BCP Education & Psychology ERHSS 2023 Volume 9 (2023) 52 The Research on the Characteristics of Chinese Game Virtual Streamers Xinyu Zhang*, † International College Beijing, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100091, China *Corresponding author: xinyu.2.zhang@ucdenver.edu Abstract. With the development of the metaverse, many activities have been infiltrated into various virtual interactive experiences. In the widespread live-streaming industry, the virtual anchors who stream behind various animated avatars are favored by a majority of young people. This paper summarizes five characteristics of Chinese game virtual streaming through observations on Bilibili live streaming platform and social media such as Weibo, TikTok and Little Red Book. The author believes that Chinese game virtual streamers have strong role-playing quality, a variety of live games content, humor, versatility and the ability to follow the latest trends. Through these characteristics, they can enrich the live content to attract more audience attention, also strengthen the interaction with the audience and meet the needs of the audience to a greater extent, thus promoting the development of the virtual streaming industry. The analysis of the characteristics of game virtual streamers can make the streamers better improve and strengthen their own advantages and expand the audience group, as well as enable the audience to have a deep understanding of the virtual streamers, which encourages a more appropriate and rational virtual stream watching experience. Keywords: Virtual streamers; Characteristic; Game streaming; Audience 1. Introduction In recent years, the development of virtual technology has provided more possibilities for the entertainment industry of streaming. Virtual streamers, known as Virtual YouTubers (VTubers), usually on YouTube or Twitch, or Virtual Uploaders (VUPs), who actively stream on Bilibili, are now becoming a popular streaming trend attracting more viewers all over the world. They are a group of streamers who voice and act behind the 2D or 3D computer-generated avatars according to the lore designed for the character. In 2017, VTubers who adopted anime-like visual characteristics first appeared in Japan, and the number within this community has quickly popped to more than 10,000 currently [1]. Similar to normal live content, these virtual streamers also come from various live content partitions, including entertainment and chatting, gaming, quiz show, life show, and so on. A wide group audience has been keen on watching those live streams, not only those who love nijigen (the Japanese of “two-dimensional meta”, which is used to describe the imagined world) who are attracted to the amine avatars, but also appeal to many different audiences who love to watch the live stream. Influenced by the origin of Japanese anime avatars, most of China's virtual live streams are active on animation platforms, the biggest of which is Bilibili. And the live streamers are called VUP who both stream and upload videos on Bilibili frequently. By August 2021, Bilibili had more than 36,000 virtual streamers, more than half of which had a monthly income of 0, and the top 120 virtual anchors took more than 90% of the income, and there are more than 30,000 virtual streamers have streaming on Bilibili in the past year, up 40 percent year-on-year, according to CEO Chen Rui [2]. One of the most popular forms of the live streaming of these VUPs is game streaming, which contains various categories of games. Some of these game streamers regularly broadcast games since their debut, some only stream games every time they collaborate with friends or other streamers, and even some from different areas, including music area, dance area, painting area and living area, gradually turned their direction of streaming content to the game. The purpose of game live streaming is to enrich the content of the virtual stream, to better interact and communicate with the audience by relying on the game carrier that the audience is familiar with or interested in, and to increase the interest and enjoyment of live streaming. BCP Education & Psychology ERHSS 2023 Volume 9 (2023) 53 Among all the game VUPs, they are supported and organized either by themselves or by the companies (managers). And one of the biggest companies is VirtuaReal, which is active in Bilibili. Its main company Nijisanji is a famous worldwide virtual streamer cultivation organization, which was established by Anycolor company in Japan in 2018, and now has expanded to Nijisanji EN and VirtuaReal (Nijisanji CN). There are some companies like fantas 1A, hOuOu, which are also in charge of the virtual streamer development program under Bilibili. According to the statistics of VUPs on Bilibili, yousa, Aza, Roi, hanser, Yukie, Susam, Tocci, Yog, tako, Kayuu, Noir, etc. are some of the top live streamers with the most popular audience group or most followers. Among them, their largest number of followers has reached more than 3 million, and the least has 100,000 followers. In their daily virtual live streams, the number of online viewers can range from hundreds to tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands. These viewers interact with VUPs and other audiences by sending bullet messages (the messages roll on the screen) in each streaming room. Also, some of them communicate with the streamers by sending Super Chat (SC), a kind of donation that can appear in a conspicuous form on the screen and is supposed to be read out by the streamers. What is more, viewers can also open the "aboard" privilege in the streaming room, and choose to become "captain", "lieutenant" and "governor", different levels need to top up the corresponding amount per month, ranging from more than 100 yuan to nearly 20,000 yuan. For example, the VUP "yousa", which has a large number of fans, has more than 350 "captains" and several "commanders", earning tens of thousands of yuan every month alone (The income of the streamer is split 50-50 with the platform) [3]. Annually, Bilibili awards the top 100 UP in a comprehensive ranking based on the number of followers and their performances. In 2022, two of the virtual streamers, yousa and hanser showed up on the list [4]. 2. Literature Review Since the emerging trend of virtual anchors has just emerged and the classification is relatively complex, the virtual streamers in the game area have not been fully studied in past studies. Most of the research articles mainly focus on exploring the current characteristics and future development trends of virtual streamers or game live anchors using the economic model or communication method. Based on the characteristics of media materiality, Lin summarized the market and user characteristics of China’s virtual streamers and deeply studied their technical and humanistic advantages. The user's consumption logic and the relationship characteristics between viewers and streamers were illustrated in this article, which mainly concentrated on the virtual and idol economic consumption followed by the virtual streamers market, and the future market prospect of virtual streaming was made to a prediction [5]. This research mainly focused on virtual idols in mainland China, so the application of the consumption mode of the idol economy in the virtual market was put forward and the greater potential of the virtual live broadcast market in the future was predicted. Similarly, many articles mainly narrow down to research idol virtual streamers, which find out more about their negative impact. Guan explored the existing virtual streamers’ interaction ritual restrictions on outsiders, emotional sharing experience, group solidarity and moral phenomenon through participatory observation, depth interviews and questionnaire method, and analyzed the fans' internal emotional energy stratification and the influence on consumption through Bilibili. The virtual stream industry prospects and standardization of the orderly development of consciousness were discussed, and the personalized construction of virtual streamers during the economic boom was proposed [6] Different from Lin, Guan's in-depth study of the idol economy pointed out more of the problem of overgrowth, regulatory loopholes and irrational consumption of viewers in the virtual stream industry, leading to the proposal of policies to regulate live streaming platforms, individual streamers and the industry. Wang et al. discussed the production and consumption of Bilibili virtual streamers in China from the perspective of Douglas Kellner's “media culture”, and found it as a multi-dimensional commercial cooperation process with the attributes of idols, anchors and video creators. Its fusion of various youth BCP Education & Psychology ERHSS 2023 Volume 9 (2023) 54 subcultures shaped the virtual stream culture circle, and at the same time formed the virtual community, which reversed integration with the youth culture [7]. Some studies focus on the interaction between streamers and viewers, aiming to analyze the transactional communication content and the sense of gain. Tu's research mainly focused on the game live streaming as a two-way interactive communication mode. The streamer was the subject with the discourse expression power to output emotional energy and realized one’s value through the game. But problems such as singleness of interaction form, conflict of interest between market and emotions and lax supervision still existed, which indicated that the game live streaming industry should explore more interactive ways and strengthen supervision, to promote the sustainable development of this industry [8]. Taking "Attack on the Dimensional Era" as an example, Wen found that virtual anchors benefited from the development of the two-dimensional culture and the mutual symbol culture and were satisfied by the integration of the virtual and the real. The audience's reliance on the virtual world and escape from reality aggravated the communication barriers, so the need for virtual streamers to break the capital restrictions and strengthen the expression of feelings was called out [9]. Zhang cut into the perspective of virtual streamers and youth networks and found that the streamers behind the animated character were the spiritual core of young network users, namely, the idealized social objects. This understanding made it easier for the audience to be deeply fascinated, and the two sides eventually mutually get influenced to form a unique network symbiosis environment [10]. Like Wen, Qin has studied symbol culture, but unlike the others, she delved deeper into why viewers watch virtual anchors. Qin sought to find the motivation behind the interaction in the streaming industry. By constructing the virtual streamer interaction model based on the interactive ritual chain theory model, she explained the two-way interaction mechanism between streamers and viewers and found that their highly sticky symbol consumption motivation for streamers stems from the purpose of seeking cultural and group identity to obtain high-energy emotional response [11]. There are also many studies on the technical level of virtual anchors to analyze their image and characteristics. Compared with the virtual anchor trend of the animation model, Kang studied the high-level realistic virtual anchor modeling and takes Codemiko as an example, who was a virtual streamer on Twitch with accurate high-fidelity motion and facial capture. The most distinctive feature of her was the high degree of interaction with the chat (audience), as they could use the Twitch interaction system to influence the live stream environment to impact the reaction of Codemiko as if in the same real world. These interactions became “clips” (editable moment videos) that allowed viewers to share happiness on social media, thus creating more interesting moments which satisfy users' daily demand for fresh content [12]. Similarly, Xie mainly discussed motion capture technology which has changed the limitations of humans and the further development of the role of virtual streamers. The existence value of virtual streamers was provided by the audience expectation psychology and the good interaction between technology and society [13]. It is worth mentioning that the nijigen design of the avatar helps better develop the personality of the streamers and has a great impact on the attraction of viewers. Lu et al. conducted an interview study and the data showed that avatars of anime characters brought unique performance opportunities, leading to different audiences’ expectations and interpretations of VTuber's behavior. The audience intentionally supported VTuber's avatar to be separated from their voice actor, and there were subtle differences in their perception and attitude, which explained the attraction of the virtual streamer’s avatar to the audience [14]. Like Xie, Pei also studied the role of virtual anchors, but focused on the background of the meta-culture like the research of Lu et al. The integration of Japanese nijigen culture and the role of streamers made the characters of virtual anchors diversified and curious. Through the physical structure, costume props and color collocation and other technologies, the role characteristics of virtual streamers were summarized to deepen the general public’s understanding of virtual streaming [15]. Although many scholars are researching this field, few of them focus on the game virtual streamer and study its common characteristics. As one of the most popular live streaming industry trends in the world today, characteristics of virtual streamers in the game area are worth studying to help them develop faster and coexist in harmony on the one hand, and on the other hand, the audience can better BCP Education & Psychology ERHSS 2023 Volume 9 (2023) 55 understand the virtual stream industry, so as to rationally consume and get moderate entertainment. This paper will focus on observing game virtual streamers on Bilibili live streaming platform through qualitative research, then analyze their common characteristics and summarize them as general rules. 3. Methodology Qualitative research is the research method of this paper. Since virtual streaming is taking place in the metaverse, the author observed a variety of online platforms for nearly one year, including live streaming platforms and social media sites, such as Bilibili, Weibo, Twitter, TikTok, Little Red Book and YouTube. The author selected a dozen different virtual anchors in the game area as the observation objects. Some of them are run by individuals, such as Lingyu, KBDYD, and Asaki. Others are mostly run by VirtuaReal company, such as Aza, Roi, Yog, Tocci, Nox, Nanami, Kouichi, Hoshimi and so on. Exclusively, hanser and yousa are the virtual idols from VituraReal Star, since many of their live streams are gaming content, they share some common characteristics with the game virtual livers. Also, Kayuu, Noir from fantas 1A and tako from hOuOu company are also some main observation objects. In the process of observation, the author mainly divided into two directions. One is the observation of the streamer's direct performance. The observation in this aspect was mainly focused on Bilibili live-streaming platform. The author summarized and compared diverse performances differentiated from the operation form of game virtual streamers by observing their game type, streaming content, game video release and dynamic interaction during real-time game virtual streams. In addition to live streaming platforms, Weibo, Twitter and TikTok are also key observation social media. The characteristics of game virtual streamers were obtained by observing different contents shared by streamers on these non-live streaming platforms within a year to three years. The second direction is the viewers' or followers’ feedback of streamers as an indirect observation. The author mainly observed Bilibili video clips, Weibo super topics, Twitter gallery, TikTok and Little Red Book sharing within one year, to analyze the influence of different streamers from the perspective of their followers to summarize the traits of game virtual streamers. 4. Results To highlight the unique personality, game virtual streamers act within the role corresponding to the design of the animated avatar. This performance in a stream is called the roleplaying process. There are mainly two types of roles. For the first type of roles is people in different careers, they can be people with a specific identity either from the real world or the imaginary world. For instance, Roi, whose avatar is an elegant prince in a white suit from another world, calls his viewers “the royal” and “my people”. When he announced his graduation plan (stop virtual streaming in this character forever) on November 5, 2022, he described his decision as “Three years have come, and I shall return to the other world to be the prince”. At the same time, the audience who replied to him in the comments and bullet messages on Bilibili, on Tiktok fan-made short videos, will use content like “Be the king of your world, Roi”, “It's been a long journey in this world, Your Highness” and “The royal will never forget you”. The second type of the roles is some creatures, including animals, fairies, elves, aliens, demons etc. designed as the character, which requires a more accurate portrayal of the avatar image and skills of imagination and acting. Take tako as an example, who is an octopus in human form. He wears a dark blue suit with a cut fabric at the bottom that swung in all directions like the legs of an octopus. In one of his streams in May 2021, tako responded to a question by calling the little mermaid “little sister” and explained in the context of the undersea world. Even in the clip of this streaming part, when tako was thinking the answer and made the sound of “mmm” unconsciously, the clippers added a subtitle as “Octopus is bubbling”. All the roleplays help the virtual streamers strengthen their personality, and appeal to more audiences. BCP Education & Psychology ERHSS 2023 Volume 9 (2023) 56 All different kinds of games are included in all virtual streams. The main forms of game streaming can be divided into the single stream and the collaborating stream. All the game types include adventure games, action games, casual games, puzzle games, FPS games, music rhythm games, competitive games, strategy games, horror games, MOBA games, immersive love games and so on. Many virtual anchors of the game will intersperse the two forms, with the single live stream as the main, and there will also be collaborating streams with colleagues or other streamers. In Aza’s stream in October 2022, he streamed games for 14 days. Aza played the horror game Bathhouse on October 1 and a pet shop after dark on October 10 as the single streams. He collaborated with his fellow colleagues on October 7 and 31, playing the Backroom and Outlast together. Besides, he streamed some single-player games like Fall Guys as the competitive game, Light and Night as the immersed love game, Trombone Champ as the music rhythm game, and also some mini-games on gamepads. It is worth noting that he streamed 3 games within 2 hours in a collaboration with Yog and Susam on October 26, the first FPS game APEX followed by the casual competitive game QQ Speed, and then played the MOBA game League of Legends together. It is shown that the virtual game live streamer can decide which game to stream in a wide variety of choices, and they can adapt various games to show the best performance on stream. An indispensable skill for an anchor is a sense of humor. Similarly, the game virtual streamers can make some funny effects while playing the games and interact with the audience jokingly which will effectively increase their interest. For example, Asaki streamed the ARAM mode in League of Legends in August, but she forgot how to operate the skills of a hero and cooperate. Her “anxiety” and strange confidence even made the audience laugh harder. In another example, Tocci streamed Fling to the finish on November 4 with his colleagues. In a cooperation game, every time Tocci was about to fall or his partner made a mistake, he made many strange noises, which made the audience laugh. Many viewers then recorded these funny videos, edited the soundtrack and posted them on TikTok, Weibo and Bilibili to spread their happiness to more people. One of the most surprising common characteristics is that these game virtual streamers are versatile, that is, most of them have a high musical level. Not only hanser and yousa, who are professional online virtual singers uploaded many songs with beautiful PV on Bilibili, Aza, Roi, Yog, Tocci, Nox, Nanami, Hoshimi, tako, Kayuu, Noir and many virtual streamers uploaded PV songs and present live karaoke streams at least once a week. Aza has two or three hours of regular live karaoke sessions two days a week. He is also good at playing the guitar, he played and sang Lemon, Good night, Chun, Those years and songs in different languages. In addition to him, Yog, Tocci, Uka, tako, Noir and others have all held karaoke live to sing along with the audience one by one. What is more, Nanami sang 50 songs in a row and lasted more than three hours during her live stream on March 14, 2022. This live all-open mic karaoke shows the high and stable singing level and the excellent music skills of these game streamers. On the other hand, many virtual anchors have some awesome dancing skills. At the Summer Chorus Super party held by VirtuaReal, the virtual streamers not only showed off their own excellent singing, but also performed sophisticated choreography in 3D avatars for all 18 songs. Especially in the songs Zero 2 Hero, Shake the world, Queen Fox and GETCHA, these streamers presented complex dance steps, body movements and formation changes. Videos of the singing and dancing performances have been shared by viewers and fans on various social platforms, praising the versatile virtual streamers as "idols". Game virtual streamers need to pay attention to the popular trends of the network and follow them first to achieve better live streaming effects. The first trends to follow are fashion and netspeak on the Internet in China. For instance, there is a trend that Chinese college students were so bored and finally came up with the idea of making paper dogs and walking them on the playground during the COVID lockdown period in November 2022. Kayuu, a game streamer posted a moment and also a video using the same tag “College students walking dogs” to share a paper-snail that she made and “walked” it on November 6th. In August 2022, the Rap song "Qilin" became popular in the peak showdown of Rap of China, a variety show. Susam released a cover video of the song on September 9 immediately. Game virtual streamers are naturally applying these new trends in China to increase the interaction BCP Education & Psychology ERHSS 2023 Volume 9 (2023) 57 and connection with the viewers during streams. The second kind is that the anchor will also become an advanced trendsetter following Japanese pop songs, Vocaloid songs, and the newly released anime. Jujutsu Kaisen is a Japanese anime beloved by anime fans after its release in late 2020. On January 17, 2021, Nox released his own trilingual version of Jujutsu Kaisen's OP (opening song), which was streamed over 200,000 times. Following the release of Ado's new song Odo on April 27, 2021, Nox released her own cover on May 22, reaching the 100,000 mark. Followers who are interested in Japanese popular culture will be attracted to watch the virtual streams in this way. 5. Discussion Roleplay, as the common characteristic of game virtual livers, is created to benefit both streamers and the audience. For the streamers themselves, role-playing’s first function is to protect personal privacy. Streamers always share some anecdotes or experiences to create a resonance of emotion. And the story of a real streamer mixed with the experience of this virtual character can prevent privacy from leaking. The situation is that when many of Bilibili's streamers are described in detail or film a video to reveal a small part of the room accidentally, they are at risk of being followed by the maniacal fans, which seriously disturbed the streamers’ normal life. The second advantage is to enhance the unity of the anchor's character image, which is convenient for the characterization of the virtual anchor. From the perspective of the audience, the unified character will be clearer to represent their personalities, and it will be easier for the audience to remember in the first place. The consistent and unique personalities of each streamer can provide great emotional value for the audience. Secondly, the audience can fully support the streamer and does not have to worry about the adverse effects caused by the personal problems of the actors behind it. Like some stars in the entertainment industry, when the actors with bad characters behind the role are exposed by the paparazzi, some fanatical fans who fell in love with one character they had played will feel that their faith collapse, and some even cannot accept it to take drastic actions. Behind the role, fans of the virtual streamers do not have to be concerned about these problems and can express their support and love without hesitation to enjoy their stream with greater passion, because the virtual streamer will not deviate from their "role". The second characteristic of streaming various game types seeks to meet the need of several types of viewers. The first category of fans is a small number of fans who want to learn gaming skills, including FPS games, MOBA games, puzzle games, and competitive games. When virtual streamers show their skilled gaming and quick reactions to the accidental situation in the game, this kind of audience will be greatly satisfied. However, the number of such fans is very small, and there is another category of fans who want to interact with virtual streamers to enhance their para-social relationship. For this type of viewers, the first type of game that requires the streamer’s focus on the game content and a high level of gameplay is not a good choice. More of these audiences would prefer to watch games that are more relaxing, such as immersive love games, simple horror games, casual games, etc. In most of these games, the game controls are simple, the content is clear, and many of them have their own choice in plot development. For example, in some story-type puzzle games, virtual streamers can express their ideas and chat with the audience through the bullet screen at any time when streaming these kinds of games. Communication with the audience makes the relationship between the streamer and the audience closer and satisfies the needs of such audiences. The third type of audience is the ones who are following multiple virtual streamers, and love to watch streamers play together. The games that this type of viewer is keen on are usually multiplayer team-based MOBA, FPS, horror games, casual confrontation games, like Apex and Super Mario. The emotional demand of these viewers is to feel the happiness of the cooperation or confrontation of several of their favorite streamers. Therefore, the live stream of multi-player joint games by several streamers makes the live streaming more attractive and interesting. In order to expand the audience flow, anchors should reasonably allocate the proportion of different kinds of live game streaming. That is, focusing on individual games that can have more interaction with the viewers, interspersed with cooperation games with other anchors. Because the BCP Education & Psychology ERHSS 2023 Volume 9 (2023) 58 individual live stream is the fundamental driving force to attract fans and followers, and the followers who are attracted by too many collaboration streams are unstable for one streamer. Therefore, the frequency of cooperation should be rare but occur every week, which can timely give viewers a fresh feeling, and spread the audience among several streams. The quality of a sense of humor is a very important characteristic of a virtual streamer, to some extent, it directly determines their success or not. Under the handsome or beautiful animated images, the real charm and attraction of the streamers depend on their humor. The primary reason is to bring pleasure to the audience. A humorous game live stream usually starts in the evening and makes the audience laugh. The tiredness and annoyance of the day are all evacuated in people’s laughter, and viewers will regain happiness after watching the live streams. Secondly, anchors with a sense of humor can ease the tension and decrease the boredom of the game, which makes the stream room more interesting and can attract more audience. For example, a large number of virtual anchors love to stream horror games. The scary sound effects, background music, plot and visual effects sometimes may make the audience immersed in great fear and unable to accept. However, the funny sounds made by the streamers, and their interesting comments can dispel their fear, which not only catches the eyes of more new viewers, but also effectively alleviate the anxiety and nervousness of old viewers. To improve their sense of humor, virtual anchors can also watch funny clips of peers or some interesting videos on short video websites such as Bilibili and TikTok to enhance their awareness of being humorous and application methods. Many clips that become popular after viewers post are sometimes funny scenes that anchors did not realize when they finished their sentences during the stream, but finally created vivid and interesting interaction and fun stream effects. At the same time, sharing humorous clips of virtual streamers for spreading more fun can make more audience know about these interesting virtual streamers, and even make some "outsiders" become familiar with the virtual streaming industry, which can help expand the virtual streaming industry in China. The versatility of Chinese game virtual streamers is mainly due to the fierce competition in China. Being versatile has also gone from being a plus to a common skill in countless applications to becoming virtual streamers. In newly debuted VUPs videos, many of them with high music levels were joked about by the audience as “recruited from musical school”. Owing to the higher talent level of VUPs, there is a tendency to compare their artistic ability with others and take extra lessons to improve their versatile skills, like the dancing skills performed in 3D avatars. Another reason is especially for the virtual streamers supported by the company, in order to attract mainstream fans to a greater extent, the integration of game virtual streamers and virtual idols can bring a larger fan base and form a larger income. Although artistic ability has almost become a necessary condition for virtual anchors in China, improving the ability of streaming should be the main condition for virtual anchors. Many of the new Bilibili streamers have small audiences and tiny incomes. These streamers have excellent artistic musical talent, and their singing skills may be extremely high, but they lack some basic sense of humor in live streaming and the interaction with the bullet message and the audience. Recruiting virtual anchors like this put the cart before the horse, as now the market for singing virtual anchors in China seems to have reached saturation. Therefore, paying attention to the live-streaming ability of anchors is the best solution for the continuous development and expansion of the virtual stream industry. Nevertheless, virtual streamers who are versatile and have live streaming skills should receive greater welcome and publicity. Capable viewers can make and edit more videos for Chinese game virtual streamers’ karaoke live, share with more people to enjoy the beautiful music. Meanwhile, virtual streamers with artistic ability should be welcomed to release more cover or 3D dance videos. The supporting companies can also provide a larger stage for some virtual streamers to realize their dream of becoming idols or singers. VUPs, as the advanced trend-follower can get more interaction with more audience, as the most effective way to interact with the audience is to understand their thoughts and communicate with them according to their preferences. The general audience who likes to watch game virtual streamers BCP Education & Psychology ERHSS 2023 Volume 9 (2023) 59 follows two trends. First is China's popular trends which are manifested in the transmission and imitation of various network expressions. Young people like to use Weibo, TikTok and Bilibili to spread online information which is to get the hot search list of various social platforms. Most of the audience who watch game virtual streams are these young people who are the new-trend-follower and like to surf on the Internet. Following these trends in the live stream, virtual streamers can make the audience easier to understand the content and effectively narrow the spiritual distance with the audience to satisfy them. Secondly, conforming to the popular trend in Japan is targeted at a large group of audiences. As the anime characters of virtual anchors originated in Japan, a large number of audiences are fans of the nijigen subculture in Japan. They usually like to watch anime and manga, so they are aroused in curiosity and interest in the nijigen image of the virtual streamers. To stabilize this kind of followers, virtual anchors often mention some content and interesting lines of some most popular or some anime and manga which recently came out during the live stream. Moreover, because of its early origin and rapid development, Japanese companies have permeated to Chinese virtual streaming industry. Many virtual streamers’ headquarters are from Japan, thus various types of virtual anchors have unconsciously accepted the influence of some Japanese culture in their process of cultivation and development. For the sustainable development of the virtual anchor industry, streamers should balance between Chinese network culture and Japanese nijigen culture. Since Bilibili platform was also a major broadcasting platform of Japanese animation, quantitative export of Japanese animation culture is necessary. But at the same time, as an online pastime in China, game virtual streaming is also a major way to follow the trend of the Chinese network and expand the fan base and increase the types of fans in the future. Just like what many successful virtual anchors are doing now, virtual streamers can start from the popular trend in China and integrate various cultures to make the virtual stream more inclusive and tap their development potential. 6. Conclusion By observing Chinese game VUPs on the Bilibili platform, the author has found five main characteristics of Chinese game virtual streamers. The first is the role-playing quality. VUPs unified and highlighted their personality characteristics through outstanding role-playing to attract more audience groups. Secondly, anchors stream a wide range of games to meet the entertainment and emotional needs of more audiences through various types of games combined with different forms of live-streaming activities. Then there is the streamer’s great sense of humor. By creating jokes and funny effects in the live streaming process, the stream will become more interesting and easier for the audience to understand, therefore the audience can get immersed in the experience of watching the stream. Moreover, versatility comes as another characteristic of virtual game streamers. Virtual streamers show their talents in music, dance and other aspects to enrich the content of live streams, increase greater attraction for followers and form an idol effect. Finally, the characteristic of the game virtual streamers is their identity as advanced followers of popular trends. VUPs keep learning about the popular trends online in both China and Japan to understand more audience needs and better interact with the audience. Most of the previous research on virtual streams used communication theory and economic models to analyze the developing orientation of virtual streamers. However, this paper intends to observe the virtual streams at present through qualitative analysis and get the basic characteristics of the current Chinese game virtual streamers. The analysis and understanding of the characteristics of virtual anchors can help virtual streamers to clarify the development prospect and improvement direction, and also enable the audience to deepen the objective understanding of the game virtual streamers, resulting in the development of China's virtual streaming industry, and effectively promote the audience's moderate entertainment. BCP Education & Psychology ERHSS 2023 Volume 9 (2023) 60 References [1] L. 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