This article is part of the conversation about the Internet, civil society, and democratization in China. Like Guobin Yang and Jack Linchuan Qiu, the article questions the deterministic and teleological view that the development of the Internet will lead to democratization. Yang prefers to examine the "co-development" of Internet and civil society, which effect each other. Qiu sees the Internet as a "conduit" for the "existing propensities" of Chinese society. Chan recognizes the importance of the Internet not because it is merely a new "strategy" but also a new "field of struggle".
Chan places these protests in context: other protests argue against game practices like griefing, developer choices like nerfing or policies like forbidding homosexual weddings. In game protests are more than consumer dissatisfaction, since players make emotional investments into the game.
Chan wants to challenge the "emergent Western Techno-Orientalist discourses" about gaming in China that are inevitably condemnations of Beijing in the name of liberal democracy (as compared to Japan and Korea, discourses about which are merely fetishistic). But, Chan points out, China's government has been "nurturing" the rise of consumerism.
The two protests Chan uses as examples actually have little to do with protests against the government. The first is a protest against developers for censoring anti-Japanese sentiment in Fantasy Westward Journey. The second deals with social condemnation of a love triangle that began in-game. The main point is that in-game protests deal with things outside the game as well.
A throwaway line in the last paragraph makes the most interesting point: that Chinese in-game protests thus far have been transitory and focused on single events. There is no organized long-term movement (democratizing or otherwise) in-game.
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