There have been more than 340 confirmed reports of games and platforms in China failing to properly identify and limit minors' play time since Sept. 30, according to state-backed search engine Chinaso, which hosts the platform to report companies that violate the Chinese government's strict limitations on minors playing video games. According to Chinaso executive Ge Subiao, the reports involve 241 gaming companies and 63 platforms.
This is the first public update of statistics from the platform, which was created in response to the government’s August policy cracking down on children's game time. The policy restricts minors to three hours of play per week — one hour each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday — and encourages people to report games or gaming platforms that don’t conduct thorough identity verification, that allow children to play outside the designated hours or that allow them to make high in-game payments.
Ge didn’t disclose the names of games or companies that have been reported, but said the national gaming regulator has worked with local law enforcement to penalize the companies involved. In September, the local government of Beijing fined an unnamed company 10,000 RMB (about $1,500) for hosting six HTML5 games that didn’t restrict minors’ playtime. State media reported it as “the first case of violating anti-addition rules.”
Ge Subiao made the comment in a Wednesday gaming industry forum in Guangzhou, China. Besides regulators, prominent companies such as Tencent and NetEase also attended the forum and talked about how they have limited children’s access to their own games.
Climate TRACE's data show emissions at the facility-level.Image: Climate TRACE