• LibsEatPoop [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    43·
    11 months ago

    Online games will now be banned from giving players rewards if they log in every day, if they spend on the game for the first time or if they spend several times on the game consecutively. All are common incentive mechanisms in online games.

    Besides banning reward features, games are also required to set limits on how much players can top up their digital wallets for in-game spending.

    Games are also banned from offering probability-based lucky draw features to minors, and from enabling the speculation and auction of virtual gaming items.

    Tencent, the world’s biggest gaming company, tumbled as much as 16% at one point, while NetEase plunged as much as 25%.

    “It’s not necessarily the regulation itself - it’s the policy risk that’s too high,” said Steven Leung, executive director of institutional sales at broker UOB Kay Hian in Hong Kong. “People had thought this kind of risk should have been over and had started to look at fundamentals again. It hurts confidence a lot.”

    Tencent Games’ vice president Vigo Zhang said Tencent will not need to fundamentally change “its reasonable business model or operations” for games, adding that the company has been strictly implementing regulatory requirements.

    Zhang added that minors had been spending a historically low level of money and time on Tencent’s games since 2021 when minor protection became a focus for Beijing. In 2021, China set strict playtime limits for under 18s and suspended approvals of new video games for about eight months, citing gaming addiction concerns.

    But the new rules included a proposal that is widely expected to be welcomed by the industry, requiring regulators to process game approvals within 60 days. Meanwhile, Chinese regulators announced on the same day licences for 40 new imported games for domestic releases, seen as a signal of Beijing’s willingness to allow more games in the country, despite the draft rules on game spending.

          • loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
            15·
            11 months ago

            It’s a good first step when game publishers have “innovated” stuff like skill-based mechanics and opaque ranked ladders and there exists an entire economy of esports and deadbeat streamers all for tricking gullible children into believing that playing an online “competitive” game for upwards of six hours a day is something other than a black hole for their valuable time while parenthood and governance has not been able to catch up to said “innovations”.

            Onviously the best approach would be a humanistic and holistic one where companies are forced to not litter their games with addictive dark patterns along with investments in actually positive time sinks for children like sports and youth centers. But in the absence of those that is a good first step.

            • Flamingoaks@lemmygrad.ml
              31·
              11 months ago

              no its not a good first step this is simply not something that can be addressed at a country level a good first step would be to force corporations to provide parents with tools to see how much their children play and to limit it. this is just a senseless bruteforce approach to a problem that require the most granular approach possible, because the problem isnt that all the children are playing to many of those damn video games its that a few children are addicted.

          • HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org
            6·
            11 months ago

            I suspect it’s a hamfisted approach to limited data. If some kids can play 6 hours a night and still keep up with schooling, it’s probably okay, but to track that requires impractically constant levels of feedback between parents, teachers, children, and game operators.

      • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
        10·
        11 months ago

        I for one support the limit on playtime for minors, though i think it will be very easy to find workarounds (and as far as i understand parents will be able to circumvent it by design if they choose to allow their children to have more playtime), and i am indifferent on the blood thing (and i doubt it is really a complete ban anyway, i think it is being exaggerated by the sources that are reporting on this), i think it’s the right of every country to decide how much graphic content they want to allow in their media.

    • taiphlosion@lemmygrad.ml
      16·
      11 months ago

      Online games will now be banned from giving players rewards if they log in every day, if they spend on the game for the first time or if they spend several times on the game consecutively. All are common incentive mechanisms in online games.

      So…how are people who don’t spend money on the game at all supposed to gain currency in games like Genshin? Most of the gems you get from the game come from daily commissions.

  • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
    42·
    11 months ago

    Online games will now be banned from giving players rewards if they log in every day, if they spend on the game for the first time or if they spend several times on the game consecutively. All are common incentive mechanisms in online games.

    As a person who is very prone to game addiction, to the point where I refuse to play online games, this is a very welcome change. Hope the pressure impacts companies abroad.

    • ShiningWing@lemmygrad.ml
      10·
      11 months ago

      Nice, I’ve had to quit multiple games because of that, Pokémon Go being the main one I used to play often that I quit a few years ago because of the daily streaks fucking with my brain

      Animal Crossing New Horizons was another one where that was a big contributing factor to me quitting, but there’s also plenty of other things that were shit about that game lol

  • Marxism-Fennekinism@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    33·
    11 months ago

    Wait I thought the West hated Tencent specifically because it’s literally run by the seeseepee. How is it possible for the seaseapea to crack down on it then?

  • Ronin_5@lemmygrad.ml
    27·
    11 months ago

    China unintentionally making games good.

    I was playing genshin like a job when it came out. If I didn’t do my dailies, I’d fall behind with the content and pay IRL money to catch up.

    Eventually I just quit because it wasn’t fun to play.

    • TheronGuard [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      11·
      11 months ago

      I’ve been playing Gears 5’s multiplayer since it came out, and I’ve honestly had more fun with it since they stopped updating the game. No more stress from trying to complete the current Season before the content in it gets vaulted, playing modes I don’t want and trying to do specific feats in matches. I just jump in for a few games and shoot people for the pure joy of shooting people, just like multiplayer games used to be blob-no-thoughts

      FOMO is real though, looking back on the game I haven’t used 98 percent of the skins, characters, banners, etc I unlocked even once but I still felt compelled to complete every season. Still, at least I wasn’t big enough of a chump to spend real money in the store shrug-outta-hecks

      spoiler

      Kinda miss playing Horde with friends though