The state-run Xinhua News Agency blamed such games for potentially distorting reality, labeling them as “confusing” to young players. Jubensha has become so popular that the Chinese authorities have become concerned about their subject matter. Much of the pleasure, she said, comes from matching players with a part in the script that “will touch you and resonate with you.”Ī staff member, right, helping a player as he takes part in the murder mystery game called “The Haunted Mansion.” Credit…Agence France-Presse - Getty Images
“I shed tears every time I play,” she said. “I felt bored, so I often played script murder.”
“I couldn’t leave Beijing for two months,” said Gong Jin, 20, a veterinary medicine student. But scripted homicides came back stronger than ever when travel restrictions stranded young people in their hometowns and left them looking for distractions. The pandemic briefly threatened the industry, say its adherents. It’s replaced a lot of the other activities in my life.” “I met people who I now spend the entire weekend with,” she said. Zhang, the player from Shanghai, scripted homicides have become one of her primary ways to meet people. “They lack participation in civic affairs, community engagement and meaningful socialization.”įor Ms.
The games provide “a participatory experience and a way of socializing, which is missing from the life of many Chinese young people,” Dr. The games also provide free-flowing opportunities for young people to mingle, something that can be rare in China, according to Kecheng Fang, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Credit…Agence France-Presse - Getty Images Those games provide young Chinese with a way of socializing. The government’s concerns over children in particular have led it to restrict video game time for minors.Ĭustomers dressing up in costumes before the game starts at a role play studio in Shanghai. The country’s one billion internet users spend much of their time on their phones, spurring worries from the public and the government alike about excessive screen time. The whodunits may be imaginary, but they provide a real-world alternative for young Chinese people who spend increasing amounts of time on their screens. “They will cry,” said Poker Zhang, who owns a script-writing business in the city of Chengdu. (In that particular game, it was the kung fu student who practiced on a mountaintop.)Ī successful, dramatic scripted homicide offers laughs, tension and maybe even tears. In the end, they vote on who they think the murderer might be. The plot develops as the players go around the table, talking in character, taking hooks from the script and the host. The script offers character backgrounds, relationships and potential storylines. In one club in Beijing, for example, players descend into a fantastical martial arts school where they don robes and assume roles like a peach fairy or a dragon.
Then they engage in an elaborate role-playing game, asking questions of the host and each other, until they determine which one of them did the deed. Each player is assigned a character from a script, including one who plays the murderer. Scripted homicides, known as jubensha in Chinese, require players to gather in a group to discuss a fake murder or other crime. “The script is the foundation to everything in this game.” “There’s a huge demand for good scripts that’s just not met,” said Zhang Yi, 28, a Shanghai resident who played more than 90 games in just over a year. It has also led to a proliferation of clubs and competition for new and compelling scripts that players and owners alike say has become, well, cutthroat. The growing popularity has sparked some concerns from Chinese government officials about their sometimes gothic or gory content. This macabre entertainment is expected to generate more than $2 billion in revenue this year, by one count.