Tencent's New Gacha Survey Asks About 'No Male Characters' Preference — Anime Survival-Extraction Game in the Works?

Tencent just casually dropped the most divisive question in the Chinese gacha community into a survey: 'Would you prefer all playable characters to be female?' For those unfamiliar, '有男不玩' (yǒu nán bù wán, literally 'won't play if there are males') is a massive subculture in the CN gacha scene — players who refuse to touch any game featuring male playable characters. And now Tencent is directly polling for it.

The original poster also shared a link to the survey, and players rushed in — only to discover it was an absolute slog of a questionnaire. But the real tea was buried in what the survey actually revealed about Tencent's next big project.

Here's the thing though: the survey also had an 'all-male playable characters' option at the top. A top-voted reply pointed out: 'There's literally an all-male option right above it — this is just a standard market research survey, bro.' Another commenter added: 'Both options exist, this is normal. Tencent is just doing the classic 'tell them you love them, then ask for another 500 yuan' approach — better than studios that use surveys as excuses to shove in their personal fetish characters.'

One player raised a nuance that most people missed: 'All-female playable characters ≠ all characters are female.' Male NPCs can still exist in the world — it's a completely different thing from a game having zero males whatsoever. Others pointed out the irony: 'In some communities, having only female playable characters would get you labeled as a yuri fan (河豚/hétún).'

Beyond the gender debate, the survey accidentally leaked way more intel than Tencent probably intended. Multiple players reported that the questionnaire seemed to be market-testing an 'anime-style survival-extraction' game — think Escape from Tarkov but with waifus. The second half of the survey was packed with questions about social features and multiplayer systems.

Players were quick to roast the concept: 'Anime aesthetics + battle royale PVP? This project is DOA.' Another commenter noted the survey felt eerily similar to the Delta Force (三角洲) questionnaire: 'Tencent saw Delta Force doing okay and thought, let's slap anime skins on it and call it a day. What even is this?'

The funniest part? Multiple players confessed they got baited — they powered through the entire marathon questionnaire just for that one gender question, only to realize they'd been had. 'I got played. I filled out that entire god-forsaken survey just for this one question,' one wrote. Another suspected foul play: 'Wait, did Tencent send you to post this survey link? I feel scammed.'

Love them or hate them, Tencent knows how to read the market. As one commenter put it: 'Tencent is the real capitalist — their market instincts are razor-sharp, always chasing the money.' Whether this mysterious 'anime Tarkov' project actually materializes remains to be seen, but one thing's clear: Tencent is watching the 'no male characters' crowd very, very closely.