Chinese video games on “Golden Digators” provokes discussion about sexism

“He’s more obedient than the dog … If only more of these dumb comes,” he can boast a woman in a new video game that caused a debate about sexism in China.

Players of revenge in live actions on gold diggers are the main characters of men who have been in relation to manipulative women who, after their money – how the man reacts to the rest of the story.

He headed the game platform sales list for hours after leaving in June, but the dispute quickly followed. Some cut him up for strengthening abusive gender stereotypes, while fans say the game warns people of love scams.

So hot was critic that the creators of the game calmly renamed him to an emotional anti-fraud the next day.

But this was not enough to cancel the damage. Leading Director of the game, directed by Hong Kong Mark Hu, has now been banned from several Chinese social media platforms.

The creators of the game insist that they were never going to “focus on women” – rather, they wanted to facilitate “open dialogue on emotional boundaries and gray zones in modern dating.”

Sus Ikun, an artist who tried the game and considered her deeply offensive, refuses to do so. She accuses them of “a classic business model that flourishes on creating a content that causes discussions and departments.”

Critics such as her say that the term “gold digger”.

“This is a label that is used too often for women,” says Ms. X. “Sexist jokes and humiliating terms, similar to these, have found their way into our daily language.”

“If you have a rich guy, you are called a gold digger. If you try to make yourself beautiful, you are called a gold digger … Sometimes you use a label only to take a drink from anyone,” she adds.

Some players, however, consider criticism crowded.

“The game does not try to say that all women are gold diggers … I don’t think it is aiming at any floor,” says 31-year-old Zhuang Mengsheng, who used a nickname to talk to the BBC. “Both women and men can be gold diggers.”

And yet, all the “gold diggers” are women in the game. From a fresh online impact participant to an entrepreneur who is all shown to make men magnificent money and gifts on them.

“Want to know if a man loves you? See how much he spends,” says one of them.

The game was shared even by local media. A newspaper from the Central Hubei province stated that the game was “marking the whole sex as fraudsters.”

But daily youth in Beijing praised him for “creativity”, citing the financial influence of love scams: about 2 billion yuan ($ 279 million; 204 million pounds) in 2023, according to the National Center for Fraud.

“We need to stop emotional fraud without delay,” the editorial staff reads.

The controversy in the side, the sales of the game continue to grow. Now it is included in the top ten titles in China for PC, which exceeds even Black Myth: Wukong Which is reportedly the most successful Chinese game of all time and peoples.

“I don’t understand why people are upset by this. If you are not a gold digger, why should you feel an attack on this game?” -It is a 28-year-old man.

“I actually thought that the creators of the game are very bold. These problems (such as emotional fraud) in China are not widely discussed.”

Some people on the Internet have suggested that the game is inspired by the real history of the Chinese man, known as FAT CAT on the Internet, which last year jumped to death after the collapse.

His death caused an intensive discussion on the Internet, where the term “gold digger” was used, and some accused his former girlfriend of his operation, which made him take his life. Police dismissed the allegations.

Women who talked to the BBC worry that the video game perpetuates the problem gender norms in China, where society believes that women belong at home by seeing men as the main breadwinners.

Thus, for women who get married, it is traditionally more important than professional success.

The official rhetoric of the Communist Party of China, where men prevail, supports this – President Xi Jinping has repeatedly urged women to perceive their roles as “good wives and mothers”.

The government is also angry A growing pool of activists Required gender equality.

“I feel such a game, such just hostility of fans between men and women,” says one woman who did not want her to be called, fearing hostility on the Internet.

“It again throws women like a defective floor, which should somehow find ways to please men to earn a means of existence.”