China has banned minors from online gambling for more than an hour, three days a week

Chinese regulators cut this Monday the amount of time players under the age of 18 can spend playing online games at one hour of play on Fridays, weekends and holidays, in response to growing concerns about drug addiction Gamestate media reported.

The rules, published by the National Administration of Press and Publications, state that users under the age of 18 will only be able to play from 8 to 9 at nightlocal time at the time, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

The Online game companies will be prohibited from providing video game services in any way outside of these hours. and they should make sure they have systems in place real name verificationsaid the regulator, which oversees the country’s video game market.

In principle, the measure only applies to online video games and not to those who do not need Internet access.

Previously, China limited the total access time of minors to online games to three hours on public holidays or to one and a half hours on other days..

In August, an influential government newspaper claimed that video games had become “mental opium”. The article also highlighted Tencent and its popular game “Honor of Kings”, a hit in China with more than 100 million daily active users.

Faced with this pressure, Tencent, which already imposed limits on playing time by facial recognition so that under-18s do not play at night, limited access to the game to one hour per day. In addition, he announced that players under 12 can no longer make purchases on “Honor of Kings”, while under 18s have been locked out after two hours during the holidays and one. time on school evenings.

“I wanted to cry,” said anxiously Zhang, a minor consultant to AFP as the news hit the world’s largest gaming market, which swallowed up $ 20 billion in the first half of this alone. year. “The limitation on playing time during the holidays means that I cannot play (Honor of Kings) at ease,” he added.

New rules are produced as part of Beijing’s offensive against Chinese tech giants, like Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings, which have disrupted investors and affected Chinese stocks listed in China and abroad.

The National Press and Publications Administration also declared Xinhua What increase the frequency and intensity of inspections of online gaming companies to ensure that they are putting in place deadlines and anti-addiction systems.

In recent months, various internet giants, including Tencent, have been singled out for hitherto tolerated and widespread practices in the areas of personal data, user rights and anti-competitive practices. From where the Chinese market regulator blocked in July, in the name of competition, the merger of the two largest online video game platforms in China, Huya and Douyu, of which Tencent is a shareholder.

Tencent, which is also a major player in online music, has been seen furthermore obliged to relinquish their exclusive rights to the securities, again in the name of the competition.

In China, a country of 1.4 billion people, video games generated around $ 20 billion in business volume in the first half of 2021 alone.

(With information from Reuters and AFP)

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