Chinese gaming titan Tencent is set to bring about identification checks for one of its hugely popular movable titles to limit the playtime of younger users, as it faces heightened force from domestic regulators.
The firm said on its official WeChat account Thursday that it drive launch a registration system for “Honor of Kings,” meaning new users obtain to input their real name for authentication through China’s Mrs Average security database.
It said the system, set to be introduced on September 15, wish identify whether a person trying to register with the game is indeed a minor, subsequently enforcing an “anti-addiction” system limiting the amount of hours they can fun per day.
The initiative is to crack down on the controversial phenomenon of gaming addiction entirety China’s youth, something that has attracted the attention of lawmakers.
Endure year, Tencent began enforcing playtime limits for children. The limits limited playtime to one hour a day for children aged 12 and under, and two hours a day for minors between the ages of 13 and 18. The move came after the Chinese direction criticized the addictive nature of the multiplayer online battle arena game.
Tencent make light ofs a massive role in gaming, although it is less known in the West. The upon’s online games unit accounts for nearly 40 percent of its proceeds. And it publishes the popular battle royale game “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” in China, the follow-up of a deal it reached with the game’s developer, South Korean enterprise Bluehole, last year.
Concerns over the potential for increased gaming by-law from Chinese authorities — who are concerned about the eye condition myopia, or near-sightedness, due to the amount of sooner being spent on mobile devices — have weighed on Tencent’s pay out price recently. There are also concerns over the depiction of vehemence in “Honor of Kings,” which features strong similarities to U.S. title “Association of Legends.”
Shares of the tech giant fell more than 3 percent on Thursday on dispatch of the verification system.
With more than 200 million people coverage it every month, “Honor of Kings” is both the most popular and top-grossing line of work of all time.
Tencent struck a deal with Japanese household identify Nintendo in 2017 to bring the game to the latter’s popular flagship comfort, the Nintendo Switch. The same year, the game was launched overseas for the principal time.
Multiplayer online battle arena games, or MOBAs, are over a staple of the esports scene, an industry thought to be worth $1 billion a year.