Analysis of the Evolution and Development of China’s Game

Industry Policy Based on Literature Review

Yanzheng Gu

Jiading High School affiliated to Shanghai University, Shanghai, 201802, China

Keywords: Overview, Qualitative Analysis, Game Industry, Policy Evolution, Policy Suggestions.

Abstract: With the rapid growth of information technology, China’s game industry has become a significant part of the

global market. This article aims to analyze the evolution of China's game industry policy, explore its

development trend, and put forward corresponding policy suggestions. Through literature review and

qualitative analysis methods, this article first outlines the development process of China's game industry

policy, then analyzes the current situation of the implementation of the current policy, and finally predicts the

development trend of future policies and puts forward corresponding policy suggestions. The study found that

at present, the number of game users in China is increasing, but the independent innovation ability of the

industry has slowed down. The research results show that while promoting the healthy development of the

industry, China's game industry policy also faces many challenges, which require the joint efforts of the

government, enterprises and all sectors of society to achieve the sustainable development of the industry.

1 INTRODUCTION

China's game industry started later than the world but

developed faster. Since the reform and opening up,

through independent exploration and foreign

exchange and learning, China's game industry has

entered the commercial independent research and

development mode and entered the era of mobile

games (Team of the 2023 China Game Industry

Report, 2024). Since the 1920s, the rise of diversified

technologies such as ChatGPT and AI + has a new

pattern for the development of China's game industry.

The "Opinions on Promoting the High-quality

Development of Service Consumption" issued by the

State Council clearly mentions the development of

the field of online games. Guangdong, Shanghai,

Chengdu and other cities have all issued local policies

to reward research and development and introduce

talents through the funding of special funds and the

application of technology research and development

(Fang, 2024). The relevant policies of the game

industry are of great significance as an important part

of China's high-quality development. The game

policy involves national and local policies, including

capital support, tax rate adjustment, industrial chain

gathering, talent attraction, market vitality and other

perspectives, and the content is diverse. It also plays

an important role in standardizing market access and

promoting high-quality development guided by

technological innovation. This article has sorted out

the development history of China's game industry,

predicted the implementation status of game industry

policies and the development trend of the game

industry, and found the shortcomings of China's game

industry in terms of AIGC technology and other

applications and cross-regional collaborative

development. Correspondingly, the support of the

relevant policies is lacking. At a time when the

development of China's game industry has a profound

impact, the significance of this research is to help

policymakers better understand the game industry

environment, optimize policy orientation, and

promote the high-quality development of the industry

itself. Outline the market layout of the game industry,

improve competitiveness in the expansion of the

industrial chain, promote the innovative application

of scientific and technological games, improve the

quality and work efficiency of games, and then seek

integration and development with relevant cultural

industries. This article mainly reviews literature,

analyzes the evolution of game industry policy, the

implementation status of game industry policy

research, and the future development trend of the

game industry through the content of game industry

policy, and then puts forward relevant suggestions for

the game industry for insufficient development.

288

Gu, Y.

Analysis of the Evolution and Development of China’s Game Industry Policy based on Literature Review.

DOI: 10.5220/0013982800004912

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Innovative Education and Social Development (IESD 2025), pages 288-292

ISBN: 978-989-758-779-5

2 CONTENT ANALYSIS OF

CHINA'S GAME INDUSTRY

China's game industry has shown diversified

development characteristics in recent years, including

property rights protection, minor protection and

cross-media narrative. Property rights protection is

crucial to the innovation of the game industry.

Domestic games attach increasing importance to

property rights protection. Major game industries

have released a considerable number of game patents

in recent years, such as Shanghai Chengqi

Technology Information Company, which has

published 186 copyrights and 286 software

copyrights. With the increasing improvement of the

legal protection mechanism, more and more audio-

visual works have been included in the protection

scope of the copyright law of the People's Republic of

China, providing an effective legal guarantee for

game enterprises and creators. At the same time, the

increased punishment for pirated and infringing

games has defended the green development of the

industry (Hong & Xu, 2006). Notice on further strict

management and effective prevention of minors from

indulging in online games also pointed out that game

enterprises must establish a strict review system,

divide according to age-age factors, guide minors to

play games, adopt a strict age limit mechanism, and

access the anti-addiction real-name verification

system to set the game time limit for minors to protect

minors. At the same time, the society has actively

carried out anti-addiction publicity and education to

improve minors' correct understanding of online

games. The industry has formulated the Internet

Enterprise Minor Network Protection Management

System to further prevent minors from being addicted

to games. It is worth noting that the popular game

cross-media narrative in recent years, as an effective

narrative method, realizes the display and

demonstration of game pictures through different

media platforms, enhances the sense of silence of

players, and enriches the content of the game story by

building all character backgrounds, props and other

aspects. In this way, the audience can participate

more actively in the game and build a complete game

world together (Yang & Guo, 2004). Black Myth:

Wukong, which was popular in 2024, combines

simple game symbols with traditional Chinese culture

through the cross-media narrative of the story of

Journey to the West, and emerged all over the world.

In addition, the scale of China's game industry

continues to expand, the convenience of cloud games

has been fully reflected, and the actual sales growth

rate of console games has reached a higher level.

3 THE EVOLUTION OF CHINA'S

GAME INDUSTRY POLICY

China's game industry is divided into the initial

exploration stage, the slow development stage, the

stable development stage and the high-speed

development stage, and the relevant industrial policy

industry changes accordingly. From the 1980s to the

beginning of this century, China's game industry had

just started, mainly in the purchase of games from

Japan and other countries and began to open Internet

cafes to the outside world, marking the beginning of

the era of online games in China. Although the game

industry in this period was greatly influenced by

foreign game companies, agile and emerging

domestic enterprises have captured games and began

to research and explore independently with strong

development potential in the new century. In 2000,

the State Council issued Circular No. 44, which

restricted the retail of video games, causing China's

game industry to fall into a depression to a certain

extent. In the stage of slow development, China's

game industry began to develop slowly with the

universalization of Internet cafes. Domestic games

are the first to produce patents on computers, but

mainly cooperate with foreign businessmen for

delivery. In 2003, online games were officially

included in the national 863 plan, and the country

began to pay attention to industrial development.

Three years later, the 17th National Congress of the

Communist Party of China clearly put forward the

deployment decision to support the development of

the game industry for many industrial adjustments.

After 2010, the domestic game industry began to

develop rapidly, and the listing boom began to

appear. The popularity and performance

improvement of smartphones have promoted the

large-scale growth of the domestic mobile game

market and the development of the entire game

market. In 2013, Shanghai allowed foreign investors

to engage in the production of game equipment. In

2014, the revenue of China's game market reached

114.8 billion yuan, and the number of users exceeded

500 million. This huge market potential has attracted

many domestic game manufacturers to participate in

the competition. In the 13th Five-Year Plan, the state

deployed the game industry for the first time in the

plan, emphasizing the acceleration of the

development of emerging industries such as mobile,

multimedia and animation games to promote cultural

innovation. The following 14th Five-Year Plan and

the Outline of the Long-term Objectives for 2035

point out that it is necessary to further implement the

development strategy of the cultural digital industry

Analysis of the Evolution and Development of China’s Game Industry Policy based on Literature Review

289

to develop the cultural liquid cultural consumption

model, promote the application of cloud

communication in the digital publishing and digital

entertainment industry, create influential and

representative cultural brands, and encourage the

game industry to go abroad, strengthen the national

digital culture publicity and build an industrial export

base. In 2020, due to epidemic prevention and control

measures, games have become an important

supplement to offline social networking, and the

demand for online entertainment has surged, further

promoting the development of the mobile game

market. In the past two years, the game industry has

made attempts to innovate and diversify from PC to

mobile terminal, which has been carried out on AI

games to achieve better market benefits and global

development. Ding Siyuan (2023) also explained in

the Policy Text Analysis and Optimization Research

of China's Online Game Industry from the

Perspective of Policy Tools. In recent years, the State

Press and Publication Administration and the

Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the

Communist Party of China have jointly issued a

number of policies and measures. In order to improve

game supervision and promote the healthy and

sustainable development of the online game industry,

it has played an important role in promoting the

development of the cultural industry and the external

promotion of Chinese culture.

4 THE CURRENT SITUATION OF

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF

CHINA'S GAME INDUSTRY

POLICY

At present, China does not attach importance to the

research of games, and there are few relevant

academic achievements. Most of the only a few

related studies focus on qualitative analysis, analyze

specific areas of the game industry, and lack macro-

control (Zhong & Yi, 2023). Shen Mingwei believes

that the formation of several causal rings of positive

and negative feedback rings coexist in the enterprise

organizational system. This shows that the game

industry has development risks. Zou Shirong believes

that under the background of globalization,

governments and enterprises must carry out

commercial scientific and technological innovation,

inherit traditional sales methods while actively

expand e-commerce, which represents high

technology, and establish e-commerce networks and

commodity distribution systems. Based on this

situation, the government must issue policies to

promote enterprises to innovate in game features. Cai

Runfang believes that the "platformization" of the

game industry may develop into a monopoly

situation, causing serious consequences for

exploitation. Ding Yuanzhu believes that the

government should immediately understand and

evaluate the social benefits of enterprises, ensure data

security, market fairness, and maintain social order.

Policy makers should encourage and support projects

containing the excellent cultural elements of the

Chinese nation to go to the world and strengthen the

country's soft power. The recently popular Black

Myth: Wukong has used the combination of game

features and text narrative to rise in the world game

market. Relevant articles start from the perspective of

cause motivation, impact efficiency, and specific

perspective. Some articles compare data through

certain quantitative analysis to obtain the

development status and prospect description of a

certain field of the game industry from this

perspective. At the national level, the State Council

issued the Opinions on Promoting the High-quality

Development of Service Consumption. Online games

appear in relevant documents of great significance. At

the same time, the number review at the national level

has increased, which can stimulate enterprises to

innovate. Guangzhou issued the Measures for the

Management of Funds for the Development of

Guangzhou's Cultural Tourism Industry, and e-sports

cultural industry projects can reach 50 million yuan.

Shanghai will further expand its support for

enterprises and create a development subsidy and

comprehensive support service for newly launched

game enterprises and up to 10 million yuan in the core

area of the global game industry. In 2024, a document

released by Xuhui District, Shanghai included the

development of e-sports in an important plan.

Through observation of relevant research, it can be

found that the agglomeration effect of the game

industry has increased since 2000. For example, game

companies such as Mihayou have created the collapse

of Chinese original domestic animation, which is

publicized through the linkage between animation

and the development of the surroundings, which is

loved by the general public. Great progress has been

made in the incubation, R&D and operation of

original games, and business sectors such as

investment and intelligence have developed well. At

the same time, the policy support of national

provinces and cities, such as the formulation and

promulgation of quarantine policies for tax game

listing and talent information, especially special

talents, the introduction of house purchase places, and

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the reduction and exemption of office funds and taxes

obtained after listing, have guaranteed the one-stop

development of enterprises (Zhu & Wang, 2022).

5 FUTURE TRENDS AND

SUGGESTIONS OF CHINA'S

GAME INDUSTRY

The government's support for the game industry has

been increasing in recent years. With the continuous

deepening of the globalization process, the game

industry will pay attention to international

development. The government will provide a good

external environment for the game industry to realize

the R&D and innovation of the game industry with

policy efforts. The game industry is expected to

continue to grow in the next few years. At present, the

biggest advantage is still the game performance of

different media platforms brought about by cross-

media narratives. As consumers' demand for

entertainment increases, the game market will use

emerging platforms such as VR games other than

traditional video games and mobile games to attract

more young users, and gradually promote them to all

age groups. With the rise of new technologies such as

ChatGPT, China's game industry continues to

diversify and empower the development of the

industry (Zhao, 2022).

There are relevant problems and suggestions in

the game industry. In China's game industry, the head

companies have solidified their control of the market,

resulting in great pressure on small and medium-sized

enterprises. At the same time, the lack of innovative

vitality in the homogenization of content, the low

degree of cultural recognition, and the uncertainty of

policies have also led to relevant problems. Among

them, the game industry has poor risk resistance,

relies more on the support of relevant policies, cannot

fully realize independent output, and the foundation

is unstable (Chen, 2020; Zhang, 2019). The

aggregation effect of the game park is not strong, and

the physical operation capacity is insufficient. It is

limited by the geographical location and the office

area of the park and the insufficient level of related

supporting industries, which cannot meet the

operation needs of the game. High-end talents are still

scarce, there is a large gap for professionals in

important projects such as servers, and the demand

for talents engaged in graphic design is still

insufficient. There are loopholes in policy support,

which does not really help relevant enterprises

implement bottleneck coverage. In the future,

Chinese government should formulate relevant

industrial plans to improve energy efficiency,

improve the spatial layout, and attract game

enterprises to settle in lots with good geographical

location and strong spatial carrying capacity. Maybe

create a development pattern similar to “bridgehead”.

The Chinese government should also pay attention to

tax problems (Chen, Hou & Chen, 2019). In terms of

policy: the conflict between social policy and actual

implementation is difficult to avoid, but it should still

be reduced through policy means (Hu & Tai, 2017).

This should target the current vacancy in overseas

markets, actively support China's game industry to

enter the overseas market, and update the original

policy in a timely manner, so that the game industry

can get rid of politics (Chen & Feng, 2016; Chen,

2014). Policy restrictions, further high-quality

development.

6 CONCLUSION

At present, China's game industry pays attention to

independent research and development and

innovation, and has launched original games with

independent intellectual property rights. China's

game industry has also begun to actively expand

overseas markets to promote the global development

of games, which has improved the international

influence of China's game industry. China's game

industry should give full play to the advantages of

game industry agglomeration and gradual maturity,

supply more favorable policies with a more

reasonable spatial layout, improve the industrial chain

and optimize the business environment, help promote

the formation and policies of industrial highlands,

implement the accuracy of enhanced docking services

and highlight policy advantages to attract enterprises,

and give full play to the spirit active use to cultivate

the development and growth of game enterprises and

expand their scale. In terms of policies, Chinese

government will continue to increase support for the

game industry, introduce more measures to promote

the development of the game industry, provide a

better market environment and excellent

opportunities for the development of the game

industry, continue to maintain the capital and talent

policies in recent years, increase investment in

research and development, promote the integration

and development of industry and culture, and achieve

Product operation. By sorting out the development

history of China's game industry, this article puts

forward analysis and suggestions on the game

industry and related policies, hoping that relevant

Analysis of the Evolution and Development of China’s Game Industry Policy based on Literature Review

291

practitioners will grasp the cutting-edge trend and

continue to promote the modernization and

globalization of the game industry. In the future, with

the increasing number of data, researchers can use

quantitative analysis to make adjustments in the

horizontal comparison of industrial policies to replace

the original policy tracing.

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