China has “solved” the issue of youth video game addiction, a report cowritten by the country’s top gaming industry body has said, a year after the government limited the number of hours young people can play a day.
China is the world’s biggest gaming market, but the industry — termed “spiritual opium” by state media — has been swept up in a tech regulatory crackdown marked by record fines, long investigations and the suspension of initial public offerings.
Since September last year, people under the age of 18 have only been allowed to play online between 8pm and 9pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays during the school term.
As a result, “more than 75 percent of minors play less than three hours a week, and game addiction has been basically solved,” said Monday’s report by the China Game Industry Group Committee, a top government-affiliated body, and data provider CNG.
“The anti-addiction systems adopted by gaming companies cover more than 90 percent of underage game users,” it said.
About 98 percent of people aged nine to 19 in China own a mobile phone and there are about 186 million Internet users aged 18 or younger, it added.
Gamers are required to use their identification cards when registering to play online to ensure that minors do not lie about their age. Companies are also prohibited from offering gaming services to young people outside government-mandated hours.
However, there have been recent signs that Beijing is softening its stance toward the sector. Officials have slowly started approving new titles after freezing approvals for nine months until April.
Last week, tech giant Tencent got its first license for a video game in 18 months, ending a dry spell that had threatened its position as the world’s top game maker.
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
‘VERY DIRE’: This year’s drought, exacerbated by El Nino, is affecting 44 percent of Malawi’s crop area and up to 40 percent of its population of 20.4 million In the worst drought in southern Africa in a century, villagers in Malawi are digging for potentially poisonous wild yams to eat as their crops lie scorched in the fields. “Our situation is very dire, we are starving,” 76-year-old grandmother Manesi Levison said as she watched over a pot of bitter, orange wild yams that she says must cook for eight hours to remove the toxins. “Sometimes the kids go for two days without any food,” she said. Levison has 30 grandchildren under her care. Ten are huddled under the thatched roof of her home at Salima, near Lake Malawi, while she boils
RSS