Gacha games have grown a lot over the years.
However, one problem that keeps coming up is how male characters don’t do as well as female characters.
This article looks at why this happens, how characters are made, how they’re sold, how popular they are, and how they’re treated in the games.
Character Design: The Big Difference
How a character looks is important for how well they do.
Female characters in Gacha games often have more interesting and appealing looks. They wear fancy clothes and look good to many different players, from “cute” to “cool”.
An excellent example is Firefly from the game Honkai: Star Rail, which features a cute green dress and an impressive mech suit. This dual appeal taps into multiple lucrative markets and helps her stand out.
On the contrary, male characters often suffer from less creative and engaging designs. The overuse of suits and suit-adjacent clothing makes many male characters seem monotonous and unremarkable, leading to a decline in their appeal to the player base.
There’s a need for more new and different looks for male characters, like God of Thunder: Thor or rough and tough bikers, which could attract players’ attention.
Marketing Efforts: Unfair Push
Marketing is another critical factor that significantly influences a character’s success.
Female characters frequently receive extensive marketing campaigns, including multiple trailers, animated shorts, and significant in-game presence.
Firefly is again a prime example of this. She received four different trailers showcasing various aspects of her character and gameplay, along with a strong narrative presence in the game.
Male characters, however, often don’t get as much attention in marketing. The character Boothill only got two videos and wasn’t shown much in the game. Without good marketing support, male characters have a hard time getting noticed by players.
Popularity and In-game Treatment
The treatment of characters within the game’s narrative and their overall relevance to the story can significantly impact their popularity. Female characters often occupy central roles in the game’s events and story arcs, thereby improving their importance and popularity among players.
Male characters, though, are often not used much in the game. They usually have small roles and not very good stories.
For example, if you’ve played Wuthering Waves, you would realize how Kuro games have mainly focused on releasing more female characters over male characters. This is why the game currently has 17/18 female characters out of the total 25.
Market Perceptions and Biases
There’s also a common belief that Gacha games do better with female characters, which puts male characters second.
In the past, Gacha game players have even been against having male characters, which makes game makers less likely to spend time and money on them.
This self-fulfilling prophecy has led to a vicious cycle where male characters are treated poorly, leading to decreased interest and lower sales, further reinforcing the belief that male characters do not sell.
Learning from the Past and Recommendations
Interestingly, this was not always the case.
Older Gacha games such as Brave Frontier and Summoners War featured a more balanced gender ratio and a diversity of designs for both male and female characters.
These games enjoyed significant success without a pronounced bias towards female characters.
To break the cycle and elevate male characters, developers need to focus on:
- Character Design: Investing in unique and appealing designs for male characters is crucial. Moving away from overused tropes like suits can help increase their appeal.
- Marketing: Ensuring that male characters receive comparable marketing efforts as female characters can boost their visibility and desirability.
- Narrative Involvement: Developing rich, engaging narratives for male characters can enhance their relevance and popularity.
- Encouraging players to be more open to all types of characters
In the end, while Gacha games now focus more on female characters, male characters can do just as well. By changing how they make, sell, and use male characters in stories, game makers can create games that appeal to more players.
Analyzing Wuthering Waves Male Characters Problem
When I first started playing Wuthering Waves, I noticed that the game launched with 10 female characters and 6 male characters, not counting the male and female versions of Rover.
By patch 1.4, the ratio had shifted even more, with 17 female characters and only 7 male characters. It seemed like an imbalance to me.
Honestly, I was expecting more male characters because the early ads featured male characters which leads to a more balanced roster. It was disappointing to see the game lean so heavily towards female characters, even though male characters like Xiangli Yao do exist and are well-designed and popular online.
One of the things that stood out to me was how the character designs felt pretty similar. Many of the female characters have traits like bare shoulders and legs, which makes them less unique. I would love to see more variety in the character designs to make them stand out more.
There also seems to be some misinformation about Kuro Games promising more male characters. It turns out that this was based on a bad translation of an interview with the game’s producer, Solon.
What he said was that the character development aims to appeal to a worldwide audience, considering different preferences in different regions, but he didn’t specifically promise more male characters.
I’ve noticed that male characters didn’t play a big role in the 1.0 story, but there have been improvements in later updates (1.1 and 1.2). Male characters like Calcharo and Xinagli Yao have the potential to be more important in future updates, but I understand that we need to be patient as the developers keep expanding the story while listening to feedback.
In short, I do feel that there are fewer male characters than female characters in Wuthering Waves.
While there’s no confirmed plan to add a lot more male characters, I still think developers will listen to our feedback and strike a balance between male and female characters.
