Chinanews.com client, Beijing, February 23 (Reporter Wu Tao) "I played games for 7 days during the Spring Festival holiday, are you like this?" According to statistics, there are more than 500 million online game users in my country, that is, every 2 netizens One is playing online games.
With so many game users, how many of them are minors?
Is the juvenile anti-addiction system known by some game manufacturers really working?
game! game! Go crazy during the holidays!
Recently, some media reported, “A 26-year-old guy has been playing games for 8 hours and he has a brain infarction.”
Some netizens reported that when playing games, they often encounter suspected underage players, “I often meet elementary school students when I play games during the Spring Festival holiday, and I can tell by listening to the voice. It’s milky.”
"My son pestered me every day to ask for the '98K' toy and the'Level 3 bag'. Later, I learned that it was a prop in the "Peace Elite" game." Some consumers told Chinanews.com reporters, "But My son is only 6 years old."
As of December 2020, the age structure of Chinese Internet users.
Image source: CNNIC
According to data from China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), as of December 2020, the number of Internet users in my country has reached 989 million, of which Internet users aged 19 and under account for 16.6%, about 164 million people, and Internet users under 10 account for 3.1% .
In online "surfing" applications, games are popular.
As of December 2020, there are 887,000 game apps on the Chinese app market, accounting for 25.7% of all apps.
In other words, one of every four apps on the app market in my country is a game app.
CNNIC data shows that there are over 500 million online game users in my country.
That is, one out of every two Internet users will play online games.
It is hard to imagine how many underage game users among the approximately 164 million netizens aged 19 and below.
Is the game anti-addiction system mere formality?
At present, most game manufacturers claim to have built anti-addiction systems for minors.
For example, Tencent introduced that online games use an anti-addiction system, which prevents minors from relying on long-term online to obtain an increase in personal ability and compensation in the game, and effectively control the online time of minor users.
But is it really effective?
It is understood that for minors to prevent addiction, many game manufacturers currently adopt real-name authentication to screen out minor users; the second is that the cumulative online time of minor users exceeds a certain range, and the game revenue decreases, thereby restricting the future. Adult online time.
The introduction of NetEase’s game anti-addiction system shows that “Minors’ cumulative online time is less than 3 hours as healthy game time; cumulative game time over 3 hours is fatigue game time, and the revenue is halved; cumulative game time exceeds 5 hours as unhealthy game time, revenue Decrease to 0." The same goes for Tencent Games.
It is worth noting that the cumulative game time when the game revenue drops to zero is 5 full hours.
Moreover, Netease pointed out that “if the accumulated offline time has reached 5 hours, the accumulated online time and accumulated offline time will be cleared, and the online time and offline time will be accumulated again.” If this rule is followed, start from 0:00 You can play games for up to 14 hours until 24 o'clock that day.
Netease's description of common problems in game addiction prevention.
Image source: screenshot
Some netizens reported that the same is true for Tencent Games.
A game player told a reporter from Chinanews.com, “In some cases, after a total of 5 hours, you may be asked to go offline by the game, but you can log in after a few hours and you can play again.”
In this regard, Tencent said, “This is unlikely to happen to minors. For adults, the competent department does not require any anti-addiction for adults. This is just a spontaneous exploration of Tencent Games, not the supervisor. Department’s requirements."
During the investigation, the reporter also found that for some competitive games, many players experience the fun of PK or competition. Game revenue is not important to them, so it is difficult to prevent addiction by relying on methods such as diminishing returns. effect.
Introduction to Tencent's game anti-addiction rules.
Tencent official website screenshot
In addition, the key part of the game anti-addiction system is real-name authentication, but some game real-name authentication is "so-so", just fill in a name and ID number to pass the verification.
The reporter experienced "Plants vs. Zombies 2", and after filling in the fictitious name and ID card information, the real name verification can be passed.
The reporter's investigation found that there is a large amount of real-name information on the Internet. "Going online to find names and ID information to pass the game's real-name authentication is almost an open secret, and elementary school students know it."
Is face recognition effective in preventing addiction?
Real-name authentication cannot achieve the effect. How to identify whether the player is an adult or a minor who has passed the real-name authentication?
This has become a difficult point in the current game anti-addiction.
In order to solve this problem, some game manufacturers have introduced face recognition functions, which are known as the "killer features" of anti-addiction for minor games.
Face recognition reminders in the game, but you can choose "Reject".
Screenshot
However, the reporter learned during the interview that taking "Glory of the King" as an example, some users said, "It only needs face recognition once, and there will be no prompts in the future." Other risks such as Didi Cross-City Shuttle are more risky. High network applications require face recognition every time they are used.
In this regard, Tencent stated that the facial recognition verification for suspected minors has covered all games operated by Tencent. Whenever the system requires facial recognition verification, whether it is "failed" or "rejected verification" will be included. Anti-addiction management.
In fact, the reporter encountered the face recognition pop-up window when he experienced "Glory of the King" in December 2020, but after "refusal to verify" several times, by the Spring Festival holiday of 2021, he never encountered the face recognition pop-up window again. .
Tencent stated that for adults, the competent authority does not require any anti-addiction for adults.
But netizens question: Isn’t face recognition just for spot checks on suspected underage players?
If you "refuse to verify" a few times and no longer do random checks, the significance will obviously be compromised.
In contrast, Tencent has already done a lot of work in preventing minor game addiction.
In reality, many game manufacturers currently do not have online face recognition to identify underage game users.
Of course, Tencent is currently the largest game manufacturer in China and is far ahead of other companies.
According to its 2019 financial report, among the 10 most popular mobile games in the world, 5 were developed by Tencent.
Tencent's 2020 third-quarter financial report shows that in the first 10 months of 2020, the average daily active users of "Honor of Kings" exceeded 100 million.
Why is it
difficult to
prevent addiction in
games ?
First of all, game manufacturers are less willing to promote. Many companies that seem to have complicated businesses are actually online games.
According to Tencent's financial report, in the third quarter of 2020, online game revenue increased by 45% to RMB 41.422 billion.
On average, the daily income from games is about 450 million yuan.
Image source: Screenshot of the financial report data released by Tencent
NetEase's financial report shows that in the third quarter of 2020, net income from online game services was 13.9 billion yuan, an increase of 20.2% year-on-year.
In the quarter, NetEase revenue was 18.658 billion yuan, which means that game revenue accounted for about 74% of total revenue.
Secondly, as the aforementioned Tencent said, there are currently no mandatory requirements for anti-addiction in games for adults.
Many aspects are still in the exploratory stage.
In November 2019, the National Press and Publication Administration issued the "Notice on Preventing Minors from Indulging in Online Games", requiring online game companies to explore and make prompts suitable for users of different age groups; relevant industry organizations should explore and implement specific standards and regulations for age-appropriate prompts. Urge online game companies to implement the age-appropriate reminder system; online game companies should pay attention to analyzing the causes of minor addiction, and timely modify the content, functions or rules of the game that caused the addiction.
However, in actual operation, game manufacturers often design various rights to induce users to be online for a long time in order to enhance user stickiness.
For example, in "QQ Three Kingdoms", the concept of "vitality" is designed, which can only be obtained by users online (except for the purchase of related items with RMB). In the game, many places need "vitality", so some users keep daily Being online for a long time is for "vitality".
Some analysts pointed out that the prevention of juvenile addiction requires joint efforts from multiple parties, and that parents, schools and other social forces need to perform the guardianship responsibility of juveniles, and strengthen the education of minors' healthy and reasonable use of online games.
What do you say?
(Finish)