Tencent executive says it will protect minors who play its games regardless of the impact on revenue

Tencent Holdings, China’s biggest video game publisher and social media operator, will protect minors who play its games regardless of the potential impact on revenue, said a senior executive, explaining its policy amid a broad crackdown by Beijing on the adverse impact of prolonged gaming on children’s health.

“We take absolutely no account of game revenue in the protection of minors,” Ma Xiaoyi, senior vice-president of the Shenzhen-based company, said in an interview with Chinese media on Tuesday.

However, Ma also drew attention to the fact that minors make up only a small part of the company’s total number of players. Even for Tencent’s blockbuster game Honour of Kings, the contribution made by kids of “primary school age” is “very small”, said Ma, as reported by Wallstreetcn.com.

Tencent on Wednesday confirmed the comments made by Ma in the report.

The company said this week that it would require all players of its mobile and personal computer games to verify their identities against police databases from next year and that players identified as minors would be included in an anti-addiction system that limits play time for gamers under 18. Those under 12 will only get to play an hour each day, while those aged between 12 and 18 will get two hours of play time.

After the introduction of play time limits over a year ago on Honour of Kings, the time spent by minors on the game dropped by 52.3 per cent compared to a peak in 2017, Ma said on Tuesday. “The annual growth of the number of players has far exceeded the drop in minor users as a result of the limit, and as the gaming industry moves forward, the impact from the limitations on minors will be easily balanced out,” Ma said.