Tencent, NetEase among gaming giants rushing to comply with Beijing’s three-hour weekly time restriction for kids

Tencent rolled out an update to Honour of Kings to comply with the new rule, while its esports arm TJ Sports said it would overhaul its tournaments

At least 41 Chinese game developers have publicly supported the new rule limiting kids to playing video games for just three hours a week, says industry body

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A child plays Tencent’s hugely popular Honour of Kings game. Photo: Reuters

Published: 8:30pm, 1 Sep 2021Updated: 9:07pm, 1 Sep 2021

Video game giants including Tencent Holdings and NetEase are rushing to comply with China’s new three-hour weekly restriction for children, rolling out new features and preventing underage esports athletes from joining tournaments.

The National Press and Publication Administration, China’s top watchdog for gaming and other forms of online media, on Monday issued a new rule limiting gaming time for players aged under 18 to between 8pm and 9pm on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and statutory holidays. It marked the country’s most stringent measure yet to tackle video gaming addiction among young people.

All the major Chinese game developers quickly scrambled to affirm their support for the ruling and pledged to follow it. On Wednesday, Tencent, the world’s largest gaming company, rolled out an update to its signature mobile game Honour of Kings, which has 100 million daily users, to comply with the new rule. Its esports arm TJ Sports also announced that it would overhaul all of its tournaments to comply.

The state-backed China Game Publishers Association Publications Committee said in a statement on Tuesday that at least 41 Chinese game developers, including the country’s biggest ones, have made public statements to support the policy.

Analysts anticipate that the new rule may signal a temporary end to a regulatory storm over video games, as gaming stocks rebounded on Tuesday.

Matthew Kanterman, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said the latest restrictions placed on the industry had been “harsher than expected” though their impact was less severe than the crackdown in 2018 when Beijing halted the approval process for new games entering the country for nearly nine months.

“Tencent, NetEase and Chinese online games peers may face less regulatory pressure and impacts than in the 2018 crackdown … although the play-time restrictions for minors are harsher than the industry hoped, game companies have been addressing concerns with systems which can be quickly rolled out for modestly higher compliance costs,” Kanterman said.