"Investigation" winter vacation can only play 14 hours, Tencent game "limited play order" can prevent addiction?

Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Chen Liang Intern Hong Jiagong

When the winter vacation is underway, how to effectively prevent the "divine beast" at home from indulging in online games has become a pain point and difficulty for countless families. On January 17, Tencent Games issued a new regulation, in this winter vacation, minors can log in to their game system within a specified period of time, and the maximum time they can play games during the entire holiday is only 14 hours.

As soon as the winter vacation "play restriction order" came out, what was the opinion of all sectors of society? Is there a possibility of omission in the new rules? What other measures can be taken to prevent minors from becoming addicted to games? The Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter made an investigation and interview for this purpose.

Minors can only log in to the game during the specified time during the winter vacation

According to Tencent Games' Notice on The Restriction of Minors' Games during the Winter And Spring Festival Holidays, around the winter and Spring Festival holidays of 2022, the online games operated by Tencent Games in Chinese mainland are limited to between 20:00 and 21:00 on January 21-23 (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), January 28 (Friday), January 31 to February 6 (Spring Festival holiday), and February 11-13 (Friday, Saturday and Sunday).

During the winter vacation, except for the maximum play time, minors cannot enter the game experience at the rest of the time, and the total time that can log in is not more than 14 hours.

In response to the problem of minors using their parents' identity information to play games reported by netizens, Tencent Games said: All accounts suspected of being operated by minors, login games, recharge abnormalities will trigger face recognition, effective 24 hours. There are stricter measures in the head game: all elderly accounts over the age of 55 require face recognition every time they log in.

Tencent Games also launched the "Recent Login Game Account" query portal on the Tencent Growth Guardian Public Account, where parents can set their accounts to "Minor Mode" with one click. For the behavior of borrowing numbers, common numbers or online rental numbers, Tencent Games also has a "new trick" - the frequent use of multiple devices with the same account will trigger face recognition.

Underage university students are also affected by restrictions

The entire winter vacation can log in to the game for no more than 14 hours, is this measure set reasonably? Many minors "cried bitterly", and some students complained that "I had forgotten how to play the game, and now it has come to the eyes again to 'provoke' me" "14 hours is enough?" Just don't come" "Thank you!" I'm a bully now, because I don't have to play but learn"...

Ms. Yang has a 5-year-old child at home, usually play some online puzzle games, as a parent she also believes that the entire winter vacation 14 hours of game time is a bit less, "the original intention of the 'limited play order' is good, but the holiday should have let the child relax."

Netizen "Blue Phantom Rain" left a message: "The summer vacation when I graduated from the college entrance examination could not play games because I was not an adult, what a tragic thing it would be." Huang, a first-year student at a university in Guangzhou, was born in June 2004 and is currently an adult. In her spare time, she likes to play the "Glory of the King" and "Eat Chicken" mobile games with her friends, and after the launch of the "Limited Play Order", she has been greatly affected, not only need to log in within the specified time, but also be forced to go offline after arriving at the point.

She told reporters that she hopes that the game platform can set up a "college student identity authentication" function for underage college students, and implement the new regulations more differentiatedly and targetedly. "With the relative reduction of play time, this winter vacation I will take programming classes related to my major and watch documentaries to enrich my knowledge reserve."

According to the reporter's preliminary investigation, more parents have expressed their approval of the new regulations. Netizens "on the road" said: The new regulations look very good, and children always play mobile phones and their eyes can't stand it.

Ms. Liu, a citizen, said that her son especially likes to play online games, and she has been trying to control her game time, but her son always "fights wits and courage" with himself. During the winter vacation, because parents have to go to work, she sent her son to a relative's house to live temporarily, and she was worried that she could not effectively manage her children's play time, as a parent, she "raised her hands in favor" of the new regulations.

Educators: Respond to the "double subtraction" policy, the time limit is reasonable

Lin Weizhen, principal of Zhongxing Primary School in Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, expressed his support: "The whole holiday can only play for 14 hours, and the number of days is intermittent, which is really a stage of relaxation after the tense final revision exam." Point to point, small play is pleasant. She believes that time restrictions can allow minors to maintain a sense of freshness and "hunger" in playing games to a certain extent, increase their learning ability, understand that doing something for a short time can efficiently obtain experience and happiness, and improve the efficiency of doing things and games.

"The introduction of this new regulation is very timely, responding to the requirements of the 'double reduction' policy and reflecting the protection of minors." Wang Xiaofang, principal of Guangzhou Tianhe First Primary School, believes that for puzzle games can not be completely "blocked", parents and teachers should properly guide and give operational suggestions. The key to preventing students from indulging in games is to let them go out of their homes and schools, go to nature and the world, participate in more interesting and meaningful social practice activities, absorb excellent history and culture, strengthen physical exercise, and participate in labor education.

"Although this regulation is not the best trick, it can prevent students from addicting to online games in behavior, and 14 hours is a reasonable time limit." Ye Heli, principal of the primary school of Guangzhou Guangwai Affiliated Foreign Language School, believes that the game also contains many "puzzle" growth factors such as "meeting challenges", "overcoming difficulties", "cooperation and win-win", etc. Instead of restricting the time of children to play games, it is better to work hard from the development content of the game, so that the online virtual world becomes a space for children to solve problems and distinguish between right and wrong, and let games become another favorable condition for them to learn and grow.

There are implementation vulnerabilities in the duration limit, and the identity authentication problem needs to be optimized

The idea of "limited play order" is very good, can it be "completed" in the implementation process?

Yang, a sixth-grade student, reflected that minors can still "brush their faces" for their grandparents through the system face recognition monitoring by persuading and tricking grandparents at home.

Parent Mr. Li's children are "victims" of online games, and he found that the probability of triggering face recognition during the game of minors is low, and there are still cases where they can borrow other people's accounts to play games. He suggested improving the measures related to player identity authentication: "Game companies should strictly implement face brush authentication, and it is best to require face brushing before and during the fixed stage of each game. ”

Ming Zongfeng, associate professor of the School of Journalism at South China University of Technology, pointed out that the "game restriction order" released a signal: the social contradictions caused by the society's concern and evaluation of Tencent's games have made it begin to face up to its own problems. However, due to the large number of Tencent games, there is no limit to the number of student players when registering multiple game accounts, even when registering the same game account, they are also allowed to generate multiple characters, which may lead to student players being able to change game accounts to start again after consuming the limited time, or change game characters to re-time.

Ming Zongfeng said, "It may be difficult to technically limit the total amount of all game time, because the calculation of game time requires the platform to do global planning, and all game operators need to design uniform rules." As educators, we call on game operators like Tencent to start from the perspective of national and social interests, truly make substantive guidance measures, or launch truly effective solutions. ”

Mr. Zhang, who is now working for an Internet technology company, was dropped out of a 985 university for being addicted to games, and he analyzed that this restriction on the game assets within Tencent game accounts and players who are deeply dependent on game social relationships has a very big blow, but it is only a company of Tencent Games, and it only restricts students who play its games.

"There are still a lot of other game manufacturers on the market, and there are a lot of games that are not included in the anti-addiction system. If Tencent Games can only play 3 hours a week, then you only need to find 10 manufacturers to play for 30 hours. The data of the anti-addiction system between many games has not been completely 'opened', and there are still loopholes in the game limit system. Mr. Zhang said. (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)

Source | Yangcheng Evening News • Yangcheng Pie

Editor-in-charge | Xie Zhe