Tencent to check age of its gamers, will cap playing time

Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings is tightening checks on the age of people playing online games, as China tries to tackle gaming addition.

Earlier this year, Tencent introduced a registration system for its hugely popular game Honour of Kings.

The system, which checks players' identities and ages against a police database, will apply to all Tencent games by 2019, media reports said.

It will mean children under 12 will only be able to play for an hour a day.

Older children can play for up to two hours, but not during a night time curfew while tencent insists its profits won't take a hit from a decision to limit the time children can play one of its most popular games.

Tencent's revenue model depends on getting existing gamers to spend more time on their products.

Its last annual report says its strategy is to turn casual gamers into "midcore" or "hardcore" gamers.

Tencent made $7.2bn in the first quarter of this year, and more than half - about $3.9bn - came from gaming.

The limits were put in place after the government-owned People's Daily labelled the game "poison" and called for more regulations.

China is the world's largest gaming market, but the authorities are increasingly concerned about addiction and the impact gaming is having on children's eyesight.

Under pressure from local regulators, Tencent introduced restrictions in July 2017 to limit the amount of time children spend playing Honour of Kings.

Access to Honour of Kings is now restricted to one hour a day for children aged under 12 and two hours for children between 12 and 18.

Earlier this year, the company added a real-name registration system to encourage players to keep to the rules and carried out trials of facial-recognition software.

Tencent, which also operates the Chinese social network WeChat, posted its first profit decline since 2005 this summer.

The drop was blamed on tighter regulation, specifically around the approval of licences that allow companies to make money from new mobile games.