The games people play

'Unsustainable'

The coaching credentials of pickup artists rest solely on the success of their students. Many post chats with students online, flaunting their success at lianaibashi, a commercial platform where PUAs advertise their services.

One student described how he had seduced 13 women in just one month. "It was by far the most wonderful month of my life," he wrote under the user name "Ling Du", or "Zero Degrees".

Despite the apparently positive student feedback, Yuan Rongpeng, a 28-year-old PUA in Chengdu, Sichuan province, said the business model of taking students to nightclubs is deeply flawed. "It's exhausting and unsustainable. What people really want is to establish a stable relationship rather than hang out at nightclubs regularly," he said.

"When this movement first took shape in China, the men who joined wanted lots of women, but now they just want one," he said.

That view is shared by many current and former PUAs, including Pan and Wu. "The need for nightclubs and pickup artistry will always be there, but there isn't enough demand to sustain a large number of practitioners," Pan said.

Wu said: "It's like going to a concert. Yes, there will be a lot of people going, but people can choose whether to go or not to go."

Although he has mastered the trick of picking up girls at nightclubs, Ze has never been interested in nightclubs: "I am way too busy for stuff like that. Even if I had time, I'd prefer other diversions. The biggest benefit of the workshops is that you gain a sense of community, knowing that you aren't alone in this course of self-improvement," he said.

Pan and Wu have completed the business transition from seduction workshops to related activities. Pan, who now offers one-on-one relationship counseling, charges 2,000 yuan an hour. He said more than 80 percent of his clients are women.

He has observed a difference in focus between men and women. "Men want to know how to start a relationship, while women generally need help keeping relationships alive and knowing how to select the person that's perfect for them," he said.