Did you know that the global gaming industry is now bigger than music and movies combined, generating over 184 billion US dollars last year?
In China, women take up nearly half of all gamers, influencing everything from game design to esports and contributing to a more diverse gaming culture.
Let's explore how this shift is unfolding and what it means for the future of gaming.
Coming to you live from Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm He Yang. For today's program, I'm joined by Steve and Yishan in the studio.
First on today's show, the video game world has long been perceived as a male-dominant world. or dominated space, yet a profound transformation fueled by the surge of female players is reshaping its landscape.
This powerful shift is challenging old assumptions about who a gamer is. compelling the industry itself to slowly but surely reflect this new reality through its creators and characters.
First of all, let's go back to the beginning.
How was the gaming industry traditionally defined by male dominance and what was the impact of that?
Wow. If you look back from all the way from the 1980s to the 1990s, we can almost see there's a logic there that the marketing campaigns for a lot of the games back then, really heavily rely on action themed or aggression themed building things, warfare, and like constructing a castle or something.
So these are all themes that sort of that's alineating just putting female audiences outside of the circle.
And this also created such a feedback loop where these games themselves and the culture around them are reinforced, kind of these male-centric stereotypes, making female gamers kind of stepping away, knowing that, oh, this is perhaps not for me.
Yeah, the industry at that time, it was built on a really specific demographic, right?
And that demographic was young males. So it did.
It alienated the female audience because of the reasons that you just said.
And that mindset... was so pervasive in the industry that it influenced the types of games that were made and the types of characters that existed within those games.
One game designer and researcher, her name was Jane McGonigal, she put it like this.
For a long time, the gaming industry just didn't see women as a viable market.
And the focus was on catering to an existing perceived audience, not on building a new one.
And that's how the gaming industry existed for a long time.
Yeah, this reminds me of what kind of role the female characters in those games used to play because in a lot of the cases the female characters they are kind of representing the romantic side or there to fulfill the romantic side of the narrative within the game.
For many years, female characters, they were often sidelined, used as a damsel in distress.
Help me! Yeah, waiting to be saved. Oh, I need a man to save me.
Like that type of character. They were also hyper-sexualized, right?
And that was a trend. I mean, that trend, you could still find it. existing in some circles today, but that used to be the main trend.
And there was a lack of Really authentic representation, I think you can say, and that made it really difficult for many women to feel like they belonged in the gaming world, right?
Imagine that. You're a young woman, a woman in your 20s or even 30s, 40s, whatever.
And you're, okay, maybe I'm, you know, my husband, my boyfriend, my sister, my aunt is gaming these days.
Maybe I'll give it a shot. you turn on the game and there's a woman in a bikini you know saying oh I need help from a man it doesn't inspire it doesn't encourage you know, female participation, does it?
That's a very good point. And this draws back some memories in the early 2000s when Of course, parents didn't like it.
Teachers didn't like it. But kids, teenagers were playing video games anyway.
And Of course, teachers and parents won't like this, but you know, sometimes a boy and a girl could get quite close to each other and schools did not like it but anyway so i remember back then uh these quote unquote couples, they would go to the internet cafe to play the video game.
And it was always, listen to just how sexist it was, but it was very common.
The guy was playing video games online with his mates and the girlfriend was there to keep him company.
So she didn't even have a game to play, but she was just there to, you know, hang out.
And look at today, about half of the global population gaming population is actually female users.
So how things have changed in 20, 25 years or so, but I remember that from my teenage uh years and if you're also a millennial uh write in and uh or nod along if you think that was uh you know, what it was like.
Yeah, and this was not just a creative decision, right?
This wasn't, pardon me, this wasn't just the creative team sitting around thinking, oh. our hero needs to be a man with tough muscles.
No, this was a business decision because a lot of the male players You know, when you start the game, you have a character choice.
Do you want to play this character or do you want to play that character?
Well, a lot of men wouldn't want to play anyone. as a female character or even connect with the female protagonist.
And this created a really vicious cycle where women's stories were just not even told.
Yeah, it's not a priority. No, the stories weren't even told within the games themselves.
But you can kind of understand that because...
It was a business decision, yeah. Yeah, and you want to really make your story and your product... uh vibe with your target audience and we explain who the target audience was but also from the very beginning Everything we've just said sort of made people think or have a certain perception towards the word gamer and a female certainly did not really seem to have the license to even come to close association with the name.
And do you think that kind of stereotype is changing or maybe what are your perceptions towards the word gamer it's just um gender neutral term for me, as you mentioned it, because everybody, anybody of all different age or gender can be a gamer at modern, say context under modern context let's say if I think of a gamer I wouldn't be specifically thinking about a man because me and myself are playing games almost every week nowadays.
Do you consider yourself a gamer? Yeah, absolutely.
Okay. Well, some people, but this is not really necessarily a gender issue, but it's more like a, if you're a purist.
If you're very proud about a niche hobby that you're into, sometimes people tend to like to build up walls around that. that concept to make it to claim agency of it.
For example, if you're spending a lot of time on video games or perhaps a man, the word gamer kind of gives you a certain sense of entitlement or something.
And then when these newcomers come in and say And also, I mean, see if this is still true, Steve, if let's say she's playing these like, is it called quiet pleasure games or something?
Cozy games. I could be wrong about that.
I think that's the term. It's something like that.
Something like that. Or, you know, she's playing some relationship. simulation game or, you know, just or oh, during COVID there was that game that was so popular about taking care of a frog.
The traveling frog? It was... So many people loved it.
Even Lai Ming played it. But those aren't really the traditionally perceived hardcore games that requires a council and stuff like that.
Sure. You're talking about games like Candy Crush.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with that one where you have to match, you know, three in a row to make it disappear like those. those types of kind of non-violent with cute, vibrant colors.
Yeah. I think they're called cozy games and, um, Yeah, I guess that was kind of an entry point for women, perhaps for some women into the gaming industry.
And that could be part of the reason that, you know, caused this shift.
But the shift has happened, right? So far, we've been talking about how it used to be, right?
But now the definition, yeah, you talked about it.
The definition of gamer is different. It doesn't suggest one gender or another.
It also doesn't suggest gender. cool or not cool.
I think for a long time, the term gamer was kind of this like, had this connotation of like, losers in a basement playing Dungeons and Dragons or something.
What's wrong with Dungeons and Dragons? A bit nerdy.
It had that nerd connotation to it. But now with the rise of esports, and maybe that's a different topic.
Gamer has become a cool thing to be, especially if you're really good at it, because if you're really good at it, you're going to make a ton of money from it.
Yeah. So what do you think are the key factors that led to this massive shift? key factor is definitely the growth of mobile platforms that's allowing more people to have easier access to all different kinds of games let's say candy crush we we raised a very good example just now and wordscapes and yeah some other those Well, these games have seen advertisements of them all the time.
As you swipe on your social media, they bump out.
And they don't really impress me in a way that you have to dive in a lot of time and energy as you do while playing, say, via PC.
Because these are more like just, like you said, Steve, comfort game or kind of slowing down you a little bit distract you for five minutes so I think this is the new type of that the game industry is reaching out to more people through nowadays.
Your smart phone. Yeah, my smart phone. Yeah, the rise of mobile platforms and the popularity of those games, the ones you mentioned, Candy Crush, and there would be many more examples too.
Yeah, it might be the design of the game itself, sure.
But I think the more important point is that it changed the entry point. to gaming for people who hadn't gamed before or were intimidated by it.
They were easy to pick up. They were easy to play.
And it appealed to a bigger demographic, right?
A much wider demographic. Yeah. many of whom had never identified themselves as gamers before.
Think about... if you're curious about gaming, but it's stereotypically not supposed to be your thing.
Going down to the game shop to buy a console or to buy a PC version of a game is kind of an intimidating thing, right?
It can be. It just sounds very... It just sounds like a century ago to me.
I don't go to a shop. No, for console, yeah, those things still exist.
Oh, do they? Yeah, you can download your games online, but they still exist for sure.
Oh, okay, good. But I'm talking about the entry point, right?
This is something that you could do from your home holding your smartphone in your hand. and satisfy that curiosity level, and there the door opens to a bigger gaming world.
Yeah, and speaking of consoles, I think I got mine. around two years ago where I was walking through the exact same process you described, Steve, where I was deciding two to three years ago whether i should really embrace it but i was really into these franchises so why not so i got these equipments ready and started investigating into it so Yeah, you're right.
For a lot of people, especially new beginners, women in particular are slightly more active on mobile platforms.
And here's data from Tech Jury that's published earlier this year. that with 43% of female mobile gamers just playing at least five days a week, comparing to 38% of their male counterparts.
So obviously for More active. Yeah, for female, it's a good place to start.
And for mobile games, it's actually a huge... market in China and for the last more than a decade or so.
Like, just look at the portfolio of huge companies such as Tencent and many others, actually a huge Part of the gaming market here in China is mobile games, and that's just... what people do to kill time every day.
And also the emergence of diverse genres and narratives.
This is a huge to how this has become popular.
Yeah, so gaming now has really changed, right?
It's evolved dramatically. far beyond the traditional genres of these first-person shooter styles of games, these sports simulation style games that I was absolutely obsessed with in my college years, spending way too many hours playing those instead of studying.
But these new genres like these narrative driven adventure games, right?
Simulation games as well became really popular.
Collaborative building games. They've attracted a wider range of players who are looking for a different type of story, right?
And I think that's what the gaming industry realized is not everything has to be like...
Right. Not everyone loves that. But that being said, there were a couple of really important points, I think. in the history of gaming for female protagonists.
And one example, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the game Tomb Raider.
Oh yes. 1996 was the original. Lara Croft was the hero. the game and she was this strong independent woman who was in charge of saving the world and I don't know if there was a character before that in the gaming industry that represented women so positively and so strongly.
That game is looked at as a really kind of a landmark moment for women in gaming.
Yes, and that is true. But look how differently we perceive the image of Lara Croft back then. in the early 2000s.
I remember Angelina Jolie starred in that movie and it was kind of a big thing among us teenagers at the time.
And I remember being very in awe of the portrayal of Lara Croft.
But I think a sequel came out a few years ago and people's perception towards Lara Lara Croft, she famously has this hourglass silhouette of her body.
And then when the sequel came out, while it had a different female actress who had less of a body shape like that, And then people were saying, oh, this reflects the our times, because now we don't feel like women should or at least, you know, these portrayals of women in public. or in the entertainment business it doesn't have to be so grotesquely accentuated and of her female features that it's looks so far off from reality.
And then now, like when you look back to, at least for me, I think I prefer a Lara Croft that doesn't scream. ginormous bosoms and pelvis. anymore with a tiny waist.
No human being looks like that, even if it's a media portrayal or whatsoever.
So I think there's an interesting sort of change in perception in that sense as well.
Let's take a look at also here in China.
We've seen that there are massive shifts towards Women, the consideration of women in the gaming industry.
How has the female gamer presence and the gaming industry in China evolved over the past decade?
Wow, I was so proud for all these awesome women when I did the research for this part.
Yeah, for a long time, just like how it's like, it used to be like in the West, esports were gaming here in China also carried a male label.
But that's changing. More and more women are stepping in here in China as well.
And they're not just as players, but also as commentators and behind the scenes professionals.
Some are even there to host an event of esports and they know the game so well that they're hosting and they're guiding the audiences say emotions in a way throughout that event and make it more say presentable visually.
So these are all the female participation in China's gaming market nowadays.
And in fact, according to the 2022 China Esports Industry Report, women now make up over 43% of users of all different game genres.
And also on the industry side, Do you remember the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games that was actually held in 2023?
But that's when The historical milestone was made when esports debuted as an official medal event.
So that really elevated video gaming into the realm of professional esports, at least here in China. and also positioning people how people see or view gaming in general is not no longer just something you you can only do at home or just fearing pressures or you know just criticism from your parents or teacher but rather it's a fast-growing sports and a lifestyle that you can go professional with.
And this was a big moment too, I think, in 2022.
That's when Shenzhen, they kind of took it a step further, and they took it further in professionalizing esports.
Tencent Esports issued the city's first official esports professional skill certificate.
And that gave esports players, or the athletes, a formal ID card. in the industry and that made Shenzhen's certification system, it became more standardized after that, it became more professional after that.
But maybe the most important point is that it encouraged more young people to pursue a career in esports because then suddenly, when you're able to get that professional certificate, it automatically feels more real and more professional at the time.
And offline speaking, actually, I think this is not just in China, but around the world as well.
Within the gaming industry, especially when we talk about the gaming companies, designing groups where people are hired to produce games, So in these scenarios, it kind of still remain male dominated and gender biases are still kind of common in these industries, at least here in China.
That's according to a rather early report from 2018 from the data analytics site gamma data that females made up only 27% of the industry's workforce, marking a less than 2% increase from the previous year.
So I'm wondering if it's getting any better within the past, say, two to three years since esports is now major market here in China.
Yeah. China and globally to 84% of executive positions in the top 14 global gaming companies. google lubisoft netease for example those positions are held by men and outside of the executive positions only 30 percent of the developers in the industry are women It would be really nice to see those numbers balance out in the future because if you're having stronger representation of women playing the games than the people developing the games should be strongly represented by women.
That only makes sense. Yes, and actually that is changing because you kind of need to look at the particular game as well.
So let's talk... We'll take a deeper dive into this from female characters or let's say strong female characters to female-oriented game designs and female-led creative teams and Tell us how the gaming industry is embracing female users here in China.
Well, I will raise two iconic examples. One is... something that I am not an audience of, but I believe many of our listeners may feel very familiar with.
Honor of Kings, 王者荣耀 in Chinese, it's made by Chinese game giant Tencent and a Actually, CNBC reported on it just last year on how Tencent is really betting on the rise in female players worldwide for this game, Honor of Kings.
And just one month after it was introduced to the US market, last year in June, it achieved 50 million downloads outside of China.
So all the heroes inside that game originates from Chinese historical figures.
I really like this part. Yeah, they're... pulling historical figures into modern games, of course, dress them differently.
But for instance, Mulan, we all know Mulan.
She is... say a female, say warrior figure from Chinese folklore.
She is a fighter. slash assassin hero in honor of kings, while the famous Tang Dynasty empress Wu Zetian is actually a mage hero.
So both are very strong and powerful figures in real say, Chinese folklore and history, and also they are like how they truly were in the games.
Yeah, and you easily get more than a hundred million players online playing this game every day in China easily.
It's crazy, isn't it? The numbers. Yeah, absolutely.
And another huge genre is that I love sharing on this show are these dating simulations.
You brought this up in the office yesterday afternoon, and I didn't know what you were talking about, and I decided to wait until our chat on air to dig a little deeper.
So tell me about these, please. Okay, so I remember it was like, am I blushing a little bit?
2017, I think. that was the year when the game Love and Producer, or I think the international version of it is Mr. Love, Queen's Choice, makes me blush just saying these words.
Anyway, if blew up and then, you know, every girl, woman, you could be holding all kinds of social roles in real life.
You could have your boyfriend, your husband or whatever.
But on your smartphone, you can be having this explore, well, you could be exploring a relationship. a virtual relationship with, I think you have like three choices of hot men of different... variety you know it could be the domineering uh ceo and there's the like super cute uh younger Didi, a younger guy, and he's very attentive to your needs.
Didi, like a ride-sharing driver? More like a younger guy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a younger brother or not.
Not brother. Not biologically. No, not that.
Don't use the word brother right now. She'll have a heart attack.
Yeah, a younger suitor who's courting for your attention, trying to make it sound less dodgy.
But anyway, so. Which one did you choose?
I chose the domineering CEO for the sake of the show because you had to like, you know, because we're professionals.
We want to be ready to share on the show and I got to have a try.
Good excuse, Ha Young. But anyway, so it was back then.
And then, oh, all of a sudden, all of the girls were playing this.
And then as time moved on, There's the Love and Deep Space.
That's Lian Yu Shen Kong. That's another.
Oh, and there's like this other one. There are a few.
But I want to say, When you look at the creative team behind these games, it's wonderful.
One top player. A gaming company behind these kind of games is called Deidre, which is Paper Games.
It's famously known that 70 percent of its team behind this company, they're all female.
And then that's why they come up with exquisite game designs that hit us so quickly. closely, and a really very in a very smart way makes us want to pay.
And that's Like you said, this is not a gender consideration.
This is a business choice. And when female players spend so much time on the game every day on the smartphone and pay for things that might be quite different from what guys pay for.
I'll give you an example. That's like common.
So basically, these female players or users want really pretty cars.
And then these are exquisitely designed beautiful cars.
You look very confused. Yeah, I'm just sitting here seeing Steve really trying hard to understand.
Just bear with me for a little longer. So it's very visual for women as well, but it's for different purposes.
And also my best friend who's, heavily into video gaming and all kinds of games.
And she spent so much, like six digits. She wouldn't want this to be aired. okay, but this is over like a decade, a decade.
Then just paying for these frames on her profile picture, that are really beautiful and I'm like seriously girl you're paying that much for a crown for some extra virtual effects on your profile pic?
Like, why is that important in the world of game?
But anyhow, these are things that these game designs have very shrewdly planned and captured the attention and heart of the female users.
100% in-app spending is big for mobile games.
Um, back to the storyline. So what, sorry, we're spending a lot of time on this, but I'm curious to know.
So how does the game unfold? What happens?
Your relationship, because you just, okay, so you just meet up with this person, right?
And it's like pure serendipity. And that's, thanks to those very clever female led game design teams.
And then you're like hooked and you're like, Oh, Oh, do I have a relationship with him or him?
And then you need to spend more time in the game to sort of just like any game get to know them yeah to push forward the storyline and then once um oh yeah and then he's gonna be away doing something else.
But can I have five minutes more with him? you'll either need to pay or you need to spend more time on the game and do all kinds of missions.
So it's kind of similar to the classic video game, how it works.
But this, you know, it's just got the female angle and also with the female design team.
And it has... And they've really been very smart with contemplating and capturing the specific needs of women.
And they know... Thanks to all the data that they've gathered, they know that a lot of their users, for example, are females. who are probably let's say in their early 20s and living alone and there's one feature Again, girls and maybe some guys pay up because otherwise you cannot get this feature.
And that is you pay up and then you can get a specific phone call.
Somebody actually calls you? Yeah, and that's the guy you've been quote-unquote dating in the game.
No way! And he'll say, Steve! Oh, no, okay.
Hiya! How was your day? You know, I've been missing you.
Is this a human? Well, it has this beautiful voice, of course done by a voice actor.
It's pre-recorded in a way. Yeah, and in character.
So it's your in-game... quote unquote boyfriend or suitor calling you.
Of course, it's prerecorded. But, you know, don't tell me that.
And then let's say at night and for a lot of ladies living alone after a long day at work, maybe you don't cook dinner, you order food delivery.
And if you're living alone and sometimes you feel a little unsafe, to go answer the door when a stranger is sending you food.
Maybe this is being just very cautious. Anyway, you can play that voice message out loud.
And then it's even got custom-made voice messages like, Hey honey, let me just, who's at the door?
Something like that. So you play that and whoever's outside of the door can hear, oh, there's a guy, there's a male in the house.
And she goes pick up the thing and comes back. and that becomes sort of like a safety tool.
So see how considerate these games have become?
You need female designers behind that. It is really smartly designed, yeah.
I still prefer Lara Croft or going on Witcher to kill monsters.
But yeah, I've seen your point. And, yeah, that was actually the second, say, example, iconic example I was going to raise.
Yeah, with Love and Deep Space, Lianyu Shengkong and other female-oriented game being so popular now, I think there is one... latest data from GammaData's China Gaming Industry Trends and Potential Analysis report that suggesting that China's female-oriented game market had already reached 8 billion yuan.
And that's roughly 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2024.
In this game, Love in Deep Space alone had generated about 5.87 billion yuan. among that.
So what challenges do women around the world still face in the gaming community?
And how are they overcoming them by creating their own empowering spaces?
Yeah, I was reading about this on the BBC, and many female gamers still deal with... big challenges when it comes to online spaces like harassment or verbal abuse and sexism.
They're far too common still today in 2025, and it often forces women to kind of hide their gender. to avoid negative interactions when they are online interacting during the game.
60% of women have reported that they've done exactly that to avoid the harassment, but it's still a huge problem.
There was a study that found that almost 60% of women, about 56%, have experienced one or more types of sexual harassment during online gaming as well.
That's the negative thing that's still existing.
But the... silver lining to that, if we can call it that, is that these wonderful online communities have popped up in response to this harassment.
And that's where women They've built their own communities and clans and streaming networks, and those spaces are a safe haven for women.
They can connect. They can play together.
They can share their experiences without any fear of judgment.
Yeah, there is actually one such online community that's founded in 2020 on the Chinese social media Douban that actually consists over 47,000 members.
Now, I'm not saying that this is whole female group, but there, the female gamers, they feel really safe about not only sharing what games they like and the techniques that they found that's helpful to play the game, but also their challenges and how they're dealing with daily challenges like when you face evil comments or how to deal with say, private messages on, oh, I'll play with you.
How about we adding WeChat first? So just all tips shared in such communities is really promising.
From a business perspective, what does the growing power of women in gaming mean for the future of this industry?
Well, it's a powerhouse, isn't it? We heard the numbers.
It's a billion-dollar industry. More. And women are now making up over half of the market.
And that means that there is a really big economic force that companies can't afford to ignore.
It would be stupid to do that. So it's influencing marketing budgets, it's influencing development strategies from game developers, it's also influencing investment decisions.
And globally, female gamers, they make up about half, 45% of the total gaming population.
So that translates to about... 1.4 billion female players.
That's like the population of China, right?
So we're seeing a reflection in the types of games that are being designed and and also new opportunities in esports too.
