Beijing is moving to curb excessive spending on video games across the country, according to a new draft regulation, dealing another blow to the world’s largest video gaming market that is still recovering from the government’s previous industry crackdown, reports the South China Morning Post. Online games must not offer rewards that entice people to excessively play and spend, including those for daily logins, first top-ups and consecutive top-ups, according to draft rules published on Friday by industry regulator the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA).
All video games must put a cap on how much players can top up their accounts and alert users about “irrational consumption behaviour” via a pop-up window, according to the NPPA.
The proposed regulation immediately prompted investors to dump shares in major Chinese video gaming stocks. Tencent Holdings, the world’s largest video gaming company by revenue. saw its shares fall nearly 15% on Friday’s trading session in Hong Kong, while NetEase dropped more than 20%.