Papergames Wants Its Virtual Boyfriends to Make More Money

Good news for the beauty market: it has gained another player that knows how to sell — except this one is a gaming company.

Following the strong sales of its character-inspired fragrances, Chinese gaming company Papergames has filed registrations for 10 fragrance and skincare products tied to its romance game Love and Deepspace. Each of the game’s five current male leads is getting a hand cream and lip balm, while body oils and creams are also in the pipeline. Papergames has also announced plans to open a dedicated Love and Deepspace flagship store.

In other words, Papergames is still looking for ways to help its virtual boyfriends make a little more money.

Launched by Papergames in 2024, Love and Deepspace is a 3D romance game aimed at female players. Players take on the role of a “Deepspace Hunter,” developing storylines and intimate relationships with several male characters. Both the company and the game’s community commonly refer to female players as “Miss Hunters.”

Love and Deepspace has already released limited-edition birthday fragrances for each of its five male leads, priced at 320 yuan for 30ml and 490 yuan for 50ml. Previous data showed that Rafayel’s “Siren’s Oath” fragrance sold more than 200,000 bottles, while Sylus’ “Dragon Firekiss” also generated significant sales shortly after its launch.

While player reviews of the fragrances themselves have been mixed, the packaging’s faithful representation of the characters, along with the character merchandise included with the products, has largely delivered what core fans were looking for.

Female desire is a rich vein to mine, and tapping into hormones to monetize it is a remarkably shrewd strategy.

Traditional beauty brands spend heavily on advertising, storytelling and celebrity endorsements, trying to convince consumers that a particular scent can represent love and desire.

Love and Deepspace has a much easier job: it only needs to tell players that this is what “he” smells like.

Years of storylines, companionship and emotional investment have already done one of the hardest jobs facing any beauty brand — building an emotional connection with consumers. As “his scent” enters players’ everyday routines through fragrances, hand creams and body-care products, relationships that once existed only on a screen begin to take on a more tangible presence in real life.

Papergames also appears to understand exactly who is paying for this business.

Following controversy over a new character, Papergames subsequently scaled back the character’s role in the storyline. Whether the decision was driven more by respect for consumer opinion or by the practical prospect of players cutting their spending and requesting refunds, the company at least offered a clear response.

That stands in contrast to brands that still try to lecture female consumers, manufacture anxiety or even court controversy through deliberately offensive messaging. Papergames, at least, has not forgotten a simple commercial reality: women are not passive targets waiting to be monetized. They are the ones who determine whether the business can continue.

Of course, the willingness of “Miss Hunters” to keep spending is not entirely down to the appeal of the game’s male leads.

Papergames has also invested in the products themselves. Its fragrances are manufactured by Chinese fragrance producer Xuelei, while registration filings show that the manufacturers behind its other products also have established industry credentials. Across packaging, character fidelity and the actual user experience, the products have maintained a relatively consistent standard, while prices remain within reach for most core fans.

Still, for players who are already spending regularly within the game, more generous discounts on product sets could make the transition from virtual to physical consumption easier to sustain.

After all, in the world of fandom-driven consumption, a single product can serve multiple purposes: display, collecting, sharing and actual use. If the price ultimately limits consumers to “one bottle per character,” that feels like something of a missed opportunity for a company already sitting on such powerful character IP and emotional capital.

Translated and edited from Chinese by Hua Li