The Power to Change Hearts and Minds: How the Open World Swordplay Martial Arts Videogame Can Increase Chinese Soft Power in America

This thesis will explain how videogames function as a cultural art and a method to be used for the propulsion of Chinese culture. First, I will define what a videogame is and outline the literature explaining how to study videogames as a media text; in the second chapter I will explain the wuxia martial arts genre, how it differs from “kung fu”, and discuss some of the implementation of Chinese culture in videogames today. The third chapter will introduce E-sports, the place E-sports have in Chinese society and how E sports can increase the attractiveness of China. The fourth chapter will explore and 21 Persona 5, (Atlas, 2016), Videogame. 18 analyze one wuxia videogame currently popular in the Chinese market: Jian Wang San developed by Kingsoft and explaining how the game incorporates elements of wuxia into the game design. Finally, the fifth chapter asserts that this peculiarly “Chinese” genre, much like anime to Japanese culture and K-pop to Korean culture, can serve as a vehicle to increase Chinese soft power, or in other words increase understanding of China and Chinese culture, among Americans. In my concluding remarks I will give suggestions for how Chinese videogame companies can currently work to differentiate themselves from Japanese videogames in an American game market where they face great competition from maturely placed Japanese companies