Tencent limits chill thrills for kids over holidays

Staff reporter

Tencent (0700) will limit gaming time for minors to 14 hours at most during this year's winter holiday season.

The internet giant warned its users under 18 years that they can play online games for a maximum of 14 hours in 14 days during the upcoming spring festival break.

The move was to comply with the new rules published by the National Press and Publication Administration last August, which said users under the age of 18 will only be able to play games from 8 pm to 9 pm local time on Fridays, weekends and public holidays.

Gaming companies should be barred from providing services to minors in any form outside the stipulated hours and must ensure they have put real-name verification systems in place, said the regulator at that time.

Shares of Tencent dropped 1.65 percent yesterday in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Tencent's popular game PUBG Mobile saw a 36.7 percent year-on-year rise in consumer spending to US$244 million (HK$1.9 billion) in December, making it the highest-grossing mobile game worldwide for the month, according research consultancy Sensor Tower. The majority of the game's revenues came from China, which accounted for 68.3 percent. The US and Turkey accounted for 6.8 percent and 5.5 percent of the revenue respectively.

The other four games in the top five were MiHoYo's Genshin Impact, Roblox, Coin Master and another game from Tencent, Honor of Kings.