Governmentalization of Games and Emerging Playful Apparatus in Contemporary China

Abstract

This article employs the Foucauldian framework of governmentality to examine how game designs, along with the semiotic resources that underpin them, function as multifaceted apparatuses that extend and reinforce institutional, ideological, and administrative mechanisms. Through an analysis of emerging Chinese games–both digital and non-digital, including video games, board games, and hybrid formats–this study identifies three forms of governmentalization in gameplay design. First, the central government has exerted direct control over game design to strengthen ideological governance and exercise authority over creative practitioners. Second, commercially driven patriotic games have facilitated governmentalization by aligning with the “positive energy” agenda. Third, civic games have incorporated governmental epistemologies and rhetorical models into their core design. Furthermore, this article examines the processes through which local game designers create such games, illuminating how game design has become a technology of power, operating within the parameters of government-sanctioned acceptability.