How Strangers Fall in Love in Games: Affective Infrastructures and Platformed Intimacy in China

In the platformized era, digital games have become key arenas for romantic connection, yet their role in shaping intimacy between strangers remains underexplored. This study examines how such relationships are initiated, developed, and evaluated in Honor of Kings, China’s most popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game. Based on 25 in-depth interviews with young players, it addresses four questions: the stages of romantic intimacy formation, enabling digital affordances, reasons for choosing games over dating or social apps, and evaluations of game-based romantic relationships. Findings reveal a four-stage process—encounter, acquaintance, development, and establishment or termination. Conceptualizing games as affective infrastructures, the study shows how platform design structures and commodifies digital intimacy while enabling embodied, performative commitment. Comparative analysis with dating apps, social media, and Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) highlights the distinctiveness of fast-paced, interaction-intensive play in fostering embedded emotional commitment. It also uncovers players’ tactical workarounds to reclaim autonomy from platforms. By theorizing intimacy as both enabled and contested within socio-technical systems, this research advances an infrastructural account of how love is imagined, enacted, and negotiated in contemporary digital culture.