The Chinese Video Game Industry

The recent and dramatic development of China’s economy and international political muscle is especially pronounced in the country’s video game industry. Now the largest of its kind in the world by gross revenue, the Chinese video game industry impacts every player in the global game market and has begun to directly influence the nature of the video game medium itself. From its conceptualization of the player as a category and commodity, to its approach to the design, development, and marketing of products and services, the Chinese game industry is engaging in a complex, innovative, and fascinating reimagining of the video game as a cultural and industrial force.

The purpose of The Chinese Video Game Industry is to help introduce and investigate this industrial and cultural powerhouse. The book’s contributors array the industry across its history, economics, organization, politics, and cultures, documenting its rise, exploring its operational, cultural, and aesthetic characteristics, and capturing its context vis-à-vis the global media landscape. In so doing, the contributors provide a robust resource for anyone interested in studying, building, or even simply appreciating games.

1.      Introduction.- Part I: HISTORY.- 2.      “The History of the Twentieth-Century Chinese Game Industry: The Practice of Domestic Games as Evidence” (Jian Deng, PhD, postdoc researcher, Peking University).- 3.      “From Game Addiction to Game Culture: The Panorama of Chinese Video Game Research” (Jing Sun, PhD, Director of Game Research Center at Perfect World).-  Part II: ECONOMICS, INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION, AND POLICY.- 4.      “Exploring Cultural Policy and Gaming Entrepreneurship in Shanghai: An Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Perspective” (Gejun Huang, PhD, assistant prof, Soochow University).- 5.      “Online Streaming and Digital Distribution Platforms: The Introduction of Western Games to Chinese Markets” (Mateusz Felczak, PhD, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities).- 6.      “Japanese Game Company Strategies for Entering China: Comparative Case Studies from 1989 to 2019” (Akinori Nakamura, PhD, professor, Ritsumeikan University).- Part III: PLAYER STUDIES.- 7.      “Competitive, Emotional, and Social: The In-Game Purchase Mechanism and Player Motivations in Onmyoji” (Shule Cao, PhD, associate professor,Tsinghua University, and Xinyi Xu, MA student, University College of London) .- 8.      “Real Emotions in Virtual Play: The Impact of Honor of Kings on Players’ Attitudes toward and Cognition of Historical Figures” (Wei He, PhD, associate professor and Yue Li, MA student, Beijing Normal University).- Part IV: CULTURE .- 9.      “Fan Empowerment and the Voice of the Production Sectors: A Discourse Analysis of the Contemporary Gaming Culture in China” (Boris L. F. Pun, PhD, postdoc fellow, Chinese University of Hong Kong) .- 10. “Women’s Esports in Hong Kong” (Hanna Wirman, PhD, associate professor, IT University of Copenhagen, and Rhys Jones, PhD, research associate, Hong Kong Polytechnic University) .- 11.  “The Rise of Senior Gamers in the Greater China Region: A Text-Mining Analysis of Digital Game Industry Discourses” (Kenneth C. C. Yang, PhD, professor, University of Texas at El Paso, and Yowei Kang, PhD, assistant professor, National Taiwan Ocean University).

Feng Chen is Student Affairs Counselor in the International Cooperation & Student Affairs Office at Shenzhen Technology University. He holds a PhD in East Asian Studies from the University of Arizona.

Ken S. McAllister is the Associate Dean of Research & Program Innovation in the College of Humanities at the University of Arizona, where he is also a Professor in the Department of Public & Applied Humanities.

Judd Ethan Ruggill is Professor and Head of the Department of Public & Applied Humanities at the University of Arizona. He and Ken McAllister co-direct the Learning Games Initiative (lgira.mesmernet.org), a transdisciplinary, inter-institutional research group they co-founded in 1999 to study, teach with, build, and archive games.