Dragon Oath

From Silent NPC to Active Consumer: Representing Female in Chinese Video Game Culture

This extended abstract examines how female players and female characters have been represented in Chinese video game culture, a topic the author argues has received little scholarly attention compared with Western gaming research.

• The paper argues that female representation in Chinese video games moved through three stereotypes since the 1990s (women as male-desire objects or silent NPCs before the 2010s, prosumers of boys' love content in TANBI games from 2012–2016, and cash cows in mobile otome games), and that these stereotypes have not disappeared but become more subtle.
• Drawing on Stuart Hall's theory of representation, the author treats gender images as culturally constructed meanings shaped by industry, popular culture, and players rather than neutral reflections of players.
• The first stereotype was exemplified by titles such as The Legend of Sword and Fairy and the Dragon Oath series, where women appear as sexualized figures, devoted assistants to male heroes, or silent non-player characters.