According to the China Internet Network Information Center, as of June 2020, 540 million Chinese—57.4 percent of internet users in China—played digital games.1 Despite the remarkable growth in the number of digital gamers and the proliferation of scholarly monographs on the Chinese internet in recent years, little academic attention has been paid to digital gaming culture in China. Marcella Szablewicz's Mapping Digital Game Culture in China addresses this gap in the literature and traces the evolution of digital gaming culture in China from 2000 to 2019. Examining stories about gaming from the perspectives of gamers, journalists, and the author's participation in live events, this book makes a timely contribution to our understanding of the ever-evolving discursive constructions of gaming culture over the past two decades in China.
In chapter 1, Szablewicz outlines the book's analytical framework and methodological approaches. Aiming to delineate “the topography of digital gaming” through ethnographic...
