The heroic EDG esports winning team of League of Legends
Chinese esports team Edward Gaming, or EDG for short, has just won the first ever Leagues of Legend (LoL) world championship. This is exciting news not only for esports fans but also for those interested in linguistic and cultural diversity.
Video gaming is a billion-dollar industry that has received a significant boost by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, international gaming revenue reached over USD 173 billion and this figure is expected to be double by 2026. 40% of this revenue is generated in China alone. China also has the largest number of gamers (650 million). In fact, out of 3.24 billion gamers internationally, 1.48 billion are based in Asia.
But do the language choices on video games match Asian markets and player demographics?
My students at Yunnan University, Chang Zhou (常州)， Hao Guorong (郝国荣)，Yang Dongqi (杨东祺)，Zhang Can (张灿)，Fu Decai (符德才), and Luo Jihang (罗纪航) set out to answer this question.
Gaming is dominated by English
Despite the emergence of Asia as a giant gaming market, global video games continue to be dominated by English-mediated communication. It accounts for close to 40% of all language choices in gaming, followed by Chinese (21%), and Russian (11%). Another 26 languages have some representation but the percentages are minuscule.
Languages used in video gaming (Source: Steam)
The dominance of English is problematic for players who do not speak English and Chinese players regularly mount “我们需要中文” (“We need Chinese!”) campaigns.
Multilingualism increases revenue
Games that are available in multiple languages generate more revenue, as can be exemplified with the Metro games.
Metro 2033, Metro Last Light Redux and Metro Exodus are a series of first-person shooter games based on a novel by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. Released in 2014, the game was initially available only in seven European languages, namely English, Russian, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Ukrainian. The interface and the subtitles – but not audio – were additionally available in Czech, Dutch, and Polish.
Asian players campaigned for the inclusion of Asian languages and in 2019 Chinese (both in simplified and traditional forms), Korean, Japanese, and Portuguese were added (while Dutch was deleted). This linguistic expansion brought a huge increase in player numbers.
Language patches
While Metro shows the benefits of increasing language choice, many video developers continue to focus on English as the assumed ideal means of international communication.
In such cases, Chinese players have to mobilize other resources to participate in English-mediated gaming. “汉化补丁” (Chinese language patches) are one way to get around the language constraint.
However, these Chinese language patches are not without problems. For one thing, not all language patches are free and thus increase the cost of gaming. Second, the installation of Chinese language patches tends to slow down the Internet connection, which can be very frustrating.
The low quality of the translation of patches is another problem and often the Chinese translations does not make any sense at all.
Game vloggers
Given the low quality of many translations, Chinese players turn to Chinese game vloggers who broadcast themselves while playing. These vloggers share tips and tricks on how to play the game, and are often famous for their skill in a particular game.
Genshi Impact
While Chinese game vloggers can help to overcome the language barrier, having to go through them to play the game delays enjoyment. And delayed entertainment is decidedly uncool in the gaming world.
From lucrative industry to soft power construction
Seeing the huge profits to be made in Asia, more and more game developers come to follow the market and include Asian languages. Money talks, after all. At the same time, more and more games are actually designed in Asia.
China is not only home to the world’s largest number of players but has also become the game design capital of the world. In particular, China is leading the development of mobile video games that can be played by China’s 882 million smartphone users.
In 2020, China’s largest gaming company, Tencent, generated USD 7.1 billion revenue through its game Honor of Kings alone. Tencent also has full control of the League of Legends – the world championship of which is currently creating so much interest.
These games not only generate huge revenue but have also emerged as a medium for constructing Asian culture as a form of global cultural capital. For example, Genshi Impact, which has been developed by a company in Shanghai and combines both Japanese and Chinese elements, has been distributed to over 140 countries and is considered the most successful Chinese mobile game abroad.
The success of Genshi Impact suggests that global audiences are ready for gaming content based on Asian cultures. In gaming, linguistic and cultural change is in the air!
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The rise of E-sports also serves as a bridge between different cultures because the players can form connections and develop friendships with their fellow gamers coming from different ethnicities. As such, we can see that there is a need for these games to have more inclusive language options so non-English speakers can also participate. E-sports is a unique medium to foster multiculturalism and multilingualism because of the melding of the players’ different backgrounds.
This is a very interesting article and a topic that should be explored. The influence of eSports in recent years is really not to be underestimated, especially in China. Although I’m not really interested in games or playing them. However, in recent years, the influence of eSports is really not to be underestimated. In China in particular, many famous celebrities have come to endorse games, and there have even been several TV series with a gaming theme in recent years. This has also sparked resentment among many parents because their children are addicted to games and refuse to study properly. Some parents even smash their phones and computers to teach their children a lesson. Due to all this news, I thought that playing games was an activity that has no positive impact，but why it has gained so much international recognition. However, this article gives me the answer. This not only promotes international communication, but also the country’s economy. It can also be seen that the English language has an unassailable position at the international level. Despite the fact that the majority of the gaming population is concentrated in China, all games are designed in English. Although e-gaming brings great benefits, the social problems it causes should not be underestimated. So at the same time, I think we all need to think about how to reduce the negative effects as well.
Thanks, Chloe! I agree with you about the negative effects – personally, I even find the term “sports” as misnomer for such a sedentary and unhealthy activity …
The rise of Esports in China also influenced other Asian countries also. Especially in Bangladesh Esports are getting more popular day by day. Bangladesh also suffers from the same problem as Chinese gamers and follows the same solution also. Many Bangladeshi-speaking gaming channels on YouTube have become very successful. Not only Bangladesh, but China’s neighboring country India is also getting in Esports. Indian game developers even made many successful games also. Indian games are more popular on the android platform. The global gaming culture is changing slowly as more and more Asian game developers are making successful games, thus changing the gaming culture slowly. But the linguistics part is getting the same level of attention in my opinion. Almost all of the games are based in English. Bigger games like Genshi Impact, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds are available in multiple languages but mostly all games use English by default. Translating games is much more difficult than players realize so often developers skip this part or only focus on the 2 or 3 languages at best. So, I think we need more time to see the real linguistics impact on Esports
Thanks, Hasan, for providing that additional perspective! Lots of research directions ☺️
This article reminds me that when I was a gamer and a fan of Pokémon (a series game of Nintendo). I brought my first genuine game card of Pokémon ultra sun/moon (one of its versions). I consider this version is the most remarkable due to that it is the first time Pokémon officially includes languages of traditional and simplified Chinese as they never had those two languages in any version before， which meant Chinese Pokémon gamers could finally officially connect to the Pokémon’s world world-wide without playing the pirate version with Chinese language patches because of the language difficulty. The first shipment rate of this version exceeded 10 million copies which was the largest amount in the 3ds sale history.
Extending the language barrier increases revenue, especially in the Chinese language as China has the largest number of gamers and I am sure the vicious cycle of illegal copies in China’s gaming market will be broken as more and more world games are officially translated into Chinese.
It was a very interesting article for me as a fan of e-sports in Korea. E-sports is an online sports game area that Korea is enthusiastic about. In fact, Korea, which is proud to be an e-sports powerhouse, is also said to be in a recent crisis. Not long ago, the Korean team won the world championship, but it was evaluated that the team did well, not the Korean e-sports. Not long ago, Korea should take the lead in the system based on outstanding talent. I saw an article that emphasized that it was time for innovation. In fact, the history of e-sports in the world is the same as the history of e-sports in Korea. It is said that the Republic of Korea has taken initiatives for 20 years. However, it is said that it is now largely caught up with the constant challenge of the latecomer. Therefore, experts say that we should continue to discuss how Korean e-sports will take a step forward by utilizing the lessons and assets accumulated for 20 years. While Korean pop culture is sweeping the world, with BTS topping the Billboard chart these days, e-sports is also receiving great attention from young people, and public interest is increasing. However, experts say that now, we need to break down awareness and increase all-round interest.
Korea’s e-sport industry has been widespread and popular beginning early 21st century. In fact, many players are still well-known today as they are considered celebrities and even appear on many TV shows. E-sports players who have done well are also known to be very rich. It is very interesting to learn that Chinese e-sport industry is growing larger during the pandemic; Hangzhou Asian Games, still postponed to 2023, will introduce e-sports as one of the official games. Just as the Olympics and World Cup, E-sports require many players from all over the world to meet in the same platform (in this case, online) and compete against each other. No wonder that e-sports is now the new stage for cultural and linguistic exchange – game regulations, method of the game and communication between games are necessary. Immediate translation/interpretation services are crucial for sports industry as well, as one second can make a difference in the outcome.
After reading this article, I searched some related info about the language games online. This language game is the term coined by the British philosopher Wittgenstein. Refers to “the whole that interweaves language and activity” (“Philosophical Research”). He believes that language is a method that people use to transmit information between each other, an activity, and an important part of all activities. The language game itself includes the use and activity of language, just as the concept of chess activity itself includes the movement of chess pieces. The language games that appear in a specific language are the manifestations of people’s forms of life. Expectations, intentions, understanding, etc. are also forms of life through language activities.
In the mobile game version of LoL, we call it the Honor of kings, and there is a line that wins my heart, from Wang Zhaojun’s – a mage hero “Death is the destination of reincarnation, but fearless because of what you love”. This classic quote makes the hero and her skin more symbolic.
I began to play video games like LOL mentioned in this article since secondary school and I also noticed the use of English language in it. Every game user knows “first blood”, “double kill”, and “legendary”, and the like. It is really impressive to think about esports in this way and esports definitely worth the research because of the growing number of users.
Many thanks for your comment, Emma. Yes, it is necessary to question the static and essentialized representation of Chinese culture that is often discursively circulated in various mass media.
Thanks for your comment, Xianli. You have raised an important issue related with the the reproduction of English supremacy. Such linguistic reproduction does not necessarily come from Anglophone countries and could be mostly driven by the unquestioned and English-oriented neoliberal discourse.
Many thanks for raising this interesting issue, Zhijuan. Some Chinese players do report that they’ve learned some English by playing English-mediated games. It’s still questionable, however, whether such informal language learning would help them overcome the language barrier when playing with their teammates of diverse backgrounds.
Thanks for your comment, Chengqian. Yes, I also believe Chinese language is playing and has played a leading role contesting English hegemony in many ways.
Thanks for your comment, Keran. As stated in the blog, the linguistic hierarchy is shifting because of the profitable nature of gaming industry. The Chinese language is obviously a key capital to reconstruct the multilingual profile.
Many thanks for your comment, Fanyu. I like the idea of rethinking the English-mediated translation practices. Instead of making great efforts to look for Anglophone-oriented cultural terminology, it is equally important to bring the indigenous knowledge to the public and make the local concept as legitimate.
Thanks for your comment, Xuedan. This blog has challenged the fallacy of English as a global medium for the gaming industry. The gaming world needs to listen to Asian voices indeed.
Thanks for your comment, Meichun. As a female player, perhaps you could think about conducting a study on how gender might intersect with other social actors like language, ethnicity, nationality and class to contribute to the compounding disadvantages of the marginalized.
Thanks for your comment, Ana. I agree that every one of us is entitled to be included into the world system. I believe China is leading the way to challenge English-mediated practices.
Thanks for your comment, Yingjie. I’ll try to encourage my undergraduates to continue to explore Asian-oriented games like Genshi Impact and hopefully we’ll come up with interesting findings and will share with you all in the near future.
Thanks for your comment, Jiexi. I also see the desire of Chinese youngsters’ integrating into the world gaming practice. I agree it would generate more revenue and more positive experience if the Western/English-dominated game industry could be more open to linguistic and cultural diversity. Speaking of Chinese culture, we also need to be aware of simplistic and essentialized version of cultural practices (see more discussion on “cultural essentialism” https://www.languageonthemove.com/international-education-in-rcep-the-worlds-largest-free-trade-zone/)
Thanks for your comment, Zhongmo. Yes, this blog has problematized the “monolingual mindset of seeing diversity” (https://www.languageonthemove.com/can-chinese-language-learning-reinforce-english-supremacy/). I also see that the emerging linguistic diversity may turn out to be “smart power”, a more implicit but powerful form of soft power projection.
Many thanks for your comment, Hongmei. Yes, that’s how I feel amazed about doing sociolinguistic studies. The more we do research, the more our sense of diversity is getting enlarged and nourished. Everyone of us is living with linguistic diversity both online and offline. One of our missions as sociolinguists is to bring the diversity to the fore and bridge the gap between the dominant and the marginalized.
Thanks for sharing your gaming experience with us, Hanxiao. The lack of linguistic diversity does create a barrier for people of diverse background to understand each other, but we also need to be aware of the symbolic celebration of multilingualism.
Thanks Alex. I was also impressed by their work. Chinese youngsters nowadays are really brilliant. They have changed many of my perceptions on language communication indeed. Sure, we’ll try to share with you all more regarding the multilingual gaming practices.
Thanks Ingrid for providing us with this wonderful platform to communicate with the world!
Thanks for your comment Li Jie. I’m flattered. I’m also delighted to see your growth in doing linguistic studies over the past two years. Looking forward to reading your work on the multilingual representations of Chinese key universities next year.
While reading this essay i was truly impressed since I am a game fan and everytime when i noticed that foreign gamers are interested in chinese culture because of those wonderful Chinese designed games i feel proud of our culture. i hope that in the future the hegemony of English shown in ESPORTS can be replaced by multilingual diversity and the beauty of other culture can be spread through various languages. I believe the barriers among people built up by languages can be torn down by languages.
I was shocked when I read this article in the first place, it offers a novel subject that is beyond my cognition for I have a natural dullness to the Esport domain. Immediately, I can’t help to make a phone call to my younger brother for asking more details about the game because he was almost addicted to it and attended a match about five years ago when he was a college student. He felt puzzled and of course, laughed at me since I used to blame him for wasting time on it. As a beginner in sociolinguistics，this article is more of a warning for me，it reminds me not to ignore all aspects of life where language is potentially used to conduct my research. The game company added more other languages to cater to the market challenge the dominant position of English to a certain degree. It is worth deeply thinking about this change that drove by profit.
This article reveals that the dominance of English is problematic not only in the academic field as we know before，but also in our daily life such as games.Language has become an important tool of soft power construction，especially language diversity.
From the perspective of sociolinguistics, linguistic diversity plays an important role in games. Although games and language exist in our daily lives, this article gives us a new idea by combining the language with the game.
Language and game promote each other, the diversity of language promotes the spread of games, and the development of games improves the status of language, even the culture behind that language.
I am not a fan of EDG, but when they won the first ever Leagues of Legend world championship, many of my friends exhibited their great excitement in Wechat and Weibo, which is an obvious evidence of the team’s greatness. I had never read an article before related esports with language, from Professor Li’s essay, I can clearly see the huge number of Chinese gamers and the dominant position of English in global game market. For those who lack proficiency in English may suffer great difficulty in playing computer games dominated by English-mediated communication. Though they sought to different ways to solve language barriers, such as “Language patches” and “game vloggers”, there still exist many problems. With the development of China’s game industry, I wish all the problems can be solved one day and thus can increase China’s soft power, transmit China’s culture into other parts of the world and give the players a better gaming experience.
Without doubt, Asia is a huge gaming market across the world that couldn’t be left out. Nevertheless, most of the games are dominated by English-mediated communication, which caused many inconveniences and constraints for users. Therefore, more games with linguistic and cultural diversities like Genshi impact are strongly needed to be developed to suit users.
I’m literally curious and surprised when I just browse through this article at the very beginning for its topic and illustration. After reading this passage, I realize that language and culture are integrated into every corner of our life even in the game world. Since China possesses the world’s largest number of players and the biggest market for internet games, I believe it is a nice channel to promote Chinese culture and language and then to get rid of English-mediated communication. And in this way, we can also tell the world that every country is supposed to build cultural confidence and enhance cultural and linguistic diversity in the world.
This article impressed me with its innovation. I have never seen a study like this before. It combines language diversity with culture in esports, and it inspires me a lot. Recently, a documentary about EDG called “Unbreakable” was broadcast, and e-sports was also reported in the news as an Asian Games sport, which also shows the importance of games in cultural transmission. In the future, I will pay more attention to the relationship between language and culture in esports, and continue to learn more interesting research!
From Professor Li’ s essay, we see the power of linguistic capital. For those who have fine English proficiency, they get a better experience in game playing, in book reading, in movie seeing, and maybe in overseas travelling. For those who do not have such capital, their experience will simply be delayed or lose much of its taste during the translation.
This essay is very illuminating. I myself is a great game fan and I have been focusing on the language issues aboout how Chinese-designed games can attract more attention around the world and how games of other countries can be better understood by Chinese players for a long time. For instance, because many Chinese games are closely connected with Chinese culture, there are many symbols, terms, skill names in these games are hard to understood by foreign players despite their translation teams have been working very hard. Such language barriers also exist when games from countries such as European countries, Japan and the USA come into Chinese market. However, in this article I can see that this English-dominated game market is getting more and more diverse with the development of language diversity and globalization, and Chinese games are also going outside the country with their own soft power and cultural creativities. I hope in the future we can break the translation barriers and help the whole world to understand each others with game as a powerful agent.
It’s an interesting topic to combine vedio games with linguistic diversity. It’s true that some games do not have Chinese options for the large number of Chinese players. Moreover, some rigid translations will cause difficulties in understanding, especially in some sentences containing cultural connotations, which may not be fully understood only by looking up the dictionary and thus greatly affects the game experience. But things are changing now, and with the development of China’s game industry, I hope that language will not be a barrier (at least to Chinese players) in the future.
Neither am I interested in playing internet games, nor am I a fan of EDG, yet like many Chinese, I am happy hearing the news that EDG members have tested their ability in the international gaming feast. And this article is an instant echo to this event, which is very inspiring for it explores multilingualism based on a burgeoning industry. It’s a pity that even in the gaming world we can still see the hegemony of English. Hopefully, with the rising of China, internet games can also be a medium to transmit Chinese culture and embrace language diversity.
This is a really innovative perspective of studying multilingualism, linguistic and cultural representations of different countries. On the one hand, multilingualism of esports do let some people learn some typical terminology, like “ victory”, “triple kill” , “legendary”, which is good for learning. However, on the other hand, the dominance of English on esports do hinder some players who receive lower education. It’s an interesting question to think about!
It is a new way to research the linguistic diversity and the hegemony of English from the video games. I also play the game, so as for me it’s true that some games do not have Chinese options for the large number of Chinese players. Even the Honor of the king , which is made by China company is still filled with english.I hope that language will not be a barrier and chinese can be an interlanguage for the players in the future.
As far as I’m concerned, the fact that EDG wins inspires many people and it is actually a good way to show our culture identity. People will think of some ancient stuffs when asked of the culture. However, things changed through time. From this article one can reads that when doing researches, he should not limit himself but keep pace with the time.
Apart from that, this essay tells that we can still see the domination of English even in the world of the gameplay. It is very necessary to reduce such influence of the dominance of the English and China plays a very important role.
Interesting work, Li Jia and your students! I knew nothing about this world of eSports. What a great topic for your students to look at – I hope some of them can continue the research.
This essay is more than brilliant! I am a gamer of Honor of Kings as well; however, I’ve never noticed before that the game has something to do with linguistic. It is really inspiring to read through it, and I’ve learned a lot. Professor Li Jia is actually my graduation thesis tutor, and I’m flattered that I can finish my essay under her instruction. She is the most innovative teacher with considerable insight that I’ve ever met. She pays attention to the details of daily life and always draws inspirations from new resources. She loves doing academic research and regards it as her lifelong devotion. She not only imparts mere knowledge to me, but also teaches me how to do scientific research by personal example as well as verbal instruction. I am really proud of being a student of her!
Thanks, Li Jie! I’m glad you enjoyed the article and congratulations on having such a brilliant teacher as Dr Li Jia! You are very fortunate.