The Influence of Female Characters’ Sexualization on Individuals’ Attitudes and Behaviors towards Fighting Video Games

The rapid development of fighting games, which is a typical kind of video games has made a huge impact on people's psychological cognition and consumer behavior. Based on the theory of reasoned action, this study investigates how the sexualization of female characters in fighting video games affects people’s perception, attitudes to games, and willingness to share or purchase games among the age group of 18-25. The current study adopts the classical experiment method, with both intra-group and inter-group designed. The results reveal that although the sexiness of female characters will deepen people's impression on games, overly sexy female characters will negatively affect people's perception of the game's value, attitude, and their willingness to buy or share while those unsexy to moderately sexy female characters would not impact on the game's popularity. Besides, there are differences between men's and women's perceptions and attitudes towards the sexualization of female characters: sexy female characters are more likely to offend female users and even reduce their desire to buy games.