China restricts children from playing video games during the Lunar New Year holiday.

The winter break in China for elementary, middle, and high school students lasts from January 12th to February 16th, including the Lunar New Year. According to Tencent's schedule, from January 13th to February 13th, Chinese children are only allowed to play games for a total of 15 hours over 32 days. Meanwhile, NetEase states that gamers under 18 are allowed to play games for no more than 16 hours between January 15th and February 14th.

In August 2021, Chinese authorities issued limits on children's gaming time to control youth gaming addiction. Under these limits, minors are only allowed to play games for one hour a day on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. However, there are no limits on other entertainment apps.

China is making efforts to control gaming addiction among young people.

For many years now, Tencent and NetEase have been using facial recognition technology to ensure that children cannot use adult accounts to circumvent the law.

According to SCMP , Tencent upgraded its monitoring system by building a database of risky accounts. Accounts suspected of being lent to children by adults will automatically activate facial recognition to request identity verification. Since 2018, Tencent has added this feature to popular games such as Honor of Kings and Peacekeeper Elite , the Chinese version of PUBG Mobile . Meanwhile, NetEase allows parents to manage their children's gaming time and spending, and even block in-game purchases.

According to a report published by the China Audio- Video and Digital Publishing Association, the percentage of teenagers playing games for more than 3 hours per week will decrease to 24.9% in 2024, compared to 37.2% in 2021. Additionally, 59.04% of gamers under 18 said they do not spend money on games.

However, the controls are not entirely effective. According to SCMP , in 2024, China had approximately 200 million internet users under the age of 18, but a quarter of them still managed to circumvent gaming time limits by using their parents' or grandparents' personal information to log in or switch to playing offline games.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/trung-quoc-han-che-tre-em-choi-game-trong-dip-tet-185250128201334285.htm