of Feminist-Oriented Social Work Theory and Its
Influence. advances in Applied Sociology,2019,09(02 ).
③
Jill Blackmore. feminism and neo/liberalism: contesting education's possibilities. discourse: studies in the
cultural politics of Education, 2019, 40(2).
④
Carleigh J. Davis. Feminist Rhetorical Practices in Digital Spaces. computers and Composition, 2019, 52.

3
Many of these spaces are still openly opposed to the participation of women and minorities,
but this hostility is at odds with the rhetorical approach to shaping the culture of the
place/movement in question, and is therefore ultimately counterproductive to the goals
of these spaces. Diversity is thus not only a goal of feminism, but also a means for the
continued success of the digital movement.
Hines (2019)⑤ then explores the relationship between feminists and trans women
from a feminist and anti-feminist perspective. Using primary case study material
collected using a virtual methodology, events from the millennium onwards are explored
which are used to highlight particular epistemological and political tensions between feminist
and anti-feminist movements. Central themes running throughout the case studies include the
Women's Constitution, the regulation of feminist identities and spaces, and issues of bodily
autonomy. She emphasizes the importance of countering anti-exclusionary feminisms and
the connection between feminism and transgenderism as an important social justice
project of our time.
Foreign research on feminism has been conducted from a wide variety of
perspectives, from politics, education to digital space, exploring the development of
feminism at many levels, as well as the causes of the anti-feminist movement, and
spanning a wide range of theoretical levels, from liberalism to rhetorical approaches,
reflecting the wide range of foreign concerns about feminist issues.

(ii) Female players

There is also a dearth of research on female gamers abroad, and female gamers are still
on the fringes of the foreign gaming scene.
Jessica Enevold (2016)vi explores the culture of diversity in gaming by cutting through the
lens of older women, mothers, in an attempt to give space to social actors like mothers to
play. The study generalizes the everyday data of playful mothers as Mama Ludens to
provide an empirical basis for the research and centers on the play of time and leisure
management in family life in order to measure equality in everyday life: how play
restructures their lives and roles, and how roles and lives are restructured according to their
play. From a feminist perspective, the research calls for a diverse gaming culture and a
balanced gaming environment that allows for a more egalitarian gaming culture for players
of all ages and genders. This is done to increase the development and dissemination of qualitative
methods in game studies offered by the Feminist Action Research Institute and to explicitly call for
feminist calls for critical game studies and critical scholarship aimed at eradicating the demise of
the female gamer in popular culture and a sexist gaming culture.
For the aspect of female gamer identity, Lotte Vermeulen (2017) ⑦ conducted a
large-scale survey of female gamers to study how female gamers identify themselves.
Female gamers are consistently excluded from gaming culture, which results in them
occupying a lower position in games compared to male gamers. The results of the study
show that women construct their own gamer identities from different dimensions such as
cognition, evaluation, and emotion, and although female

⑤
Hines. the feminist frontier: on trans and feminism. journal of Gender Studies,2019,28(2).
Enevold, J. Mama Ludens Ex Domo: Using Feminist Methods to Diversify Game Culture. abstract from THE
(6)

FIRST INTERNATIONAL JOINT CONFERENCE OF DIGRA AND FDG, Dundee, United Kingdom.,2016.
⑦
LotteVermeulen .Tracing female gamer identity. an empirical study into gender and stereotype threat
perceptions. computers in Human Behavior Volume 71, June 2017, Pages 90-98

4
The construction of the player's identity is not related to women's interpersonal interactions,
but female players who have strong relationships with other women around them do not
tend to identify themselves as players, and at the same time, male players do not encourage
women to label themselves as players due to the discrimination of male players'
experiences. This suggests that female players are in a weaker position within the female
community as well as the male community, and that they are not confident in their identity as
gamers.
For a study of the gaming experiences of female gamers, Andrea Lewis and Mark
D. Griffiths (2011) (8) examined salient features of the experiences and motivations of women
who regularly play "casual" games through a survey of 16 adult female gamers. The
results show that important areas for female casual gamers include knowledge around
gaming, personal priorities influenced by gaming, and the social, economic, and
emotional investment in gaming. By exploring the salient themes behind women's
motivations for playing casual games, the findings provide potential new research directions
for future studies of female gamers from a gender perspective.
Overseas research on female gamers focuses on female gamers' exposure to games
and their experiences in games, however, almost all studies realize that men are the
masters in the field of games, and they do not recognize the identity of female gamers,
and even though female gamers continue to increase in the background, the society still
classifies the field of games as exclusively for men, and female gamers can only play the
role of a passer-by in it, or the image of women only appears in the content for male
players to play. Or the female figure only appears in the game content for male players
to play with.

II. Status of domestic research

(i) Feminism
At the theoretical level, in her study of the relationship between men and women,
Jolene (2014) opposes the idea of dichotomy, suggesting that the characteristics of women's
culture determine that the development of feminism cannot be separated from masculinity, but
rather that it is necessary to find the pillars of women's own thinking and ways of
behaving. This also shows that feminism's main goal is to realize the value of the human
being and to achieve the full development of the completely liberated individual, rather
than seeing men as the "enemy" who oppresses women. The new type of feminism aims
to maximize the freedom, decision-making, knowledge and choices of "human beings"
in order to build a new female culture based on the equality of the differences between
men and women and the interdependence of the two sexes.
Li Ting (2017)⑩ argues that equality and difference are common issues debated by
various schools of thought arising from the development of feminism. Equality can be
divided into substantive equality and formal equality, and the substance of gender
equality is equality of value, which is formally embodied in equality of rights.
Differences between the sexes can be categorized into natural sex and social sex. Only
equality based on differences is equality in the true sense of the word, and only by
maintaining differences can we maintain the existence of independent individuals and
maximize human freedom. His views are consistent with the domestic research on
feminist theory.

⑧
Andrea Lewis & Mark D. Griffiths. Confronting gender representation: a qualitative study of the experiences
and motivations of female casual- gamers. aloma.2011 | 28 | 245-272.
⑨
Qiao Linglin, "Feminism's Postmodern Turn and the Construction of a New Type of Women's Culture" (Master's thesis), Heilongjiang University, 2014.
⑩
Li Ting, Equality and Difference: a study of feminism (Master's thesis), Jilin University, 2017.

5
The majority of scholars agree that the equality called for by feminism is not an absolute
equality that is achieved by ignoring the natural biological differences between the sexes,
but rather an equality that respects the differences between the sexes and reconciles
them with each other.
As for the application of feminism in social phenomena, scholars in China start
from popular culture and things to explore what kind of ideological kernel is expressed in
these cultures or products facing female audiences.
In the study of women's websites, Tian Mi (2015)11 takes Ruili website as the
research object and finds that its content seems to be rich, but the substance is single,
Ruili website shapes women's image through gender ideology and consumption
ideology, emphasizes women's appearance as well as clothing image, and tempts
women to shape the image of fashionable women recognized by the public through
the consumption of fashion products. While promoting modernity and autonomy, the
website also implies gender bias, portraying women as vases that focus only on external
beauty, lacking attention to women's inner self and ignoring women's diverse social
identities, and the powerful commercial logic behind the structure of the website alienates
women in its communication content.
In the youth genre of movies where female audiences dominate, works directed by
women and dominated by the representation of female characters that show the real
existence and awakening of women can be considered women's movies, and chick
flicks have become another name for women's movies.YanxieLiu (2016)12 In the study of
mainland chick flicks, it is found that the feminist consciousness of the creators of the
movies is broadly manifested in the cases of deviant feminism, feminism from a male
perspective, and pseudo-feminism. Women who pursue free love, spiritual independence and
economic autonomy are usually the protagonists of chick-flicks, which is in line with
the feminist perspective. However, under the influence of traditional Chinese
ethics, the protagonists of chick-flicks usually return to their families, which is
again different from the feminism advocated in the West. The study of women's
movies reflects one of the characteristics of feminism in China, which is the return to
the family.
A "feminist" paradigm, the "Mary Sue" phenomenon, has also emerged in literature,withGao (2018)
13
Taking the phenomenon of "Mary Sue" that appears in current literary works and movie and
television dramas as a basis for research, the postmodern feminist theory of "Mary Sue" has been
developed.
The attention to women's spirit, women's writing and identity fantasies advocated
by postmodern feminist theories have well illustrated the reproduction and prosperity
of "Mary Sue" culture, which is an important way for women to release pressure and fulfill
their spiritual needs. Admittedly, the postmodern feminist theory emphasizes the importance
of focusing on women's subjective status, body confidence and the creation of women's
writing discourse, which is also an important writing feature in the "Mary Sue" text.
The female writing subject, discourse subject and experience subject conveyed in the cultural
phenomenon of "Mary Sue" have enriched and supplemented the postmodern feminist
theory on women's writing, and its unique mode of writing provides a reference and model
for women's resistance to the discursive norms and control of the male-dominated society, and
has become a powerful representative of women's discursive struggle for power. It has
become a powerful representative of women's struggle for discursive power.
Most of the literature on feminist thought emphasizes that the mainstream of
feminism is equality between men and women, and also emphasizes the value of women
themselves, and also emphasizes that men and women should be in a harmonious
relationship rather than in opposition to each other. This mainstream ideology is still
used in the feminist perspective of some social phenomena, and in the study of social
products related to women, it is found that most of the content under the banner of
women still promotes masculinist ideology and concepts.

11
Tian Mi, "Research on Ruili Website under Feminist Perspective" (Master's thesis), Guangxi University for Nationalities, 2015.
12
Liu Yanshi, "Mainland Chick Films in the Perspective of Feminism" (Master's thesis), Southwest University, 2016.
13
Gao Xiao, "Exploring the Cultural Phenomenon of "Mary Sue" from the Perspective of Postmodern Feminism" (Master's thesis), Nanjing Normal

6
University, 2 0 1 8 .

7
(ii) Female players
Female gamers have always been on the margins of gamers, Leung, Vico, Yang, Huayan, and Leung, Weijing
(2017)
14
It is believed that in the world of online games, men are the main players, while women are the "game characters",
"casual players" and "game players".
The status of "game hosts" has always been marginalized. Games consumed by women
are concentrated on mobile platforms, favoring casual puzzle games and "female-
oriented" games, mostly for "casual gamers" who spend their time in a fragmented
manner. Whether it's female characters, spokespersons or female game hosts, there has
been no fundamental change in the practice of gaming subculture in which women's
bodies are used as objects of male attention and amusement. This status quo of women as
the other in the game world has always existed, and it has not changed even today, when
the number of female gamers has increased dramatically.
At the level of game design, the study presents an emotional perspective of the game mainly for
female players. Hye-Cong Kim
(2009)15 indicates that female gamers experience and realize the emotional factor in the
process of gaming, and this is the focus of most female gamers, as well as the intrinsic
reason for female gamers to play games. Game designers design female games to meet
the special needs of female gamers, and the difference between female games and male
games lies in the emotional response and interaction between female gamers and the
games in the process of playing.
Wu Dan (2014)16 In her research on the emotional design of mobile games for
female players, she argues that most of the current research related to video games tends
to ignore the female player group and fails to analyze the emotional needs of women at
a deeper level. She starts from the perspective of women's perception and
psychoanalysis, and thoroughly analyzes the relationship between women's cognition
and emotion at the instinctive, behavioral and reflective levels. At the instinctive level,
the emotional experience of female players in the game world is analyzed from the three
aspects of modeling, color, and object texture in game art design; at the behavioral level,
the emotional experience of female players in the game world is analyzed from the three
aspects of functionality, comprehensibility, and balance of the game; at the reflective
level, the emotional experience of female players in the game world is analyzed from
the three aspects of the "transmission of emotional information" and the "transmission
of emotional information". At the reflective level, the emotional experience of female
players in the game world is analyzed from the aspects of "transmission of emotional
information" and "interpretation of emotional information".
For the research on the identity of female players, Yang Xiaohong and Chen
Jingjing (2009)17 explored the real experience of female players through the study of a
teenage girl aged 15-17 years old, and found that females pay more attention to the
selection of roles in online games, and that females obtain their identity in the virtual
space in the process of interacting with other players, and that female players can release
their personalities in the online world in a way that is free from the stigma of gender and
age imposed on them by real society. In the virtual world, female players can release their
personalities in the online world without the brand of gender and age imposed by the
real society.
In the 2017 smash hit handheld game "Yin Yang Master," Sitsugi Sugi and Mei Mengdie (2018)18
In an investigation of "Yin

14
Liang Weike, Yang Huayan, and Liang Weijing, "Female Youth in Digital Game Subcultural Practices - From Female Game
Characters, Female Players to Female Game Hosts," Chinese Youth Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2017, pp. 13-18.
15
Jin Huicong, "On Emotional Expression in Video Games" (Master's thesis), China Academy of Art, 2009.
16
Wu, D.: "Emotional Design of Mobile Games for Female Player Groups" (Master's thesis), Central China Normal University, 2014.
17
Yang Xiaohong and Chen Jingjing, "Misplaced Role Affirmation: Young Women's Identity in Online Games: A Case Study
Observation and Analysis," Lanzhou Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2009, pp. 146-150.
8
18
Sitsugi Sugi, Mei Mengdie: "Young Women's Interaction Behavior and Identity in Online Games - An Empirical Study Based on the Users of Yin-Yang
Master,
Southeastern Communication, Vol. 1, 2018, pp. 63-66.

9
Among the young female players of "Master of Yang", it was found that the interaction
behaviors of young female players include content interaction and interpersonal
interaction, which work together to contribute to the identity. Among them, content
interaction is reflected in players' choice of game characters and their secondary
creation of characters, while interpersonal interaction is reflected in social interaction,
cooperation and competition, and item exchange.
Huo Lianbin and Mi Dan (2018)19 Through the textual analysis of China's
phenomenal female-oriented handball game "Love and Maker" at the end of 2017 and
in-depth interviews with its female players, we found that the game constructs a virtual
intimate relationship between the male protagonist and the players through the methods
of "plot mode", "characterization", "game interaction" and "game discourse", and that
this virtual intimate relationship is a kind of love for reality for most players. Through
the textual analysis of China's phenomenal female-oriented handball game "Love and
Maker" and in-depth interviews with its female players, it is found that the game
constructs a virtual intimate relationship between the hero and players through "plot
mode", "characterization", "game interactions", "game discourse", etc., and that the
virtual intimacy is a kind of alternative fulfillment of the real love and a love fairy tale
experience for most of the players.
Currently, research on female gamers is still very scarce, and most of them still stand
on the angle of game design, researching how to design games to attract the attention of
female gamers and capture the market of female gamers, however, in-depth research on
female-oriented games is very rare, and the behaviors and expressions of female gamers
are seldom explored.

Section II. Sources of Feminist Development

Feminism has gone through three major waves of thought in the West. The first wave occurred
in the second half of the 19th century.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the main focus was on women's right to vote, to education and
to employment. The second wave, which occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, focused on the
equality of women and men. Although women gained the right to vote, the right to
education, and the right to work through the first wave of the movement, they were still
unequal in essence, and the goal of the second wave of the women's movement was to
eliminate the difference between the sexes and to treat this difference as the basis for
women's subordination to men. The main goal of the third wave was to fight for equal
rights for women all over the world in the context of globalization.
The sociological work The Second Sex by French thinker Simone de Beauvoir is a
classic study of feminism, in which the author examines the real situation of women at all
stages of life, from birth to old age, and in all walks of life, from peasant women to
intellectuals, and explores the possibilities of women's independence. The author puts
forward the necessity for women to gain economic independence, and also emphasizes
that only when the economic status of women changes can equality between men and
women be truly achieved20 .

-Feminism's "Big Three"

The "Three Greats" of feminism refer to the three schools of liberal feminism,
socialist feminism and radical feminism. They are the three most famous schools of
feminism and have made many theoretical contributions. The following is a brief
introduction to the main contents of these three schools.
Liberal feminism was the original theoretical form. This theory fought for women's participation on an
equal footing with men.

19
Huo Lianbin, Mi Dan, "Alternative Satisfaction:A User Study of the Intimate Relationship Perspective on the Handbook "Love and Maker"",
Southeast Communication, No. 1, 2018
6, pp. 112-115.
10
20
Simone de Beauvoir, translated by Zheng Keru, The Second Sex, Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2014.

11
The right to work. Radical feminism is concerned with the biological nature of women,
i.e., it believes that true equality between men and women can only be achieved by
abandoning the biological characteristic of childbearing, which is naturally possessed by
women, and by abandoning the ethical identity of motherhood.
Socialist feminism, which was active from the 19th century to the 1960s, was
concerned with issues concerning the public and private spheres. The theoretical basis of
socialist feminism was historical materialism, i.e., matter determines consciousness and
the economic base determines the superstructure. He looked for inequality between men and
women in the economic causes and problems of capitalism, emphasizing the oppression of the
proletariat by the bourgeoisie, and argued that true equality could only be achieved by changing the
entire social structure.
Radical feminism emerged in the 1960s with their concerns about nature and culture. He
believed that women were closer to nature and men were closer to culture. They believed that women were
inferior in all economic systems, whether socialist or capitalist and that their main goal was to
eliminate patriarchy. They believe that patriarchy is inculcated in the female population through social
indoctrination, and that as a result some women hate themselves and other women, and see women
as subservient to men, and believe that women should have a subordinate position in
society.

II. Post-modern feminism

Into the contemporary era, feminism began to enter postmodern feminism, some
postmodern feminists began to pay attention to the meaning of the discourse, Kristeva believes
that the social and cultural environment is the main reason for the oppression of women's
subjectivity, and believes that the solution to the situation is to "subvert the traditional
linguistic and cultural systems, rejecting all kinds of symbolic and theoretical discursive
systems of the homogenization processes, and to bravely move towards the revolutionary
path of making one's own subject subversive21 ."
Postmodern feminism is a combination of feminism and postmodern theory; postmodern
feminism, the 20
The main theoretical features of postmodern feminism, which emerged in the 1980s
and 1990s, are the rejection of binary thinking structures, the rejection of essentialist
grand narratives, and the shift from the pursuit of equality between men and women to an
emphasis on the differences between the sexes. Postmodern feminism is not at home with
men as the antithesis, but reflects the multiple voices of women of different racial
classes, nationalities, and other marginalized groups, and it no longer emphasizes the
opposition between men and women, but rather the dialogue and complementarity
between men and women. At the same time, postmodern feminism is also contradictory, the
deconstruction in postmodern theory contradicts the traditional feminist concept of "female"
essentialism.
The ideological origins and main ideas of postmodern feminism are mainly the following:

(i) Challenging grand narratives of liberation and rationality and rejecting all grand
theoretical systems.
The theoretical trend of postmodernism is to oppose all large-scale theoretical
systems concerning the laws of development of human society, and postmodern feminism
is committed to criticizing all those modern theories that are so vast and grand and
encompassing that they seek to establish

21
Julia Kristeva, Revolusion in Poetic Language, trans,leon, S. Roudiez, Columba University, 1984.

12
Community theory, which bases moral and political concepts on the experience of small,
special communities, denies causality and macro-social concepts. Postmodern feminism
argues that macro theories are labeled as neutral, and that these theories are standardized
by men, completely ignoring the presence of women. Postmodern feminism proposes an
integrative mode of thinking, which includes a model of empowerment for women and
rejects binary and promotes pluralism. On the issue of difference, postmodern feminism
differs from ignoring biological differences and emphasizing the positive aspects of
women's differences, but rather emphasizes the different meanings of differences,
arguing that differences are cultural, not biological.

(ii) Anti-essentialist social constructionism

Essentialism emphasizes the physiological and genetic determination of human nature
and believes that nature and human nature, which do not change, explain everything.
Postmodern feminism believes that social context shapes intellectual meaning as a result of
history and language, and that the subject is constructed by discourse. Postmodern
feminism believes that "the female psyche is socially imposed" and rejects the emphasis
that is always placed on the reproductive function of women and its influence on the
formation of femininity, postmodern feminism notes the differences that each gender
possesses within the two genders, male and female.
Postmodern feminism rejects not only the dichotomy of gender, but also the idea that the
concept of gender itself is immutable, and has always emphasized the distinctions of race,
class, nation, ethnicity, and sexual orientation outside of gender, shifting from a purely
male/female dichotomy to a much richer difference.

(iii) Theories of discourse as power

The reason why women's discourse constitutes a vision of "power" in the
modern vision of women's emancipation lies in the fact that discourse itself is a kind of
"power", the so-called "power of discourse". Discourse, as a force that sustains
social development, is not only a means and method of interpreting and understanding the
world, but also a "weapon" and "power" to master and create the world.
Discourse is a force for the creation of social reality.
Postmodernist philosopher Foucault's "discourse as power," Derrida's
emphasis on "nothing exists outside the text," and Lacan's analysis of the relationship
between language and desire, and the subject, all illustrate the shift from postmodern theory to
"discourse." discourse". Foucault's "doctrine of power-knowledge formation"
aims to show that power creates knowledge, knowledge produces power, and power is composed
of discourse, which is controlled by a ruling class. Accordingto Foucault, the particular
historical context of each period constructs the truth of that period, and there is no such thing as
absolute truth. Nor is power static; it is held in the hands of those who have the power of discourse.
Postmodern feminism, advocates a shift within the women's movement carries a shift
from focusing only on things, to focusing more on discourse. Inspired by Foucault's
"discourse is power", postmodern feminism deconstructs and reorganizes the power of
discourse at the level of culture, ideology and knowledge system, and emphasizes women's
subjective position in discourse.
1. Moving from specific issues to the study of discourse
Traditional feminism has focused on specific social issues such as women's
participation in the public sphere, whether domestic work is counted as labor, and
whether men and women receive equal pay for work of equal value, and has paid less
attention to its own historical and cultural marginalization, with most traditional feminists
turning a blind eye to the prevalence of a culture and language of power that is seen as
patriarchal.

13
For example, in Chinese, he is used to refer to a group of all people, while they are used
to refer to a separate group of women, and many occupations in English are referred to by
the prefix "man", such as "fireman", "policeman", and so on. Many
professions in the English language have "man" as a suffix, such as
"fireman", "policeman", etc., and the women who work in these professions are
also referred to as such. This issue has received the attention of postmodern feminists,
who have shifted the perspective of women's transformation from a specific issue to one
that is more concerned with the discourses and cultures that influence women's status
and power.
Postmodern feminists have also shifted their research on patriarchy to the study of
language, culture and discourse in patriarchal societies, exploring how linguistic, discursive
and cultural factors affect women's self-perception and trajectory of growth, and tapping
into new perspectives on women's subordination. Many postmodern feminists have
expanded their research into social fields such as medicine, psychology, religion, fashion,
advertising, literature, media, and the arts to further analyze the plurality of discourses in
patriarchal societies. The shift in postmodern feminism is a shift from ideology to discourse, from
seeking to raise awareness of notions of gender inequality in patriarchal societies to people
of gender and the impact of discourse on the advancement of women.
2. Deconstructing patriarchal discourse
As the West enters the post-industrial era, discourse has been emphasized in human
society, and feminist voices have been alienated, while the mainstream discourse
fully represents the "patriarchal" discourse system with masculinity as the
standard, and women are in a state of inarticulation. Derrida's critique of "linguistic
centrism" has strongly impacted the male-dominated society, causing postmodern feminism
to question the traditional Western way of thinking and the Western cultural thought system
associated with it, and provoking people to reflect on the traditional gender relations. Postmodern
feminism points to the core of Western culture as the source of gender inequality.
-"Masculocentrism" which "reflects the limited insights of men".
"Logocentrism", a universal truth constructed by Western culture through the use
of reason and power, is expressed in postmodern feminist theory as "male-centrism"
or patriarchal-centrism. In terms of gender relations, Westerners see men as the center,
celebrating men and their genitals and devaluing women and their bodies. Postmodern
feminism questions the rules constructed by patriarchal culture, reflects on the pathological
thinking that patriarchal-centered culture has created over time, and seeks to build a
society in which men and women are equal and the sexes are in harmony.
3. Constructing a female discourse
The construction of subjectivity in discourse involves the shaping of the individual's mind,
body, and emotions in such a way that the individual identifies with a particular subject
position. In order for "discourse" to be effectively realized, the individual's
"agency" must be activated. For it is only when the individual identifies with a particular
subject position in a discourse that best serves his or her interests that the subject will be most
effective in the order of power relations that the discourse underpins22 . Postmodern feminists
realized that the return of the female subject would be more powerful in subverting patriarchal culture
and restoring women's rightful position and value, further emphasizing the fact that women's
discourse has always been in a peripheral or repressed position relative to the dominant
discourse, which has also transformed the notion of the subject from a male "person"
to a gendered "person". "human being".
Postmodern feminism takes its cue from Foucault's theory of discourse: in the form of female
discourse that produces new
22
Song Sufeng, "The Self-Naming of Multiple Subject Strategies: A Study of Feminist Literary Theory", Shandong University Press, 2002 edition, pp. 82-
83.
Page.

14
Knowledge that creates new theoretical truths and constitutes new power; the
transformation of the discourse system inevitably leads to changes in social power
relations. Therefore, the feminist advocated that women should speak in the name of
women, and advocated women's writing and the use of words to fight for women's
subjective position in the discourse. He denounced the suppression of women's creativity
by patriarchal culture and advocated a feminist way of writing, which became an important strategy
for women to subvert the patriarchal culture, to make their voices heard, and to speak of their
experiences. Feminists emphasize the uniqueness of female consciousness and female
experience, and use personal experience throughout women's writing.

(iv) Thoughts on the body and sexuality

Postmodern feminism borrows Foucault's ideas about the body and sexuality, opposes
the traditional ideas that have been emphasizing the spirit and belittling the body
throughout the history of Western thought, and talks about the importance of the body and
the experience of the flesh. It points out that discipline and punishment are meant to tame
the body. Postmodern feminism challenges all the theories of sexuality and gender
difference that try to fix the meaning of the body. The Foucaultian perspective of
postmodern feminism is concerned with the subject, the body, discourse and power, and
the power of culture to shape the body and the subject. They argue that the passive
masochistic tendencies in various types of media such as obscenity, advertisements and
sex guides shape women's sexual bodies and practices. Gender differences are thus shaped
by discourse over millennia of practice.

(v) The idea of pluralism and relativism and the politics of individualism it
ultimately leads to
What postmodern feminism advocates for critique is the undermining of the
universal, because under universalism, women are absent, invisible, and silent.
Postmodern feminism criticizes the shedding of the personal and emotional in
traditionally masculine academic writing. In response to this tradition, postmodern
feminism initiated the autobiographical initiative, advocating that women write texts of
self-expression. They argue that male language is linear, circumscribed, structured,
rational, and consistent; female language is fluid, decentered, playful, fragmented, and
open-ended. Male thinking is linear; female thinking is circular. Women need to value
their own valuable nature.
This paper studies female players in female-oriented games, mainly from the
perspective of postmodern feminism about women's discourse and power, discourse as a force
that sustains the development of society is not only a means and method of interpreting and
understanding the world, but also a kind of "weapon" and "power" to master and create
the world. power". Postmodern feminism believes that discourse is never a reflection of
true "reality" but carries the imprint of society and culture, and it is the embodiment of
patriarchal culture. In this paper, we will analyze the gender perspectives embodied in the
field of female-oriented games from the text of female-oriented games, and analyze
female-oriented games from the hegemony of patriarchal discourse and the construction
of female subjects, so as to fully embody the critique of patriarchal discourse and the
reconstruction of women's discourse in postmodern feminism.

15
 Section III. Methodology and research ideas
In order to study the contents of female-oriented games, we should firstly summarize and
analyze the texts of female-oriented games to find out the expression of gender images, and
at the same time, we should apply the feminist point of view to categorize and analyze
the texts to find out whether they contain the color of patriarchal culture and the
reconstruction of women's discourse.
In this paper, network observation method, questionnaire survey method and in-
depth interview method are used as research methods when studying female players in
female-oriented games. Aiming at the characteristics of female players dispersed on the
Internet, the survey is mainly conducted through the channels of the Internet. Firstly, the
content about female-oriented games posted by female players on online social media
platforms was observed, and the main observation content was the comments on female-
oriented game-related accounts and topics on Sina Weibo, so as to collect female players'
views and experience feelings about female-oriented games and analyze the experience
feelings that female players may get in female-oriented games. After that, these scattered
views are integrated and listed as entries, the motivation and experience of female
players are hypothesized and verified by distributing questionnaires to organize and
analyze the gaming experience of female players from an objective point of view, and
then in-depth interviews with typical female players are conducted to produce more in-
depth content texts, which are finally elaborated by feminist theories.
The research idea of this paper is shown below:

16
 Exploring female-
oriented games in
Gender issues

Feminism, Female postmodern feminism

Gamers Discourse theory (rationale)
Synthesis of research

Analyzing
female-oriented

hypothesis

poll Internet in-depth

Watch interview

draw a
conclusio
Figure 1-1 Research Ideas

17
Chapter 2 Game Mirroring: content presentation in female-oriented
games
With the rise of the female gaming market, female gamers are also reaping the benefits of fun
and fulfillment in such games, while the content design of female-oriented games is also
somewhat controversial. Female-oriented romance games, often teased as
The "Mary Sue" style of plot content is characterized by a female protagonist who is a
silly white sweet, and there are a number of male characters who fall for her and ask for
help from male characters when they encounter various problems, and this kind of female
protagonist is set up in order to promote the protagonist's interactions with other
characters and thus promote the plot, and at the same time, this model is also a reflection
of the stereotypical image of women in the traditional patriarchal society. At the same
time, this model is also a reflection of the traditional patriarchal stereotypes of women,
who are supposed to be soft and need to be dependent on men in order to survive.
However, what kind of textual connotations the current female-oriented game texts
present in the changing times need to be further examined and analyzed. This chapter
provides a brief overview of the emergence and development of female-oriented games,
and categorizes and analyzes the texts of female-oriented games from the content level.

Section 1: Overview of female-oriented games and their development

-Feminist Games Overview
Currently, there is no specific definition of feminist games in the academic world. From the point of
view of game development or design, feminist games, are games developed, designed and
operated with female players as the main customer group23 . They are broadly
categorized into Otome Game, BL24 oriented games and other types. These games are
characterized by beautiful graphics, beautiful game characters, and most of them are
voiced by famous voice actors. The main topic of discussion here is Otome Game, i.e.
female-oriented games in the love game.
The term "Otome Game" comes from Japan. The original Japanese word is " 乙
女", which means an unmarried young girl, a pure woman who has not been tainted by
the world. In Otome Games, the word Otome is not simply interpreted as a young girl,
and the age limit for players varies depending on the rating level of the game. From the
original meaning of this word meaning, the audience group of this kind of game is
designed for the girls at the beginning, in the public's impression, adolescent girls, full of
hazy infinite beautiful longing for love, and B-girls to the game is to start from this point of
view, in the game set up a number of different personalities, but all the same excellent male
characters to meet the girl for the experience of love.
Otome Game consists of a female protagonist and a number of male characters
who do not need to be played, and in a variety of game settings, the player manipulates
the female protagonist in the game and romances one of the male characters. This paradigm
has been in use since the inception of B-girl oriented games.

23
Xie Yuxin, "An Interpretation of Female User Groups in the Development of Female-Oriented Mobile Games in China," Audiovisual, Vol. 5,
No. 5, 2018, pp. 151-152.
24
BL: Abbreviation for BoysLove, also known as delinquency, now refers to male-to-male love.

18
Along the line, even though there have been multiple playable heroines, this one-to-many
game model has remained unchanged. However, in most Otome Games, the heroine can
only fall in love with one male character in each story line, a model that is more in line
with the public's perception of ethics and morality, as well as with female gamers'
fantasies about romantic plots.
However, under Japan's classification system, adult-oriented Otome Games may
also contain content that goes beyond ethics, allowing mature adult female gamers to
experience more exciting game content that transcends the constraints of reality, such as
depictions of sexuality, extramarital affairs, and two-footed episodes. Under the
protection of the grading system, this part of the plot provides adult female players with
richer game content, and at the same time explores human nature and social thinking
with the help of a text such as a game.
Most of the more successful female-oriented games in the current mobile game market have
some of these characteristics:
1、Simple operation, adding the dressing, development, card games and other popular elements
of cell phone games
In addition to the romance plot, it also comes with a casual and dress-up section, which also allows
you to dress up your game character with clothing, hairstyles, and face makeup. These games
tend to be simple and easy to understand to operate, and generally follow the plot
towards the choice can be. In addition, the card system is a necessary element of many
games currently available on mobile platforms, satisfying the collection mentality of
female players.
2, beautiful graphics, with quality stand-up comics and storyline animations
This is an era of value, female players will be more demanding of the game's
graphics style. Male characters to look handsome is already the minimum standard, but also
for the game character customized to meet the game settings of the clothing and beautiful
game background screen. Different characters, according to the character of the
differences in the character will also have different types of clothing style. Such as the
Japanese shogunate as the background of the "Bozakura ghost" series, to the gorgeous
style of painting conquered a large number of female players.
3、Dubbing by well-known voice actors
A game character is always flat and is called a "paper man", but when a "paper
man" has a real voice, the game character becomes relatively three-dimensional. In
Japan, the well-developed animation industry has also produced a large number of
famous voice actors. Dream Kingdom and Sleeping 100 Princes" is the most downloaded
female-oriented Otome Game in 2015, and the biggest selling point of this game is the extremely
luxurious voice cast. The game's biggest selling point is that it has an extremely luxurious
voice cast. The game officially invited almost all of Japan's most popular male voice
actors to voice more than 100 male characters in the game.
4. Diversified characters and plots, not only limited to the "Mary Sue" plot.
Otome Game's plot paradigm for some time has always been the paradigm of "the
bossy president falls in love with me". However, in order to cater to the needs of female
gamers for diversified plots, Otome Games have become more diversified in their plot
settings. For example, many popular female-oriented games have added historical
elements, where the protagonist played by the player falls in love with heroes or lords in
the chaotic world; there is also "Prince of Song", which tells the love story of an idol
rookie, and so on.

19
II Development of Feminist Games in China
As you can see from the above introduction, female-oriented games originally originated in
Japan, with the 1994 release of Kouei's
Angelique is the originator of the B-girl genre. This game, in which the player plays the role of the
heroine and starts different love stories with many different types of beautiful teenagers,
caught fire as soon as it was released. Originally created only for unmarried teenage girls,
the game has been loved by a wider age group, and many married women have also
become users of the game.
Keiko Segawa, the current Honorary Chairman of the Board of Directors of
EITKOMO, is credited with the creation of Angelique, as she was one of the initiators of
the game, and set up the Ruby Party,a development team within the company, to create a
female-oriented game. Starting with Angelique, Glorious Tecumseh forged the NeoRomance
series that most fans still love today. The NeoRomance series includes classic female-oriented games
from Glorious, such as Angelique, A Distant Time, and The Golden Strings, and the series is still a classic
among female-oriented games today, and shows no signs of dying as the heroes continue to
produce and release sequels to the series.
When Angelique was released in 1994 on the SFC console, due to the limited
capacity of the game at the time, the characters were not voiced throughout the game, so
the original radio drama Angelique ~Light and Dark Sacria~ was released to coincide
with the game's release, making up for the game's limitations with extra supplements. In
2002, Konami released Heartbeat Memories Girl's Side on the PS2 platform. The
highlight of the game was that all of the dialog in the game was voiced by real people. On top of that,
the game also featured a voice system that allowed the characters to call out the player's
name "in their voice". With this system, the character can not only call out the player's
last name or first name individually, but can also call out the player's full name, bringing
the player and the character closer together.
In 2010,the third installment of the series, Gir's Side 3rd Story, was released on the
NDS, and in 2012, when it was ported to the PSP platform, it was the first to introduce
the Live2D system. This system allows female gamers to have a more realistic view of the
characters by using natural blinking and changing the shape of their mouths when they speak.
Until then, female-oriented games were usually released on console or PC
platforms. However, in 2006, Voltage began releasing "romance drama apps" through
NTT docomo's dedicated I Mode, starting with "No.1 Cowboy". By providing games
for flip phones, the company was able to capture the market for women's light games
with its easy-to-use operation.
Domestic game market due to the lack of game console market, female-oriented games
really come into the life of female players from the mobile platform. In China, female-oriented games are
not too mature, according to Xie Yu Xin (2018)
25
s point of view, roughly dividing the development of domestic female-oriented games into three
stages:

25
Xie Yuxin: "An Interpretation of Female User Groups in the Development of Female-Oriented Mobile Games in China", Audiovisual, Vol. 5, 2 0 1 8 , pp. 151-
152.

20
 The first stage was from 2014 to November 2015, during which game users
migrated towards page games and handheld games as a whole, and most of the
manifestations were game transplants of popular movie and TV IPs. At this stage, the
female-oriented features of mobile games are still relatively unclear, and it is in the stage
of groping for female-oriented hand games in China. At this stage, there is the first
famous mobile game in Chinese gaming history in which the proportion of female
players is really overwhelming - "Warm Up Around the World". This game takes dressing
as the main game content, with exquisite painting style and countless beautiful clothes,
allowing female players to experience the fun of matching.
The second stage is from November 2015 to 2016, in June 2016, the "Yin Yang
Master" handheld game was launched, and its female players accounted for 60%, which
was known as the first mainstream handheld game in the history of Chinese gaming
with female users as the main body and for the general public. However, the female-
oriented features of this game are not obvious; it has gorgeous and beautiful graphics but
still favors a complex battle system in its gameplay, which is not suitable for the
features of female-oriented games.
The third stage is from June 2016 to the present, the female-oriented handheld
game market is gradually maturing, forming a preliminary content construction mode, and
many mature female-oriented handheld games have appeared, including "Love and Maker" and so on.
Nowadays, the female-oriented love game represented by "Love and Producer" has further
developed, and diversified game themes and types have appeared, and the strong money-
absorbing ability of "Love and Producer" has also allowed other game companies to see the broad
market for female-oriented games, and more domestic game companies have joined the
production of female-oriented games, and there are also many well-produced female-oriented
games, such as Dream Interlude, Spiral Circle Dance" and so on.

Section 2: Presentation of content in female-oriented games

For female-oriented game content expression, often thought to be based on "Mary Sue"
type of heroes to save the beautiful bridge, however, in the specific female-oriented games, the fact is
often not as expected full of patterns. At present, the female-oriented games in the game market are mainly
cell phone games, with a rich variety of game themes, such as the dress-up theme of "Warmth Around
the World","MiracleWarmth","SpiralDance", "Cloud Clothes", etc.; and the adventure theme of the "Dream Kingdom
and the Sleeping 100 Princes","JourneytotheHalf-World","DreamsBetweentheCollections",etc.;andlove
storylinestothe"LoveandProducer","loveworld",etc.Inaddition,therearealsoidolraisingsystemoftheidolraisingsystem,
whichisbasedonthe"MarySue"styleofheroesandbeautyrescuers;Inaddition,therearealsoidolraisingseries such as"His
HighnessthePrinceofSong","IdolFantasyMatsuri", "A3!
All of these games have a female character as the first-person viewpoint, and each
game has more than two unplayable male characters. The heroines played by the players
are mostly ordinary, common people, while the male characters set in the plot are mostly
those with very human identities or abilities, who are either noblemen or princes, rich
second-generation or CEOs, or elves and monsters with strong spiritual powers in the fantasy world. In short,
they are not ordinary people, they are created to fulfill the romantic fantasies of female players
that cannot be realized in reality.
Love and Maker is a classic domestic female-oriented game, before that, there is no
such obvious domestic mobile game with female romantic theme as the theme of the
game, it was born at the beginning of the female-oriented game targeting the

21
The game market, "specifically for female users to create a love management hand tour"
is its slogan, and with its beautiful painting style and excellent plot copywriting to
capture the eyeballs of female players, while in the social network caused a phenomenal
topic of heat, many women who have not been in contact with the female-oriented
games are also attracted to this game.
Spiral Dance is a dress-up and romance game. Before this, there were no successful
dress-up games, but there were not many games that perfectly combined dress-up with a
romance plot. It combines the elements of dress-up with the elements of romantic drama
through the gameplay of dressing up and attending the ball to collect information, allowing
players to enjoy the fun of matching outfits while having fun through the game's plot. As a
result, it has received high scores in the reviews of major gaming platforms and has also
gained the favor of many female players.
Therefore, this paper analyzes the hegemony of male discourse and the reconstruction of
women's subject in the plot of Love and Maker and Spiral Dance from the perspective of the plot. It
mainly analyzes the content of the game from the direction of the plot, and also analyzes the
elements of the game from the perspective of modern women, exploring the deeper
meaning behind the elements.

-Reconstruction of the Female Subject

Female subjectivity refers to the fact that women should play their own enlightening
role. Specifically, women should experience their own lives and should have their own
discourse to express their feelings and desires26 . Women should have their own view of
the world and be brave enough to express themselves and take control of their own
discourse. Women are oppressed by the norms and values defined by the hegemony of
masculine discourse. Postmodern feminists advocate for the subversion of the hegemony of
male discourse, while rejecting the binary opposition between men and women, and
advocating for mutual understanding and cooperation. In female-oriented games, the
game unfolds from a female perspective, reflecting the subjective discourse of women, in
contrast to the usual default male perspective in games, creating a virtual environment for
female players to substitute as women.
The heroine in Love and Producer, played by the player, is a TV program producer
who graduated from the University of Love Languages and inherited the "Discover
Miracle" program production company left behind by her deceased father, but faced
bankruptcy due to the company's unfavorable operation. The four male protagonists set in
the game are Li Zeyan, the president of the Huarui Group, Xu Mo, a genius scientist,
Zhou Qiluo, a superstar, and Bai Qi, a super-powered special police officer.
The heroine tries to find investors, and at the same time, she looks for all kinds of
"miraculous" events, tries to provide creative solutions for the development of the
company and participates in the production of the program. At the same time, in the
dialogues of some supporting characters in the game, from the mouths of the onlookers,
it is concluded that the heroine is a beautiful, kind-hearted and helpful girl, and in the
storyline of the president of Sinovel, Li Zeyin, the heroine spends most of her time
working seriously, writing plans and preparing for the recording of the program. In the
female gamer's point of view, the heroine is busy with her work every day, in order to
keep the program "Discovering Miracles" left behind by her father alive.
In addition to the heroine, there is also a female character who has been managing the
company in place of the heroine after her father's death - Sister Anna, although her name is a
typical westernized name, she is a Chinese and a capable new woman who is well versed in
all kinds of business news and knows how to run a business.
26
Wang Shaojing, "Interpreting Walker from Postmodern Feminism, <Father's Smiling Light>", Journal of Yancheng Teachers College (Humanities
and Social Sciences Edition).
Issue 1, 2018, pp. 82-86.

22
The heroine first learns about the president of Sinovel, Li Zeyin, from Anna. The first
time the heroine learns about the president of Sinovel, Li Zeyin, is from Anna, who also
tells the heroine some of the rules of survival in the shopping mall, a more three-
dimensional image of urban white-collar women. In addition, the heroine's company also
has Yueyue, a more lively image of women entering the workplace, she is a little
outspoken, sometimes a little confused, a cute short-haired girl image.
It is not difficult to see from these two more prominent female figures in the game plot,
the game in shaping the image of women, with reference to the image of modern urban
women, they take the work as the main focus of life, the heroine meets the four male
protagonists are also mostly in the work of the purpose: because of the Huarui Group to
divestment of the heroine of the small company, so the heroine to find the president of the Huarui Li
Zeyin; because of the desire to Because she wants to boost the ratings of her program and save the
program production team which is on the verge of closure, she thinks of inviting
superstar Zhou Qiluo to act as a guest; when she accepts the commission of Lianyue TV
to produce "City News", she meets police officer Bai Qi and investigates an incident
together; in order to enhance the authority of her program, the heroine invites Xu Mo, a
visiting professor of Lianyue University who has made outstanding contributions in the
field of brain science, through the introduction of her elders. Although such coincidental
events do not happen in reality, the possibility of amplifying reality in a virtual game is
also an artistic creation that originates from life.
The women in "Love and Maker" are all grounded, ordinary, modern working
women who are realizing their values and pursuing their dreams in the workplace. In
addition to the heroine, who holds more weight in the plot, and her female colleagues in
the same company, there are also many "experts" with various identities, who are
basically 50/50 men and women, and each of them has their own unique skill sets, such as
a female fitness trainer named Tessina who appears in the early stages of the game. For
example, a female fitness instructor named Tessanne appears early in the game, who has a
strong, muscular body, and is described as having grown up with a bodybuilder's body
and hoping to do the same someday; she participated in a bodybuilding competition and
won a gold medal; and is now a fitness instructor. Such a female game character, which is
very different from the traditional image of women, reflects the diverse values of the
game.
Spiral Dance is set in medieval Europe, where the commoners are suffering from the
ravages of war, while the aristocrats are still hosting all kinds of lavish balls and getting
drunk. The heroine, Magda, is a beautiful young woman from a poor family. After the
tragedy of her parents being taken away by fire, she is adopted by a fallen noblewoman
and spends two years cultivating herself to become a "noblewoman", whose
mission is to gather information at various balls and gain valuable information for the
revival of the noble family. Compared to the battlefield of men, the gorgeous ball is the main
field of women, and the "weapons" here are not guns and spears, but lipstick and
perfume. As a dress-up love game, beautiful clothes are always the main character, and in this
game, players need to understand the preferences of the target character of each mission, so
as to match the clothes, in the mission after mission, Magda successfully obtain
information, in either sincere or false conversations in the growth.
The male characters in the game are roughly divided into the noble and commoner
classes. The nobles are mainly made up of people from the four major families of Vanthal,
who are at the top of the upper class and hold the lifeblood of the other families, and are
the typical ruling class; while the commoner class is not exactly the common people, they
are the elite mercenaries of the mercenary corps, the mana

23
Powerful archmage, although not a nobleman, but also has excellent personal ability and
charisma. The heroine Magda, in the official setting, is not a traditional silly sweet
girl, but a person who controls the
The resourceful and courageous girl of her own destiny, she will also make childish mistakes
when she is new to this kind of task, and be seen at once by the object to be investigated for
what she is up to, however, as she accomplishes more and more tasks, she becomes more
skillful and more impervious to being seen. The Spiral Dance retains much of its traditional
masculinity due to the constraints of its medieval western theme, where women can only fight
for beauty at the ball, but it gives Magda the power of choice, not as a doll to be
manipulated by fate, a plaything for the upper class aristocracy to toy with, but as an
"avenger" who is burdened with her adoptive mother's expectations. She is an
"avenger" who carries the expectations of her adoptive mother. Although women
can not fight on the battlefield, but in the rear of the intelligence war but played an
important role in the history of the Second World War also emerged many female agents,
they are beautiful but dangerous, with the collection of information on the battlefield, also for
the country to dedicate strength.

II. Manifestations of male discursive hegemony

Postmodern feminism believes that women are defined by male discourse and that
women live under the shadow of male hegemony. In a society built by male authority,
men tend to occupy important roles in society and they have a great deal of social
resources, whereas women, due to their social molding, rarely make it to the top of the
social hierarchy and often face the oppression of male discourse.
The most authoritative male character in "Love and Maker" is Li Zeyan, the president
of Sinovel Group, a typical game character from the textual paradigm of "the domineering
president falls in love with me". In the setting of the game, he is a business wizard, a
legend in the financial circle, who founded Sinovel eight years ago, and now Sinovel has
reached the top of the industry, or in the financial industry where consortiums have been
entrenched for generations. In the opening of the game plot, it is Sinovel wants to divest the
heroine's company, and the heroine has to beg Li Zeyin not to divest. This shows that the
heroine has always been in the control of Li Zeyin's status as the president, and at a later stage,
because of the heroine's relationship, Li Zeyin invested another 500 million dollars in the
heroine's company. Prior to this, the heroine had looked for a number of investment
advisors, and they all questioned: would Sinovel invest in such a small company?
Moreover, the amount claimed at the beginning was still 50 million dollars. The
plausibility of this storyline is attributed to the fact that the last episode of the program
"Discovering Miracles" produced by the heroine's company became a hit, which made Li
Zeyin change his mind.
For the relationship between Li Zeyan and the heroine, it is a completely
overwhelming control and controlled relationship. When the heroine comes to Lee Zeyan
for investment, she threatens to make a development plan that Lee Zeyan will regret in
two weeks, which turns into one week after Lee Zeyan's bargaining. At that time, Lee
Zeyin showed an expression that looked like he was enjoying the last struggle of his
prey and said, "Being able to live well is the biggest challenge for you, isn't it?" This kind
of oppressed relationship is a reflection of the oppression of women who have less
social resources by the men who have more social resources in society.
Even though Li Zeyin and the heroine become romantically involved in the later stages
of the game, the message of male hegemony is omnipresent. The character of Li Zeyin is
nicknamed "Li Dislike" by the female players, which means that they like him very
much.

24
Dislikes, i.e. words that negate the heroine. In the virtual circle of friends in the game, Li Zeyin
often posts content directed at the heroine, such as "It's hard to believe that an idiot
who can't even control a supermarket trolley can't learn how to drive." When the
heroine replied, "Next time, I'll let you learn my driving skills." When the heroine replies,
"Next time, I'll let you teach me how to drive.", Li Zeyin replies, "Trouble, stay in the
passenger seat." This distrust of women's abilities stems from society's stereotype of
female drivers. In news reports, once a female driver is involved in an accident, the
media will add the label "female driver" to the headline, implying that female drivers
have poor driving skills and are prone to accidents. However, the truth is that the proportion
of accidents involving female drivers is not higher or even lower than that of male drivers, but
such a subjective impression has already penetrated into the hearts of the general
public, which is a kind of sex discrimination.
Putting aside Li Zeyin's story line, the heroine, throughout the story, is a puppet that
can only be led by fate, and even though she possesses her own mind, she can't escape the
fate of being caught up in complicated events. The heroine has the gene of evoler (super-
power person), has the super-power of precognition, and can awaken the evol (super-power) of
others, but it is such a special feature that causes the heroine to be hunted down by
various organizations in the later stage of the story, and people want to obtain the gene
of the heroine queen, and take control of all super-powered people. This kind of plot
setting makes the heroine become a weak person who "carries her own sins", and in the
pursuit of all kinds of people, the heroine can only rely on the protection of the four
male protagonists to be spared, which belongs to the typical heroes to save the beauty of
the plot.
However, the weakness of the heroine's setting is a product of the hegemony of
male discourse. Men always want women to be weak and controllable, while men are
strong and controlling. Women are socialized and indoctrinated with the idea of
patriarchy, that women should be dependent on men and wait for men to save them.
Women have no voice at all in such an environment, and even when the story is told with
a woman as the protagonist, it is still wrapped around the center of the male discourse.
The heroine, in such a narrative context, even if she possesses the consciousness of a
modern woman, still has no power to rebel against the tragic fate of women under the
patriarchal mindset.
The women in Spiral Dance are, in fact, still under the control of men; the heroine,
Magda, and her adoptive mother, belong to the fallen aristocratic Ehrenstein family, and
the family's desire to rejoin the upper class of Vanthal requires a patron behind them, and
that man is Viscount Juven Sarkan of the Sarkan family, one of the four great families of
the present day, who controls the lifeblood of Magda and her adoptive mother, and who
cultivates Magda for the purpose of having her gather favorable intelligence for her
family. Moreover, in the game's plot, there is also this description of Juve: he has a rating
book of all the noble ladies of Vanthal in his hands, and his goal is to enlist the hearts of all
the maidens on the book who have a score of seven or higher, and Magda is a beautiful
maiden with a score of nine. This suggests that women are still a resource in the game's
setting, and that the game's male characters can rate women and objectify them as private
property to be possessed.
In addition to the main character Magda, the game also features an Elven woman
named White Star, who in the official setting is a powerful Elven mage with great
abilities, but in the plot she is shown to be nothing more than just a " house servant" of
the Sarkan family, and who receives permission from the Viscount of Sarkan to attend every
ball she attends. Other than that, almost all the nobles

25
Young girls are all about presenting themselves for the sake of the face of the families
controlled by the males; a noble lady wins the admiration of others in the social world, and
then her family receives an invisible boost. In the end, it was nothing more than a form of
male captivity for women, confining them in cages called balls with fancy dresses and
jewelry, ignorant of the war outside, even if the act of taking refuge from the arrival of
enemy artillery shells was nothing more than a game in the eyes of the noble ladies.
Women have no voice in the Senate, and Magda's adoptive mother's dream of returning
to the Senate by grooming Magda to become a socialite seems to be nothing more than a
fantasy, and the only people who can really accomplish it are the Sarkans, the collection
of male power behind the scenes, who are the only ones who can control the course of
the world.
Through the analysis of "Love and Maker" and "Spiral Dance", the female
characters in the game mirrors roughly have the following characteristics, they tend to have ordinary
origins, beautiful appearance, and a likable personality, but they have their own independent thoughts
and are not puppets of the people. The heroine of Love and Maker opposes the conspiracy
of sacrificing the lives of civilians, and Magda in Spiral Dance, although she is already a noble lady,
still cares for civilians and children and mourns the sacrifices made in the war. The
female character is only a small pawn in the grand context of the game's plot, but a more
important one.
Compared to female characters, male characters present an extraordinary aspect in
the game mirror; most of them are of prominent birth or have powerful abilities, and they
are usually in control of the female characters and in a dominant position. Female
characters often need to be dependent on them. This reflects the obvious stigma of a
masculinist society where women are in a subordinate position. The heroine in Love and Maker
needs to look up to the Warui Group for investment, while Magda in Spiral Circle Dance has the Sakan
family behind her, which is essentially the same thing. The female characters both need to
obtain the resources they rely on for survival from the male characters, and are in a
position of domination, while the male characters turn this charity into a seemingly equal
exchange in the name of love.

26
Chapter 3 An Empirical Investigation of Female Gamers
In order to further explore the experience of female players in the process of using
female-oriented games and analyze the gender issues, this paper adopts a mixed research
method, specifically using questionnaires, in-depth interviews and network observation
methods, to obtain data on the gaming experience of female players, and then conduct
research on the female identity of this group.

Section I. Research design

-Sample Selection
Based on the fact that female gamers are more concentrated in the online environment,
this study chooses to distribute the questionnaires on the Internet, and the places of distribution
are mostly in female-oriented game forums where female gamers gather, and in closed QQ
groups where interesting groups gather, and also through microblogs and WeChat to spread the
questionnaires to look for dispersed female-oriented game players. The questionnaires were
distributed and collected using the software platform Questionnaire Star, and a total of
300 questionnaires were collected.
The total number of valid questionnaires that met the criteria was 288.
The online observation mainly selects the microblog accounts opened by the four
male protagonists of Love and Maker on Sina Weibo as the observation target, specifically
observes the interaction between female players and virtual game characters on Weibo, a
real social platform, and analyzes the identity of female players in the game by collecting the
comments of female players under the microblogs of the four male protagonists. Here,
the contents and comments of the four male protagonists' microblogs are randomly selected
for generalization and analysis to explore the emotional performance of female players
inside and outside the game.

II. Questionnaire design

The questionnaire is designed from two aspects, including the basic information of
female players and the game experience of female players. First of all, the questionnaire
carries out basic screening for the respondents, and the two single choices of your gender
and whether you have played female-oriented games must meet the conditions of female
and having played female-oriented games at the same time before you can fill in the next
questionnaire, or else it will directly jump to the submission page to end the completion of
the questionnaire. This setting improves the accuracy of the questionnaire survey, obtains
the information of the research subjects to a greater extent, and reduces the probability of
interference from non-research subjects.
Among the research subjects who met the above two conditions, the study designed
basic options such as age, education, occupation, etc., to investigate the basic portrait of
female gamers from a more objective point of view, and at the same time, through the
research subjects' choices of focusing on work and family, to explore their views on
women's self-worth. In the game experience section, the study set up multiple choices for
female gamers' preferences for male characters in the game, and also set up an experience
survey on the game plot and the sense of immersion in the game to explore whether female
gamers feel the gender issues in the game.

27
III. Interview design
Typical sampling is used to determine the research object, and the most representative
individuals among the survey respondents are selected as the research object. By randomly
distributing the questionnaires, the author screened and sampled according to the types of
games people play and the experience of playing games involved in the questionnaires,
etc., and finally determined as the interview subjects. In addition, age, occupation, and other
factors are taken into consideration in the selection of the sample of interview subjects in order to involve
multi-level people and improve the diversity of the sample.
The study utilized the interviews of 20 respondents and coded these 20 respondents as follows:

Exhibit Female Gamer In-Depth Interview Respondents Overview Table

personnel distinguishing (a person's) careers name of game game

code between the age category
sexes
A women 28 principals miracle warmer Dress Up
Collection
B women 19 university Love and Maker lovebreedin
student (video game g
series)
C women 24 university The Stage Girl Card
student Developme
nt
D women 25 company Love and Maker lovebreedin
employee (video game g
series)
E women 27 company skirts and feathers Dress Up
employee Collection
F women 23 company sword fight Card
employee Developme
nt
G women 31 company Heartbeat lovebreedin
employee Memories 3 g
H women 20 university amnesia Love
student Adventure
I women 24 company sword fight lovebreedin

28
IV. Research hypotheses
Prior to the quantitative and qualitative research investigations, the following
hypotheses were made about female gamers' gaming experiences and their gender
perspectives in gaming based on the content qualities extracted from female-oriented
games:
Hypothesis 1: Female players believe that female-oriented games are dominated by
female characters and that women have a voice in the game.
Hypothesis 2: Male characters in female-oriented games are in a dominant position
in the game and still hold the male voice.

Section II. Findings

Based on the results of the questionnaire survey, as well as online observation and
in-depth interviews, this section has preliminary results on female players' experiences and
thoughts in female-oriented games, echoing the content analysis of female-oriented games
mentioned above. In this section, the subjective feelings of female gamers in games are analyzed
both positively and negatively, and the identity of female gamers in female-oriented
games is explored.

-User Profile of Female Gamers

Female-oriented games are perceived to have a primary audience of young women, and that's true.

Figure 3-1 Pie Chart of Female Players' Age Situation

29
 Figure 3-2 Circle Chart of Female Players' Identities

According to the results of Fig. 3-1 and Fig. 3-2, 57.44% of female gamers are 19-
24 years old, 21.45% of female gamers are over 25 years old, the rest are 16-18 years
old (14.88%), and under 15 years old (6.23%), and most of them have undergraduate
degrees, while 58.48% of the interviewees are students, and the rest are mostly
company employees. Such a young group of mostly undergraduate students are willing to
accept new things, familiar with the use of the Internet, and at the same time full of
interest in games.
In the survey on the respondents' tendency to focus on work and family, 60.42% of
female players chose to focus on work, reflecting the characteristics of the new
independent women, joining the workplace and striving for their own development. This
is also in line with modern women's perception of their own future, women are
independent, not housewives who can only rely on their families.
In the in-depth interviews with female gamers, many of the current female-oriented
gamers were exposed to this female-oriented type of animation from Japanese animation,
which is usually adapted from Japanese female-oriented games, and these gamers are
already very familiar with female-oriented games due to their long-term exposure to the
relevant Japanese secondary culture.
"I started to understand the female-oriented love game from the "Amnesia" anime,
and then also went to play the game, and now the game has also been bought by
NetEase's YiDiYuan, you can play directly on the web page. After that, I also played
quite a lot of other Otome Games from Japan, and the general formula is similar. I also
went to play the domestic Love and Maker when it was launched, and it's just the same
type of feeling as the ones from Japan, but there are too few Otome Games in China, so
it's just one of a kind." (Interviewee M)
In addition to this, due to the popularity of Love and Maker on the internet, many
players who have not been exposed to this type of relationship game before are also
playing a female-oriented relationship game for the first time, and for them, this
experience is still very new.

30
 "I haven't played any other female-oriented games except for Love and Maker, so I just
watched everyone around me play it, so I followed along, and it still feels quite new, and with
that kind of voice-acting, it feels especially authentic." (Interviewee B)
From the interviews, we learned that most of the reasons for female gamers to play
female-oriented games come from friends' recommendations, and they regard female-
oriented games as a medium of communication with friends, which also reflects the social
attributes of female-oriented games. In the microblogging observation, we also see female
players seeking companions to play with as friends in the game, or seeking a QQ group
to discuss the plot and characters, in which the game plays the role of a platform,
connecting female players.
At the same time, female players, in addition to the game text, will also make
secondary creation of the text of female-oriented games to express their own views. On
microblogging, the secondary creation of "Love and Producer" players' homoerotic works series is
also highly popular, and all kinds of player-created game-related plots and illustrations are quite popular
among the player community. Under the topic of "Love and Producer", there are new
homoerotic works released almost every day.
Generally speaking, young female college students and white-collar workers are the
main force of female-oriented games, and they have a circle that is very easy to accept
new things, and they are willing to share and exchange their own feelings about games.
Most of them have independent concepts, pursue their own personality and favorite
things, and are the independent women of the new era.

II Female Players' Preference for Male Game Characters

In the survey on the game characteristics of female-oriented games, beautiful
painting style, interesting plot, and interesting characters are the most important points
that female gamers pay attention to in female-oriented games, and all three elements
account for more than 70% of the total, with beautiful painting style being the most
prominent at 80.9%, which reflects the importance of "face value". This shows the
importance of "face value" in female gamers' choice of game characters.
For a long time, there have always been scenes of men picking women in a male-
dominated society, whether it's a dating show or a traditional beauty pageant, all of them are using
men's standards and picking women, which is a kind of objectification for women. However, in female-
oriented games, female players can pick the male character of their choice, and it must be
said that it can be said to be a subversion. Various types of male characters such as
teenager, uncle, sunshine, tenderness, arrogance, darkness, etc. are displayed in female-
oriented games.
In the questionnaire survey, 70.14% of female players generally believe that it is the
female characters who dominate the development of the game's plot, which reflects the
female players' sense of subjectivity in the game, where women control the direction of
the story development and master the entire game world.

31
 Figure 3-3 Histogram of Female Players' Preferred Traits for Male Characters
In the survey on female players' tendency to choose male characters in female-
oriented games, Figure 3-3 shows that female players tend to choose more feminine
characteristics, with gentleness accounting for 72.66%, understanding 63.32%, and
traditional masculinity characteristics such as hegemony, masculinity, and money at
the bottom of the list, while rationality occupies the third place, reaching 57.44%.
This shows that female players tend to choose male characters who are gentle and
rational at the same time. At the same time, this tendency of choosing game characters is
also mixed with female players' criteria for choosing real mates, with 59.38% of female
players believing that the two criteria are the same, which means that the romantic
partner in the game also meets their criteria for choosing mates in reality, or is a kind of
compensation for the lack of opportunities for love in reality.
Traditionally, masculinity in both sexes is composed of the words ego, rational,
masculine, order, controlling, and predatory, and femininity is composed of the words
dependent, passive, illogical, submissive, predatory, and private.
"In Heartbeat Memories 3, the fellow classmate that I like you feel would be a
bit macho, but this macho is different from what we usually say, that is, when something
goes wrong, the first thing he would do is reflect on what he didn't do very well, and be
very strict with himself, and he wouldn't say, you're a poseur for a woman who is raising
her children. He will think you are also a woman, we are fair, you can achieve good
results in this place, which surprised me, usually this kind of prince drama is not always the
prince came to the princess can lie down? He's not yet, instead he'll inspire you, you can
obviously do a good job, I'm sure you'll be able to work it out on your own, you're also a
woman who can stand on her own, how can I put it, this kind of setup of being like a
buddy and a lover at the same time is out of my imagination."
(Interviewee G)
In the in-depth interview, the female gamer expressed surprise at the e x i s t e n c e of
male characters who encourage the heroine in a positive way. Indeed, in more female-oriented
game scripts, there are mostly princely storylines where the heroine just needs to look pretty,
and there is a lack of male characters encouraging the heroine to progress along with them, and
even in some female-oriented game settings, the male characters imprison and force the
heroine to commit crimes in the name of love. even in some female-oriented game
settings, male characters will imprison and force female protagonists to commit crimes in
the name of love.

32
 Figure 3-4 Circle Chart of Female Players' Preference for Male Character Identity
In the tendency of female players to the identity of male characters, the majority of
female players chose the class of police, doctors and professors, which are more affable
and equal, accounting for 55.02%, instead of the hegemonic class of president and
emperor, which are more powerful, accounting for 37.37%, and the era of Mary Sue
with "hegemonic presidents" has already been declining. At the same time, the social
professions of police, doctors and professors have their own attractions.
In Love and Maker, the most popular character, Bai Qi, is a police officer, while the
other three male characters are the president, idol, and professor. A police officer is
perceived by teenage girls as a man in uniform with a sense of justice, and a male in
uniform carries with him the attribute of being handsome. The character of Bai Qi also
carries an aura of a childhood friend. He is the heroine's senior in high school, the man of
the hour in the school, and although he is cold in appearance and has a rebellious and
unruly personality, he also has a gentle heart. He had a crush on the heroine in high
school, but missed her because of some misunderstandings. Seven years later, when he
reunited with the heroine, he gave her a handmade ginkgo bracelet as a token between the
two. Such a character encompasses a woman's imagination of the perfect object.
"I got into this game because I like Ajay Dada who voices Bai Qi, on the other
hand, I quite like the profession of a police officer, with hormones bursting and a gentle
heart at the same time, Bai Qi is really a sweetie pie." (Interviewee D)
"The Prince Charming in my heart is Bai Qi, he's really too manly, makes people
feel completely secure, so heartwarming, it's simply the template for me to find a date
in the future." (Interviewee N)
In more female-oriented games, female players' tendency to choose male characters also
shows diversity. Some like yellow-haired characters, some like sickly girls, some like cat-
oriented boys, etc....... These game characters have their own characteristics and cannot
be summarized by simple symbols.
"My favorite character is Yamabushi Kiri Kunihiro, I probably like him because of
the feature that he has yellow hair, because I've always liked yellow-haired characters,
but there's no denying that he does have a nice face too." (Interviewee F)

33
 "I like uyko the most in Amnesia because he's sickly, it's just dual personalities that
love each other, and my nature actually likes a little bit of abuse, and then the heroine in this line
is miserable, and the experience of the heroine and uyko just makes it feel like
everything is destiny, and no one can escape from that fate." (Interviewee H)
"My favorite character is California Kiyomitsu, who I remember as a more cat-like
boy, who on the surface seems to be cold and arrogant, and loves his fur, and fights like
he doesn't want to die, and is more than satisfied with where he dies on the battlefield.
However, in private with close people is the kind of small cat, insecure and want to remain
independent, but always can not help but secretly care. I also worry that I'll be disliked if
I don't look good or cute." (Interviewee I)
"I like Li Zeyan the most out of the four male protagonists, to meet the reality can
not fall in love with the president of the flaws, it is the president of this label is very
attractive to me, and then he is also arrogant and gentle, it is my ideal goal now."
(Interviewee B) "My favorite love with this event out of the flower marriage card deck,
feel let me and Lao Li really stand in front of the auditorium, although the game plot
explains that this is to participate in the event acting, but the flower marriage card deck
really let a person's teenage heart burst." (Interviewee K)
"The characters in Devil's Lover are all sadistic and very much to my liking,
probably because I like sadism. That sound effect of the game, feeling like you're actually getting
blood sucked out of you, is very exciting." (Interviewee M)
"I still love the president the most, the overbearing president is too Mary Sue, I also
like Mr. Wu Lei's voice, I like to listen to Lao Li's voice before going to bed, it feels
like Lao Li is next to me." (Interviewee O)
"Narang is probably the one who is most like first love in reality. The way he
follows my every move, searches his mind for ways he can help me, and then makes a
special effort to make what he feels is the best drink to bring to you, really makes me feel
the sweetness of first love." (Interviewee P)

III Identity of Female Players

Female-oriented games are mostly a first-perspective gaming experience with a
woman as the main character, and the main gameplay is the sense of immersion, which is a
kind of substitution of the character to play her behavior, and the symbols in the game are
also interpreted through the female player's substitution of her own emotional cognition.
71.53% of the female gamers have a sense of immersion in playing female-oriented
games, which is to make the female character's emotions and the female player's
emotions fusion.
Most of the female characters in the game are designed to be close to the players, they
are either ordinary high school students, college students or office workers, who suddenly
encounter a marvelous story in their ordinary daily life, a male god who falls from the sky
or suddenly enters an otherworldly world, all of which are scenarios that the players
cannot experience in the real world. Ordinary women, who are usually ignored by society
to a large extent, have the power of speech in the virtual world of the game, and the entire
game world revolves around the female characters played by female players, such an
experience has to be said to be a romantic fantasy.

34
 "All feminist texts so far have been whispering to women in men's language 27 ."
Women have always been nothing more than decorations in masculinist literature, men
have always measured and indoctrinated women by male standards, and the only texts
that truly belong to women are those that are truly written by women themselves. The text
of female-oriented games is written by women themselves, to women themselves, only
women as the main character in the text, men have become replaceable supporting
characters, and men are not the only ones, it is plural, which draws an important picture of
women's subjective status. Only women know the real needs of women, not swayed by
consumer culture, the real psychological, deep-seated needs.
Female players, there is a focus on social attributes, in the interview most female
players are recommended by friends and go to play a game, then, and friends to
communicate the fun of the game is also a part of the game, in addition to and around
friends, female players also like to publish their own dynamics on social platforms, which
includes game-related content. In various game-related forum communities, or
microblogging game-related topics, female players are always very active, forming a
small group.
In the microblogging network observation found that in the microblogging topic of
"Love and Producer", often appear self-proclaimed "Mrs. Li", "Mrs. Bai", "Mrs. Xu",
"Mrs. Zhou" female players, they take the character in the game as "husband", then they
call themselves as the wife or wife of the game character to show their identity.
On Bai Qi's Sina Weibo account, @baiqi7, a tweet that reads "Justice is never
paranoia" has been retweeted 1,000+, commented on 1,000+, and liked 10,000+. The
comment was as follows: "Here you go hubby! You're right about everything!" , "My
justice is you." , "I believe you are justice.", "Can you come back, just want to sit on your
motorcycle and let you take me to work day." , "Ah, hubby (crying emoji)", "Yes, but
love is paranoid, and I'm the paranoid one who will always love you rather than die." , "Brother Bai,
you've teased me, be responsible (sunglasses emoji)," and so on.
In the eyes of female players, Bai Qi is not only a character in the game, but also a
"husband" in their minds. Every microblog of Bai Qi has a group of enthusiastic
female players forwarding, commenting, liking and interacting with each other, which
expresses the love of "Mrs. Bai" for this "paper man" Bai Qi. The "Mrs. Bai"
expressed their love for Bai Qi as a "paper man". Such a kind, courageous character with
a cold exterior and gentle heart has become the love interest of female players in the virtual
world, reflecting their demand for a perfect match.
When the official microblogging site of @Love and Producer released a preview
of a new card, there will be female players who like this character to come to report, in the
comments of this official microblogging site, a message with the content of "Where is Mrs. Li
(sneer emoticon)" triggered the enthusiasm of all the "Mrs. Li". A message reading
"Where's Mrs. Li? After "Love and Producer" released the wedding cards for the four male
protagonists, "Mrs. Bai," "Mrs. Li," "Mrs. Xu," and "Mrs. Zhou" started a
campaign on Weibo. The "Mrs. White", "Mrs. Li", "Mrs. Xu" and "Mrs.
Zhou" started a "carnival" on Weibo, playing the role of a certain "Mrs."
more vividly.

27
Kourany, J.A. et al. (ed) Feminist Philslphies, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1992.

35
 For example, the Weibo account @李泽言 K posted a message that said,
"There's still a week to go, don't doubt it." The message hinted at the arrival of the
wedding card, and all the "Mrs. Lee's" were already eager to express their joy.
"I'm ready, when are we going to make a baby!!!" I'll do it!" , "I don't doubt it,
wait for you to marry me", "ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah
ah ah ah ah ah and marry me!!!" , "Being Lee's bride is nothing to worry about.
(Love)", "And then we can sleep together?" , "Hubby wishes you a Happy New
Year in advance!!!!Loveyou!" Messages such as these crowded Li Zeyan's microblog, and
"Mrs. Li" used their own way to express their love for
In order to express their feelings about marrying Li Zeyan, the official wedding card allows
"Mrs. Li" to complete a virtual wedding with the game character Li Zeyan in
a way that allows them to act as the heroine of the game. They were able to take on the role
of the "bride" and express their emotions through their words. Although all the
"ladies" know that the game character's microblog is officially operated by the game,
they are silently abiding by the unwritten rule that the microblog account is the character's
own. In a military model lucky draw microblog forwarded by @Baiqi 7, a "Mrs. Bai"
pointed out this fact: "The microblog administrator of Qi Zi is really dedicated."
This drew many kind reminders from "Mrs. White": "Shhh, this is Qi Zi",
"This is Qi Zi", "Sisters don't say it! ", "Sisters don't say it",
"Someone, seal her mouth to me" and other 80+ comments. This message also reaped
2000+ likes. This is a kind of silent guardianship of female players for the virtual world,
they are willing to treat this virtual game role as a real person, and they themselves are also
involved in playing the role of "Mrs.", "Mrs.", which is a kind of maintenance of their
virtual identity. This is a kind of maintenance of their virtual identity.
"Mrs. Li", "Mrs. Bai" and other groups that are distinguished by their
favorite game characters have gradually formed a kind of synergy, and they will organize
together to do some activities similar to the support activities of fans for their idols. In the
support activities, the most famous is "Mrs. Li" for Li Zeyan's birthday and bought the
building ads, in Li Zeyan's birthday, a high building in Shenzhen appeared "Li Zeyan
Happy Birthday, do not make a fuss, is the brush of your card. The words "Happy
Birthday, don't be surprised, it's your card" appeared on a high building in Shenzhen,
which is said to be a building advertisement bought by a tycoon "Mrs. Li" at a huge
cost. "Mrs. White" in the name of "Mrs. White" launched a public service to care for
veterans who have fought hard, and White Qi's identity as a police officer. At the same
time, some "Mrs. Bai" said on Weibo, "We are civil servants, so we can't waste
money." This shows that female players are not only supporting Bai Qi as an idol, but
also taking on the role of the game character and acting as their spouses, really looking out
for the game character. The "Zhou wives" set up the @Zhou Qiluo Birthday Support
Group account on Weibo, which is specifically responsible for organizing Zhou Qiluo's
birthday support activities, and in order to fit in with Zhou Qiluo's celebrity setting, in addition to
the regular New York City Times Square giant screen scrolling birthday support, they also pooled
their money to purchase the naming rights to an asteroid named "zhou qiluo".
Mrs. So-and-So, the exclusive identity label for female gamers, has gradually
become a converging force. Female gamers are no longer labeling themselves as
enthusiasts or players, but are identifying themselves with the highly feminine labels of
"Mrs.", "Mrs.", and "Bride". The female players' sense of immersion treats the game
characters as "husband", "son", "daughter", while they themselves are "wife",
"mother "This shows the dual social identities of women and the identification of
female players with the gender identity of women.

36
 Based on the research results, the hypotheses presented in the previous section were tested:
Hypothesis 1: Female players believe that female-oriented games are dominated by
female characters and that women have a voice in the game.
In the questionnaire survey, 70.14% of female gamers generally believe that
female characters dominate the plot development of the game. From the design of
female-oriented games, women, as the first viewpoint in the game, appear as the absolute
protagonist, who connects all the game characters in the game plot. Moreover,
according to the data that 71.53% of female gamers have a sense of immersion in playing
female-oriented games, it proves that the female characters in the game are in line with the
psychological expectations of female gamers and the emotional needs of female gamers. This shows
that female characters in female-oriented games do express the discourse of female gamers to a
certain extent, and women have the right to speak in female-oriented games. Therefore, this
hypothesis is valid.
Hypothesis 2: Male characters in female-oriented games are in a dominant position
in the game and still hold the male voice.
According to the in-depth interviews with female players, we concluded that male
characters usually exist in a strong position, for example, female players are more
attracted to "police", "president" and other game characters, they usually appear
in a way to save or help female characters. They usually appear in a way to save or help
female characters, and female characters rely on these male characters in the game plot, and
these characters are typically those who have certain social resources. Even though the
first point of view of the story is the female point of view, they also play a large role in
the development of the story. They still play the role of males protecting the males among
the females in the game, and are still the voice of patriarchy, holding the power of
discourse in the game's society. Therefore, this hypothesis is valid.

37
 Chapter 4 Research Conclusions and Discussion
After analyzing the contents of female-oriented games, as well as observing female
players, questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews, we have come to the preliminary
conclusion of female-oriented games on gender issues, that is, female-oriented games
highlight women's subjective position from women's discourse, but there still exists the
phenomenon of male discourse hegemony in the shaping of male characters' settings and
contents. This chapter will explore the meaning behind this phenomenon in the context of
the times, mainly analyzing female gamers from the three levels of the social environment's
shaping of women, the ideological constraints of male discourse and the awakening of
women's subjective consciousness, and exploring the significance of female gamers as a
special group in the context of today's feminism.

Section I. The Shaping of Women in the Social Discourse

"Woman is not born, but molded," wrote Beauvoir in The Second Sex. "It is a
man's great good fortune that he, whether in adulthood or as a child, must embark on an
extremely arduous path, which is nevertheless the surest of paths; it is a woman's
misfortune to be surrounded by almost irresistible temptations; she is not called upon to
rise to the occasion, but only encouraged to slide down to reach the ultimate bliss. When
she realizes that she has been fooled by a mirage, it is too late; her strength has been
exhausted in a failed adventure28 ." This is how women are molded in the social
context of the West.
In China's feudal society, women have always existed in a subordinate position, they
are subordinate to men, and have been instilled with a lot of feudalistic ideas since
childhood, such as "the three obediences and four virtues", "the three principles and
five rules", "marrying a chicken and following the chicken", "marrying a dog and
following the dog", and so on. They were taught a lot of feudalistic ideas from
childhood, such as "three obediences and four virtues", "three principles and five
rules", "marrying a chicken and following the chicken" and "marrying a dog and
following the dog". They did not have the right to read and write, and the phrase "a
woman's lack of talent is a virtue" kept them out of the ruling class of feudal society.
After the founding of New China, Chinese women were truly emancipated, equal to
men in status, and able to hold up half the sky. Women were often seen working in the
farms, forests and factories, and they carried half of the development of new China on
their shoulders. After the reform and opening up, the status of women has been on the
rise, catching up with that of men in many fields, and in some fast-growing industries,
their achievements and status have even surpassed those of developed countries such as
the United Kingdom and the United States.
However, in people's secular concepts, women still mostly belong to the private
sphere of the family, "It is better to study well than to marry well", "It is enough for a girl to
find a stable job so that she will have time to take care of the family." " T h e d a u g h t e r
o f t h e xx family next door is over 30 years old and still unmarried, there's nothing
wrong with her, is there?" Words like these are still very common nowadays. Society at
large fixes women's social roles in the family and recognizes their roles as wives and
mothers, but neglects the fact that they also have the social identities of female
employees, doctors and professors. Although nowadays

28
Simone de Beauvoir, Clu Zheng, The Second Sex, Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2014.

38
While people are gradually realizing that women are subject to various forms of gender
discrimination in society, the situation has not changed substantially, and women are still
defaulted to the role of "good wives and mothers", whose value lies in giving birth to
and raising the next generation, and who are neglected and absent from the public
sphere.
In the gaming space, female gamers have long been labeled as weak by the
masculinized gaming world, which is actually behind the fact that men have always held
the power of discourse. In addition to this, it is also the disallowance of socialized female
labeling. In the study of human behavioral patterns, researchers conducting hormone
research, the physiological indicators research method used some indicators:
physiological female refers to like marriage and wedding, the importance of marriage
rather than career, like babies and children, but rather like to play with dolls, etc.;
physiological men's evidence includes: like the activity of the game and toys, self-
confidence, want to do the career, think career is more important than the family, be a
parent, etc.29 . These indicators are in fact entirely a product of socialization rather than
something that people are born with. For example, pink is often used in society to
represent females and blue to represent males, which are in fact gradually agreed upon in
the development of society and are not natural attributes.
In fact, the dominant position of men in games also stems from the absence of men
in household chores. Society recognizes the law of "male dominant, female dominant",
men can relax in the family, so they can have leisure time to play, while women have
been taught to help with household chores since childhood, even if there is a brother in
the family, it is still the woman who does the household chores, after adulthood, it is just
that the location of the household chores changed from the father's house to the husband's
house, women hardly have a large chunk of leisure time in the family. In adulthood, the
place of housework changed from the father's house to the husband's house, and women
hardly had much leisure time in the family. With the development of modern science and
technology, household electrical appliances save time for housework, but women's
obligation to do housework has not changed.
Women are often portrayed by society as the weakest members of the family,
emotional and lacking in logic, and therefore unable to do important work and can only
take on the role of raising children in the family. Under such a general environment, women
are unconsciously turned into the image portrayed by the society. Gaming, a male-
dominated field, never recognizes that women can compete with men, but only
discriminates against them, ignoring the fact that this situation is shaped by a male-
dominated society.

Section II. The Binding of Male Discourse

Men have always been the dominant force in society, and the ethics and rules of
society are set by men. The oppression of women by men has changed from a tangible
economic and physical oppression to an ideological and spiritual oppression. This kind of
oppression is written into the subtle rules of society, which is usually not easy to notice at
all. Only when we swap the identity contexts of men and women can we realize that
society has long been controlled by men's right to speak. For example, "he" can refer to
all people, while "she" can only refer to the female population. Such a notion, written as
a cultural rule, isolates women and treats them differently.
In China as well as in Japan and Korea, we have been influenced by the traditional
Confucian thinking that men are superior to women, and the ideas of "the husband is the
master of the wife" and "marrying a chicken follows the chicken and marrying a dog
follows the dog" have always existed, and in some areas, there is still the custom that
women do not go to the table at the New Year's Eve, and women are deprived of the right
to speak in this environment and can only hide their names in the family. In such an
environment, women are deprived of their right to speak and can only remain anonymous
in the family. In
29
Tripp, A (ed.) Gender, Palgrave, 2000.

39
In society, various thresholds have also been set up on the issue of women's employment,
in an attempt to trap women in the family, make society a male voice, and make the rules
of society serve men.
Similarly, in the realm of games, female players have always been on the periphery,
and games have been defaulted to be the exclusive domain of men. The protagonists of
most role-playing genres are young male figures, and even when female figures appear,
they are either female figures in the male aesthetic or female figures with a masculine
temperament. Most of these characters are full-bodied, scantily clad, and full of sexual
innuendo for men, making them objects of consumption for men. Even in female-oriented
games, the portrayed male characters still uphold masculinist traits, wrapping machismo
in love and coaxing women to give up their independence.
During the spring of 2018, Love and Maker released a video advertisement which consists
of three more clips. In the first clip, several female gamers meet by chance on a bus and
fight over their favorite male characters; in the second clip, a gathering of female friends,
several good sisters show off the red packets, diamond rings, and designer bags they
received under the pretense of talking to their boyfriends on the phone, while the player
of Love and Maker pulls out four cell phones to show off the sweet words of the four
male protagonists; and in the third clip, a girl addicted to the game introduces the game
character "Li Zeyan" to her family and friends as her boyfriend, coaxing them to accept
her as their boyfriend, while the player of Love and Maker pulls out four cell phones to
show off his sweet words. In the third clip, a girl who is addicted to the game introduces
the game character "Li Zeyan" to her family and friends as her boyfriend, and coaxes her
worried mother. The ads labeled female gamers as stupid, gold-digging, and ridiculous, a
blatant mockery of female gamers. Although the advertisement was criticized and taken
down by the whole network within one day, and an official apology was given, the appearance of
such an advertisement makes people think deeply.
In "Love and Maker", the most popular president character, Li Zeyin, is the voice of male
discourse, and he possesses some of the characteristics of the "hegemonic president"
textual paradigm, which usually represents the possession of wealth, status and position,
and his character traits also have some macho coloring. The president usually represents
wealth, status and position, and his character traits also have some macho colors. The fact
that women prefer this kind of character as their love object is actually an appeal to their
social wealth and status. In the traditional social cognition, women can get class up
through marriage, as well as the wealth and status of a substantial increase in the
president is nowadays the wealth and status of the representative of the society, while the
president usually also has the ability to have a personal, with the space to rise, so women
tend to choose such a character as the ideal object is normal, in line with the traditional
values. However, how many such elites are there in reality? Therefore, the "president"
has become a female fantasy and an object of female fantasies.
In short, "president" is actually a utopian ideal for women, a projection of
women's desire for money and status. In reality, due to gender discrimination and other
traditional obstacles, women seldom become the top management of a company, like Su Mingyu
in "All's Well", who became a gold-collar worker, and therefore choose to become a shortcut to the
top through marriage. Therefore, choosing marriage as a shortcut to rise has become the
common perception of most women. The female players of "Love and Maker" who use
"Mrs. Li" as their self-identification label are substituting themselves into this ideal
object model, experiencing this virtual emotion in the game, and at the same time, it is also a kind
of bondage to their own sense of female subjectivity. The feminist point of view is that
women should realize their own subjective status, and no longer be dominated by male
power.
mates, but rather on equal footing with men. And in female-oriented games, still with a masculinist
discourse

40
 Creating male characters in female-oriented games, yet female gamers are no longer
subservient to a masculinist society, but rather independent, new-age women, exemplifies
female-oriented games' departure from feminism.

Section III. The Awakening of the Female Subjective Consciousness

With the enlightening effect of the feminist movement, more and more women are joining
the ranks of those defending their power, and are aware of the inequality that women encounter in a
male-dominated society, as well as the importance of work and the value of women as human
beings. In order to fight for their rights and interests, women have to master the power of
female discourse and use their own words to express their voices.
As China's economy continues to develop and society becomes more open in the
twenty-first century, women's status in the family and in society is once again being
elevated. As more and more women realize their social and family status and economic
independence, women's spending power continues to grow. In many Chinese families,
women are in charge of economic power, and Chinese female consumers have become
the main force of consumption, and are gradually recognized as a new opportunity for
economic development and an important profit supporter for merchants30 .
The growth of consumption in the women's gaming market cannot be separated
from the awakening of women's own consciousness. Modern women understand the
importance of economic independence, to meet their own shopping desires and develop their own
hobbies can not be separated from the support of economic strength. Moreover, in the case of
the high divorce rate, traditional housewives who face divorce, then in the absence of
economic foundation, all the conditions can not be discussed. In addition, today's women
do not view marriage and love differently from traditional women. Therefore, modern women
choose the workplace as a display of their own strength, in the workplace to reap the foundation
of self-confidence and self-reliance, in the marriage relationship to maintain their own
competitiveness, after all, marriage is not a lifetime reliable.
In the era of women's self-awakening, women have more voice, and in the
development of modern social media, women take up the majority of voices in social
media. When women come out from their families and rely on their efforts to reach
higher stages, more voices with women as the starting point will be heard, making more
opportunities for women to fight for their rights and interests. The right to speak is a right
in itself, as long as there are people who speak out, there will be people who pay
attention to this group, on the contrary, if there are no people who speak out, then there
will be no one who pays attention to this group.
Female-oriented games originated from Japan, on the one hand, it is the developed
game industry in Japan, on the other hand, it is the reality that the marriage rate in Japan is
declining year by year. In modern Japan, more women choose to go out to work, and at
the same time, the pressure of life and work makes the cost of marriage become very
high, at this time, female-oriented game is a kind of psychological compensation, Japan's
female-oriented game is often associated with cell phone numbers, the game company will
simulate the role of the game to send mail to the female players, such a kind of
interventionist experience will sometimes make the player confuse the boundary between
reality and virtual. into a kind of virtual psychological fulfillment.
China is also going through such a stage on the way to modernization, where
women are devoting themselves to career building, becoming more independent and
autonomous, they are financially independent, have a good quality of life, and at the
same time, for the present day, away from the
30
Ai Yubo, "Research on Consumption Alienation under the Changing Status of Women in Contemporary China" (Master's thesis), Jilin University, 2016.

41
Disappointed by the reality of the high marriage rate, they choose to live a life of
celibacy. Romance games are a kind of compensation for the gap of real relationships, and
the survey also shows that most female players' preference for the characters in the games is in
line with the real standards.
The expansion of the female-oriented game market is inseparable from women's
awareness of their own subjectivity. Nowadays, most of the women in the city have
awakened the consciousness of women's subjectivity after receiving good education, they
have independent thoughts and independent life, and they have their own ideas about
their personal future development, they are no longer the small women bound in the
family by the patriarchal system of thought, but are the professional women facing the
society directly. Female-oriented games have developed in the context of women's
groups gradually becoming independent, it caters to the awakening of women's
subjective consciousness, the story is no longer written from a male perspective, but
depicted with female strokes, a channel for women to speak out. Even though there are
masculinist contents mixed in the game, this way of conveying women's voices is worthy of
recognition and breaks the monopoly of males in the field of gaming.
In the experience of female-oriented games, female players put themselves into the
female characters in the game, and under the drive of the game's plot, they integrate into the
female characters as the incarnation of the story with various male characters, and consider the
male characters as their "husbands", and put themselves into the gender
identity of their "wives" or "girlfriends". The female characters are seen as
"husbands", and their gender identity as "wives" or "girlfriends" is substituted.
This substitution of identity reflects the gender identity of female players in the game;
they are not male players, but exclusively female players, which makes it necessary for the scripts
of female-oriented games to be written from a female perspective and express female thoughts, thus
representing the discourse of women.

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 concluding remarks
The essence of feminism is equality between men and women. In the history and
culture of our country, women have always been in a subordinate position, and they
lacked a sense of equality between men and women and the right to speak. Although
the call for feminism has become loud enough in the 21st century, there are still traces
of traditional masculinity in many places. As a form of female-oriented content, female-
oriented games, although catering to the needs of contemporary women, have not
avoided the imprint of a patriarchal society. However, female-oriented games, a form
written and voiced by women, have elevated women's discourse to a certain extent and
opened up a new horizon in the male-dominated gaming field.
Women have been oppressed by the traditional patriarchal ideology and have been inspired
by the feminist movement to find themselves again. Although there is still sexism and
inequality between men and women in the society, the spark of freedom has been lit in the
hearts of educated urban women, who are seeking independence and personal
development, and are no longer imprisoned in the family as a housewife.
The content of female-oriented games on the one hand caters to the subjective
consciousness of modern women, reflecting a kind of compensation for women's need for
love, as women look for their ideal objects in the game. Female players seek their own
emotional belonging in the game, either emotional resonance or a kind of compensation.
At the same time, female players in the process of the game, and other players to form an
interesting group, communicate with each other and organize activities, to complete a kind
of female players identity, which is another kind of confirmation of the female identity.
The expansion of the group of female gamers reflects the awakening of the female
subject, and in the field of gaming, the emergence of games designed specifically for
women is a manifestation of female discourse, while at the same time, in gaming, female
gamers take on the identity of the female characters in the game, creating a unique
connection to the common gender identity of women.
However, there are still traces of hegemonic masculinity in the portrayal of the plot
and characters in female-oriented games. The male characters in the games still retain the
characteristics of masculinity, they have wealth and status, and they have the ability to control the
female characters, and the plot of the games emphasizes the weight of the male
characters, while weakening the role of the female characters.

43
 bibliography

Publications:
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2. Simone de Beauvoir, Clu Zheng, The Second Sex, Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2014.
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Shandong University Press, 2002.
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Thesis:
1. Qiao, Lilin: The Postmodern Turn of Feminism and the Construction of a New Female Culture
(Master's thesis) Heilongjiang: Heilongjiang University, 2014.
2. Li Ting, Equality and difference: a feminist study (Master's thesis), Jilin: Jilin University, 2017.
3. Tian Mi, "Research on Ruili Website under Feminist Perspective (Master's Thesis),
Nanning: Guangxi University for Nationalities, 2015.
4. Liu Yanshi, "Mainland Chick Films in the Perspective of Feminism (Master's Thesis),
Chongqing: Southwest University, 2016.
5. Gao Xiao, Exploring the Cultural Phenomenon of "Mary Sue" from the Perspective of
Postmodern Feminism (Master's thesis), Nanjing: Nanjing Normal University, 2018.
6. Wu Dan, "Emotional Design of Mobile Games for Female Players (Master's Thesis),
Wuhan: Huazhong Normal University, 2014.
7. Ai Yubo, Study on Consumption Alienation under the Changing Status of Women in
Contemporary China (Master's thesis), Jilin: Jilin University, 2016.
8. Jin Huicong, "On Emotional Expression in Video Games" (Master's thesis), Beijing: China
Academy of Art, 2009.

44
9. Chenming Zhang. a Study on the Contemporary Turn of Feminist-Oriented Social
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Journal:

1. Xie Yuxin: "Interpretation of Female User Groups in the Development of Female-oriented Mobile Games in
China",Sight&Sound
Issue 5, 2018, pp. 151-152.
2. Liang Weike, Yang Huayan, Liang Weijing, "Female Youth in Digital Gaming Subcultural Practices -
From Female
Game Characters, Female Players to Female Game Hosts", China Youth Studies, Vol. 3, No. 13, 2017
Pages - 18.
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Identity in Online Games: A Case Study Observation and Analysis," Lanzhou Journal, Vol.
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perspective of the handbook Love and Maker",SoutheastCommunication, Vol. 6, No. 6,
2018, pp. 112-115.
6. Wang Shaojing, "Interpreting Walker's <Father's Smiling Light> from Postmodern
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Marketing, 1997, 34(4): 285-296.

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 appendice
Questionnaire for Female Players in Female-oriented Games

Hello, I am a graduate student majoring in journalism and communication in the

School of Journalism and Communication of Zhengzhou University, here are a few
questions about female-oriented games I hope you can answer, please provide your views
and opinions truthfully. This questionnaire is in the form of single-choice questions and
multiple-choice questions, the content is not much, I hope you will be patient to answer,
thank you for your cooperation in this survey, thank you!

I. Personal Information Section

1. Your gender?
A Male
B Female

2、Have you ever played a female-oriented game (e.g. Love and Maker)?
A Yes
B No

3. Your age?
A Under 15 years of age
B 15-18 years
C 18-24 years
D 24 years and over

4. Your education?
A Below high school/secondary school
B Tertiary
C Undergraduate
D Postgraduate and above

5. Your occupation?
A Students
B Company employees

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C Career employees
D Freelance

6、Do you tend to choose work-oriented or family-oriented in reality?

A Work
B Family

II. Content part of the game

7、What do you usually focus on when choosing a game? (Multiple choice)

A Exquisite painting style
B Interesting plot
C Favorite Voice Actor
D I n t e r e s t e d game characters
E Easy to play
F Other

8、What are the qualities of your favorite male characters in female-oriented games? (Multiple
choice)
A Dorking
B Masculine
C Rational
D Bullying
E Gentleness
F Understanding
G Caring
H Compassionate
I Other

9、What are the identities of your favored male characters in female-oriented games?
A President, Emperor, Demon King and other upper classes
B Middle classes such as police, idols, scientists, doctors, etc.
C Civilian stages such as commuters and students
D Other

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10、Do you think male or female characters dominate the plot in female-oriented games?
A Male roles
B Women's roles

11、Do you find female characters in female-oriented games immersive?

A Yes
B No

12. Is your tendency to choose male characters in female-oriented games in line with the realistic
criteria for choosing a spouse?
A Yes
B No

13、Do you think female-oriented games truly reflect the needs of real women?
A Yes
B No

14、Do you think the content of female-oriented games matches your values?
A Conformity
B Does not meet

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Biography Academic papers and research results published during the
academic year
Zou Jingchen, born on October 24, 1994, graduated from Henan University in June 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts
degree; 2017
From September to now, she has been studying at the School of Journalism and Communication of Zhengzhou
University, pursuing a master's degree in journalism and communication.

49
 a thank-you note
In the blink of an eye, my two years of graduate school are coming to an end.
I was able to successfully complete my academic tasks under the
guidance of my teachers and with the help of my fellow students, as well as
gaining many valuable assets outside the classroom.
First of all, I would like to express my highest gratitude to my supervisor,
Mr. Li Jinglei. Ms. Li is a dedicated and hard-working scholar. At the same
time, she is also a kind teacher, when I encountered learning problems, she
will patiently give us answers, when I made mistakes, the teacher will also
tolerate me. Ms. Li Jinglei is a good teacher who always thinks about her
students, she will worry about our study and life, and at the same time, she will
guide us when we need guidance from our seniors. During the process of writing my
thesis, Ms. Li took great pains to guide me, suggest revisions, and show the
way for my research direction. I thank Mr. Li for his hard work and I will
always remember his kindness.
Secondly, I would like to thank my classmates and fellow students.
Especially my fellow sister Wang Qianru, when I was in trouble, she was the
one who worried and helped me. When I encountered problems in my
studies, it was she who helped me out. We are the same classmates and the best
friends, thanks to her for her kindness to me, and I will never forget this friendship. Lastly, I
would like to thank my parents for their support which has enabled me to
continue my studies, and they have been the ones who have supported me
from
The love and care I have received from childhood to adulthood has molded
me into the person I am now, and I will study and work harder to be their
pride.

50