A focus group recruitment notice marked 'females only' was quietly revised to 'open to all genders' just two days later — but upon closer inspection, 'open to all' simply meant the male quota had conveniently 'filled up.' In a gaming community still reeling from recent gender-related controversies, this was a recipe for an instant firestorm.
The source of the drama is a third-party market research firm called 'Shi Guang Yan You' (Time Research). According to the original NGA post, on May 30, the firm published a recruitment notice on its WeChat official account for a Rock Kingdom mobile game player focus group, explicitly marked 'females only.' Two days later on June 1, Shi Guang Yan You posted a revised, 'corrected' version of the notice.
As commenters pieced together, the first image shows the firm's official WeChat account info, the second is the original May 30 recruitment notice (marked 'females only'), and the third is the June 1 revised version that now claims they 'only need female participants.' The original post also noted that a previous thread about this had been swiftly deleted — likely because duplicate threads aren't allowed on the forum.
The comment section zeroed in on the absurdity: so-called 'no gender restriction' effectively meant 'male quota: zero.' One user quipped, 'Open to all genders, but the male quota is zero.' Another mocked it as the 'All-Female Kingdom.' One commenter offered a sharper business analysis: 'Use the game to attract female players, then use female players to attract wealthy sugar daddies — quite the strategy.'
Not everyone was outraged, however. A self-identified former market research professional defended the practice: targeting specific genders for focus group recruitment is standard industry practice. Mixed-gender interviews often lead to less candid responses, so conducting separate sessions by gender is routine. Given that female players who are hardcore fans of both Rock Kingdom and Palworld/Pokémon-style games are relatively rare and hard to recruit, the firm's interest in understanding the female gaming market is perfectly reasonable. The commenter argued people shouldn't jump to conclusions about discriminatory game design based on one recruitment notice — 'save your outrage for when actual problematic policies are announced.'
Pushback came swiftly. Others pointed out that the gaming community had just been through a storm of gender controversies, so any mention of 'females only' was bound to trigger heightened sensitivity. Some also noted that Tencent's MoreFun Studio, the developer behind Rock Kingdom, 'has a track record' of questionable decisions. Since the game targets younger audiences and has attracted many children, any biased operational approach could cause disproportionate harm compared to similar controversies in other games.
Amid the debate, a crucial detail emerged: one commenter noticed the focus group was to be held in Hangzhou's Binjiang district, suggesting this was 'very likely for Emo (伊莫).' The reasoning was sharp — if Rock Kingdom's team wanted feedback from their own players, they could simply pull data from their backend and contact players directly, with no need for a third-party recruitment firm. External recruitment like this only makes sense when a competing studio wants to study players of a major title in the market. In other words, this 'Rock Kingdom focus group' may actually have been a rival studio's competitive intelligence gathering.
As of now, Shi Guang Yan You has not issued any further statement, and the specific reasons behind the notice revision remain undisclosed. Whether the focus group is truly for Rock Kingdom user research or a rival studio's competitive analysis may only become clear once the event takes place. But one thing is certain — in today's gaming climate, any operational decision that touches on gender differences will be scrutinized under the brightest spotlight imaginable.
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