Felania Liu, Tsinghua University
Game Studies, as a booming research area of interest, attracted a growing number of scholarly attentions for the past 20 years. However, researches and practices of video game and game related issues in China, especially in mainland China, seems to stay out of the trends and sights of the international academia as well as the flourishing industry. This is, nonetheless, an illusion, as this paper will manifest. A synopsis to show the trends and tendencies of researches on games and Gamification practices for the past 40 years, this study is based on papers, articles and memoirs of people with first-hand experience of videogames and videogame industry in China, with the purpose to seek answers to questions like “Is Game a bliss or a blight to the society?”, “what’s the relationship between the government, the industry , the player and the games in China?”, and “Is there anything distinctly ‘Chinese’ regarding videogames studies and practices in China?”.
Author Info
Felania Liu is a game researcher and gamification practitioner. She is now in the History Department of Tsinghua University, with her research interest focuses on the nature of games and social impact of games, especially the interaction between reality and virtual worlds. She published extensively, wrote a book on Gamification and is one of the founders of the Gamification community in mainland China. She is also the vice president of Chinese DiGRA and actively promotes game researches in China.
Email:liumf14@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn