China's gaming crackdown
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 13 October 2021
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why the government doesn't like video games, and what's next for China's gaming culture. Ed Butler speaks to Josh Ye, who covers gaming for the South China Morning Post, and Professor Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute. German professional League of Legends player Maurice 'Amazing' Stückenschneider describes China's current dominance in the world of eSports, and the damage that restricting playing hours could do, and Chinese games investor Charlie Moseley describes how the increasing pressure from authorities is affecting games developers in the country today.
(Photo: League of Legends players at a tournament in Shanghai, Credit: Riot Games Inc via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. Today, Beijing's new |
| 0:07.5 | spiritual war to capture the hearts and minds of its youth. They see gaming as a kind of opium of the |
| 0:17.0 | mind. It is not bringing up the best of what Xi Jinping and the Communist Party of China |
| 0:23.2 | would like of the new generations of Chinese. Yes, strict limits on screen time for Chinese kids |
| 0:30.3 | everywhere. But what effect is this going to have on China's tech firms? It's clear that |
| 0:35.6 | China has somewhat turned a corner. Economic growth was the |
| 0:38.5 | priority of the central government. Now ideological goals are the priority. And that's coming at the |
| 0:44.0 | expense of major industries. That's all to come in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:52.6 | Welcome to come to Wang's Royal.Rong-Yo. |
| 0:55.3 | The enemy has five-mile to-da-tack-tall-tall-tall-june-all-tall-chun-te. |
| 1:01.3 | That's the sound of Honor of Kings, |
| 1:04.0 | a wildly popular mobile game developed by the Chinese company Tencent, |
| 1:08.8 | Crash-Bang Wallach. |
| 1:16.5 | Duran! developed by the Chinese company Tencent. Crash-bang Wallach. Yes, there were an estimated 100 million Chinese players running, shooting, stabbing, casting spells on each other like this, not so long ago. |
| 1:25.8 | There are fewer now, though, possibly, as new rules in China heavily restrict how games like this not so long ago. There are fewer now though possibly as new rules in China |
| 1:29.0 | heavily restrict how games like this are being played by children specifically. Under 18s can now |
| 1:35.3 | only play on Fridays, bank holidays and weekends and even then just in the evening and for no more |
| 1:41.4 | than three hours a week. Is this what they call a nanny state, I wonder? |
| 1:45.1 | Wicked stepmother state, some teenagers may be thinking. |
| 1:48.5 | Either way, it's part of a wider effort to attack the country's growing games culture. |
| 1:54.4 | It's when the Premier Xi Jinping clearly is keen to reverse. |
| 1:58.1 | I don't think the Chinese government is targeting the young people in particular. |
... |
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