Umbrella platform of Tencent eSports industry in China

Yupei Zhao and Zhongxuan Lin

Journal of Cultural Economy, 2021, vol. 14, issue 1, 9-25

Abstract: China has embarked on a radical transformation of its online and mobile games industry since its government announced its ambition to be a global sporting power. This study investigates Chinese electronic sports (eSports) in the context of platform governance and platform capitalism, through a case study of the platformization of Tencent, one of China’s largest media conglomerates. We employ a boundary analysis of platform documentation, a document analysis of policies, financial data, and ethnographic interviews to examine the interactivity and flow of power arising from direct state control and the processes of commercialization and professionalization. To support our proposal that the state and corporations, while genetically different, are mutually constitutive, we explore concepts of the platformization of infrastructures and infrastructuralization of platforms. This study proposes that the Chinese eSports industry has an umbrella-like structure and challenges the assumption that China is an authoritarian system with a one-size-fits-all policy. Our results imply that games industry professionals invite funding bodies to work jointly with government to develop alternatives for the eSports industry. Meanwhile, we show how Tencent utilizes its expansion of capital fluidity and data-driven multidimensionality, moving toward an ecosystem of platform dependency, organizational homogenization, and deep power asymmetries.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2020.1788625

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