China limits the time that minors can spend playing video games to 15 hours during their vacations

Jan. 16 (Portaltic/EP) –

Chinese authorities seek to limit the hours that underage users spend playing video games during their school holidays and have imposed a limit of around 15 hours of gaming during a month.

This measure applies from this Wednesday, January 15, and will last until February 14, with the support of two of the largest video game development companies of Chinese origin, Tencent and NetEase.

China has developed this limitation to reduce the dependence on screens of young people and adolescents, a regulation that takes the baton of another imposed in August 2021, as recalled South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Then, the authorities of this country imposed a time limit for younger online game players of one hour a day during weekends – Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays – and holidays.

Now, China has chosen to gather playing time in approximately 15 hours per month during school holidays winter of these minors, a time to which the creators of League of Legends and Diablo Inmortal have adapted, according to the aforementioned medium.

Last Thursday, Tencent noted that children under 18 years of age could play for up to 15 hours between January 13 and February 13, while NetEase announced that it would restrict this limitation to no more than 16 hours between January 15 and February 13. February 14.

Although these video game companies have committed to the Chinese government to prevent “excessive gaming” by young people, they have been using facial recognition for some time to detect players and ensure that children do not use adult accounts to circumvent limits.

In this sense, Tencent has pointed out in a WeChat publication that it has improved its procedure to detect and punish those who try to exceed the restrictions during the mentioned period of time. To do this, it has created a “risk database”, that identifies accounts that show signs of having been lent by adults to minors, activating easy recognition to verify users.

Tencent first added this feature in Honor of Kings, a smartphone video game released in 2018. Later, it incorporated facial recognition in the battle royale Peacekeeper Elite. Likewise, NetEase noted in 2020 that it had added similar technologies to its video games.