The situation around the games in China is escalating. The Ministry of Education of China has recommended limiting the number of online games that receive approval to launch. The official reason is the fight against myopia.
This became known on August 30 from the official statement of the Ministry. The paper lists eight prescriptions for regulatory authorities. Three of them are addressed to the State Administration for Radio and Television (SART), which is also responsible for the games.
Art for Arena of Valor, the highest-grossing mobile game in China
According to the last three prescriptions, SART should, in the interests of the health of the younger generation:
- tighten the rules limiting the time minors spend playing online games;
- analyze the implementation of a rating system for games;
- limit the number of games that receive release permission.
As analysts at Niko Partners write, the first two prescriptions are not a surprise.
Firstly, earlier the government of the country has already imposed a limit on the amount of time spent by teenagers in games. Now another step has been taken in this direction. Bloomberg reports that the regulator urges parents not to let children play for more than 15 minutes at a time, and the daily game limit should be one hour.
Secondly, despite the lack of full-fledged age ratings, China has an optional system according to which one or another age corresponds to one or another color. It seems logical that the government of the country continues to work on the topic.
The situation with the third prescription is completely different. For the first time, the regulator is recommended to set a limit on issuing permits to launch games in China. Recall that now in the region, the issuance of identification numbers (permissions), without which it is impossible to publish the game in any local store, is generally frozen.
It is not yet known how many games will receive a release permit per year. The details of the prescription will not be known until the end of September. Last year, 8202 mobile games, 169 client projects for PC, 135 web games and 55 console titles received apruv.
Niko Partners assumes that the restriction will not affect PC games, console projects and even, possibly, role-playing projects for mobile. The main blow will be taken by poker and mahjong, which previously accounted for about 40% of the numbers received.
Japanese analyst Serkan Toto has a completely different opinion. He believes that the new directives speak of a new trend that is unfavorable for the market: “The government seems to intend to convey to parents that it agrees with them that games are evil and therefore access to them should be limited.”
The Ministry of Education believes that the initiatives taken will help to reduce the number of short-sighted children and adolescents in the country by 5% every year.
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