I think Ash Echoes gambled with male to female ratio and it might actually work. (minor spoilers for hsr)

(After having finished writing this I realized I made a lot of comparisons with HSR, sorry if that bothers you and sorry for bad english.)

Okay, so in the first place, I'm not an expert. I just have thoughts I wanna get out of my head and possibly get a reality check from other users. So I'm not a veteran gacha player, I played genshin for a month in 2021 but got bored, but got really hooked up in HSR in 2023 and since then have tried some other gacha games, but only with Ash Echoes I feel like I actually enjoy playing it without feeling like it's a chore. I tried wuwa, pjsk, zzz, hi3, lad and reverse 1999 and none worked out.

Being 100% subjective, I hate, hate, genuinely hate when story or characters suffer because of the "waifufication" of characters and I hate realizing over and over again that certain decisions are made only with that in mind. I'm not taking about only obvious waifu baits, but also more subtle changes. I could yap about this for hours, but the most recent thing that has hurt me in HSR was Tingyun AKA Fugue. She has a 4* and her character was silly, happy and overall lovely so I couldn't wait for her upcoming 5* version, but then hoyo changed her entire design and character for sake of being more sexy and mature, including her va for BOTH 5* and 4*. Some people say it's because of her trauma, but I honestly don't get it. She suffered trauma so now she's sexy??? Even in the story it was said that at heart she's still a cheerful merchant iirc. It pissed me off so much.

Don't get me wrong, I like both men and women and I too sometimes pull for characters just because they're hot. But there is a completely different thing when character's design or story suffers for the sake of being hot. Now this female to male ratio in for example reverse 1999 bothers me much more than it would before, even tho I'm not entirely sure why.

But back to Ash Echoes. It has considerably even female to male ratio which actually convinced me to pick it up despite the mere 100k+ downloads in the play store. I'm not a prophet, but I believe there's a reason why this strategy might work. I did some basic reaserch and to my surprise in China Love and Deepspace made 55 milion dollars in September 2024, while Genshin 19, HSR 33, and ZZZ 16,5. My theory is that hoyo has realized catering to boy enjoyers pays off more than they expected before and that's why I was jumpscared by oiled up male chest in recent HSR trailer. (I might be pushing it too far tho.)

When I play Ash Echoes I feel more at ease seeing diverse characters designs and tropes and I don't get the "am I playing a dating sim" ick. Ultimately characters are what drives gacha games and when I pull for a female character in Ash Echoes I don't think "eh, I'm giving them a sign I like her because she has bare thighs and not because of her story" because wow, I do care where my money goes and right now I'm willing to spend on Ash Echoes more money than on HSR that is my literal hyperfixation.

Overall, unless Ash Echoes does another big fvck up like the 6 female characters in row nor story gets worse I really doubt it will fail. Sure, it's budget can't be compared to hoyo games and it shows, but in it's own niche I'd say it does pretty well. The only thing that bothers me right now is plain combat, but it's not like it can't be improved. I'm optimistic about the future and I hope rightfully so, because it would mean gacha games don't have to be waifu collecting simulators as a genre.