How kids in China defy anti-addiction systems to play games: fake IDs and smartphone arcades
- Fake IDs, smartphone arcades, and pretending to be a grandparent are just some of the ways kids are avoiding China’s strict anti-addiction system for games
China has some of the strictest gaming regulations in the world. The government has long argued that it has to protect minors from gaming addiction, and it’s done so by pushing companies to limit anyone under 18 years old to just 90 minutes of gameplay a day – or three hours on holidays.
As regulations get stricter, though, kids are finding more creative workarounds. But the phenomenon itself isn’t exactly new. Daniel Ahmad, gaming analyst at Niko Partners, says that kids have been learning new ways to game the system ever since real-name registration systems were introduced in 2007.
“Due to technical limitations, there have always been loopholes that allow minors to enter fake information, buy adult accounts or use their parents’ account to bypass restrictions,” Ahmad said.
(The South China Morning Post is owned by Alibaba.)
Tencent also uses more hi-tech tools like facial recognition and machine learning to try to ensure kids are sticking to game restrictions. Face scans have been used since 2018 in Honour of Kings, a game Chinese state media once called a “poison.”
Another ruse involved asking a person working at a snack bar to impersonate a parent to convince customer service that a game doesn’t need to be restricted. Kids who can’t convince an adult to make the call might also try pinching their throats to impersonate a grandparent.
To keep circumvention tricks from turning up on the black market, Tencent is keeping the full list of criteria that it analyses a secret for now. And it’s possible Tencent might find some success here as technology advances.
“Minors will always look to find loopholes in the system so they can bypass restrictions, but it is becoming harder as tech-based anti-addiction solutions become more sophisticated,” Ahmad said.
Unlike Tencent and NetEase, though, it’s harder for smaller gaming companies to implement their own anti-addiction systems. But Tencent is now working to license its own system. By the end of the month, regulators will start checking for games that don’t comply with the required restrictions on minors. The ones that don’t will have to comply as soon as possible, Ahmad said.