I knew nothing about the novel before watching this film, and only watched half of the drama but I thought the movie had more charming actors/performances and better CGI/set design by a long shot. The actors in the drama are stiff - not in a shy, introverted way, but in a dull plastic doll way. I was far more entertained by this movie. That being said, the movie really fumbled with its pacing. The first 1.5 hours was focused on the leads falling in love - the last 0.5 hours was everything else under the sun. If the directors wanted to cover everything in the novel, then they should've paced it better. But since there were so many disparate topics and characters, I believe cutting certain storylines out would have benefited the movie. Without giving spoilers, there were certain one-sided-love stories that, though perhaps had a point in the original source, were just a waste of time in the film. The film did a good job as a visually pleasing, light romantic film exploring the gaming world and college student world... but its representation of the heart of the source material is questionable. But it was definitely created to be something of the former than the latter (dat ending hashtag doe) also - Jing Boran is so. handsome.