Just Earth News | @justearthnews | 19 Feb 2022, 08:04 am Print
Representational image by Onur Binay on Unsplash
Beijing: A new research has found that China’s online gaming sector is still doing well regardless of the tough new rules introduced last year to prevent addiction among underage players.
Gaming sector revenue jumped 17.8 percent to CNY 22.2 billion (USD 3.5 billion) last month from a year earlier, data published by industry analyst Gamma Data showed yesterday. That was despite strict measures such as real-name authentication and facial-recognition restrictions, reports Yicai Global.
Data revealed Honor of Kings, a leading online game developed by Tencent Holdings, still had 165 million active players last month.
It is the same number of players as seen during the same period a year ago.
For China’s middle and primary schools, the winter holiday begins around Jan 20, 2022 and ends around Feb 20, and playing online games during this period has long been popular with younger players, the news portal reported.
The National Press and Publication Administration brought in new rules last August amid concerns over increasing game addiction among minors.
“My classmates all use their parent's personal information to log into the gaming platforms, enabling them to play without time restrictions," one junior school student told Yicai Global.
Some game vendors have enforced facial recognition as an added verification layer to stop restrictions being bypassed, but minors have found ways to get around this. Information about “how to bypass facial recognition,” or “how to avoid anti-addiction restrictions” is widely available online, Yicai Global found.
Parents have a responsibility to pay attention to which accounts their children use to play online games, and they must be the last line of defense against addiction, Liao Xuhua, a senior entertainment sector analyst at Analysis, told Yicai Global.
- Automobile giant Tesla likely to remove 10 percent of its workforce
- Crypto market tanks amid Middle East crisis
- Elon Musk's Tesla inks strategic deal with India's Tata Electronics to procure semi-conductor chips
- Apple plans to reduce 614 workers in California
- Tech major Apple to open its new Shanghai store on Thursday