The Chinese government decided to reduce the time that children spend in online games

The new rule, shaped by the National Press and Publication Administration, China's government agency that controls the internet, is supposed to stem the rise of "gambling addiction among young people."

The rule, or law if you will, drastically reduces the amount of time that under-18s can spend playing online games, to just one hour each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Thus, in total, they will be able to spend no more than 3 hours playing video games per week.

According to the South China Morning Post , the rule was first published in regional Xinhua media. A government spokesman said:

Many parents said that the problem of gambling among teenagers and children has seriously affected their ability to learn and develop, as well as physical and mental health, and in some cases caused a number of social problems.

Enforcement of this rule has been entrusted to Chinese video game developers such as Tencent and NetEase, who are being asked to "implement strict" registration and login systems that require the use of a gamer's real name. Tencent, for its part, said it supports "the new rules and will implement the new requirements soon."

The next step of the Chinese government followed a series of ineffective measures. In 2019, children were banned from playing games after 20:00, spending on microtransactions was reduced, and play time was limited to 90 minutes a day and 3 hours on holidays. The new law comes into effect weeks after government media in China called video games "spiritual opium." This post was first published and then quickly removed from The Economic Information Daily: however, this time was enough for Tencent's shares to fall by 11%.