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This paper seeks to examine the growth of the Chinese online gaming industry and disentangle the mechanisms behind the emergence of unique online gaming culture in China.

This is a review paper that provides a detailed and state‐of‐the‐art overview of the development of the Chinese online gaming Industry.

The findings indicate that online gaming is a remarkable example of an industry that is rapidly growing due to innovative business models of Chinese companies. Chinese companies are also working with the government to improve formal institutions to promote the growth of online gaming. Furthermore, we also found that Chinese online gaming industry resembles other technology industries in the country such as those related to handset and PC. Although Chinese companies were traditionally weak in creating new technologies, they have demonstrated success in some modern technologies in recent years. In the early stage of the growth, foreign players dominated the Chinese gaming industry. In recent years, this industry is characterized by the dominance of domestic players in the ecosystem catering to the full value chain of the industry.

A lack of primary data and empirical documentation and a lack of in‐depth treatment of some of the key issues are major limitations here.

The paper examines the implications of China's rapidly growing online gaming industry for high‐technology businesses all over the world. The findings of this paper would help understand the opportunities for foreign multinational companies to enter the Chinese technology market or to intensify their operations in the country as well as the risks associated with China's unique institutions.

This paper's greatest value stems from the fact that it analyzes demand conditions, industry structure and transfer and export conditions from the standpoint of the Chinese online gaming industry and market.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and highlight the particular innovation characteristics and modes of the Chinese online game industry from a networking perspective.

This research is qualitative. Both primary and secondary data are used, which is collected through desk research on related documents and long‐term participative observation and personal experiences. This paper begins with an overview of the online game industry's innovation process and types; then constructs a framework that contains four innovation modes with different networks to guide the analysis and organization on the empirical findings; finally, the paper proposes some implications for companies and government.

This paper is an attempt to open the black box of the innovation of the Chinese online game industry. Born as an incomplete and virtual product, the innovation modes evolve from closed to a combination of open and networking ones. Producer‐driven Innovation Network Mode shows that game companies can get innovation resources through its focal network. Producer‐user Interaction Mode shows that players' have tremendous innovation potential. Open Collaborative Network Mode shows that power is distributed and the roles of actors are blurred.

This paper offers an analysis of the Chinese online game industry from the innovation side and partly fills the research gap. Also, this paper emphasized the users' innovation ability and a hybrid of different innovation modes, which can be seen as a successful theory test of user innovation, innovation networks, and open innovation theories in the Chinese context.

The purpose of this research is to develop and test a model explaining users’ intention to adopt online games in China. Through theories from diverse fields of information systems research, the authors aim to examine and validate antecedents of users’ intentions to play online games.

The model proposes subjective norms and perceived control as antecedents to technology acceptance model (TAM) related beliefs, while suggesting convenience of operator, reality of design, provision of information and sense of belonging as antecedents of flow. The authors study the causal relations between the antecedents and usage intention by using structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the causalities in the proposed model.

The results indicate that perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), flow and subjective norms are direct predictors of Chinese online games users’ intentions. Subjective norm and sense of belonging are shown to be important predictors of PU, while provision of information reveals an important negative influence on PU. At the same time, system quality shows no significant influence on PU. Perceived control and convenience of operator are both antecedents of PEOU. Furthermore, except for the sense of belonging, the proposed four antecedents of flow are tested for their effect on PU.

This research systematically includes relevant antecedents in MIS research to test online game users’ intention to adopt online games. It also provides some managerial insights that can guide Chinese online game companies to improve their games to attract users, and help foreign online game companies to make strategic plans to enter the huge Chinese online game market.

This paper aims to shed some light on the history of the Chinese videogames industry, to document the growth of the leading companies and reveal how they have been morphing into platforms delivering constellations of apps and digital content (audiovisual, films, music, literature, video streaming […]). The paper tracks the development of digital services through the prism of videogames thereby showing how this industry emerged out of the deployment of the internet.

The paper provides an overview and a synthesis of what is known about the Chinese game industry, particularly based on consultancy documents and publications from firms. The paper is based on desk research, a review of literature and trade press and the analysis of the annual reports of the leading players (NetEase, Tencent […]).

The rise of videogames and the creation of specific company’s “ecosystems” illustrate the capacity of the industry to innovate and its significance for the Chinese economy. It reveals that gaming has been a cornerstone of many Chinese technology companies. The (young) companies came up with the innovative business models (FTP, virtual items) that were required to further expand the market. They found new ways to interact with their customers through communities and various tools.

The paper relies on consultancy documents and publications from firms on heterogeneous data from industry and consultants. This approach comes with some limitations from a methodological viewpoint. It allows documenting the historical trends and describing the industrial landscape but not to qualify the relationships among players. Besides, the use of these sources leads to a greater focus on business models and a more limited one on the policy dimension. The latter is often perceived only through the glasses of the companies.

The data provided are meant to be useful to become familiar with the Chinese games industry.

The paper indicates that the online game industry is a complex web of activities with tensions and contradictions between stakeholders (industry, government and consumers). In the case of China, there is a conflict between the willingness to liberalize the economy and the will to maintain an ideological monopoly through cultural industries.

Little research has been devoted to the role of videogames in emerging economies, to its specific features and to the relationships with the media industry and the information and communications technology sector. The contribution of this “digital native” to the production and distribution of digital content remains less studied. The paper provides an up-to-date overview of the Chinese case.

This paper aims to shed some light on the role of video games within the media industry and IT sector, on its contribution to the production and distribution of digital content in emerging economies. It offers a case study on the role of mobile devices as a factor of transformation and shows how under changing socio–economic conditions, the transformations enabled the creation of digital ecosystems and innovative business models.

The paper is based on desk research, a review of literature and trade press and comments from experts and industry players.

The paper argues that as the internet is going mobile, driven by data – mostly video – the new mobile platforms are becoming the key for the distribution of content and mobile games. Whether it is the history of browser games in China, mobile games in India or PC games in Russia, each national gaming industry has required a unique strategy for making money, building on some prominent cultural factors and adapting to the local economic conditions. The paper reveals that video games are now clearly a vital part of digital content production in these countries, while stressing upon the role of public policies.

The paper relies mostly on industry and consultancy data, as in such a fast-changing environment official data even when accessible are in most cases too old to remain relevant to identify the trends and the fast changing stakes. This calls for some caution about the data. Therefore, the data used should be treated as just signals of potential trends, sufficient to provide an appropriate overview of the evolution of the global mobile ecosystem.

This paper shows that the video games industry can serve as a pivot for the ICT industry. Besides, this prompts upstream and downstream industries of the entire digital entertainment market to thrive.

The paper shows that companies from emerging markets companies have been betting on a combination of factors: the development of the economies, the growth of the mobile market, emerging middle-classes and young customers. It provides a growth model that appears to be close to a “regular” industrial growth model.

Although there is a growing academic literature on the video games industry, few research have been devoted to specific issues of emerging economies and to the role of video games within the media industry and IT sector.

The purpose of this paper is to explore in depth the special context and unique life experience of the online role-playing game and to provide insights regarding an interpretation of the situational context model.

This study uses netnography, online interviews, and the physical travel of researchers to the field for field participation and observations. The combination of netnography and online interviews combines online and offline studies to achieve more consistency in the data collection, analysis, and other processes. In-person participation in observations makes the research more realistic. The combination of these qualitative methods is helpful in achieving a more comprehensive and accurate research process.

The findings of the study can be classified into a three-stage situational context approach, which is presented in the form of propositions. Finally, the insight of the situational context model was developed.

This study only focussed on office workers and students in online role-playing game. Therefore, the samples should be extended to other massively multiplayer online games, including different nationalities and professions for comparative analysis and related studies. Through the expansion of the sample size, a representative and stable cyber model can be established.

The theoretical contribution of this study is to establish an interpretation of the situational context model and eight related propositions. The study revealed the mystery of female online role-playing games.

The purpose of this paper is to model the effect of alternative products in motivating consumers’ e-service switching behavior in the context of the social network game (SNG) industry. In particular, the effects of both alternative attractiveness and change experience on switching behavior are quantified.

With the aid of a leading e-service provider in China, 220,000 questionnaires were distributed to the players of a SNG. Valid responses from potential switching users are included in the data analysis. Structural equation modeling technique is utilized to test the research framework.

The study found that alternative attractiveness negatively affects both the perceived service quality and individual users’ satisfaction with their current SNG. Additionally, alternative attractiveness has a strong and positive impact on both switching intention and behavior. The results show that users’ satisfaction and perceptions on service quality deteriorate significantly when faced with the presence of attractive SNG alternatives. The effect is stronger for the customers used to switching.

The study is among the first to introduce cognitive dissonance theory to explain e-service switching behavior. A number of new hypotheses are proposed, tested and supported. The results of the study illustrate the use of cognitive dissonance as an alternative perspective of understanding users’ switching behavior in a real-world free-choice situation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the predictors of game addiction based on loneliness, motivation and inter-personal competence using the samples of college students recruited from South Korea (n=251).

The authors examined the underlying mechanism of game addiction by testing a moderated mediation model, in which inter-personal competence moderated the mediation model of loneliness, regulatory focus and online game addiction. First, the authors clarified the relationship among loneliness, motivation and inter-personal competence, to understand the influences of loneliness on other variables in this study (mediation test). Second, the authors examined the underlying mechanism of game addiction by testing a moderated mediation model, in which inter-personal competence moderated the mediation model of loneliness, regulatory focus and online game addiction (moderated mediation).

Regulatory focus mediated the effect of loneliness on online game addiction. Moderated mediation analyses using PROCESS confirmed that inter-personal competence significantly buffered the indirect effect of loneliness (through regulatory focus) on online game addiction. The findings indicated that inter-personal competence accounted for significant differences in the mediation models.

This study bridges the gap in the online game addiction literature by explaining how loneliness is associated with online game addiction.

What counts as evidence of good performance, behaviour or character? While quantitative metrics have long been used to measure performance and productivity in schools, factories and workplaces, what is striking today is the extent to which these calculative methods and rationalities are being extended into new areas of life through the global spread of performance indicators (PIs) and performance management systems. What began as part of the neoliberalising projects of the 1980s with a few strategically chosen PIs to give greater state control over the public sector through contract management and mobilising ‘users’ has now proliferated to include almost every aspect of professional work. The use of metrics has also expanded from managing professionals to controlling entire populations. This chapter focuses on the rise of these new forms of audit and their effects in two areas: first, the alliance being formed between state-collected data and that collected by commercial companies on their customers through, for example loyalty cards and credit checks. Second, China’s new social credit system, which allocates individual scores to each citizen and uses rewards of better or privileged service to entice people to volunteer information about themselves, publish their ‘ratings’ and compete with friends for status points. This is a new development in the use of audit simultaneously to discipline whole populations and responsibilise individuals to perform according to new state and commercial norms about the reliable/conforming ‘good’ citizen.

The purpose of this paper is to review and examine the necessities and potentials for transition of a library from paper‐based paradigm to all media paradigm in the new changing age; and to recount the innovation efforts made by Shanghai Library aimed at actualising its development strategy.

This paper reviews the major impacts that had fallen on libraries of the world, and the dilemma in particular that Shanghai Library was confronted with in its attempt to optimise the library services. Examples are given with facts and figures to illustrate how the library has been conducting innovation practices to fulfil its paradigm shift.

The paper concludes that today's libraries need fundamental transformation through innovation practices in various aspects and dimensions to keep up with the times.

The paper offers practical information and advice to those considering paradigm shift as a strategic organisational imperative.

This paper demonstrates how the Shanghai Library has achieved transcendence through transition of its business priority from the paper collection to the various formats that keeps in alliance with the digital and, in further foresight, the omnimedia age.