China’s General Administration of press and publication on Tuesday released the notice of a game ban for all minors below the age of 18 containing six guidelines referred to as ‘’Notice on preventing minors from indulging in online Games’’.
China is of the world’s largest gaming market has reported news of their youths becoming more addicted and in a bid to curb this, have decided to place a curfew on online gaming for minors, all below the ages of 18.
According to the guidelines, Players under 18 years will be restricted from playing games between 10 pm and 8 am and would only be allowed to play for 90 minutes on weekdays, while they can play for up to three hours each day during the weekends and public holidays.
The guideline also places a ban on the amount of purchase each gamer can make on a game and transfer on their gaming accounts, gamers between the ages of 8-16 can only top up 200 yuan ($29 /₦10,730) per month while for those between 16-18 is 400 yuan ($57/₦21,090) per month.
Each of these guidelines would be applied to all gaming platforms operating in the country. Over the years china has been experiencing counts of deaths and health conditions, due to online gaming additions.
In 2007 a 26 –year-old Zhang, reportedly died in northern china after spending his time playing video games for seven consecutive days also, in 2015 a 32-year-old Taiwanese man died as a result of playing video games for three days non-stop, in 2018 another Chinese gamer reportedly got paralyzed after playing games for 20 hours straight. There have also been many more incidents in china linked to video games addition.
The china government has put these rules in place as a way of monitoring the mental stability of their young ones and according to a spokesman from the government these new rules are aimed at ‘’ creating an internet clear space and protecting the physical and mental health of minors’’.
He also said that the administration is working with the police to set up a real-name registration system and to enable gaming companies to check the identity of their users against the national base.
