Picture , if you will , a typicalopen - world action - adventure biz . Imagine a game that has players blast monsters with magic , platforming around smash computer architecture , and delving into a wealthiness of sprinkle traditional knowledge . When you close down your eyes , what does the admirer of that game look like ? What is their personality ? How do they garnish ? If you ’ve played a game that fits this description in the yesteryear , I ’d bet that the first picture that do to your mind is n’t a plucky , pink - hairy teenage girl with a heart of gold and a smashing sensation for fashion .
That ’s precisely what you get with the deceptively radicalInfinity Nikki . educate by Infold Games , Infinity Nikki is the later installment in the Nikki enfranchisement , a serial of spare fluid dress - up games that has player creating outfits for its titular grinder . The series is a private powerhouse , racking in decade of millions of active players despite not carrying the mainstream name recognition of Mario or Call of Duty . Much of that is thanks to its popularity with women , who have long flocked to a biz that embrace muliebrity in a spiritualist that has historically shied aside from it .
WithInfinity Nikki , Infold Games reshaped its come through fluid formula into a full - scale capable - humanity game . It was an prompt hit when it found in December 2024 , quicklyamassing over 20 million downloads in its first week — and all without sacrificing its womanly spirit . Now , its achiever raises a interrogation for the telecasting game industriousness : Why did it take so long for a game like this to exist when there was such a large interview for something like it ? That question spread out an interrogation into who biz are made for , and how Infinity Nikki cut against the grain .
Quantic Foundry
Genre and gender
If you were to gauge by traditional study on genre and gaming , you could passably arrive to the stopping point thatInfinity Nikkiwould be a bad fiscal move . Several research studies through gaming ’s account have suggested that women are n’t drawn to games like it as much as men are . In a 2017 written report , Quantic Foundryanalyzed survey data from over 270,000 gamers to map out genre preferences between men and cleaning woman . The study found that men account for 82 % of activity - adventure players and 86 % of open - world players . A statistic like that might top one to believe that a secret plan likeInfinity Nikkiwould have a fairly grim ceiling when it comes to player base . That was n’t the case .
Is that validation that research studies like this have been mesh on flawed data for decades ? Not incisively . At the fourth dimension , Quantic Foundry receipt that the opportunity for game to break from that data was big than it appear .
“ It ’s also easy to read the genres in the chart and immobilise the cause solely on gender conflict in gaming need – e.g. , women simply do n’t like disco biscuit or Y game grease monkey , but there may be a heap more go on , ” Quantic Foundry finds . “ For example , game on the bottom of the chart run to not have female protagonists , tend to affect playing with stranger online , and tend to have a lot of speedy 3D trend which can lead to motion sickness ( which women aremore susceptible to ) . Low female gamer participation in certain genres may be a historical artifact of how motivations and presentation have been bundle together and marketed . ”
Stellar BladeSony
It ’s through that caveat by which we can name a self - fulfilling bike that ’s long reign the video recording secret plan industry , one thatInfinity Nikkibreaks free from . Surveys and player information have long led us to believe that some game are for “ boy ” and others are for “ girls . ” That has been reinforce by design determination that gender the games we wager , whether consciously or subconsciously .
We can front to Laura Mulvey ’s theory of the “ male gaze ” to explain that phenomenon . Though originally coined to dissect movie theater ’s biases , Mulvey ’s critiques echo through New video plot . In her essayVisual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema , Mulvey explores the insidious ways in which films accept that the watcher on the other destruction of the projector is male . It ’s not just in the way cleaning woman are sexualise on silver screen , but in who take the action , how the tv camera border subjects , and how pilot reenforce condition quo gender kinetics . These same concept can be put on to television games , but shape around the discrete trait of an interactional medium .
Breaking barriers
you’re able to begin to see what makesInfinity Nikkidifferent when looking at its protagonist , who is unique for a production of this scale . Video biz history is fill with female hero , though they ’ve often fall into a few unlike box seat build for a manful regard . In her 2013 video seriesTropes vs Women in Video Games , Anita Sarkeesian key a kitchen range of go back archetypes from the damosel in distress to the “ Ms. Male Character . ” More studios have move to remedy that in the retiring decade , but even well - meaning attempts risk seesaw into reversed tropes that reject femininity to make distaff characters find like “ one of the guys . ”
eternity Nikkiavoids that snare . Nikki is the rare picture game heroine who is allowed to be compassionate and joyful , while still commanding respectfulness from the inhabitants of Miraland . She ’s every bit as potent as a torpedo - add up badass likeBayonettaor Lara Croft , but able to intimidate imposing thugs just by dressing them down with her words . Most crucially , she ’s proudly stylish . As the steer of a dress - up game built around craft kit , Nikki is allowed to look up to elegant dresses , casual business dress , comfortable rompers , and everything in between . In herreview ofInfinity Nikki , Polygon ’s Nicole Carpenter explains where this approach intersects and departs with other video games .
“ In video games , mode has always been power , even if it ’s not immediately obvious to the average participant , ” Carpenter write . “ In game likeElden RingorDestiny 2 , players go scorched - earth to find the most powerful gear mechanism — a helmet that ’s repellent to fervour attack , perhaps , or a chest collection plate that increase damage manage . Infinity Nikki make that idea very literally , eliminating the sort of stereotypical ferocity traditionally seen in video game while still holding dead on target to the series ’ inscrutable , intriguing darkness and shimmer frivolity . Developer Infold Games has created the most sincere ( and sometimes absurd ) story withInfinity Nikki , center around a traditionally feminine economic value — style ! — that connect all sort of different player . ”
Infinity NikkiInfold Games
Infinity Nikkiisn’t a game made with the assumption that player are male , and , in turn , Nikki herself is n’t an object created to appeal to that audience . you’re able to concretely see what that actually means when compare howInfinity Nikkiapproaches its dress - up gameplay compared to other game star female leads that are created , whether consciously or not , with a male linear perspective in mind . In the 2024 activeness gameStellar Blade , players operate a distaff quality named Eve . garnish Eve up in different outfits is a large selling point of Stellar Blade , just as it is withInfinity Nikki , but there ’s a major conflict between Nikki and Eve ’s wardrobes . The latter can be dressed up in shameful outfits designed to show off her body . Some accentuate her cleavage with Laputan tops , while others let in high - riding bottoms that barely brood her pelvis . They are sexy conniption born from a man ’s estimate of what female amativeness look like .
eternity Nikkialso features what it explicitly labels as “ Sexy ” clothing item , but they ’re completely different from the skimpy outfits we see inStellar Blade . You ’re more likely to find sleek inglorious apparel that totally cross Nikki ’s soundbox than a fragile airstrip of fabric that ’s only there to keep the game ’s rating down . The habiliment is built with a distaff position in mind , not a man ’s . That has vibrate with player , such as content Jehovah Pynk Gamer , who explained why that feels so limited in a video essay titledInfinity Nikki : A Journey into the Heart of Girlhood .
“ WhatInfinity Nikkireally embrace the most is the distaff regard , ” Pynk Gamer says . “ When I look at vesture , I love to see the spill of the clothes , I love to see the details of the clothing . I think [ Infold Games ] captured that core so perfectly . Whenever I vary Nikki ’s outfit , I ’m see at the detail , at the stitching , at the embroidery … If you decide to climb on a bicycle , it by choice tells you that Nikki is change her outfit to make it easier to ride a bicycle in . thing like that show how much attention to detail [ Infold Games ] has done to make certain Nikki as a character is not being sexualized . ”
Papergames
While these are the more explicit ways thatInfinity Nikkipushes back against an industriousness reign by male bias , its most radical quality is its musical genre . As an capable - world biz , Infinity Nikkirejects the idea that fair sex simply do n’t enjoy the genre . While its platforming and activity are streamline , it ’s still a complex , systems - heavy RPG that lease players free in an enormous universe stud with quests , collectible , and crafting materials . It proves Quantic Foundry ’s theory that sexuality disparity in literary genre has more to do with how specific games point male player base .
The fact thatInfinity Nikkicenters muliebrity is an of import piece of its appeal , but that alone does n’t guarantee a hit . In anessay aboutInfinity Nikkifor The Gamer , writer Stacey Henley take down that the most important musical composition of the plot ’s success comes down to its character above all else . Henley compare it to that ofGreta Gerwig’sBarbiefilm , stress the grandness of make a great workplace of artistic production first rather than trying to engineer a hit base on skewed demographic data .
“ Look at the hearing ofInfinity Nikki — mostly casual , mostly women , seek game with plenty of customisation option and limited fury , but still with a sense of dangerous undertaking , closed book , and geographic expedition , ” Henley save . “ Not a game for girl . A game , for girls . secret plan first , audience second . It was the same with Barbie . It was a keen moving picture , one that in this picky case appealed to a female audience . Think about how you may make a great biz , and tilt it to a less - represented audience , do n’t think of cliches to pander to a ‘ demographic ’ you need to ‘ intercept into ’ and then seek to block any square parts of a game that will fit into the round hole you ’ve create . ”
Henley ’s hypothesis has proven accurate in the case of Infinity Nikki . Itgenerated over $ 16 million in profitswithin the first calendar month of its passing and already had benefit 20 million downloads in a week . Crucially , that achiever was n’t exclusively from distaff players . Shortly after its release , Polygon ’s Ana Diaz report thatInfinity ’s Nikki ’s Reddit pageboy was fill up with Emily Price Post from male playerswho had found themselves enraptured with the dangerous undertaking . It was an indication that Infold Games had successfully create a game with a feminine perspective that transcended sex barriers .
Even in that reception , though , there ’s still a hard reminder that “ girl secret plan ” still holds a disparaging connotation among players . The Reddit military post from male player became a pointedness of contention in the Infinity Nikki residential area . Posters likeIntrinsicCarpwere fast to direct out that this style of post only assist to reenforce the gender water parting in television game by treating the idea of a man enjoy a apparel - up game as seditious rather than normal .
“ The instant a girl game becomes popular it becomes ‘ i ’m a 25 twelvemonth old man and i make out this game ’ ‘ go for nobody knows i play this game for female child , ' ” the post reads . “ This game does not deserve to be submit to your dirty little undercover , even as a joke . You do n’t see us saying “ tee hee i ’m play red bushed redemption how shameful . ”
Infinity Nikkimay break down barriers , but the telecasting secret plan industry ’s wall will remain up as long as games like it are exceptions to the rule that are plow like punchlines .
This enquiry paper was initially presented atPipi to Ripley 7 : Gender and Sexuality in Pop Cultureat Ithaca College on April 18 , 2025 .
