UC Irvine

This paper explores how the popular Chinese massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) A Chinese Ghost Story represents marriage and opens space for queerness through its game mechanics. As a popular game with over one million players who have been married, A Chinese Ghost Story helps us understand the impact of games on the perpetuation and possible subversion of social norms and policies in the game space and society more broadly.

Using qualitative content analysis, I investigate gender and queer representation and systems of marriage and divorce in the game. My findings suggest that the game's marriage systems impose heteronormativity and players who deviate from it are penalized. By analyzing A Chinese Ghost Story's representation of marriage, this paper provides insights into how games reflect ongoing back-and-forth dynamics between social norms, ideologies, values, and laws in current society and the dynamics and experience of "play."