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China Limits Kids To Three Hours Gaming Per Week In Attempt To Halt "Addiction"

Ewan Moore

Published 

China Limits Kids To Three Hours Gaming Per Week In Attempt To Halt "Addiction"

Featured Image Credit: Rockstar Games

China has just hit minors with yet another incredibly tight restriction on their already limited video game time. It's just been confirmed that anyone under the age of 18 will now be able to play just three hours per week. It takes me that long just to work out what to play.

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China's National Press and Publication Administration announced the limit on how much online gaming services are allowed to offer younger users in an effort to curb "addiction". Under these new rules, companies must restrict their services to under 18s to a very small window of time. If you're a minor, you can only game on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between 8pm and 9pm.

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The rules also clearly state that companies must ensure younger players are using their real names when signing on. This is in an effort to stop kids from creating accounts that show them as older than 18, or from creating duplicates in an attempt to cheat the system and get more playtime in.

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These latest mandates are an extension of incredibly tough rules that were introduced by officials in 2019. At the time, it was announced that kids under 18 could play for 90 minutes on weekdays provided it was between the hours of 8am and 10pm. I never thought we'd look back on those restrictions as reasonable, but relative to the new rules? Wow.

All of these measures are supposedly in place to tackle such issues as video game addiction, nearsightedness, and "poor academic performance across a broad swath of society".

"These problems affect the physical and mental health of minors, as well as their normal learning and living," the National Press and Publication Administration said in a statement at the time.

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The 2019 measures also put a cap on how much minors could spend on microtransactions: $28 to $57, depending on how old exactly the child is.

Topics: News

Ewan Moore
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