Mobile Gaming Production Networks, Platform Business Groups, and the Market Power of China’s Tencent

Neil M. Coe and Chun Yang

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2022, vol. 112, issue 2, 307-330

Abstract: The games industry is one of many that have undergone significant restructuring due to the emergence of digital platforms. Since the early 2010s, the industry has shifted rapidly to focus on mobile games as opposed to console and personal computer games. Mobile platforms, particularly application (app) stores that serve as digital distribution platforms for mobile content such as games, have become central to the organization of the industry. Although the existing literature on mobile platforms has tended to focus on the dominant distribution platforms such as Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store that prevail in the United States and European countries, the shift to mobile gaming is arguably being led by the Chinese market, where domestic third-party app stores predominate. China is also home to the world’s largest gaming company, Tencent. This article explores the evolving nature of games industry production networks, with a specific focus on the Chinese market and Tencent’s rise to a dominant position in particular. Conceptually, the article combines insights from the platform ecosystem and global production network literatures to demonstrate how Tencent has used strategies of vertical and horizontal integration to create a specific organizational form—the platform business group. This bestows competitive advantages to Tencent that in turn underpin its market power, high levels of value capture, and the wider trend toward duopoly or oligopoly in the sector. The conceptual framing also explains how these developments are heavily shaped by the distinctive regulatory and market characteristics of the Chinese games industry.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/24694452.2021.1933887 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:raagxx:v:112:y:2022:i:2:p:307-330

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/raag21

DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2021.1933887

Access Statistics for this article

Annals of the American Association of Geographers is currently edited by Jennifer Cassidento

More articles in Annals of the American Association of Geographers from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().