A video game plays to male anger in China

A popular and contentious game, ‘Revenge on Gold Diggers’, sheds light on misogyny, inequality and the feeling among many men that they are economic victims, writes Li Yuan from Hong Kong

- Li Yuan

A deliveryman falls for a female livestreamer. She seduces him, drains his savings, then vanishes. Heartbroken, he reinvents himself as a successful businessman seeking revenge on women like her.

This is the plot of Revenge on Gold Diggers, one of the most popular and contentious video games in China.

The interactive game, which debuted in June to enormous success, temporarily topped the charts on Steam China, the local version of the global gaming platform. Its tagline, “Who killed love? It's the gold diggers who killed love,’ has electrified Chinese social media. Players, cast as “emotional fraud hunters,’ navigate romantic relationships, searching for deception while guarding their wallets — and their hearts.

One of the most liked comments on the game's community board calls it “an elegy for our generation of Chinese men.” Another declares, “Men must never retreat — this is a fight to the death.”

The game has drawn the enthusiasm of disaffected young men, and fierce criticism from other corners. It has been decried as misogynistic. Some male gamers complain it panders to the Chinese government's concerns about plummeting marriage and birth rates.

The debates surrounding Revenge on Gold Diggers reveal deep-seated male resentment and the broader socioeconomic anxieties about love, marriage and financial security in China.

In recent years, a sense of stagnation, compounded by high housing costs, worsening job markets and limited social mobility, has left many young Chinese men disillusioned. This economic malaise has dovetailed with anxiety around dating, marriage and masculinity, breeding a sense of emotional desperation.

The Chinese internet is full of bitter comments from men who write about feeling reduced to “walking wallets” in romantic relationships, perpetuating a sense of victimisation.