China restricts online gaming for under-18 to 3 hours per week to limit addiction
China has restricted young gamers from playing video games, including online games to three hours per week, a move that it thinks will reduce gaming addiction. As per a report by Statista, the worldwide PC gaming market is a 37 billion US dollar industry while the mobile gaming market alone generated over 77 billion USD in 2020. So it's not wrong to say that interest in gaming is at an all-time high after being associated with a lot of negativity and stigma in the past few years. However, the latest rules by the Chinese government come as a setback to gamers as well as the gaming industry. The new gaming rules The new rule limits minors to play games only for one hour from 8 PM to 9 PM on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. This is even more stringent than the previous rules established in 2019 that allowed minors to play games for 1.5 hours on weekdays and three hours on weekends and public holidays. In addition, those under the age of 18 were also required to...