Internet cafes are a big deal in China. According to newzoo.com, they did the numbers on the total revenues from gaming from each country and China came in first, right in front of the U.S. Granted their population is enormous but that's besides the point. Point is, internet cafes are a big portion of that revenue in China. The censorship in China is drastic and up until recent, people used to go to the internet cafe and spend a fee to use their cafes for anything whether it was the internet, video games, email or whatever. As of now, people are using the internet cafes for games usually because of their home PC's can handle the specs the game needs or because gaming at home ignores their families. Which in the Asian culture, family togetherness is a big deal. So you could say that Internet cafes uses are on the decline as of late.
Originally, they didn't even allow computers in the households in China because of how censored they were, so they needed internet cafes where you would be more watched. Internet cafes were also a great way of making revenue besides the time-based fee. "In 2002, when Shanda (A Chinese gaming company) had 60 percent of China’s online gaming market, 65 percent of the point sales were through thousands of Internet cafes". You can see the amount of revenue a Internet cafe brought in including more ways than one.
According to gamasutra.com, Lisa Hanson explains that "In 2015, usage of Internet cafes appeared to be on the decline as the total number of I-cafés had fallen to 135,000 from the high mark of 350,000 shops across the country a decade before". So yes its true the number of people going to Internet cafes has dropped because of personal computers in their homes. In addition to that, Elleka Watts says in her article from thediplomat.com that "Meanwhile over the same time period, mobile phone usage has risen from 66 percent of Internet users in China in 2010, to 76 percent of all users last year". That proves that mobile gaming is a big piece of it also. Cell phones are the current future in this generation and that is another reason why Internet cafes are going downhill in China.