ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on Genshin Impact’s dating simulator and the romantic affective desire it facilitates within its players. Video games, particularly those with dating simulator elements, can be designed to facilitate parasocial relationships between players and game characters, by endowing players with the agency over characters to steer the development of the romantic relationship. At the same time, game characters have become an important means of generating revenue for free-to-play games. This chapter, therefore, closely scrutinizes Genshin Impact’s dating simulator, arguing that it only serves to attach players to the game product for monetary reasons by giving the impression that players have agency over the characters, but changes nothing in the game at all.
