Play at work, in small breaks

Venues like the Hea Cafe in Guangzhou attract gamers who want to mingle and play. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Video blogger Jiang Haitao starts most of his days at 5 pm. After his "breakfast", he is online from 7 pm to about 2 am－most of which is spent on the popular multiplayer game King of Glory.

Jiang, better known by his online moniker Haishi, goes live on streaming platforms during that time. He spends another six hours daily editing and uploading his recorded video to various websites such as YouTube, iTudou, Bilibili, Youku and iQiyi.

The 20-year-old has maintained these work hours for the past few years. He has since garnered 3.9 million followers on major microblogging portal Sina Weibo.

Jiang says he chose to livestream King of Glory partly to cater to people's busy schedules and limited leisure time for watching movies or animation works these days. It takes them about 10 to 20 minutes to complete one play segment of the game instead.

"The game makes good use of our fragmented time," he says. "It also doesn't require large equipment like computers, just a smartphone does it."

Similar to other popular online games, there are many professional players and teams dedicated to King of Glory.

Liao Jinrong is a member of the all-women team named Dangerous Queen, based in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province. Liao is also an agent for celebrity video bloggers.

Her teammates need to put in five hours to practice playing the game every day, she says. Her personal record is 14 hours in one day.

The entertainment is "necessary". If there wasn't King of Glory, other games would occupy people's time, says Liao. "It's fine as long as people are able to manage the amount of time they spend on it."

The popularity of the game has also given rise to a group of people who help players "upgrade" their gaming levels and accounts by playing it for them.

You Jianpeng, 25, has been providing such services for the past year. He says he is a huge fan of the game and enjoys getting paid to play it, but it's hard work.