[photopress:china_internet_gameplayers_1.jpg,full,alignright]Formally announced by China’s General Administration of Press and Publications, the fatigue system to restrict game playing time has been in trial use in games operated by Shanda Interactive, Netease.com, Sina Corp and Kingsoft, among other companies.
Online game operators like Shanda and NetEase were consulted during the development phase of the system which uses game-oriented incentives to moderate behavior. After three hours, in a sense, you start going backwards in terms of game achievement.
Will it affect the game companies? Sort of. But the game companies are moving from payment per use to a free-to-play, pay-for-items revenue model. Thus financially, it may not affect them that much.
Basically, the fatigue system is designed to limit the game-points that underage players are eligible to earn after they have been playing for three hours. This new regulation, regardless of the degree to which it is enforced, will have little impact on China’s online game operators when it is formally introduced in July.
Will there be ways around the system? Almost certainly. But it is an interesting experiment and few parents would argue that a three hour time limit on a game is too short.
Source: Market Watch