Cultural policy and East Asian rivalry the Hong Kong gaming industry

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Cultural Policy and East Asian RivalryThe Hong Kong Gaming IndustryBy Anthony Y. H. FungRowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.Copyright © 2018 Anthony Y. H. FungAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-78348-624-3ContentsList of Figures, vii, List of Tables, ix, List of Abbreviations, xi, Acknowledgments, xv, 1 The Game Industry and Cultural Policy, 1, 2 Development and Market Structure of the Creative Industries in Hong Kong, 23, 3 The Game Industry and Market in China, 51, 4 Cultural Policies in China, 71, 5 East Asian Cultural Policies and the Game Market, 105, 6 Beyond the East Asian Rivalry and Hong Kong's Creative Industries, 123, Index, 145, CHAPTER 1The Game Industry and Cultural PolicyBACKGROUNDIn 2017, King of Glory became the first Chinese mobile game to top the number of sales on the iOS platform since 2014, the year that statistics were first compiled. The game was developed by Tencent, which also owns League of Legends, the most popular online game in history. In China today, 80 million players are active daily, which means that for every 7 Chinese, there is 1 player of online games. Based on historical heroic Chinese figures across dynasties, in addition to legendary Japanese and Greek warriors, the gameplay of King of Glory involves attacking another player or team to increase and accumulate the virtual currency and military power of either a single player or a team of game-mates. Ironically, the game's popularity has led to tragedies, many of which have been reported in the media. In Hangzhou, China, according to a media report in June, a thirteen-year-old jumped from the fourth floor of a building after being scolded by his father because of the amount of time he spent playing online games, particularly King of Glory. The boy's father was reported to have heard his son say, "Why wasn't I capable of flying? If I had known, I would have not jumped from that high." He claimed his son had thought he could fly because of playing the game (Beijing News, 2017).In April of the same year, official media also reported that after forty hours of "combating" on King of Glory — except for ordering a carry-out meal — a seventeen-year-old boy in Guangzhou suffered an acute cerebral stroke and was admitted to Jinan University First Hospital (People.cn, 2017). In July, the online media (without sources) reported that an eleven-year-old girl had spent more than RMB¥100,000 on a stolen credit card to play the game (People.cn, 2017).The credibility of sources notwithstanding, it is not easy to determine, at least in the Chinese community, the degree of public anxiety about addiction to gaming and the general negative impression made by gaming. Without warning, the most significant trio of official Chinese media — the official online People.cn, China's Daily (Chinese version), and the Xinhua News Agency — publicly censured gaming and its excessive use. The People's Daily even called gaming "digital opium" (Zhang, 2017).I find that the word schizophrenia best characterizes this phenomenon. In the same year (2017), the Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China and Shanghai City organized the Chinese Comic and Animation Expo in which the gaming industry was applauded for its role in the strategic development of China and in the international collaboration of China in the gaming industry. Simply put, this event exemplified a contradiction between the development of the game industries as a cultural and creative industry and the potential negative effect of gaming on society. However, my impression is that when the monetary growth of China and other East Asian countries is the topic, praise of the development of the game industry gains the upper hand in any discourse on the effects of gaming.DIGITAL GAMES AND EVERYDAY LIFEEven with the public's cognizance of and outcry against the potentially negative effects of gaming, digital games have permeated our daily lives as a