May Jin was lonely and bored in Bangkok when an old high school friend told her about a new mobile game. A native of Shenyang, a city in northeastern China, Jin had moved to Thailand’s capital to enroll in a language course. She hadn’t played many mobile games before, but after her friend’s recommendation she downloaded the game, called Honor of Kings, using her WeChat account to sign in. It was January of 2016, and she was quickly drawn to the social aspect of the game.
“When I started to play, I didn’t care about winning or losing; it was just about playing together with friends,” she says.
Honor of Kings gameplay. Credit: Shadow HOK via YouTube
In the game, two teams of five players vie to dominate a map with three lanes. Players can choose between different characters, including purchasing “power-ups” to help them compete, and can customize their characters by purchasing different “skins.” As she started to learn the game’s mechanics, Jin
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