Away From Keyboard: China’s Video Game Crackdown
BIM-RAY YAU
Disconnecting from a match and leaving your team hanging during the middle of a battle is one of the gravest sins a video game player can commit online. Going “away from keyboard” (AFK) is the online gamer’s equivalent of a soldier going AWOL, and while a gamer might not face court martial, the social consequences of deserting your team is severe. In one of the biggest markets for video gaming, however, tens of millions of gamers might find themselves disconnected from their multiplayer games not because of poor connections or rage-quitting, but because of new restrictions imposed in China on gaming time quotas. Introduced September 2021, these new limits amount to the strictest of their kind worldwide – minors now find themselves limited to three hours of gaming time every week.
While these regulations might seem like they only affect die-hard gamers who grind for hours each day, the implications of China’s video game ban go far beyond the lamentations of dedicated players. The new video game ban is one part of the Chinese Communist Party’s desire to wield absolute control over all aspects of society and culture, a desire that will change the trajectory of China’s world-leading technology scene and the global gaming industry forever.
The video game industry is only the latest target in a wider crackdown on tech, a campaign which started with the surprise inspection of Ant Group, a major financial tech company owned by Jack Ma’s Alibaba conglomerate, and the subsequent delay of its much-anticipated IPO. This heavy-handed government intervention sent shockwaves throughout China’s tech lobby, and in the year since Ant Group’s humbling, China’s fight with big tech has spread to encompass everything from tutoring firms to Didi Chuxing, the Chinese equivalent of Uber.
China’s government sees their attack on tech as a chance to not only rein in wealthy tycoons who have amassed too much power, but also an opportunity to reshape the tech industry and its cultural footprint in its image. Gaming is no different. The official line for the video game ban was the authorities’ concern about the perils of gaming addiction, from causing physical health impairments such as nearsightedness to a dizzying array of mental health problems that require vast amounts of therapy to overcome. Far from a problem exclusive to China, governments worldwide have already attempted similar policies to curb addictions, though none as extreme as the three-hour rule. In 2011, South Korea introduced a gaming curfew for minors between midnight and 6 AM to address the same concerns. China’s problems with gaming addiction came to the forefront with mobile games in the last decade, but South Korea’s market – and struggles with the same problems – predated the Chinese experience by years with its established console market and thriving internet café culture. However, the South Korean government gave up on their curfew law due to its ineffectiveness and controversy just days before China introduced its gaming restrictions, opting for more holistic policies such as allowing parents to arrange approved gaming times .
Other countries’ lack of success in reducing gaming addiction through similar policies makes the Chinese Communist Party’s decision to double down confusing, especially considering the lucrative size of its gaming industry. The University of Southern California’s US-China Institute estimated the size of China’s gaming population at 600 million in 2018, by far the largest in the world, contributing billions of dollars in revenue to both domestic tech companies and foreign game developers. Curbing a massive online gaming industry seems particularly jarring because of the Chinese government’s high-profile efforts to promote it. During the past decade, the government declared Esports a professional sport, funded subsidies to promote gaming-related competitions and events, and even instated gaming-related courses in state universities. However, the policy makes more sense when placed in conjunction with Party doctrine to assert control over all aspects of Chinese culture and societal values. The attack on video games serves as one part of a wider strategy by Xi Jinping’s administration to reshape China, from defaming celebrities who flaunt privilege to republishing textbooks with new content on Xi Jinping Thought.
The video game industry presents an especially ripe target for action due to its relative freedom from top-down control before the crackdown. While bans did exist, notably for video game consoles such as Sony’s PlayStation or Microsoft’s Xbox, Chinese gamers had one of the few spaces that China’s censorship machines had yet to touch. Although the Chinese video game regulator licenses a limited number of games for release every year (restricting games that did not conform with Chinese cultural or political values from release) censorship in this case only existed in theory, as the government allowed a massive grey market for gaming to develop. Chinese gamers, for example, can access the global version of Steam, one of the largest online platforms for purchasing games, without any restrictions, for reasons unknown to even Valve, Steam’s developer. This means gamers in China can access a library of thousands of unlicensed games, many of which contain political messages that run contrary to the Chinese state’s official messages. The crackdown on online games sends a clear message to the world: if the CCP is willing to wield an iron fist on an online-gaming industry where Chinese companies dominate, then foreign game developers that rely on China as a crucial source of revenue are next, lest they refuse to fall in line.
From a shining light of economic vibrance and a cornerstone of youth life, China’s video game industry now verges on a collapse as devastating as its rise was meteoric. The Chinese government’s decision to assert control sends a signal to not just its own populace but also worldwide of the Communist Party’s intent to enforce its vision of society at all costs. The crackdown will have repercussions beyond the potential loss of entire generations of Chinese video gamers – just as China’s influence shapes Hollywood’s narratives, the currently untouched video game industry may soon suffer the same fate. For those who cherish freedom of expression, it is a harrowing thought.
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