Abacus: "Games for women - China's new gold mine"

The era of stereotypical “manly” games may give way to the era of women’s games. At least in China. The material on this topic was shared by Abacus.

“One January night in 2018, on the 100-storey building of the KK100 skyscraper, a birthday greeting to Li Jian (Li Zeyan) was displayed. The price of a “postcard” is ¥250 thousand or $39 thousand. It was intended not for a real person, but for a virtual guy from the Love and Producer dating game simulator.” This is how Abacus illustrates a publication in which he talks about the growing enthusiasm of Chinese gamers for games for women.

We have highlighted the main thing from the material:

• Today, the Chinese market is overflowing with the offer of “traditional” games, like Honor of Kings, where the heroes are muscular men and buxom female warriors. Development companies are looking for new ideas, and stories focused on women may be in a winning position;
• Illustrative example: after the demonstration of a “postcard” on a skyscraper congratulating a character from Love and Producer, this game briefly bypassed Honor of Kings downloads. By the way, Honor of Kings is the most popular mobile title in China;
• China has the largest number of gamers in the world, 46% of them are women. Moreover, these gamers are willing to pay money. Abacus cites as an example a student who spent ¥20 thousand ($2.9 thousand) on in-game purchases in Love and Producer. Apparently, this is not an uncommon case;
• Analysts from Ampere Analysis write that the audience in China is “warmed up” and has high potential. Everyone is interested in women’s games: both tech giants like Tencent, NetEase and Bilibili, and smaller studios. Everyone strives to have time to create a title that will collect millions;
• Most of these games are made for mobile platforms. At the same time, development teams usually consist of women, because they better understand the target audience;
• Most often, women’s games are based on stereotypes, and the key one is that the audience needs romance. A lot of games have been created, the plots of which revolve around love stories: these are dating simulators (the same Love and Producer), and RPG, where, among other things, it is necessary to conquer the heart of a beautiful lord (for example, Fate of the Empress) and others. One of the reasons for the popularity of this type of games is that they satisfy the fantasy of gamers about ideal men;
• However, romantic plots are becoming obsolete. Business simulators, fantasy games and dress-up games are also developing;
• Some analysts believe that women’s games will remain niche. Nevertheless, interest in them is growing. For example, according to Sensor Tower, 12 similar titles from the Chinese publisher Friendtimes were downloaded one million times on the App Store and various Android stores last month.

Also on the topic:

• Study: Female Players Love Fantasy more than MenIn Japan, women play mobile games more often than men
• Humanteq has learned to divide players by psychotypes.
• Thanks to this, the CPI decreased by 60%Is there any news?