In recent hours, some of the biggest gaming corporations in China suffered from sizeable tumbles in their shares as the National Press and Publication Administration published a draft of guidelines aimed at clamping down on spending in online games. This action saw Tencent’s share value plummet by around 16%, with a loss of around $54 billion, while NetEase’s value collapsed by almost 30%.
These new guidelines are directed at the rampant issues concerning spending exorbitant amounts of money in online games that are bursting at the seams with microtransactions.
China’s New Gaming Rules
In Beijing, the new guidelines that were published were created to curb excess spending in online games. It’s no big secret that China is a huge contributor to the ‘free-to-play, pay-to-win’ market of games, which are typically costless to get into but offer microtransactions to all users that are far too accessible and addictive.
In the new guidelines, it was stressed that:
- Online games must set spending limits
- Online games must ban daily login rewards
- Players who stream their games must not be able to receive large tips
- Probability-based luck draws must not be offered
- Online game approvals must be processed by regulators within 60 days of publishing
As time goes on, the financial side of gaming is coming under increasing scrutiny. From the cost of games to unfair acquisitions, and from microtransactions to lootboxes, it seems there a new scandalous topic to discuss with each passing day, with many of these topics ultimately growing long in the tooth and hanging around for far too long.
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