From Mutual Aid to Commercialization: Politics of Hope in the Evolution of China's Visually Impaired Gaming Community

Although the benefits of digital technology are widely acknowledged, along with its potential to generate new forms of inequalities, there has been limited discussion about the hope held by individuals with disability toward it. Utilizing the concept of 'the politics of hope'—the dynamics that both enable and constrain hope—this study explores how these individuals' hope for a better life are shaped and sustained within their evolving online communities. Through a year-long cyber ethnography in two online gaming groups for the blind and interviews with 17 veteran players, the study found that digital games symbolize equality and a life free from boredom, with this hope initially realized by independent game developers who are visually impaired in China. The rise of mobile phones expanded the player base, attracting commercial companies that leveraged and reinforced the discourse of hope to market their products. However, the commercialization of the community led to a phenomenon termed 'hopeless hope': companies prioritizing profits produced homogenized and dull games that disappointed blind players and diminished their aspirations. Faced with this duality of hope, informed players help regulate the emotions of ordinary players by explaining the real-world mechanisms of game production within their groups. Drawing on past achievements and foreign institutional contexts, visually impaired gamers sustain their hope in gaming through imaginative engagement. This paper argues that hope is not merely a future-oriented concept but a universal and essential emotion that evolves through social interactions. Researchers should focus on its specific forms and the pathways that lead to hope in real-world contexts. By analyzing the conflicts surrounding hope among various actors, this study highlights the hope dimension of digital technologies, asserting that hope is crucial for understanding inequality and should be regarded as a central theme in examining the digital lives of marginalized groups.