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Games

Chinese Developer Sees Untapped Market in Gay Gamers

As China becomes more accepting of the gay community, games start aiming for the 'pink dollar.'
Foto: Jamie Fullerton/Motherboard

In his central Beijing office, Zhu Qiming flicked at his smartphone screen. A small pair of yellow boxer shorts suddenly appeared on the digital hunk staring back at him from his device.

The briefs were designed to resemble Spongebob Squarepants' head, complete with a scowling face over the bulge they were concealing. A few more finger flicks from Zhu caused the guy in the Spongebob boxers to be joined by a friend who was equally as buff, but sported an even skimpier pair of briefs over his considerable virtual package.

Zhu was giving me a demo of a forthcoming smartphone game with the working title  Rainbow Town. As both its title and heavy use of near-naked men suggested, it looks set to be the gayest game ever released in China.

This is wholly intentional:  Rainbow Town is the result of Zhu's gaming company Star-G Technologies spotting a gap in the enormous Chinese mobile gaming market. Right now China is having its own 'pink dollar' moment, with an increasing amount of companies realising there's money to be made marketing to LGBT customers. Small tech firms such as Star-G are leading the way.

Read the rest of this piece on Motherboard.