Chinese officials have begun limiting young people’s allotted time to play online video games. According to NPR, one measure restricts anyone under 18 from playing between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. Minors will also be restricted to 90 minutes of game time every day except during national holidays when that amount of play time is doubled.
Online games like Fortnite encourage players to buy additional features, and now the Chinese government caps the monthly amount allowed to be spent at $28 or $57 (age depending). In addition, players are prohibited from playing games depicting sexual explicitness, gore, violence and gambling.
NPR says it’s not clear if offline games (think Nintendo NES games) are affected by the new guidelines. RePlay doesn’t yet know if coin-operated machines are affected either. Suffice it to say that a major blow to the online consumer vidgame business, estimated to reach $33 billion in 2019 (Niko Partners research), has been struck.
Readers may remember that Chinese president Xi Jinping, back in 2018, partially blamed “video game addiction” for the vast number of nearsighted children in his nation. Heavy homework and mobile phones were also blamed.