15 hours: China says that's the monthly limit for kids gaming

In China, children are bound by a curfew not of their parents' making but of the state's. Kids are bursting with energy during their month-long school holiday in the Far East, but some kids will jump around out of anger, I presume.

15 hours of video game time for the next month: measured out like medicine for a disease the government is determined to cure.

Tencent Holdings, the world’s largest video gaming company by revenue, has announced that everyone under 18 will be permitted up to 15 hours of gaming between January 13 and February 13.

Meanwhile, NetEase, Tencent’s smaller competitor, has set a limit of 16 hours from January 15 to February 14. These time caps adhere to the government’s 2021 directive, which restricts minors to one hour of gaming per day on Fridays, weekends, and public holidays, in an effort to combat what it views as gaming addiction.

However, no similar limits apply to other forms of online entertainment, such as short video platforms, reports The South China Morning Post.

Despite the strict gaming restrictions, Chinese authorities have shown a softer approach in some areas, particularly when video games align with cultural promotion. Titles like Black Myth Wukong have been celebrated as tools for showcasing Chinese heritage. In 2023, the National Press and Publication Administration approved over 1,400 video game titles, including 1,306 domestic games and 110 from foreign publishers, marking the highest number of approvals since 2019.

China has tried to combat video game addiction among minors for years now. In 2019, the country banned online gaming for those under 18 between 10 PM and 8 AM. To enforce this, Tencent introduced a system called "Midnight Patrol" in over 60 of its China-specific smartphone games. The feature used face scans to verify players' ages when gaming after curfew.

Then, in 2021, China imposed further restrictions, limiting those under 18 to just one hour of gameplay per day between 8 PM and 9 PM on weekends and holidays. This marked a sharp reduction from 2019 rules, which allowed one hour of play on most days.