By Sean Guillory and Cogni-Chan [Alias]
Introduction: China’s Rise in Gaming and America’s Brand Decline
In recent years, China’s gaming industry has matured into a global powerhouse. Titles such as Genshin Impact, Naraka Bladepoint, and Black Myth: Wukong are not simply commercially successful; they also showcase a cultural ambition that rivals or even surpasses that of their Japanese, European, and American competitors. When Black Myth: Wukong sold more than ten million copies in its first week and went on to win the 2024 Steam Game of the Year Award [1], it marked a turning point. Chinese studios, long dismissed as imitators, had firmly established themselves as peers, and in some ways leaders, in the global gaming industry.
This rise is no accident. It reflects government support for the industry, from national investment funds to regional incentives that nurture developers [1]. It is also the result of expanding markets, as Chinese-speaking players now make up more than half of Steam’s global user base [1&2]. Perhaps most importantly, it reflects strategic ambition: Beijing views gaming as not just entertainment, but as a driver of innovation and national power [3&15].
Meanwhile, America’s brand in gaming has faltered. Once synonymous with dominance and innovation, U.S. companies are now mired in regulatory uncertainty, culture wars over content moderation, and growing distrust abroad. Into this vacuum, Beijing has positioned Chinese games as aspirational, technologically advanced, and culturally resonant.
What makes this trend particularly significant is that games are more than entertainment. They are immersive environments where fiction and reality, identity and ideology, freedom and control blur. Chinese games leverage addictive mechanics, parasocial character design, and expansive digital worlds to foster intense emotional attachments. At the same time, they come bundled with invasive technologies, such as kernel-level anti-cheat systems, which grant root access to players’ devices [11]. In other words, these games are dual-use assets, combining psychological influence with technical infiltration.
We describe this strategy as Chinese Video Game Diplomacy, and it represents a new frontier in cognitive warfare. While debates about TikTok bans dominate headlines, China has already colonized the cognitive bandwidth of millions through gaming. The stakes are not whether games matter in geopolitics, but whether the United States and its allies recognize that they do.
To some, the idea that people would riot over changes to a digital character might sound absurd. Yet South Korea’s “gacha gender wars” demonstrated precisely that dynamic [17]. History reminds us that the absurd often masks the effective: American colonists in costume tossing tea into Boston Harbor, or Greek soldiers hidden in a wooden horse. People fight to protect what they love, and today, many love their virtual companions as much as (if not more than) real ones. This is the gamification of love, and it has profound implications for global politics.
The following sections introduce six mechanisms that underpin Chinese Video Game Diplomacy. Each could be explored in greater depth on its own, but together they offer a broad introduction to a challenge that blends entertainment, identity, and influence.
1. The Emotional Operating System of Chinese Games
At the heart of China’s gaming influence are gacha games, a model derived from Japanese gachapon vending machines. In these games, players spend currency, often purchased with real money, to “pull” randomized virtual rewards. Gacha games are typically free-to-play, but they heavily incentivize spending by offering rare and desirable characters or items that can only be obtained through repeated attempts [18].
This model is more than a business practice; it is an emotional operating system. Chinese gacha games like Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero are designed to hook players through psychological levers. The sunk-cost fallacy keeps them investing, as each purchase or “pull” creates pressure to continue until the desired outcome is achieved [4]. Characters are written with personalities, relationships, and backstories that foster parasocial bonds, turning digital avatars into perceived friends or partners [8]. And sexualized avatars trigger protective instincts, producing outrage when designs are altered to meet Western content standards [9].
The consequences are measurable. Research has linked gacha mechanics to heightened stress, anxiety, and problem gambling behaviors [4&6]. At the same time, many players rationalize gacha spending as earned achievement rather than chance, reinforcing loyalty and reducing resistance to the model [5].
This blend of addictive mechanics and parasocial intimacy creates conditions ripe for political volatility. When governments or studios change content (whether by banning a game, censoring outfits, or restricting access), players respond as though their personal freedoms are under attack. The precedent is clear: Gamergate in the U.S. and Korea’s anti feminist “finger pinching conspiracy” [17; see image below] show how disputes about aesthetics can metastasize into broader political mobilization.
[Image and quote from Reference 17] “Seen is an animated video recently inserted into Nexon’s popular game MapleStory in which a character makes a finger gesture that is associated with the defunct radical feminist community Megalia. Nexon removed the video after it became controversial”
2. Colonizing the Cognitive Domain
If gacha mechanics are the hook, then narrative embedding is the line and sinker. Chinese games excel at occupying players’ cognitive bandwidth. Daily engagement loops, such as time-limited events or log-in bonuses, create habits that tether users to the platform. Ideological cues, sometimes subtle and sometimes overt, frame narratives about gender roles, morality, and power [3]. The neurological circuits associated with gambling are activated by reward loops, reinforcing both play and spending [7].
For many players, these games are not escapes from reality but preferred realities in their own right. In our earlier work on O-O Convergence [16], we described how virtual, physical, and cognitive domains are fusing. Gamers cry when non-playable characters die, rage when their avatars are censored, and rally to defend fictional partners as though they were family. This blending of realities means that the emotional weight of in-game events can surpass that of real-world politics, creating vulnerabilities that adversaries can exploit.
3. Data Access and the Cybersecurity Threat
The influence of Chinese games is not only psychological. It also extends into the realm of cybersecurity. Riot Games, owned by Tencent, requires players to install kernel-level anti-cheat systems that grant privileged access to their devices [11]. Analysts have compared these systems to spyware, raising concerns about potential espionage [12].
This creates a dual-use dynamic. On the surface, these platforms deliver engaging gameplay and immersive worlds. Beneath the surface, they provide opportunities for surveillance, data harvesting, and behavioral analysis. From a national security perspective, games should now be understood as part of the same risk landscape as telecommunications hardware or semiconductor supply chains. They are simultaneously entertainment platforms and potential vectors of exploitation.
4. Influencers as Asymmetric Weapons
If games themselves are influence platforms, then influencers are their force multipliers. The case of streamer IShowSpeed’s 2025 tour of China illustrates this point vividly [see below image]. His broadcasts generated more favorable U.S. coverage of China than many official diplomatic initiatives [13&14].
[Image from Reference 19]
This influencer-industrial complex operates on several levels. Managed tours are staged to sanitize China’s image and present the country as welcoming and modern [13]. Developers have also pressured streamers, as in the case of Black Myth: Wukong, to avoid politically sensitive discussions such as feminism [10]. Above all, influencers foster aesthetic loyalty: fans defend them and the games they promote with greater passion than they defend political institutions.
For Beijing, this is propaganda that does not look like propaganda. For Western governments, it creates a dilemma. Heavy-handed regulation risks alienating audiences and radicalizing gamers against policymakers. Leniency risks ceding the narrative terrain entirely. Navigating this space requires a balance between protecting free expression and mitigating adversarial influence.
5. Weaponizing Sexual Identity Politics: The “Gyatt Gap”
Few issues illustrate the power of Chinese Video Game Diplomacy as clearly as what we call the “Gyatt Gap”, which we define as the cultural divide over sexualization in games. In the video game space there has been a long held debate around players and game developers over culturally sensitive topics such as the sexualized design of characters in games. This debate has blown up in the west when certain game developers in Asia have claimed that they had to alter their game to meet a more western audience. The opposing side claims this is censorship. The controversy over the Invisible Woman “Malice” skin in Marvel Rivals [see image below] in 2024 is emblematic of a larger trend that goes back years in the video game community.
[Image from Reference 20]
A seemingly small change in character design provoked outrage that quickly spread into debates about feminism, censorship, and freedom of expression [9].
Here, aesthetics are not superficial. Features like jiggle physics (i.e. how “bouncy” the parts of certain sexualized characters are) are mechanisms designed to deepen immersion and foster emotional attachment. When players fall in love with their “waifus,” they are not merely consuming entertainment; they are investing in relationships that feel real. Attempts to alter or restrict these experiences are perceived as existential threats.
This is why such controversies matter. They are emotionally supercharged, politically resonant, and easily weaponized. They map onto existing social fractures, allowing adversaries to stoke outrage that spills into the streets. As we argued in our earlier piece on the cognitive domain, cultural policy and digital aesthetics are now matters of national security.
6. Pitfalls of Censorship
Given the risks, policymakers may be tempted to ban or censor Chinese games. But experience shows that this approach is fraught with danger. Even minor changes, such as adjustments to character outfits, can provoke extreme backlash, including doxxing, protests, and political mobilization [9]. In an O-O Converged world, a game patch can be as geopolitically sensitive as a trade negotiation.
A more effective response requires a nuanced strategy. Restrictions must be framed carefully, with narrative justification that explains their necessity. Western governments and allies must invest in developing alternatives that are not only secure but also culturally resonant and aspirational. Finally, lawmakers must be educated to recognize that games are not trivial entertainment, but infrastructure for influence.
Implications for Practitioners and Policymakers
For national security practitioners, the lesson is clear: video games are dual-use technologies, akin to telecom or AI. They must be addressed in doctrine, training, and strategy as platforms for cognitive warfare. Counter-narratives and resilient digital cultures are essential.
For policymakers, gaming policy has become national security policy. Funding is needed for research, for developing alternative platforms, and for understanding how to mitigate risks without alienating player bases. Policymakers must also anticipate the political blowback that comes with restricting access to beloved platforms.
For government-based information professionals, gaming represents both a challenge and an opportunity. Grievances within gaming communities can be tracked as indicators of potential mobilization. Parasocial attachments can be studied as force multipliers in influence operations. Most importantly, frameworks must be developed to counter adversarial narratives without eroding the trust of gaming populations.
Conclusion: Video Games as a National Security Concern
Chinese video game diplomacy may sound ridiculous at first glance. But what appears absurd is often what matters most. Games have become frontline tools of cognitive warfare, shaping identities, loyalties, and political behaviors. They blend psychological conditioning with technical infiltration, creating a form of influence that is difficult to counter and easy to underestimate.
Cognitive warfare does not always resemble traditional psyops or disinformation campaigns. Sometimes it looks like a streamer’s livestream, a limited-time cosmetic skin, or a patch note that nerfs jiggle physics. Beijing understands this. The question is whether we do.
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