For an indication of Shi Yuzhu’s ambition, one need look no further than the name of his company: Giant.

An online game developer, Giant Interactive was founded just four years ago. Since then, Mr Shi has parlayed the success of its first game, ZT Online, into an $887m initial public offering on Nasdaq. This year, ZT Online became the most popular game in China – at its peak it had 2.1m people playing at the same time.