Chinese gaming giant Tencent has recently made an announcement that it will be implementing methods to limit underage video-game playing. This comes as part of the company’s response to the Chinese government’s crackdown on gaming addiction among youth.
According to the announcement, Tencent is going to put a digital lock on several of its games. When these locks are active, users under 13 years old will not be able to access the game until a guardian opens it for them. This is intended to give parents a level of control over how long their children are spending on video games.
This method will first be implemented on the local versions of PUBG Mobile and Honor of Kings (Globally known as Arena of Valor). Both of these games are extremely popular at the moment and have accumulated a huge fanbase around the world.
Last year, following President Xi Jinping’s call for more attention to optical health among youth, the Chinese government put a limit on the number of new games alongside new rule sets to decrease the time youngsters spend looking at a phone screen. It saw this as a way to help prevent near-sightedness in children, an issue that had been getting worse in the country in recent years.
Prior to this digital lock method, Tencent has already implemented another system in Honour of Kings that requires players to provide a real-name identification to access the game to restrict playtime for youths.
The issue of gaming addiction is not limited to China only. In India, there are also many people who are seeking a ban on PUBG Mobile as they blame the game for causing poor academic results in students and promoting negative behaviors such as aggression or violence. Already, the Gujarat government has forbidden the game from being played in all primary schools in the state. Against all the accusations, Tencent Games has promised to address the issues, and given its latest move, we might see a similar system coming to India soon.