China’s New Gaming Crackdown is Tanking China’s Economy

CHINA IS CONTINUING ITS CRACKDOWN  ON THE GAMING INDUSTRY. AFTER ITS GAMING COMPANIES LOST BILLIONS IN VALUE,  THOUGH, IT MAY BE HAVING SECOND THOUGHTS. Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell. If you’ve been following China news for a while, you probably know that China’s  got something of a gaming addiction problem. Even China’s military is so addicted to Call of Duty they want to play it in  real life, 1v1 with Taiwan. State media has been calling  gaming a “spiritual opium” Which I g

uess makes LAN  parties opium dens? Honestly, people in both are just as likely to  shower. And for our younger viewers, LAN parties were what people did before widespread  online games existed. Isn’t history fun? In 2008, China became the first country to  classify addiction to gaming as a mental illness. The Chinese government has blamed gaming for everything from nearsightedness, to poor “physical and mental health  as well as academic performance”. In response to this, gamers say, “Get good,

noob.” Gaming addiction boot camps have  sprung up all over the country. But instead of making headlines for how effective they were, these camps became better  known for their brutality. Somehow even more brutal than  brutalities in Mortal Kombat. Stories of kids being locked in solitary confinement for as long as 10 days at a stretch… A teen was even beaten to  death at one of these camps. These internet addiction boot camps were modeled  off military ones, complete with military uniforms, st

rict training, and instructors with  zero tolerance for nonsense. Which doesn’t sound like the best way to get kids interested in  living in the real world again, if you ask me. Then again, I guess a lot of what’s going on in  China would make you want to escape reality. Supposedly under pressure from parents and teachers, Tencent, China’s largest gaming company,  restricted playing time for its addictive mobile game, Honor of Kings, in 2017.  Players between 12 and 18 years old could only play

2 hours a day.  And those  under 12 could only play for an hour a day. But, apparently, that wasn’t  enough for the Chinese government. In 2019, it rolled out rules requiring gamers to register with their real names  so gaming companies could track underage users. It also limited minors “gaming to between 8am and  10pm, with no more than 1.5 hours each day – or three hours on holidays – and no more than…(US$57)  to be spent each month on in-game purchases.” In 2021, the rules got even stricter.

The government banned kids from playing  online games more than 3 hours a week. And those hours were split up between Friday,  Saturday, and Sunday, so they were basically only allowed to play an hour a day on weekends. Are they looking out for the  well-being of kids or grounding them? Tencent said it would use “facial recognition  software so that kids will not be able to use accounts held by adults to play.” Totalitarian mass surveillance affects everyone. China’s crackdown on gaming  didn’t

end there, though. Last month, the State Press and Publication Administration proposed more  rules for gaming companies. Under the new rules, “online games will not be allowed to  force players to fight each other, and must not offer rewards that entice  people to excessively play and spend money.” Those include rewards for daily  logins or in-game purchases. Now, these were only *proposed* rules. The  government didn’t actually change anything. But even though China didn’t go through  with the

rule changes, just the proposal was enough to wipe out billions of dollars  in value from China’s biggest tech giants. I’ll tell you more after the break. Welcome back. The Chinese government published  draft regulations for the gaming industry last month, resulting in  a huge rout in Chinese tech stocks. Chinese companies like Tencent,  Netease, and Bilibili lost billions of dollars in value overnight. That’s crazy! Has anyone ever just come up with an *idea* so bad it cost a  company billions

in losses? You know, besides Disney’s screenwriters. And it wasn’t just Chinese tech companies.   China is the biggest market in the world for gaming. So when the Chinese government changes  the rules, it affects the whole gaming industry. American and European gaming companies  were also hurt by the new proposed rules, although not nearly as badly. In order to calm the market, Chinese gaming firms have unveiled plans to spend millions of  dollars buying back shares from investors. I haven’t see

n such a desperate coin grab since Mario. It was so bad that the Chinese government even  said it would consider revising the rules. Which is crazy, because when has the Chinese government ever  admitted they might have made a mistake. “CCTV reported…that the authorities have heard the ‘concerns and opinions raised by all  parties’ [and that it] ‘will study them carefully and further revise and improve them’” That could just be lip service. The  Chinese government has shown over and over again t

hat it’s not afraid to take out whole  industries with the flick of a pen. Makes sense, since they’re not even afraid to  take out whole races of people. For example, the CCP basically crippled  the private tutoring industry overnight with regulations that were meant  to lower the costs of raising kids. And China’s done this over and over again with  different industries, including the tech industry. Previous crackdowns have wiped out over a trillion  dollars in value from Chinese tech companies

. In fact, China’s gaming industry only recently started making a profit again  after a regulatory freeze that began in 2021. The government basically stopped  approving new games for 9 months, which, as you can imagine, was  a big blow to the industry. And also a big blow to gamers.  You want me to keep playing *the same games* for nine months? What is this, 1993? And it did the same thing in 2018, which just shows you  again why China’s such a terrible investment. So China’s clearly not afraid

of hurting its own companies.  Makes sense, since they’re not even afraid of hurting their own citizens. But here’s why I think it might actually,  as some say, be doing damage control. The vital signs on China’s economy  have been really weak recently, And unemployment, especially among Chinese youth, has gotten so bad,  the government just stopped reporting the data. The youth are unemployed *and* having their video  game consumption limited? Do you want riots? Because that’s how you get riot

s. What next,  someone saying, “Let them eat cake?” And that someone is GlaDOS . The cake is a lie. Xi Jinping needs Chinese companies to  make money so things don’t get worse. Also, if Chinese gaming companies were to go  under, China would lose a lot of soft power. You see, not only is Tencent  China’s largest gaming company, but it’s the world’s largest as well. It owns tons  of gaming studios and has stock in tons of others. This allows China to have a certain  amount of control over the ind

ustry. For example, in 2019, the American company  Activision Blizzard suspended an esport gamer and took away his prize money for  openly supporting the Hong Kong protests. Because gunning people down in Call of Duty — a series  produced by Activision Blizzard — A-okay. But saying “Free Hong Kong”: have you no decency,  sir?! There could be children watching! Activision Blizzard tried to spin it as part  of a ban on expressing political opinions. In its English statement, Activision  Blizzard s

aid that it could take action against players that engage in any act  that brings them into public disrepute, offends a portion of the public, or  otherwise damages Blizzard’s image. Which is especially ridiculous,  because as every gamer knows, nothing could damage Blizzard’s  image more than Blizzard itself. But on its Weibo account, essentially China’s version of Twitter, Activision  Blizzard gave a very different reasoning. The ban was about “protecting  our national dignity or honor.” Yes,

you heard that right. An American  gaming company claimed that banning a player for openly supporting Hong  Kong was “protecting national honor.” It’s pretty clear it wasn’t referring to US  national honor, because the US was supporting Hong Kong protesters at the time. Activision Blizzard also went the extra mile  and banned the the Taiwanese streamers who were interviewing him. Despite them clearly trying to hide under the  desk when he calls for Hong Kong to be liberated. They literally pulle

d the old technique kids were taught in  the 50s to use to hide from atomic blasts, but it wasn’t enough to protect them  from the blowback of a statement. It’s pretty disgusting to see one of America’s  biggest gaming companies acting as China’s censor. But when you consider how much of the video gaming market  China controls, it unfortunately isn’t surprising. Especially since at the time this happened, Tencent reportedly had a 5% stake in the  company. And Activision had collaborated with Ten

cent to bring its games to the China  market. So they were more well-connected than A LAN party. Whoops. I mean an opium den. So if China’s gaming companies lose their  financial influence, the CCP loses influence, too. Speaking of gaming and censorship, I’ve started  another channel to hide controversial content in videos about gaming. I have a new  video I want to show you about that. But first, it’s time to show some love  to the China Uncensored 50 Cent Army, the fans who make this show  pos

sible by supporting us on Patreon. All it takes is a  dollar or more per episode, and you can set a monthly limit.  That’s pateron.com/ChinaUncensored. Today’s question comes from arigaa “Chris, with  China trying to revive it's image internationally, is it unable or unwilling to stop internal  anti-USA propaganda?  it seems like it NEEDS a bad guy to distract people from the  CCP's responsibility for internal problems, but presumably this undermines  it's international efforts?” That question a

ctually shows a pretty deep  understanding of Communism. Marx created a pseudoscientific method of understanding history.  That it’s always driven forward by class struggle, the oppressed verses the oppressors. In  a Communist society, there always needs to be an enemy to fight against. That’s a  common theme in any of Orwell’s novels. That’s especially important when Communists take over a country. (b-roll Mao) The Chinese Communist Party is  now in the position of power. Dare I say, the oppres

sor. So the ideology  that put them in power is also now a danger. That’s why the CCP has actually  targeted young Marxists. So that’s why the CCP always has an enemy,  particularly the US. Because the US is undermining China, and only the CCP can save  China from those evil Western imperialists. Thanks for you question and  your longtime support arigaa. And in my ongoing attempts to talk about  controversial topics YouTube would otherwise censor by hiding them in gaming content,  click on this

video about Incels and Dating Apps According to Outlast Trials.  And you too can fight China’s global censorship by hitting that orange  button and supporting us on Patreon. Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. See you next time.