“Can You Hear Me Now?”: Listening in China’s Romance Simulation Games

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Naijia Liu can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/can-you-hear-me-now-listening-in-chinas-romance-simulation-games/. About the post: Chinese romance games are built to make players feel heard, and the studios behind them promise the same. Drawing on fieldwork among players of China's female-oriented mobile games, this piece follows listening as it slips from a designed intimacy into a demand players make on the companies, and on the worlds these games represent.