Beyond Game Culture: How Genshin Impact Gamers Construct Their Identities through Game Media

Game cultures and related industries have boomed in China after the Covid 19 pandemic, attracting a wide range of Chinese. Among recent popular games in China, Genshin Impact has drawn attentions of youngsters and achieved commercial success, creating unique game cultures. This consequence reflects the vibrance of subcultures by young groups because this is the way they connect to the world, getting to know themselves, communicating and interacting with peers and achieving socialization, in this case, gameplay serves as a medium for the young groups to extend themselves. This study presents the mechanisms of identification of Genshin Impact players, self-identity, social identity and relation between them tested. Qualitative research is applied in this study as methology, including in-depth interviews and grounded theory. It was suggested that players construct their self-identities by multi-interaction with game media and construct social identities by communication through game ecology. Furthermore, goods (products featuring elements of a particular intellectual property on them) and game communities link self-identities and social identities of players. This result provides an insight of development of subculture in China.