The below article was written by Hugh Davies, games researcher and Postdoctoral Fellow in Design & Creative Practice at RMIT University, who is currently a Research Fellow with M+ and the Design Trust, researching Hong Kong architecture in video games.

There are around 140 video games set in Hong Kong. The final figure depends entirely on how you define ‘Hong Kong’ and ‘video games’ respectively, as both are contested territories. However, few can argue against the fact that the city looms large in visual culture—a culture that increasingly includes video games.

Yet with so few local developers creating games set in Hong Kong, how can the city’s international popularity in the ludic medium be adequately accounted for? Why do games feature Hong Kong so much? Through my work as a Research Fellow with M+ and the Design Trust exploring representations of Hong Kong in video games, I offer these overlapping explanations:

Cinematic History