It's usually parents that are telling kids to stop playing video games, but in China this week it was the government. The CCP announced that minors would be banned from being able to play video games on weekdays, limiting them to just 3 hours most weekends.
The move comes after a state-owned media outlet described video games as "spiritual opium", and builds on earlier restrictions for young gamers, as China's government shows increasing concern about the influence of technology and video games on the country's economy and young people.
Tech crackdown continues
This latest move has followed months of increased scrutiny of China's burgeoning tech sector by the Chinese government, which has been flexing its authority in a wide-ranging set of policies designed to curb the power of large corporations in China. Those measures have sent the share price of Tencent, a tech giant and the world's largest gaming company, down more than 40% since February. That's at a time when almost all other global tech share prices have been doing the exact opposite — grinding higher.
The shift in focus to "curb capitalism" was arguably kickstarted in a speech given by Jack Ma, China's most famous entrepreneur, last October. Ma criticized Chinese regulators and some state-owned banks. Then he disappeared for a few months. Then Beijing pulled the plug on the eve of his company's IPO, with Ant Group literally just 2 days away from trading, leaving investors in total limbo.
For big tech the last 6 months have been a not-so-gentle reminder of who is running things in China.
