Gaming giant Netease now requires a Chinese ID number to play on their platform, at least for the strategy game Warcraft 3. That means players abroad no longer have access to the service.

"It makes it very difficult for those players who want to compete with Chinese and train on the Chinese servers where the resistance is much better," says Tom Bramler, manager of the Warcraft 3 team SWE and former e-sports commentator at SVT.

"Like training with the raven team"

It is still possible to play on the US or European servers, where the delay in the game is also significantly reduced. But according to Tom Bramler, it doesn't work if you want to invest in an e-sports career in the game.

- It's like an all-Swedish player would have to train with the raven team. It also creates another barrier to the Western world, which is already difficult to access in the Chinese community, he says.

Want to reduce computer game addiction

The ID checks come after the Chinese government last year introduced a number of restrictions to reduce the gambling of young people who are considered harmful and addictive. Minors may no longer play more than 90 minutes on weekdays and three hours on public holidays.

Between 22.00 and 08.00 they are not allowed to play at all.

Both Netease and Chinese competitor Tencent have previously imposed restrictions on young people's gambling, including the requirement to register with their real name. Tencent also uses facial recognition to determine if a user is a minor.

Set total stops for new games

China is the second largest gaming market in the world after the US, according to analysis company Newzoo. As many as 312.4 million Chinese play online games on PC, according to analysis company Niko Partners.

Control of computer games was tightened considerably in 2018 when the Chinese state put a total stop to new games on the market. The aim should have been to combat computer game addiction. After nine months, however, the authorities began to issue licenses again.

Trying to bypass the check

Now players outside of China are trying to bypass Netease's new controls, according to Tom Bramler.

- I have seen that guides have been put up for how to generate these ID codes, he says.

SVT has searched Netease for a comment.