Wow, this is going to be a massive shift in the gaming industry. The gaming industry might have just been hit with one of the biggest flash bangs ever seen as China announced it will essentially be destroying the online gaming practices for the 1B+ Chinese citizens.
I guess this would be a good thing for gaming-gambling addicts…if it didn’t reek of unbridled authoritarianism.
In what has to be the final bombshell story of the year for the gaming industry, the Chinese Communist Government announced that it was imposing new “guidelines” and restrictions on all online-based gaming business practices for the 1B+ Chinese people. And, this should go without saying that this move will not only destroy most Chinese gaming companies, but is also a very obvious form of authoritarianism.
Now, I don’t really think you need a lesson from me, a guy who writes about sports, movies, TV shows, and video games, on the nature of authoritarian governments, but this news from China is just a latest in the string of restrictive decisions the Chinese government has imposed on their people in regard to video gaming.
In the past three years, the Chinese government has either imposed or proposed strict rules regulating the number of hours children under 18 years old can use smartphones, the number of hours kids under 18 can play video games per week, harsh restrictions and embargoes on foreign video game imports, their president (well, more like dictator, but that’s a topic for a foreign affairs website) saying that addiction to video games was plaguing the well-being of the youth of China (which might actually be true for kids all over the world), and now this latest restriction on all online-based transactions.
Essentially, if you haven’t read up on what China has done, it has banned the major Chinese gaming companies from offering expensive microtransactions through loot boxes, game stores, etc., Daily login rewards will be outlawed, and any recharges or ammo restocks, etc. now must have pop-up warnings to prevent addicts from spending too much money on the games (the words of the Chinese government in more or less words).
Now, Vigo Zhang, the vice-president of Tencent Games, said to CNBC that he didn’t expect these rules to affect the gaming industry, but rather improve the industry with this decision allowing gaming studios and publishers to produce more “high quality games.”
Could this happen? Maybe. Has Vigo Zhang been forced to say this at the risk of exile or death at the hands of the Chinese government? Most definitely. Does the rest of the world believe this is good for gaming? NO!
In fact, the rest of the world thinks this is such a terrible notion that the stocks of NetEase, Bilibili, and Tencent (which is one of the largest publishers in the world) all fell by 10% or more.
NetEase lost nearly 24% of its market share after this news given how reliant the developer is on these very practices, while Tencent lost over $46B in market evaluation given its standing as one of the world’s largest publishers and easily the biggest publisher (and the one who will undoubtedly have the most pressure from the Chinese government upon them) in China.
Truthfully, getting rid of these microtransactions in gaming isn’t actually an idea I’m 100% opposed to as I do support the notion of moving gaming away from these predatory practices. Yet, given the history of the Chinese government’s complete lack of regard for their citizens input and the nature of how laws are passed and governed in China, I don’t like how authoritarian this move has come about.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out, and how the future of Chinese gaming is affected.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Tencent) (The Call | Season 2022 Cinematic – League of Legends (ft. 2WEI, Louis Leibfried, and Edda Hayes) (youtube.com))
