Tencent will implement new measures in order to prevent children in China from gaming during curfew hours. The company has announced it will use a facial recognition program for some of its games, automatically booting off anyone deemed too young to play during restricted times.
Digital Trends highlighted Tencent's latest move as a response to a law that China passed in 2019 to limit the time children and teenagers spend playing games. According to NPR, the anti-addiction legislation restricts minors from playing after 10pm and before 8am. Outside of those hours, children can play for 90 minutes a day, but are permitted to play for three hours on holidays.
Tencent's new efforts will be implemented under its Midnight Patrol program, where it will scan the faces of everyone playing certain games and compare them to registered names and faces. Minors caught violating their allotted play time or gaming during curfew will be kicked off. There is no opting out of the program, as Tencent's technology will automatically assume anyone not complying is a minor and remove them from the game.
The move from Tencent will impact 60 games as part of its initial program, but Digital Trend's report also notes that this does not include League of Legends. State-owned Sixth Tone also chronicled the reactions of some users, highlighting praise from adults and the dissatisfaction coming from teenagers.
Outside of its new program, Tencent continues to pursue efforts to grow its presence in the gaming industry. Just in 2021, we've seen the company acquire a minority stake in Life is Strange developer Dotnod, and it's also picked up another minority stake in Lost Soul Aside developer UltiZero Games. We also covered a recent rumor that Tencent may be looking to buy some bigger players, but nothing has come of the rumor just yet.