Chinese newspaper publishes, and then deletes, report that called video gaming ‘spiritual opium’, hitting Tencent stocks

A report against video gaming by a newspaper managed by the Xinhua News Agency was deleted from the publication’s website and on its WeChat account at noon on Tuesday, a move that one regulatory source said was made because its attack against the industry does not represent Beijing’s official stance.

The piece, published in the investigation section of the Economic Information Daily, described video gaming as a “spiritual opium” that is harming the country’s teenagers and singled out Tencent Holdings as a source of the problem. Tencent runs the world’s largest video games business by revenue and operates China’s multipurpose super app WeChat.

The report, which comes amid Beijing’s crackdown on Big Tech companies, fanned speculation that video gaming could be the next target of scrutiny following the off-campus education market. Investors took a cue from the negative report, which resulted in a decline in Hong Kong stocks. The Hang Seng Index dropped 1 per cent to 25,987.16 at the noon break, surrendering most of the 1.1 per cent rebound on Monday. Shares of Chinese video gaming giants Tencent and NetEase tumbled by at least 10 per cent in the morning session and pared some losses in the afternoon.