China Limits Children's Game Time to Only 3 Hours a Week

GAMEFINITY.ID, Purworejo – The Chinese government has just issued a new regulation that will further restrict children from playing games. According to the new regulation, children under the age of 18 are only allowed to play games for one hour per day, from 8-9 pm and only on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and national holidays only.

Reported from Reuters, game companies are also prohibited from providing services to minors in any form outside the specified hours. In addition, they must also implement a real name verification system in their games, and are prohibited from providing access to video games for those who are not registered.

These regulations are published by the National Press and Publication Administration (NAAP), the main regulatory body for video games and online media in China. It aims to combat the problem of gaming addiction among teenagers, which remains a serious problem according to NAAP.

“Many parents say that the problem of game addiction among teenagers and children has greatly affected their ability to learn and as well as their physical and mental health, even causing a series of social problems,” said a NAAP spokesman.

China

It’s not clear how big the impact will be in the gaming industry, but Tencent says children only make up a small percentage of their gross income in China.

Of course, this is not the first time the Chinese government has restricted the gaming activities of minors. Previously in 2021, China had imposed a limit on the playing time of children under 18 years old to 1.5 hours per day, except on weekends where they were allowed to play up to 3 hours per day.

In July, Tencent also announced that it had used a facial recognition feature to ensure minors did not play online games after 10pm.