Honey Trap or Romantic Utopia: A Case Study of Final Fantasy XIV Players' Intimate Partner-Seeking Posts on Social Media
Research Poster Social & Behavioral Sciences 2025 Graduate ExhibitionPresentation by Yihao Zhou
Exhibition Number 140
Abstract
Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) can foster social interaction and relationship formation, but they pose specific privacy and safety challenges, especially in the context of mediating intimate interpersonal connections. To explore the potential risks, we conducted a case study on Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) players' intimate partner-seeking posts on social media. We analyzed 1,288 posts from a public Weibo account using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling and thematic analysis. Our findings reveal that players disclose sensitive personal information and share vulnerabilities to establish trust but face difficulties managing identity and privacy across multiple platforms. We also found that players' expectations regarding intimate partners are diversified, and a mismatch of expectations may lead to issues like privacy leakage or emotional exploitation. Based on our findings, we propose design implications for reducing privacy and safety risks and fostering healthier social interactions in virtual worlds.
Importance
This study is important to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) as it explores digital intimacy in MMOGs and reveals how players form close interpersonal relationships across multiple digital platforms while facing privacy risks and emotional exploitation. By analyzing Final Fantasy XIV players' partner-seeking behaviors, we further emphasize the challenges of identity management and trust in virtual spaces. The findings are valuable to inform the design of safer, more inclusive digital ecosystems. Our research advances discussions on online identity, privacy, and social computing and contributes to the broader understanding of human relationships in digital environments. It provides a novel angle to revisit how to support the creation of ethical, privacy-conscious platforms that foster meaningful yet secure interactions in virtual worlds and beyond.