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"Emotional Fraud Simulator" controversial in China [1]
['Rob Beschizza']
Date: 2025-07-07
Revenge on Gold Diggers, renamed Emotional Fraud Simulator after a backlash, is a Chinese game about men lured into relationships by manipulative women only interested in one thing. The live-action choose-your-own-adventure title has proven so controversial in China that the director ended up banned from social media platforms.
The game's creators insist they never intended to "target women" – rather they wanted to facilitate "open dialogue about emotional boundaries and the grey zones in modern dating". Xu Yikun, an artist who tried the game and found it deeply offensive, rejects that rationale. She accuses them of "a classic business model that thrives on generating content that sparks debate and divisions".
"If you have a rich boyfriend, you are called a gold digger," Xu wrote. "If you try to make yourself look pretty, you are called a gold digger… Sometimes the label is used on you merely for accepting a drink from someone."
"Both women and men can be gold diggers," responded one gamer that BBC spoke to, defending the title. In the game, though, all the "gold diggers" are women. The game's resentments also echo the orthodoxy of the Chinese government; President Xi Jinping recently told women to be "good wives and mothers." Not quite half of the sky, if we're looking at sex ratio at birth.
Embedded below is a compilation of Incel Bandersnatch's various endings.
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