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 victimization.

Amid anxiety about the economy, jobs, high marriage costs and gender imbalances, many young people are reluctant to get married and have children. Last year, 6.1 million couples registered for marriage, a 21 percent plunge from a year earlier and fewer than half the number in 2013.

“The economic challenges are very real, and they naturally give rise to anxiety,” said a Beijing-based video producer who asked that I use only his family name, Huang, for fear of government retaliation. In an interview, he called the game “a cheap, opportunistic product” that “very precisely taps into the intense gender antagonism currently sweeping through Chinese society.”

He said he believed the game appealed particularly to incels, involuntarily celibate men who consider themselves unattractive to women. A global phenomenon, the incels often blame women for their romantic failures. They tend to be economically marginalized and socially isolated, and to see the game as both therapy and resistance.

A 23-year-old unemployed man living with his parents in Chongqing, who also asked that I use only his surname, Xi, told me: “I hate women, though I still want to fall in love, just a little bit.” He has never been in a relationship, he said, and hopes Revenge on Gold Diggers could teach men like him how to behave in love.

After graduating from college, Mr. Xi worked briefly in an electronics assembly factory and as a phone service salesman. He quit both jobs because of health reasons and boredom, he said, and spends most of his time online. He said he joined online boycotts of brands that were perceived to support feminism, such as JD.com. The e-commerce site was targeted last year after hiring Yang Li, a comedian who once joked, “How can men look so average, and yet be so confident?” JD.com dropped Ms. Yang after the protests.

Mr. Xi said that his opinions about women and feminism were shaped by social media, and that he sometimes regretted and deleted some of his harsh comments. But other times he can’t help but fight with women online, he said.

Like many of his peers, Mr. Xi sees himself as doubly oppressed, both by women and by the government. “The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government now inhabit a different world from ours. They are blind to our real situation,” he said.

The opening scene of Revenge on Gold Diggers features a heartbroken, overweight man who is about to jump to his death. That is widely understood as a reference to an incident in 2024 when a man died by jumping into the Yangtze River after his girlfriend suggested they take a break.

The police investigated and found that the woman had done nothing wrong, calling it a “normal relationship.” But some men called her a “gold digger” and wanted her to be held legally accountable.

Another case cited in the game’s comment section is a 2023 conviction in Shanxi Province. A man was sentenced to three years in prison for raping his fiancée. The defense argued that betrothal implied consent, especially after the man had paid a so-called bride price of about $14,000. But the court ruled against him. The decision was included in the case library of China’s highest court, elevating its importance and further angering male commenters who saw it as evidence that feminists had taken over the legal system.

At the center of many of these grievances is the bride price, a Chinese custom in which the groom’s family pays money or gifts to a bride’s family before marriage. Once seen as a form of good will, it’s now often seen as a financial transaction and, unsurprisingly, a contentious one.

In regions of China with many more men than women, bride prices can soar to tens of thousands of dollars, adding crushing financial burdens to young men. Male gamers and commenters sometimes describe the custom as “legalized robbery.”

Feminists and many others argue that the system is part of deeper inequalities in the society. They note that women are not necessarily the financial beneficiaries.

“In many cases, the money doesn’t go to the daughters at all,” Li Sipan, a visiting scholar at Stanford and an advocate for women’s rights, said in an interview. “It goes to her parents, and often gets used as bride price for her brothers,” she said. “In this sense, it’s not just intergenerational exploitation of daughters, but also of sisters.”

She said the government’s failure to address broader inequalities and provide an adequate social safety net for women had intensified gender mistrust on both sides.

Some male gamers have turned against Revenge on Gold Diggers. After its developer, Qianfang Studio, publicly thanked female players for their support, some men posted screenshots canceling their purchases in protest. The game’s director later issued an apology for hurting players’ feelings. Qianfang Studio did not respond to a request for comment.

The government’s responses to the game have been more ambivalent. Shortly after the game’s release, the studio changed its Chinese title to Emotional Anti-Fraud Simulator. The English-language title remained, and the move was widely believed to be an effort to deflect criticism and appease the government.

Yet the official newspaper Beijing Youth Daily published a favorable review, reposted by Xinhua News Agency, that highlighted the game’s potential for public education.

“Online romance scams are surging,” the article noted. “This game helps young people internalize the message: ‘Only by learning to protect yourself can you safeguard your true feelings and love.’”