Peking University to Host Cross-National Gaming Academic Event — Panel Topic 'miHoYo's Player Loyalty Domestication' Gets Roasted: 'The Future of Chinese Gaming is Turtle Training?'

Peking University is hosting a cross-national gaming academic event, and just the panel topic names alone are enough to send the community into a frenzy — one of them is literally called 'miHoYo's Player Loyalty Domestication.' Six words that instantly spiked every gacha gamer's blood pressure.

The original poster said they found this through the gaming general board (游综) and are just sharing it, explicitly noting 'can't rule out clickbait.' They also dropped a Bilibili livestream link for anyone who wants to watch the drama unfold in real time.

As expected, the comment section exploded. The very first reply nailed it with just the title: 'miHoYo's Player Loyalty Domestication' — seven words, cuts like a knife. Then came the real kicker: 'The future of Chinese gaming is turtle training.' The word '驯化' (domestication) got punned into '训龟' (turtle training), a savage metaphor suggesting players are being tamed like pets by game companies.

Someone also dropped another image, seemingly showing more details about the academic event lineup.

One sharp-eyed commenter predicted exactly how the thread would play out: 'Let me see how many floors before someone says "have these people ever even played a game" — it already happened in the original thread.' Sure enough, the classic NGA tradition of questioning whether academic researchers actually understand the games they study was in full force. Though some took a more measured stance: 'The title is definitely attention-grabbing, but I wonder about the actual content.'

Another rabbit hole was the participating university list. Users were puzzled by 'Xihua University' and 'Nottingham' — someone explained Xihua is 'a decent regular university in Chengdu,' while Nottingham Ningbo was described as essentially 'a feeder school for UK study — you spend 2 years in China then ship off to England, basically a rich kids' school.'

One user dug up that a scholar named Geng Hongming is from the humanities department, finding it 'a bit odd,' and was trying to rope a junior into checking out the event in person. Others who looked at the full panel list had a more positive take: 'Several topics are actually pretty solid — you can tell whoever picked them is a real hardcore gamer.'

But the most resonant take came from a commenter who cut straight to the core: 'These two topics don't even feel like gaming anymore — they're sociology.' One sentence that captures the fundamental tension: when academic research frames players as 'subjects to be domesticated,' gamers don't feel respected — they feel looked down upon. Multiple commenters openly said 'I just want to see that loyalty domestication panel,' making it clear they're showing up purely for the drama.

The OP also briefly recommended an indie game called FLOW, calling it 'two hours of pure immersion — an experience worth having at least once,' which was a nice palate cleanser amid all the controversy.

The academic event hasn't happened yet, and whether the actual panel content will be serious scholarly analysis or just another round of 'players vs. academics' outrage bait remains to be seen until the livestream. But thanks to those four little words — 'loyalty domestication' — the NGA peanut gallery has already set the stage for maximum popcorn consumption.