Tencent emblem (Image: Reuters)
Citing issues about eye injury, Chinese authorities have sought to restrict hours that youngsters can spend taking part in video video games, and firms together with Tencent have put in place anti-addiction techniques that they are saying cap younger customers’ sport time.
- Reuters
- Last Updated:June 01, 2021, 17:42 IST
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A Chinese public-interest group stated on Tuesday it’s suing Tencent over what it alleges is inappropriate content material for minors within the prime world sport developer’s flagship online game, Honor of Kings. Beijing Teenagers Law Aid And Research Center stated it filed the lawsuit in a Beijing court docket on Tuesday, to mark the implementation of an amended safety of minors regulation. The go well with, whose content material Reuters couldn’t independently affirm, additionally coincides with an unprecedented antitrust crackdown by Beijing on some of China’s greatest tech corporations that sources advised Reuters consists of Tencent.
The firm, which declined to remark when contacted by Reuters, has progressively lowered the really helpful age restrict for the sport from 18 in 2017 to 12 this 12 months, the public-interest group stated. In a posting on its social media account, it stated some of the sport’s characters wore low-cut garments and that its storyline tampered with historic figures and confirmed an absence of respect for conventional tradition – all of which made the sport inappropriate for younger customers.
“Game characters’ clothes is just too revealing, whereas there’s a lot of … low-taste content material that’s inappropriate for youngsters on its web site and boards,” the group said in the posting. An in-game raffle also made young players more likely to play the game for longer, it said.
Citing concerns about eye damage, Chinese authorities have sought to limit hours that teenagers can spend playing video games, and companies including Tencent have put in place anti-addiction systems that they say cap young users’ game time. Tencent said last November that Honor of Kings, which is free to download but has paid-for in-play content, had a record 100 million daily active users worldwide. Sources told Reuters in April that China is preparing to fine Tencent, probably in excess of $1 billion, for anticompetitive practices in some businesses and for not properly reporting past acquisitions for antitrust reviews.
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