China Restricts Minors’ Gaming Time to Three Hours Per Week

By Sodeinde Temidayo David

The Chinese Government on Monday placed restrictions and limits on the gaming time for minors to three hours per week and must be from 8:00 p.m to 9:00 p.m. on Fridays and weekends.

This decree was made in a bid to stop gaming addiction facing the country and would be effective from September 1, the Chinese government said through its National Press and Publication Administration.

According to the Chinese authority and its regulators, gamers under the age of 18 are barred from playing on weekdays and limited their play to just three hours most weekends, as a response to show concern, noting that game addiction affects the physical and mental health of children.

The new rules will require all gaming platforms to be linked to a state-operated anti-addiction system and require that all users be verified with a real-life identity.

It would increase the frequency and intensity of inspections of online gaming companies to ensure time limits were put in place.

Regulators also said they will step up compliance checks to ensure companies enforce the new rules.

Also, the rules will apply to industries providing online game services to minors, limiting their ability to serve those users outside of designated hours.

The companies also will not be allowed to provide services to users who haven’t logged in with real-name registration, preventing them from simply remaining ignorant to their users’ backgrounds.

As stated by the regulator, there are step up measures to punish gaming firms that violate the rules and have increased penalties given after inspections, expressing that more than 10,000 gaming titles were reviewed last year.

It noted minors could still use their parents’ accounts to bypass the restrictions, so as to tackle this, parents and schools also need to step up supervision.

This new proclamation marked a significant boom of restrictions on the country’s massive gaming industry and the disapproval of youth gaming, as the country’s gaming giants like Tencent and NetEase, have recently dealt with minor gaming with their regulations.