Following the footsteps of mainland China, Hong Kong could be the next country to impose regulations on the time spent on gaming, reports SCMP. According to an online survey conducted by the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) over 95% of the 463 parents that enrolled in the survey want the authorities to roll out some kind of restriction to curb the gaming addiction amongst minors.
The move has been gaining traction as post-pandemic the time spent on gaming has gone up. The finding of the report reveals that over 50% of the children whose parents took part in the survey were observed to be playing more than 3 hours a day.
Call for developers to take steps
At a press conference, the party’s lawmaker Vincent Cheng Wing-shun was vocal about how no steps are being taken by the game developers and described the current situation to be unacceptable. He said, “Right now, we can only see zero protection from game developers who’ve adopted a freewheeling attitude over teenagers playing online games”.
The lawyer exhorted the authorities to take a leaf out of China’s book by implementing similar steps to oversee the accounts of teenagers and also censoring content that he deemed to be inappropriate for children. Recently China had taken steps to censor effeminate content.
The party also suggested bans on games that do not bode well with their culture, display violent and obscene content. It is believed that Hong Kong based party also wants the developers to ensure that no underage person is playing video games by verifying the identity of the person associated with the gaming account.
Tough time for game developers
A stern warning was also given to the developers to take action failing which, would lead to the government intervention. While at this moment in time it is not sure to what extent the authorities in Hong Kong will go it is highly likely that it will be the second country to implement restrictive measures.
This move can further be a dent to the developers who are already reeling from losses after the Chinese government announced the crackdown.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you think Hong Kong will implement new gaming regulations? Drop your opinions in the comments!
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