Chinese players have complained about the facial expressions of female characters in the mobile Harry Potter: Magic Awakened. Allegedly, they look too provocative and have obvious sexual overtones. NetEase has already apologized for the situation and explained the cause of the problem.Examples of facial expressions of female characters in Harry Potter: Magic Awakened
Similar animations are found in female characters during battles, the South China Morning Post reports.
According to Chinese gamers, it reminds them of the facial expression during orgasm. Male heroes behave much more restrained at the same time.
“I didn’t believe it when others raised this issue. But when I went into the game and looked closely at the faces, I almost threw up,” wrote one Weibo user.
As a result, NetEase issued an official statement: “This problem has caused discontent, especially among our female audience. We sincerely apologize for this.”
The company stressed that it respects all women and did not specifically add such expressions to the game. The main reason is an error that occurred as a result of 3D modeling. According to NetEase, the developers added more joints to the female character and made the facial expressions more exaggerated. They wanted them to be different from the male heroes, but did not suspect of such consequences.
However, not all players were satisfied with this explanation. Some users still do not understand how such animations, in principle, passed quality control and got into the release version.
Harry Potter: Magic Awakened is a card mobile game in the Harry Potter universe, which was released in September. In the first week alone, the title earned over $22 million in the Chinese App Store. This is the best start among all mobile projects released in China this year.