Limiting children’s gaming hours turns weekends into disaster for Chinese gamers

Tram Ho

The strictest ever restriction has been imposed on the Chinese gaming industry, limiting people under the age of 18 to playing games for only 3 hours a week. Thought only aimed at underage gamers, it turns out that this new rule also affects the experience of other gamers.

Many players of the game “Honor of Kings” – one of the most popular mobile games in this country – said they encountered a series of technical problems such as lag when entering matches, especially in the time frame from 8 pm to 9 pm every Saturday and Sunday.

The reason for this seems to lie in the sudden increase in the number of players when it was the time when people under 18 were allowed to play the game and they started flooding in to play their favorite game.

Giới hạn giờ chơi game của trẻ em biến cuối tuần trở thành thảm họa cho các game thủ Trung Quốc - Ảnh 1.

Under a new Chinese government regulation aimed at curbing game addiction among young people, those under the age of 18 are only allowed to play online games for three hours a week – one hour a day on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays as well as other national holiday.

On Saturday, many Honor of Kings players said they encountered “problems going into the game” but later said they were resolved without further explanation.

Currently, “Honor of Kings” is Tencent’s highest-grossing mobile game in 2020 globally. It is also the most popular mobile game in China, with an average daily player count of 100 million, the company said.

With the disruption of services since the weekend – when the government’s restriction on gaming hours began – many people speculate that the cause lies in the sudden millions of players under the age of 18. flooded this game at that time, causing the server to become overloaded. On Monday alone, a hashtag related to the disruption was viewed more than 850 million times on Weibo.

Giới hạn giờ chơi game của trẻ em biến cuối tuần trở thành thảm họa cho các game thủ Trung Quốc - Ảnh 2.

Despite the obstacles encountered over the weekend, Tencent said that players under the age of 18 contribute only a small part of their revenue. According to the company’s report, players under the age of 16 contributed only 2.6 revenue from Tencent’s gaming business in the second quarter of this year – about 840 million yen (about 130 million USD) – while the contribution from players under 12 years old is even lower, only 0.3%.

China is currently the world’s largest e-sports and games market, with total revenue estimated to grow by about a third to reach $41.7 billion between 2020 and 2025.

However, the Chinese government is increasingly concerned about the negative effects of the online gaming industry and tightens control measures to curb online game addiction – an evil that is believed to be the source of many factors. other such as visual impairment and poor academic performance. Early last month, an article published in a state newspaper called online games a “mental opium” for teenagers, even naming the game “Honor of Kings”. ”

Refer to Sixthtone

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Source : Genk