If you want to play the controversial Chinese FMV game Revenge on Gold Diggers, then we’d recommend you buy it right away before Sony gets cold feet and removes it from the PS Store. It’s available now for $14.99/£11.99 for both the PS5 and PS4.
This live action effort went viral after topping PC sales charts last year. As the name implies, the game is about a harem of beautiful women who con lovesick men out of their money.
Such is the strength of debate around the release that it reached international news outlets, with even the BBC writing a big report on it. The game’s creator was reportedly banned from local social media websites like Bilibili, but it’s not entirely clear why.
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At the centre of the storm is a discussion about whether the developer is enforcing gender stereotypes.
In the game, you play as the immaculately dressed Wu Yulun, a former victim of “gold digging” who goes undercover to expose the women committing said acts.
While the developer has since said it intended the game to be morally grey, it’s notable that it’s only women in this story exploiting innocent men.
That’s led to heated debate online about whether this game is simply a form of “wish fulfilment” fantasy, where men can make decisions to put women “in their place”.
As with a lot of these Chinese FMV titles, each lady in the game adopts a different stereotype, from a rising streamer to a supermodel. But they all have one thing in common: they’re out to defraud lovelorn men.
“Want to know if a man loves you? See how much he spends,” is one line of dialogue from the release that’s gotten a lot of attention.
Your decisions will ultimately influence the direction of the story and its outcome, with over 38 different endings available.
The product blurb reads:
“Will you stand as avenger or redeemer? Yield to temptation, or seal an unholy pact with your sworn enemy? The die of destiny rattles, and your path lies open before you.”
To use a particularly crude term, the concept of “hoeflation” has become a hot topic particularly in Asia, where some men feel the cost of maintaining a girlfriend or spouse has become prohibitively expensive.
Some feel that the success of Revenge of Gold Diggers – a best-seller already on Steam – has reinforced the growing tensions between genders, as men seek means to reassert power over those they deem to be taking advantage of them.
We’ve not played the game yet so we can’t comment on how it handles this delicate subject matter, but seeing the controversy surrounding it, we don’t think this discussion is going to go away.
As we alluded to at the start of this article, then, it’s surprising to see Sony allow it onto its platform – and, honestly, if you want to play it we’d recommend doing so quickly, because we can see this getting delisted at some point in the not-too distant future.