Kyrie Zhixuan Zhou


2023

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Understanding Gender Stereotypes in Video Game Character Designs: A Case Study of Honor of Kings
Bingqing Liu | Kyrie Zhixuan Zhou | Danlei Zhu | Jaihyun Park
Proceedings of the Joint 3rd International Conference on Natural Language Processing for Digital Humanities and 8th International Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Uralic Languages

In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of gender stereotypes in the character design in Honor of Kings, a popular MOBA game in China. We probe gender stereotypes through the lens of role assignments, visual designs, lines, and background stories, combining qualitative analysis and text mining based on moral foundations. Male heroes are commonly designed as masculine fighters with power, and female heroes are designed as feminine “ornaments” with ideal looks. We contribute with a multi-modal dataset for understanding gender bias in games and a moral-, visual-, and role-based inspection of gender.