Otome Game "World Beyond" Nukes Its Own Playerbase: New Activity Promised 'Investment Event' — Delivered a Lingerie Roleplay Money Scheme Instead

The preview promised a respectable investment storyline. What actually shipped was a lingerie roleplay money-grab — and NetEase's otome game World Beyond is now getting roasted across every platform imaginable. Welcome to 2024, where players are calling a gacha otome game 'the first hooker simulator for young people.'

Here's what happened: World Beyond teased a new activity that looked like a standard career/investment event. But when players actually loaded in, they discovered the storyline requires the female MC — the character you, the player, are supposed to embody — to put on cat ears, bunny ears, and a super-short qipao (traditional Chinese dress) to ask the male leads for money. The kicker? After a night together, one of the male love interests leaves behind 5,200 yuan and walks away, with the dialogue heavily implying what went down. Keep in mind: this is a game marketed to women, where the male leads are supposed to be the ones providing emotional value to the player.

One top-voted comment put it perfectly: 'Being into the submissive wife thing (娇妻) isn't morally wrong, but almost no player can accept being put in a situation that amounts to a transactional sex-for-money scenario — there's a massive qualitative difference.' Players are already tearing this apart across every platform.

Beyond the content itself being problematic, the sheer laziness is enraging players too. One commenter noted the storyline is 'super short, making it feel extra transactional,' adding that it's shocking any otome game would try this in 2024. Another player had a full meltdown, saying they 'literally can't tell anyone I play this game' and feel like they now have a 'cyber criminal record' (赛博案底) for having downloaded it.

Of course, the internet being the internet, the comment section also delivered peak ironic comedy. One user confessed that 'if you gender-swap it, I'm somehow not even mad' — then fantasized about a beautiful older woman leaving money after a night together, before adding 'but the cosplay part, no thanks.' Others sarcastically declared 'the players who self-insert as the male lead just won big' and 'well well well, guess I HAVE to self-insert as the guy now.'

Some veteran gamers suspect another case of a rogue developer (or writer) sneaking personal kinks into the game — a recurring problem in the Chinese otome game industry. Others dug up that this same game ran a 'consummation festival' (交合) event two years ago, calling for these writers to be reassigned to making male-oriented eroge instead.

Right now, the backlash is flooding every major Chinese social media platform, making this arguably the biggest otome game scandal of early 2024. You have to give it to World Beyond's team for creativity — turning a harmless investment preview into a universally despised 'prostitution simulator' that broke the entire female playerbase simultaneously is genuinely an achievement, just not the kind anyone wanted.