The largest game company in the world is developing a plan to prevent children from becoming addicted to games

Tencent Holdings Inc. led Chinese stocks to decline after i media Chinese state officials have denounced children’s addiction to video games, prompting the company to launch a ban on children and minors, fearing that Beijing, the world’s largest gaming company, would have its eye on it.

The most precious company in China joined a list of other stocks that were shaken after press criticism of the company’s business, as NetEase and Nexon Inc. fell.

One student was quoted by the Economic Information Daily as saying that some of his schoolmates played the Tencent game known as Honor. of Kings, for 8 hours a day and called for stricter controls.

For its part, Tencent has pledged to further limit playing time for minors to just one hour on weekdays and no more than two hours during holidays and weekends.

The company also plans to ban purchases in-game for under-12s, and more dramatically, the company raised the possibility that the industry could ban games for under-12s entirely, without going into details.

Rapid developments on Tuesday raised concerns that next time Beijing will turn its attention to a crucial arena for the giants of media from Tencent to Apple, a point that has swept via more than $ 1 trillion in market value.

Tencent stock fell 11% today, Tuesday, before recovering some of these losses to end its 6% decline. Shares of Naspers and Prosus fell, while shares of Nintendo and Capcom fell along with Nixon in Tokyo. Many foreign game developers also have a licensing agreement with Tencent to acquire their titles in China.

And just last month, Tencent installed facial recognition systems for some games to prevent children from using parental IDs to purchase in-game items. In the last quarter of 2020, under-18s accounted for only 6% of all gaming revenue online in China.