Big spenders on romantic companion scripts:
carpool subsidies and tips
Female players who spend lavishly for exclusive, immersive virtual romance are the core consumer base for romantic companion script murder. As the format has boomed, their spending has long outstripped the base ticket price, ranging from hundreds to thousands of yuan in carpool subsidies (the process of organizing a game with friends is known as “carpool” in this community), store membership, to uncapped tips and other derivative spending.
The carpool subsidies for peripheral roles have been unwritten rules in the community.
Sought-after romantic companion roles offer rich plots, high interaction and exclusive private one-on-one scenes where a player and DM enter a separate room to advance their own plots, while all other peripheral roles have minimal player appeal. This supply-demand imbalance directly gave rise to carpool subsidies.
To lock in these popular roles, players must subsidize from 50 to 150 yuan or even fully cover other players’ tickets to fill unwanted peripheral slots and gather the full roster required to start the game.
Yuan said this phenomena accelerated after the 2025 hit Rogue Narrative, which enlarged the experience gap between romance-focused and regular players.
“Few people wants a peripheral role with little interaction, so we have to pay or even cover others’ full fees to fill a session,” she said.
Wan once paid 1,000 yuan in carpool subsidies for a single session of another hit script Qie Yuntai. Including the base ticket fee and plot-themed gifts for fellow players and the DM, the total cost hit 2,000 yuan.
For Wan, plot-related gifts are a core way to honor her characters, make friends and elevate the group’s immersive experience.
She also makes 3,000 yuan membership top-ups at her regular stores roughly twice a month, for priority booking of sessions and preferred DMs.
Against this backdrop of frenzy, some players who lack the financial means have even taken out loans to participate in these games.
The reporter learned an example from Chuchu and Chengcheng, two seasoned players in their 30s with four years of experience, who also posted opinion videos on Xiaohongshu about the current chaos in the industry through the account named “Xiaosheng Ququ”.
They said they heard of a player fabricating a persona as a wealthy international student to gain others’ trust and sometimes default on game fees. However, in reality, she lived with her grandmother, who collected bottles to make ends meet. She was taking out loans to cover her expenses and was unable to repay the debt.
The latest widely circulated PDF in the community exposes a similar case in Hangzhou, where a minor player Miao stole retirement funds from her grandparents to pay for a session, Rogue Narrative four-romantic companion roles version, and even locked her father inside their family home to escape, after he had confined her to stop her from playing.
The minor repeatedly lied to fellow players and venues, racked up nearly 3,000 yuan in unpaid game fees, and kept an entire group waiting for 6 hours with fabricated excuses before dropping out of a session mid-play.
According to the PDF, when the victim contacted Miao’s mother to repay the debt, Miao’s mother shifted the blame and said venues should not allow minors to access the games.
A dedicated player of romantic companion roles spends a total of 56,000 on it in seven months. She writes she decided to gradually step back from the scene because the process of organizing every session was exhausting, taking her too much time to find people and maintain social connections.
Miao’s mother says the minor steals money from his grandparents and locks his father inside the house to play games.
On the WeChat official account “Script-killing Game News—Might Disband Tomorrow,” a platform that compiles PDFs documenting the chaos in the industry, reports of players defaulting on payments, defrauding deposits and disappearing, and scalpers setting up fake events to scam people are constantly emerging.
The Wechat official account has been updated with 98 PDFs about the chaos of script-killing games after establishing in Mar. 2025. The most cases about sexual harassment &violence happened during the gameplay of Hotbed 溫床, a script knows as containg soft porn contents, which I will also talk about it under the section of the content crisis.
The founder of the Wechat official account, Yang Zichen, said he wants to promote the establishment of unified rules for those high-frequency disputes in the industry by updating the account. The account also posted his interviews with some professional and ambitious DM, stores and experienced players and his personal thoughts for improving the industry .
In response to reports of ticket scalpers fabricating match results and absconding with the proceeds, Song Wenchao, director of the Criminal Legal Affairs Department at Beijing Gongheng Law Firm, Haikou Branch said such actions are illegal regardless of the amount involved.
“If the amount reaches 3,000 yuan, it constitutes criminal fraud, and the police can conduct cross-jurisdictional investigations,” Song said. “Players should report such incidents to the police promptly.”
Script killing games are not unique to China. They can also be found in other countries such as Australia and Canada. Some Chinese international students there have formed their own small groups to play romantic companion scripts.
Ava, 19, who is studying in Australia, said the base ticket price for a session in Australia ranges from 150 to 200 AUD (730 to 970 yuan).
Ava declined to reveal his full name, as the article will later recount her private story as a victim. She wishes to protect her privacy and avoid any potential retaliation after the article is published.
According to a Toronto script-killing game information site, the base ticket price for a game in Toronto is around 120 CAD (600 yuan).
Similar to the culture of commissioning cosplay, the explosive popularity of romantic companion scripts has also given rise to a commissioning economy, especially after the rise of Rogue Narrative.
The hired DM will dress up as a character from the customer’s favorite script and spend the day on a date with her, saying sweet nothings from the script.
The paid DM accompanies the customer in doing whatever she wants. The two may go out to eat, visit an amusement park, and even take wedding photos.
On RedNote, when searching for “Rogue Narrative commissions,” numerous posts popped up, from players seeking commissions to ads posted by the DMs themselves featuring their own handsome photos.
One player shared her experiences after commissioning a day, and wrote, “Even if this is just a dream, I’ll savor every moment… I want to fully experience every second I spend with you until I wake up.”
The price for a one-day commissioned date ranges from 300 to 1,000, depending on the city and the DM’s popularity. In Zhejiang, a company called “Tianni Cultural Services Studio” was established in April 2026. Its RedNote page indicates that it specializes in script-killing game commissions, cosplay commissions, and customization services. They claimed their service was pure green without prostitution.
Premium RPG theaters and idolized DM culture
An immersive RPG theater in Shenzhen offers cinematic lighting and professional sound design for fully immersive, sensory experiences of a hit romantic companion script, Chang Xiangsi, with traditional Chinese style.
Hardcore gamers are scrambling to climb the rankings on the RPG theatre's mini-program to secure a full session with their favorite DM.
The latest wave of lavish spending in the romantic companion scripts is driven by immersive Role-playing game (RPG) theaters — the upgraded version of romantic companion scripts.
These premium venues offer more professional lighting and sound design, as well as larger scene areas and more themed rooms for a script, compared to traditional stores. It elaborates sets with almost every player paired with a dedicated romantic companion (a lover, family member or close friend) portrayed by a DM.
RPG enthusiast Ding Boyao, 22, has played the 2025 hit Chang Xiangsi RPG more than 30 times and has encountered players who completed over 120 playthroughs.
She said on Valentine’s Day 2025, scalpers drove resale prices for session slots as high as 15,000 yuan per session.
“A player offered me 2,000 yuan for my ticket, but I declined,” she said.
Immersive RPGs are written script-free, with all backstory delivered verbally by DMs. Each player gets a DM to guide them through exclusive quests, with no visibility into other players’ storylines. This model shifts the focus entirely to exclusive romantic companionship provided by players opposite DM, and players’ fan loyalty to DM spawns widespread idol-style management of DMs.
Top venues brand popular DMs (colloquially “hot ticket 燙卡” ) as idols, with players locking in sessions via membership top-ups, cash votes and tips.
These top-tier celebrities will be invited by script-killing game stores in other regions to perform in "special sessions" or "limited-time visits," similar to idols' nationwide tours.
Ding said the cost of a top-tier DM's companion performance service, including transportation and subsidies, is usually over 1,000 yuan. This price is equivalent to the ticket price of an ordinary idol meet-and-greet.
Shop owners promote photos and character traits of various DMs called as Kasi in RPG thearter on their RedNote and TikTok account, marketing them exactly like celebrities.
One of the most famous DM in the industry, Gui Qie from Chengdu, holds a one-night-only exclusive script session with tiered limited tickets at Shenzhen.
Psychologist Wen said the multi-sensory stimulation created by the immersive RPG theater uses up players' rational cognitive resources, making the brain overloaded and less able to think rationally.
Based on Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow Theory, deep immersion also makes players identify with their roles, losing self-awareness and a sense of time, Wen said.
“Excessive immersion finally weakens people’s ability to tell reality from fiction. They may feel dissatisfied with real life relationships and transfer emotional attachment from roles to the DM.” Wen said. “ Over-identification with fictional roles also disrupts the formation of self-identity, resulting in a fragmented and confused self-concept.”
Much like celebrity merchandise, post-session polaroid photos with DMs cost 88 yuan each, and some comes with a handwritten note or drawing from the DM as follow-up content to strengthen emotional bonds.
Youzhou, breakout RPG theater built on the shared universe of hit scripts Cang Qi and Qing Chuan, has pushed the idol economy to new heights.
First launched in Chengdu, it has expanded to Hangzhou, Xi’an and Beijing, with upcoming openings in Shenzhen. Base tickets start at 698 yuan per person in Chengdu and 898 yuan per person in Hangzhou, with exorbitant premiums for popular romantic roles and top DMs.
In March 2026, Ding paid 2,000 yuan for a sought-after Youzhou seat in Chengdu, and her friend spent 6,500 yuan to secure a seat with a hotter DM.
As of Apr.3, all sessions at the Hangzhou branch of Beyond Fragments are fully booked.
The Hangzhou location’s official WeChat mini-program “Bian Suipian 彼岸碎片” features two leaderboards: a Player Ranking, based on spending for session access, and a Performer Ranking, based on player gratuities to DMs.
In the mini-program, 100 votes on the Performer Ranking are equivalent to 1 yuan, and the total amount players spend on actors is converted 1:1 into Heat Points on the Player Ranking.
Based on their monthly Player Ranking, players can earn various rewards: The top 20 players each month will receive a full session (they become the “lead” and do the “carpool”) and 1–2 times DM selection rights based on their ranking. Players ranked 21–30 will receive 1–2 single roles seats based on their ranking. The top 3 players on each DM will receive one casting selection for that DM.
According to last month’s data, the top spenders on the Player Ranking has spent nearly 190,000 yuan, while the threshold for the top 30 was 9,592 yuan, meaning the lowest cost per spot is nearly 10,000 yuan. Zhengzheng, who tops the actor rankings, earned over 320,000 yuan in a single month
“I often wonder if I accidentally added an extra zero,” Ding said. “I can’t believe it’s real money and not the ‘happy beans’ that get in virtual games.”
Through interviews with DMs and players, reporters learned that previously, even in first-tier cities, DMs struggled to earn below 8,000 yuan per month and earned around 3,000 to 4,000 yuan in most cities due to the low turnover rate and high staff requirements of script-killing games.
However, with the introduction of ranking-based income, the recruitment posters for "Youzhou" listed actors with a combined monthly salary range of 12,000 to 50,000 yuan in 2025. Income is directly linked to popularity.
The recruitment posters for the Shenzhen store, which is scheduled to open in May this year, advertise monthly salaries as high as 20,000 to 100,000 yuan.