I will post the regs once I get a copy, but the details were published in China Daily a couple days ago. I am not surprised that the government is continuing to regulate in this area, that is nothing new, but for the life of me, I cannot understand how this new rule is going to be enforced without causing a lot of trouble.

Here’s what the fuss is all about:

Internet game operators have been ordered to install anti-addiction software on their games to help youngsters stay offline.

The government yesterday issued a regulation, which takes effect on April 15, demanding online operators set up a “game fatigue system” that encourages players under 18 to play less than 3 hours a day.

Online gamers will also be required to register using real names and identity card numbers to indicate if they are younger than 18.

Getting users to sign up with their ID cards is a big deal, even if the age limit doesn’t apply to many of them.

Under the system, known as the “anti-online game addiction system”, the first 3 hours of play for each day is considered “healthy”, during which players will be awarded full points in the virtual world. The next 2 hours will yield only half the normal points and there will be no points after 5 hours.

I am not an expert on these platforms, but it seems to me that what the government is calling for is a significant modification of not only administrative functions of the game (i.e., user accounts) but also interaction between the user account information database and the whole scoring system. I have no idea how easy it would be to make these changes, but it sounds like a pain in the ass.

The privacy concerns are obvious. Government collection of data notwithstanding, what will these companies be doing with this user account data?

The government claims that it will enforce this new set of rules by July:

According to the regulators’ timetable, online game operators will have up to four months to install the system; and games not embedded with the software by July 16 will be shut down.

When I first saw mention of this on a blog yesterday, I shrugged it off as another rule that will go unenforced on top of all the others. This is still possible, but on the other hand, if the government is serious, there are a very small number of operators out there to check up on, so enforcement resources would be minimal.

I would be curious to see what sort of (unofficial) reaction this has generated in the industry. The official comments are of course extremely boring and predictable.

Maybe the 15% of under-18 players will start using their parent’s ID cards to sign up to avoid getting tagged by the new system. Then we could see criminal penalties - that would be interesting.