SNK Corporation’s announced a spin-off game for The King of Fighters called The King of Fighters For Girls, a mobile otome game where players can date the guys of the King of Fighters franchise, like Terry Bogard and Iori Yagami. However, some people have taken issue with the name, myself included.

To call it “King of Fighters For Girls” can be seen as condescending to women in gaming, as it touches upon a bunch of stereotypes associated with the demographic. It carries this viewpoint that women are uninterested in the King of Fighters as a fighting game, adding to a general idea that women don’t play fighting games. It also contributes heavily to a stereotype that women that play games would only play stuff like visual novels and casual mobile games, ignoring a lot of realities.

“Girls play fighting games too. Speaking as someone who also made a dating simulator based on a fighting game, this is a really bad name,” said Dan Fornace, developer behind Rivals of Aether and spin-off Lovers of Aether.

It also upholds a heterosexual view of the game’s characters. Marketing a game where you date men exclusively toward women ignores queer men and other people that would be into this kind of game. It also uses a female playable character as the sole option, preventing players from playing as what they identify as. Like, I’m not a fighting game person, but Terry Bogard is very attractive to me. A lot of these guys are, actually, and I would say more but this site’s content guidelines won’t permit me.

Now I’m not saying that an SNK dating simulator is bad. In fact, it looks like a sincere visual novel; and in a world where visual novel spin-offs to large franchises tend to be fake April Fools jokes, I admire it. However, the name reflects a limited viewpoint of its intended audience, is ignorant of other audiences and I feel that it’s something that could have been handled better.

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