It’s no secret that China leads as one of the largest countries for video games in the world. From game sales to eSports champions, they have one of the most prominent positions within that realm.
According to statistical reports, China is on the path to having nearly 800 million individual gamers by 2022, and it’s safe to assume that many of these players make up Chinese youth across a variety of gaming platforms.
Recently, the Los Angeles Times shared an article regarding the fate of popular MOBA game, League of Legends, for players on Chinese servers.
While Riot Games, alongside other major gaming companies, is known for keeping League of Legends players on their toes with frequent updates and additions to the game, the addictive nature of LoL is being cut down by Tencent, the enterprise that oversees Riot.
Earlier this year, the World Health Organization shared that “gaming disorder” would become officially recognized as a disease, and a lot of controversy and changes have ensued following that decision.
According to the WHO page regarding the disorder, it’s described “as a pattern of gaming behavior characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.”
While this classification has prompted a lot of varying responses from all over the world, China has been trying to crack down on implementing more limitations for gamers for a long time now.
This, however, seems to be a final straw for the country, who have encouraged Riot Games to make the addition of an ‘anti-addiction’ system for League of Legends.
The system prevents minors from playing the game for more than two hours in a 24-hour period. Once they hit that mark, the client will automatically kick them off of the game and prevent any further gameplay until the next day.
League of Legends isn’t the first game that Chinese players have had to face limitations on, though.
Games like World of Warcraft and Fortnite have also had more substantial restrictions placed on them, with some games going as far as blocking users from games completely or penalizing them if they stay online for too long.
Since gamers must use their national ID number to play, it’s unavoidable for younger players to have their activity on games tracked and affected based on how much time they spend in-game.
The recent addition of League of Legend’s anti-addiction system will likely not be the last restriction placed on gamers in China, as the Chinese government has been pushing for more policies for years.
Only time will tell if more adjustments will be made and how it will affect the gaming community altogether.
