Top 7 Reasons China's Crackdown On Video Games Isn't Crazy

China Ban Video Game?
For those of you that are unfamiliar with the recent regulatory crackdown in China, official guidelines released this Tuesday create a new curfew and time restrictions for all gamers under the age of 18 years including the following:

China Ban Video Game?

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the recent regulatory crackdown in China, official guidelines released this Tuesday create a new curfew and time restrictions for all gamers under the age of 18 years including the following:

• No video games between 10 PM and 8 AM;
• Minors are restricted to 90 minutes of game time a day except for national holidays when they are allowed three hours;
• Microtransactions are limited to $28 or $57 USD monthly depending on age; and
• All explicit, gore, violence, and gambling games are prohibited regardless of age.

Their goal is to reduce nearsightedness and curb a perceived reduction in schoolwork quality/workforce intelligence coupled with combating video game addiction as a mental health condition.

How Bad Is This?

At first glance, 90 minutes seems like an insanely short amount of time for anyone who's actively working on developing talent for the game, but honestly speaking...it's really not as bad as it sounds for a few reasons:

Korea Did It First

China isn't the first country to put a time limit on video games, and Korea's already had this system in place since 2011 under the phrase "Cinderella Curfew". The restrictions in Korea aren't as stringent and simply restrict those under the age of 16 from playing between the hours of midnight and 6 AM. However, if necessary, parents are allowed to apply for a permit now to give them the ability to play longer.

China's Already Doing This

For many games, there are already limits in place where if users play for longer than a few hours, they no longer receive XP or rewards for playing. While this doesn't prevent players from playing highly addictive games, it does prevent users from feeling like they need to continuously grind to keep up.

Laws Aren't Law

In China, some laws are rarely enforced if it doesn't serve the public to enforce them heavily. For example, street vendors in China are technically illegal, but you'll see them everywhere unless there's some sort of government function in town where they need to keep up appearances.

People Will Find Ways Around It

If it's truly necessary for an up and coming gaming superstar, people always find ways around the limits. Whether it's by using an older person's account or by developing an offline version, regulations won't necessarily curb the truly dedicated from playing as much as they want or need to.

Chinese Schooling Is INTENSE

Compared to schools around the world, Asia is renown for having rigorous grade through high school programs. Rarely do kids really have time for games anyway. A public curfew on video games honestly won't have too much of an impact and does make for an interesting social experiment.

Players Can't Play Pro Before 18

Players under the age of 18 aren't allowed to go pro anyway. While this gaming curfew does remove the ability for younger people to build followings on streams, the vast majority of the population is unlikely to require rigorous hours gaming before the age of 18.

Parents Already Curfew

Generally speaking, most parents likely already curfew their kids to begin with. Government intervention, for the most part, is unlikely going to spark much of a change in the gaming habits of children already under the thumb of their parents.

Conclusion

The whole outrage over China's new regulatory ban on video games is overhyped and likely going to go down in history as a large-scale social experiment built to create more government jobs, but unlikely to see much of a sweeping effect across the nation from both a gaming talent or a workforce skill level point of view.

What do you think about the gaming ban? Is it more serious than it looks? What would you do if someone tried to curfew your game time? Comment below!