The Chinese government is worried about young video game fans. As various local and foreign media reported, the People's Republic has made the providers of online games concrete guidelines for dealing with underage users. The Council of State's website states that persons under the age of 18 must be excluded from online games from 10pm and before 8am.
Likewise, minors should be able to play a maximum of 90 minutes a day online on weekdays and a maximum of three hours on weekends and public holidays. The players should register with their real name and their identification number, it is said - a scheme that worries civil rights activists and also affects adult players.
China's government also regulates spending within apps, such as virtual weapons or costumes. In this area, minors, depending on the age group, are only allowed to spend a maximum of 26 to 52 euros per month or to deposit them in a corresponding credit account. For individual charges of such an account, there are maximum amounts of 6.50 and 13 euros.
Worrying about addiction problems
The new rules have already been expected, the New York Times quoted industry experts. Many large tech companies such as Tencent and Netease have long been introducing restrictions on younger users. At the same time young players have already tried ways to circumvent such rules, such as using the phone or the identification number of their parents.
So far, the rules only apply to online games, ie games played over the Internet. Here, the government has the opportunity to give the providers detailed specifications, as they can track the use of the games in real time and evaluate. In offline games, on the other hand, it is not necessarily recorded who plays them when and for how long.
China's government fears that video games endanger the health and well-being of children, such as addictive behaviors, which may also affect school performance.
China is one of the world's most heavily regulated video game markets, according to Daniel Ahmad. The Niko Partners analyst emphasizes that publishers and developers must be very attentive to the content of games they develop for the Chinese market. In fact, in China, only a part of the widespread in the West computer games in the trade. Many games appear there in versions that were developed specifically for China and defused in terms of violence.
