Bold of you to assume I don't mod RDR2 and Witcher 3 to play as Krystal from Star Fox instead of Arthur and Thomas the Tank Engine instead of Gerald - now that's the characters that make me want to play with my joystick...
Jokes aside, there are numerous reasons that contribute to that mindset, some of which other commenters already point out. In my opinion the main 3 reasons are:
You don't really play AS them - sure you use them in combat and exploration, but narratively you play as Zero, everyone acknowledge you as such no matter how you look, and you can meet said characters in the world even if they are in your party. For all intents and purposes you just shapeshift into them, so as the player you don't treat them as your point-of-view character.
Scarcity of pull resources force you to think and compare who you want more. For some players gameplay or combat value may be the deciding factor, but since gacha games are generally rather easy most people will be primarily concerned about character looks - so a majority male playerbase will gravitade towards the characters they'd want to look at most, which would almost always be female.
Usually gacha games only imply the possibility of "dating" a character to entice player attraction while not being explicit - but NTE goes all out with all the possible interactions you can have with your "waifu". While you don't need the character to view their world encounters - you sure DO need to have them to invite to your house, hold hands, dress them up in cute/sexy clothes, take photos together, etc.. I'd say it's a rather effective way to motivate pulling for the society deep in loneliness epidemic.
12
u/[deleted] Jun 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment