Gaming addiction debate reignites with Tencent in spotlight after mobile games compared to ‘opium’
About 560 million people – or seven in 10 of the country’s online population – play games in China, according to a report by research firm Newzoo.
Honour of Kings, the mobile multiplayer fantasy game by Tencent Holdings, is China’s most popular game with more than 200 million players. It is also a lightning rod for criticism amid growing concern over gaming addiction among the country’s youth.
Tencent CEO Pony Ma Huateng found himself again on the defensive after a member of the country’s top political advisory body proposed a classification system for video games, calling them the new “opium” because an obsession with them was enfeebling the younger generation. While the adviser did not single out Honour of Kings by name, her comments revived the debate on whether gaming companies were hooking young people on addictive games.
To those familiar with China’s history, the charge of peddling opium is an emotive one.
Schoolchildren in China are taught that foreign powers, in a bid to tilt the balance of trade, introduced opium to the masses in the 19th century, damaging the health of millions in a period that the ruling Communist Party has referred to as China’s “century of humiliation.”
On Wednesday, another delegate to the National People's Congress, Huang Huachun, a schoolteacher by profession, stoked the debate by calling for gaming companies to implement facial recognition features among safeguards to prevent children from bypassing the time-restriction features.
