Video Game News: Tencent to limit playing time of some mobile gamers

Tencent is in the news again, this time for mixed reasons and facing mixed reactions. Tencent Games is, of course, the video game holding and publishing division of Tencent Interactive Entertainment, which is a division of Chinese conglomerate Tencent. As of March 2018, they are the largest video game company in the world.

On the mobile platform, they have very notable games such as Arena of Valor and PUBG Mobile. Now, with the growth of gaming across various demographics, especially in China, it seems that Tencent will engage in direct action to tackle certain social problems that develop from gaming, supposedly.

For younger users of their games, it has been decided that the games available to them will be present only for the time period of one hour. These are important and highlight-worthy changes that are being undertaken in the gaming industry by none other than industry forerunners themselves.

This drastic measure was first undertaken in September in China. A verification scheme was put into use to differentiate between children from more mature users. Gamers younger than 12 on the game "Honor of Kings" were flagged.

It has been reported that the game had led to a major addiction problem that needed to be tackled and dealt with. There have been reports of a lack of homework completion.

It has now been decided that the same demographic will be allocated only an hour each day of online play time. Players between the age of 13 to 18 will be able to play for up to two hours a day. As per a Tencent spokesperson, the company will enforce a blanket ban on both set of users that will prevent them from playing the game between 9 PM and 8 AM.

A company representative informed the Wall Street Journal:

“Minor protection is an important task that the whole society pays close attention to. [Tencent] has a high degree of responsibility and obligation.”

Having plans in place to extend this system to all of its titles in 2019, Tencent says that 10 mobile games will be running this mechanism by the end of the current year.

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