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This article focuses on one of China’s emerging creative clusters – Hangzhou’s mobile game industry – and investigates the various adaptations this cluster has undergone, as well as the mechanisms underlying the industrial and geographical dynamics within the cluster. Specifically, it examines the power asymmetry of governance in the cluster, paying attention to how chain governance has been shaped by both local and national institutional contexts, affecting local firms’ upgrading prospects and trajectories of industrial development. It is argued that China’s peculiar institutions have shifted the power asymmetry in the mobile game chain in favour of game distributors, allowing them to grab more value than their counterparts in the USA and European Union do. Despite various adaptation efforts made by small developers, they are largely constrained by lead firms with little possibility to move up the chain, which will inhibit further transformation and competitiveness of the industry.

Institutions, Chain Governance and the Predicament of Local Upgrading: A Case Study of Hangzhou’s Mobile Game Industry