A study focusing on female otome video game players in China discovered that those with social anxiety were more inclined to form romantic relationships within the game with its characters. It was found that players who had stronger one-sided relationships, known as parasocial relationships, with characters were also more likely to engage in romantic relationships with them in the game. The study was published in Computers in Human Behavior.
Parasocial relationships refer to one-sided interpersonal connections that individuals form with either real or fictional characters they encounter through media. These relationships serve as the foundation through which many individuals develop feelings of intimacy towards celebrities they have never personally met or interacted with, knowing them only through their appearances on television or in movies.
The advent of video games has brought a new aspect to parasocial relationships. In video games, people spend time interacting with fictional characters in deeply immersive contexts, develop in-game bonds, and can often develop feelings akin to those that one would develop for a real person. Studies have shown that players often develop intense feelings about their game avatars, in-game companions, or other game characters. Some of these relationships can be romantic.
A particularly fruitful ground for developing romantic parasocial interactions with game characters are otome games. Otome games are a genre of story-based video games targeted primarily towards a female audience. The term “otome” itself means “maiden” in Japanese, reflecting the games’ focus on romantic storylines from the perspective of a female protagonist. Players navigate through complex narratives, making choices that affect the storyline’s outcome and their relationships with various characters, typically male love interests. These games typically employ visual novel-style storytelling, featuring detailed art, character development, and sometimes voice acting.
Study authors An-Di Gong and Yi-Ting Huang wanted to investigate the links between social anxiety, real-life social interactions, and parasocial relationships—whether romantic or not—with game characters among young female gamers. They noted that there were 317 million female mobile game users in China in 2020 and that otome games are the most popular female-oriented mobile game genre in the country. Due to this, otome games were a uniquely convenient ground for this study.
The researchers hypothesized that socially anxious women are more likely to form intense parasocial relationships with game characters while having fewer real-life social interactions, both online and offline. They also anticipated that gamers with stronger parasocial relationships would be more motivated to continue playing and more likely to intend to make in-game purchases.
The study involved 615 female gamers who predominantly played otome games, were under 30 years old, and single. These participants hailed from 28 Chinese provinces and had varied educational backgrounds. Of these, 61% were aged between 21 and 25, and another 25% were under 20.
Participants completed assessments of social anxiety (the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale), real-life social interactions and online social interaction (the Social Interaction Scale), parasocial interactions (the Parasocial Interaction Scale), romantic parasocial interactions (the Romantic Parasocial Interaction Scale), the intention to continue playing (e.g., “I intend to continually play this mobile otome game in the future”), and in-game purchase intentions (e.g., “I intend to continue purchasing mobile otome game in-game apps”).
Results showed that participants with stronger parasocial interactions with game characters also tended to be more prone to developing romantic parasocial interactions with them. More socially anxious players tended to have less real-life social interactions. However, social anxiety was not associated with online social interactions. Participants with stronger real-life social interactions also tended to have more parasocial interactions, but less romantic parasocial interactions.
Participants experiencing stronger parasocial and romantic parasocial interactions showed a greater intention to continue playing and to make future in-game purchases. Gamers under 20 years old were more likely to form stronger parasocial relationships than older participants, and those with a high school education or lower tended to have more intense parasocial relationships.
“The evidence provided in this study suggests that PSI [parasocial interactions] and romantic PSI positively influenced female players’ continued playing intention, among them, PSI had a stronger effect on continued playing intention. Based on the above results, we believe the PSI and romantic PSI between female players and game characters may enhance continued playing intention. Romantic PSI positively influenced in-game purchase intention, and strengthening the romantic PSI between users and game characters may have a positive effect on boosting game revenue. In addition, this study found that there was a strong association between continued playing intention and in-game purchase intention,” the study authors concluded.
The study sheds light on the psychological mechanisms underlying parasocial relationships with video game characters. However, the design of the study does not allow any cause-and-effect inferences to be drawn from the results. Additionally, all the participants were Chinese young females. Studies on other age and cultural groups might not yield equal results.
The paper, “Finding love in online games: Social interaction, parasocial phenomenon, and in-game purchase intention of female game players,“ was authored by An-Di Gong and Yi-Ting Huang.
