China's job market in 2025 is mired in a structural contradiction: on the one hand, the "most difficult employment season in history" continues to ferment, and on the other hand, there is a gap in high-end jobs caused by "skills mismatch".

According to 36Kr statistics, in 2024, there will be 1.77 million computer graduates in the country, accounting for 25% of the total number of engineering graduates, but the employment implementation rate has fallen to the bottom of engineering, and the salary increase is only 15th. At the same time, there are frequent cases of 985/211 graduates vying for social work and master's degree to change careers to food delivery - in the labor dispatch position in the government department, a monthly salary of 3,000 can recruit liberal arts students from key universities.

Behind this "depreciation of academic qualifications" is the cruel reality of the disconnection between the contraction of traditional industries and the demand for skills in emerging industries. Although the manufacturing industry leads the job market with a monthly income of 7,153 yuan, high-end jobs are concentrated in machinery, energy and other fields, which are not friendly to liberal arts students and general-purpose graduates. The wave of layoffs of major Internet companies and the crisis of AI substitution have further squeezed the living space of middle-class white-collar workers.

The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2030, 92 million jobs will be replaced by technology worldwide, with "slow-thinking" occupations such as administration and design bearing the brunt.

The salary of playing games is higher than that of second- and third-tier white-collar workers

In the bitter winter of the job market, Tencent's FPS game "Delta Action" has unexpectedly become a "warm current". This game, which has the dual gameplay of big battlefield and gold touching, not only reshapes the competitive ecology, but also gives birth to an employment chain covering anchors, companions, and event operations.

According to third-party monitoring data, the average daily live broadcast time of "Delta Action" exceeded 1.2 million hours, and the head anchor earned considerable monthly gifts and liver substitutes. Middle-waist anchors share + escort services through the platform, with an average monthly income of 15,000-30,000 yuan, far exceeding the salary level of white-collar workers in second- and third-tier cities.

According to the price displayed in the Delta Companion Sticker Bar, the "Delta Action" Beacon Zone (Gold Touching Mode) is played with escort and escort, with an hourly wage of 50-60 yuan. Among them, the more difficult pictures (such as top-secret aerospace, top-secret Bakshi) have an hourly wage of up to 80 yuan, and an average daily order of 6 hours and a monthly income of nearly 15,000 yuan.

At present, the minimum hourly wage in the country is about 21 yuan (calculated by 2,000 yuan per month), the average hourly wage in the manufacturing industry is 30 yuan, and the hourly wage of food delivery riders is 25-35 yuan.

There is also a play club that revealed that the club's cumulative turnover during the Chinese New Year reached 9 million yuan, and the top three escort thugs earned 57,000, 49,000 and 44,000 yuan.

Moreover, the list is not finished at all.

On the one hand, this confirms the popularity of "Operation Delta", and on the other hand, Tencent's strong anti-cheating measures have also given the game a space to play with the business - Tencent has banned more than 187,000 cheating accounts through police-enterprise cooperation and upgraded the security encryption system. This measure ensures the competitive experience of ordinary players, indirectly expands the market demand for companion play, and allows high-tech green toys to play more value and bring them more benefits.

The "Social Value Equation" of the Game Economy

Traditionally, the gaming industry has been misunderstood as a mere entertainment consumer product, or even labeled as "electronic opium". However, with the vigorous development of the digital economy, the game economy is gradually showing its unique social value. It not only provides a "counterattack channel" for those with low educational qualifications, but also plays an important role in flexible employment and the spillover effect of the industrial chain. Nowadays, the game industry is becoming a new coordinate of social and economic development, and its value needs to be re-evaluated.

As Gen Z has become the dominant force in the labor market, their resistance to the traditional 996 work model has become more pronounced. At the same time, the flexible employment model has become a new choice for young people due to its characteristics of free time and fast realization. According to relevant surveys, the satisfaction rate of 2024 undergraduate graduates in choosing flexible employment is as high as 84%, far exceeding the 78% of traditional positions. The gaming companion industry has become a typical representative of this trend due to its unique industry advantages. Companions can work on their own schedules, without being constrained by a fixed commute time, and at the same time, they can earn a decent income with their gaming skills. This flexible working model not only satisfies young people's pursuit of freedom, but also provides them with a platform to realize their self-worth.

The prosperity of the game economy is not only limited to the game itself, but also the spillover effect of its industrial chain is also emerging. In the case of Operation Delta, for example, the demand for high image quality of 4K/144Hz has driven the upgrade of hardware equipment. In 2024, the sales of gaming monitors will increase by 23% year-on-year, which fully illustrates the strong driving effect of the gaming industry on the hardware device market.

In addition, the field of game content creation is also booming. Many anchors on Douyin have soared in popularity because of "Operation Delta", among which "Chief and Downmarket" revealed that the live broadcast was tepid before, and even the computer was purchased with a loan, and after the test of "Operation Delta", he became the head content creator, and his life has changed greatly.

The "New Socio-Economic Coordinates" of the Game Industry

According to the World Economic Forum, by 2030, 78 million new jobs will be created globally, of which more than 40% will be "human-machine collaboration" occupations. The employment ecology of Operation Delta is a vivid manifestation of this trend. In the field of game companionship, top companions not only need to have excellent game skills, but also need to master complex abilities such as tactical command, psychological counseling, and equipment debugging. This trend of skill convergence has put forward higher requirements for practitioners and also provided a broader space for their career development.

At the same time, the policy level has also provided strong support for the development of the game industry. Many places have piloted the inclusion of professions such as "e-sports player" and "game trainer" in the new occupational directory, and provided preferential policies such as social security subsidies for their practitioners. This initiative not only improves the social status of game practitioners, but also lays the foundation for the sustainable development of the industry.

In terms of globalization, the gaming industry also shows great potential. On January 19, the day after the Fireworks' season update, the number of concurrent players on Steam hit a new high of 131,000, surpassing the previous peak of 118,000 players and an 11% year-on-year increase. This phenomenon shows that the globalization process of the game industry is accelerating, and its market potential is huge, and it is expected to become an important growth point of the global economy in the future.

Epilogue:

When the monthly income of a "Delta Operation" tutor reached 15,000 yuan, and more than 80% of undergraduate graduates had a starting salary, we had to re-examine the social value of the game industry. It has long ceased to be a mere entertainment consumer product, but has become an experimental field that integrates skill equality, flexible employment and the digital economy.

As one economist put it, "In the AI substitution crisis, games may be humanity's last 'bastion of high-value skills'." "The rise of the gaming industry has not only created a large number of jobs for society, but also injected new vitality into the development of the digital economy. In the future, with the continuous progress of technology and the continuous support of policies, the game industry will play a more important role in the social and economic field.

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