China is currently the most populous country and one of the leading nations in the mobile gaming industry worldwide. Every day, hundreds of mobile games are launched with a massive player base, especially among younger gamers.
Therefore, this country has implemented very strict regulations to minimize gaming addiction among underage players. These regulations are clearly outlined in the guidelines for restricting playtime, spending, and prohibiting overnight gaming. To enforce this policy, most games in China require players to enter their ID number for age verification.
However, most young players tend to “bypass the rules” by using their parents’ ID numbers to register accounts, thus evading the monitoring systems of game publishers. Therefore, to tackle this tricky issue, Tencent has made a “iron fist” decision, requiring players to have to face recognition before being allowed to log into the game. At the same time, it will be cross-checked with police data to verify the actual age of the gamers.
If they refuse to undergo face recognition, these accounts will be placed on the anti-gaming addiction list for underage players. If added to this list, those accounts will only be allowed to play games for a maximum of 1 hour and 30 minutes a day, and on weekends no more than 3 hours. Furthermore, from 10 PM to 8 AM the next day, they are not permitted to log into the game.
This plan will initially be tested in two hottest products from the giant Tencent: Honor of Kings (the original version of Arena of Valor) and PUBG Mobile (Game For Peace in China). Not stopping there, Tencent will also implement methods for accounts suspected of being underage impersonating adults; if they recharge more than 400 CNY a month or show any unusual signs, Tencent’s warning system will immediately request face recognition. If they refuse, gamers will not be able to continue reloading money into the game.
Previously, there have been many cases of using parents’ accounts to recharge in games in China. One of them was a scandal related to the game PUBGMobile. A young gamer was exploited by bad actors, who demanded a large sum of money up to 123 million VND for in-game item transactions.
These bad actors even tricked this young gamer into hard resetting their phone to factory settings to hide the scam information. In the end, the naive child believed that the other party would return the money, but of course, the money lost would never be recovered. This serves as a sad lesson for parents in general, highlighting the need to monitor their underage children to prevent exploitation by malicious individuals.