New Delhi: A young woman sits across the screen. Her voice cuts through the silence. “He is more obedient than a dog. Wish there were more idiots like him.” The words are not real. They are part of a game. But their sting is very real. And in China, women are feeling it.
The game is called Revenge on Gold Diggers. Players step into the shoes of men. Women appear as charming manipulators. Their smiles hide greed. Their intentions point to wallets. Every choice the male player makes decides what happens next.
Within hours of its launch in June, it topped Steam’s trending chart. Downloads soared so did criticism.
Anger came fast and loud. The game, many said, insulted women. Painted them as liars. Used their image to tell a story soaked in prejudice. Others defended it. Claimed it warned men of emotional traps and heartbreak-for-profit scams.
But the backlash snowballed. The very next day, the developers quietly renamed it Emotional Anti-Fraud Simulator. Too late. Damage done.
Mark Hu, the director of the game, vanished from several Chinese social platforms. His name disappeared like a ghost. Platforms took no chances.
In a brief statement, the creators insisted they meant no harm. They said they wanted to open a conversation. Something honest. Something about modern love and blurred lines. But few believed that.
Artist Xu Yikun did not buy it. She saw it as a calculated move. A business built on rage-clicks. She spoke about the word “gold digger”. She called it poison. A label soaked in contempt. Easy to say and hard to erase.
She spoke softly but clearly. “You date a rich man, they call you a gold digger. You wear makeup, same thing. Sometimes, even accepting a drink can earn you that name.”
The room she sat in was quiet, but her words were not.
Across China, media outlets clashed. In Hubei, a local newspaper slammed the game and called it sexist and dangerous.
Beijing Youth Daily took the opposite route. It praised the creativity. Cited statistics. Over 2 billion yuan lost to romance scams in 2023, it said. This, to them, was timely storytelling.
The editorial ended with a sharp sentence. “We must stop emotional fraud before it spreads.”
Still, the game flew off digital shelves. It climbed to the top 10 among all PC games in China. Surpassed even ‘Black Myth: Wukong’, long considered a gaming legend.
A 28-year-old man defended it. Said the hate made no sense. “If you are not a gold digger, what is the problem?” he asked. To him, the developers were bold, fearless and willing to touch topics people avoided. Topics that made people flinch.
But for many women, this was not just a topic. This was their life, fear and anger.
Some think the game was inspired by a real story. A Chinese man. A heartbreak. A tragic end. They call him “Fat Cat” online. After his breakup, he died by suicide. His story went viral. People blamed his ex. Called her a gold digger. Turned her into a villain. The police later dismissed those claims. But the damage had already settled into the public mind.
Women speaking to BBC described their fears. Quietly. Without showing their names. They feared this game would make things worse. That it would harden the belief that women belong in homes. That their role should end at being wives. Or mothers. That money belongs to men. That love is a transaction.
Many blamed China’s politics. The ruling Communist Party. The speeches from Xi Jinping. His repeated calls for women to be “good wives and good mothers”. That narrative, they said, was not new. But the game added fuel.
Activists asking for gender equality have faced pressure. Some were silenced. Some pushed underground. The fear hangs heavy.
One woman, hiding behind an alias, summed up her pain. “This game does not just show women as liars. It turns us into enemies. It shows we survive only by pleasing men. That we stand below them. Always have. Always will.”
That is not just a game. That is a wound. And for many, it is still bleeding.
