Low-Quality, soft porn content:
An Urgent Need for Stricter Industry Regulation
As the romantic companion script has expanded recklessly, many players complain that some scripts have abandoned logical storytelling and emotional depth, instead chasing clout with romantic companion gimmicks and suggestive interactions, which ultimately drove away some of dedicated players.
Zhao Xiude, a 20-year-old player with five years of experience, decided to exit from the community in 2025 after six months of hesitation.
"I’ve spent over five years on this hobby and most of my friends are in the circle,” Zhao said. “The emotional comfort and the wonderful memories games brought me are incredibly hard to let go of."
After leaving the community, he wrote on RedNote, "script-killing games have become a medium for exchanging money for emotional value, and finding high-quality scripts has grown nearly impossible."
The post drew over 200 comments, with most agreeing with his arguments. One netizen commented that romantic companion scripts lack logic at present. Another netizen commented, "In the future, anti-vice operations won’t just target KTVs, bathhouses, and massage parlors—they’ll need to raid script-killing game stores too."
Players echo Zhao's comments and leave comments that mourn the decline of high-quality scripts, complain about skyrocketing ticket prices, and describe the exhausting process of securing a spot ("carpooling") months in advance under his post.
Zhao said that today’s market is unrecognizable compared to its golden era from 2021 to 2022. "Writers now only need to polish one or two lead romantic roles to meet the market demands, and the rest can be filled in with AI."
He said that this distorted creative model has led to most scripts today suffering from flawed logic and many plots resemble low-quality idol dramas.
“No matter what the setting, it always ends with ‘DM and his girlfriend loving each other to the point of heartbreak’,” he said. “No matter what the character, they must be ‘tormented to the point of weeping uncontrollably.’"
Veteran player Yuan Silu echoed player frustrations. “Writers pour all effort into making romantic companion roles layered and interactive, while turning other characters into plot devices with messy arcs,”she said. “An emotional script should give all players a good experience."
Worse still, she said, sinking quality has been paired with rising prices in first-tier cities. "Most scripts aren’t worth the money. For 300 yuan, you could watch four or five movies or buy ten novels." As a result, she now only plays highly rated scripts instead of gaming frequently.
The base ticket for first-lier cities in China is higher than the others, according to Qiandao app, China's most authoritative script-killing game platform, offering professional ratings for scripts, venue booking and industry insights for millions of players and merchants nationwide.
Qin Jiuer, 20, a female DM with experience running romantic companion scripts in Shanxi, also said, "Some scripts use soft porn and violence as selling points, and the content has become so graphic that I can’t stand it.”.
However, a 33-year-old Beijing-based script publisher, Ci Huai, who has released 15 titles since 2020, thought "bad scripts" are a subjective perception of players rather than an industry reality. He has worked across full-service script killing games, from publishing, supervision, writing, to being a DM, dedicated player and a social media influencer commenting on this industry with over 20 thousands followers on TikTok.
"No publisher wants to release a bad script and loses trust from buyers and can’t sell future scriptsIf internal reviews show poor quality, we will delay the launch," he said.
Ci Huai added that perceived "quality decline" stems from psychological contrast from past experiences. "Once you’ve played a 9/10 grade hit script, a 7 grade one feels terrible,” he said. “Player experience also depends heavily on the DM’s skill. An inexperienced DM can’t compare to a veteran DM at a popular venue."
Wen Hongbo explained it from the psychology perspective. “Peak emotional experiences in romantic companion scripts raise players’ emotional arousal thresholds, making milder content feel disappointing by comparison,” he said.
On the accusation that AI is used to pad scripts, Ci Huai said he has not seen widespread lazy AI use. Instead, publishers and writers use AI as a creative tool. "We use AI to brainstorm plot solutions, not to fill empty pages."
He added that formulaic content is universal in entertainment, not unique to script murder. "Like love themes in movies feel familiar too, it’s unavoidable. Publishers build on existing ideas to refine highlights, and creative minds often think alike,” he said. “I’ve even released scripts with nearly identical core concepts to competitors by coincidence."
Regarding illogical plotting, Ci Huai said the trend exists because of their writing logic. "We design memorable, viral highlights, and plot holes can slip in while building up to those moments. Meanwhile, we ensure that the characters’ motivations make sense first and then expand on the plot,” he said.
The industry’s trade show and blind city-limited purchasing system have worsened the problem. Yuan said many stores buy scripts based only on tags and unfinished drafts at trade shows. Even if the final script is terrible, stores run it anyway to avoid losing money, flooding the market with low-quality work.
Falling script quality has been accompanied by a surge in vulgar and suggestive porn content. Chuchu and Chengcheng highlighted the notorious Hotbed. The script’s romantic companion role centers on a relationship between a high school female student and a 30s teacher.
"There’s a scene where a student tells a teacher ‘I want marshmallows’—some DMs feed it mouth-to-mouth," Chuchu said.
Qin called Hotbed a vulgar, low-quality mess with toxic love triangles. She also slammed Life Sea for graphic pornographic content and sexual violence against female romantic companion characters.
"It’s pure authorial fantasy, a disgrace to the industry," she said. "Script is a form of cultural communication. Selling shock value, porn, and violence will ruin the industry’s reputation."
The script Hotbed includes a scene where female players were required to kneel before male DM and eat marshmallows, a sexually suggestive performance that sparked widespread controversy.
Ci Huai, however, praised Hotbed which he has replayed four times. "Famous classics like Thunderstorm by Cao Yu have more twisted relationships. I don’t think depicting a teacher-student romance is a problem," he said.
He added that the script itself contains no explicit content, and any suggestive behavior comes from DM performance and store revision. "The script is fixed, but the presentation is up to the venue. Inappropriate touching are DM mistakes. We should regulate DMs, not censor scripts," he said.
In fact, as early as 2022, China’s five authorities, including the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Public Security, jointly issued the Notice on Strengthening the Management of Scripted Entertainment Venues for the first time. The policy officially defined four core regulatory bottom lines, which included content self-censorship and minors protection.
According to the document, script entertainment venues should use scripts with healthy, positive content and all scripts must carry clear age-appropriate warnings and and strictly prohibit minors entry to experience unsuitable contents.
However, when I went undercover at a well-known venue in Shenzhen, I did not find any signs warning minors.
The entrance of Shuijing, a long-established script-killing game store in Shenzhen widely regarded by players as one of the city's major establishments.
According to Chuchu, Chengcheng, and Ci Huai’s observation, minors aged 15–18 make up a growing share of romantic companion script players. Ci Huai said although most stores in Beijing put up "No Minors" signs, it's hard to prevent minors from actually playing.
"It’s like underage drinking—rules exist, but people break them. Stores won’t turn down money to check players’ IDs, especially from minors who spend thousands on DMs,"he said.
“Spending money to buy a virtual love, an emotional value, is normal consumption. But if you're still immersed in it after playing and can't distinguish between virtual and reality, that would be a problem,” he added.
In February 2025, Beijing established a Self-Regulatory Committee for script-killing entertainment, bringing together leading companies and scholars to set industry standards and push for content classification, however I cannot find any specific content under it.
Shao Niling, a national second-level psychological counselor and adolescent psychology expert, said minors’ underdeveloped prefrontal cortices leave them without stable judgment or identity.
"Lacking real relationship experience, minors are more likely to fall in love with a DM, and may accept scripted perfect characters as real relationship standards, developing unrealistic expectations for dramatic, unconditional love and rejecting ordinary real-world relationships,” she said.
When asked if suggestive scripts harm minors, Ci Huai said, "they know what the script is about before playing, and that’s why they choose it. Their life experience must be richer than the script’s content."
In response, lawyer Song Wenchao said that emotional and intimate descriptions serving the plot and character development are reasonable in normal literary creation. However, if the core content consists entirely of vulgar and pornographic descriptions, it constitutes the crime of disseminating obscene materials.
Song added that as a new niche entertainment industry, the pre-release script review process currently has regulatory blind spots, lacking a nationally unified mandatory content review and filing mechanism.
“If a store fails to strictly verify the age of players and allows minors to access pornographic scripts, it will bear corresponding civil liability,” he said. “If a store allows such violations to occur, resulting in minors under the age of 14 engaging in sexual relations with male prostitutes in the store, regardless of whether the minor consents, the male prostitutes will be guilty of rape, and the store may be considered an accomplice and bear corresponding criminal liability.”
Chuchu and Chengcheng called for a film-style content rating system labeling age appropriateness.Qin also demanded stricter industry reviews to block vulgar scripts. "Romantic companion roles should serve the plot, not be the selling point," she said.
Ci Huai maintained that controversies stem from wrongdoers, not scripts. He frequently shares stories about DM involving emotional scam and sexual exploitation on his social media account.
“But people only see the negative aspects of the industry, driven by humanity’s innate peeping and gossip desires,” he said. “There are many good-looking, professionally trained DMs in this industry who uphold their principles and provide a good experience for players, but gain little attention.”
Sunset Theater, a Shenzhen-based immersive script murder venue with a branch in Hong Kong, founded by a group of passionate script-killing game enthusiasts. It specializes in theatrical stage production, professional DMs and delivers immersive experiences for players that meet the standards of professional drama performances, according to player reviews on Public Dianping, China's leading local consumer review platform.
For the script Mirage in the Clouds, Sunset Theater builds a set featuring a giant black hourglass at its center. As soon as players step into this space, the sand begins to fall slowly and steadily, marking a countdown designed to mirror the story's pivotal farewell moment at this stage of the narrative.
In an public interview, the person in charge of the theater said their team are like curators, and each script is a work of art waiting to be presented to audiences in the most fitting way. That's why they pour immense effort into every detail—from scene composition, lighting and sound design, to process flow and even the core narrative structure.
However, due to soaring operational costs, the venue has yet to turn a significant profit.
Ci Huai said he believes the rise of romantic companion scripts has improved the industry rather than distorted.
"The industry has been seen by more people and has drawn more people in, growing the player base and market. Venues now compete with more immersive experience with lighting, sound, and DM performances, making the overall experience far better than before," he said.
“The future of the industry ultimately depends on those who truly love it and work together to uphold its bottom line,” he added.