Gaming addiction is a challenge that faced in different parts of the world which have precipitated proactive measures both from the regulatory authorities as well as games publishers to help curb this menace. Well, one gamer in Brazil took his addiction to the extreme by killing a rival competitor. The victim, Ingrid Oliveira Bueno da Silva, 19, was a top gamer who had met with the accused, 18-year-old Guilherme Alves Costa at his home to take part in a joint competition on Call of Duty: Mobile, both players belonging to rival teams. The pair had first established contact with each other online last month, according to local news reports.

Alves Costa who bears the online name “Flashlight” allegedly stabbed Miss Oliveira Bueno da Silva with a knife repeatedly after she arrived at his home located in Pirituba, north of São Paulo. The accused is reported to have confessed to the crime in a video which he recorded with his smartphone and shared on some WhatsApp group chats including one for his clan. He also shared images of the deceased before leaving the crime scene.

However, the 18-year-old later submitted himself to law enforcement agents after the clan leadership alerted the appropriate authorities. The alleged murderer even insists that his mental health was “completely fit” and he “wanted to do this,” according to a statement by São Paulo’s State Department of Public Security.

The mental health of the accused will likely be accessed to determine if he isn’t insane. No sane person will stab his fellow over video games. Or wait, there is precedence. In May 2010, a French gamer, Julien Barreaux, 20, hunted his rival for seven months and killed him for killing his character in the game Counter-Strike the previous November.

Also, in 2018, two professional video gamers were killed by a distraught rival player who was angry he lost at an eSports tournament in Florida. The shooter who had a history of mental illness later turned the gun on himself.

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There has been a rise in cases of gaming addiction especially among teenager and that is a cause for concern. In India, a 16-year-old boy has reportedly lost his life after continuously playing PUBG for several days, skipping meals and did not even drink water.

The report carried by IndiaTV stated that the boy who resides in Andhra Pradesh developed severe dehydration due to the fact that he wasn’t taking food and water. When the family got to know after he fell sick, he was rushed to a private hospital in the city of Eluru. The boy further developed severe diarrhoea and had to undergo a surgical operation. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it through the surgery.

PUBG or PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is one of the most popular Battle Royale games around the globe. The game is available for mobile phones, Xbox console as well as for Windows PC. The game, just like any other game can be addictive if caution isn’t exercised. The addiction is common among teenage players.

A case of PUBG related addiction death was recorded in India in January this year. The deceased was a 25-year-old man named Harshal Memane who died after suffering a brain stroke due to prolonged PUBG mobile gameplay. The Pune based man complained about not being able to move his right arm and leg while playing the game. It was diagnosed at a nearby hospital where he was rushed to that he suffered from intracerebral haemorrhage. Sadly, he didn’t recover from it and died moments later.

In China, gaming addiction and its attendant health challenges have made the government institute several restrictions, especially for online gaming. Measures such as facial recognition, real name verification to detect underage gamers and game time restrictions have been put in place. That may happen in India soon if such an alarming trend continues.

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Oppo has just released its new anti gaming addiction system earlier today (18th March 2020). The system will limit and strictly controls the expenditure of minors or unregistered users. This is a part of the first wave of such systems from OEMs that are seeking to combat mobile gaming addiction.

According to official notes, games run on the Oppo smartphones with the anti addiction system will have users input a real name authentication. This is mandatory and will be required to fill. In other words, real life details and identity must be provided to buy games or other such purchases. This new system will automatically restrict users under the age of 8 from spending more than 50 Yuan (roughly 7 US Dollars) in a single transaction and not more than 200 Yuan (roughly 28 US Dollars) per month.

Similarly, people over the age of 16 but under 18, can not make a single transaction crossing 100 Yuan (roughly 14 US Dollars) or 400 Yuan (roughly 57 US Dollars) in a month. So, users that meet any of the above criteria, will face restriction when launching the Oppo anti gaming addiction service and inputting their official details.

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Oppo, similar to various other OEMs, has been facing varying degrees of impacts due to the recent Coronavirus pandemic. However, the Chinese company has still gone ahead with the troubled development to deploy the new system as soon as possible. Underage people with gaming addictions have been a rampant problem in recent times in the Southeast Asian country. China has had many strict laws and guidelines in place and has been actively trying to curb this.

Notably, Tencent Games, a notable game publisher from China, has recently announced that it will be running several game trials to promote its anti addiciton gaming policies starting from this month. Furthermore, even the Chinese Government is straining the game studios, making it harder for new game titles from being launched in the country. Although, it remains to be seen just how effective the new Oppo anti gaming system or steps from the local government is, so stay tuned.

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Last year, Tencent started implementing a policy which saw 12-year-olds and under getting only one hour per day of gameplay time, restricted to before 9 pm. Older kids are only be allowed to play for two hours a day. The identification process is powered by real name verification using China’s public security database. The company has announced that it has completed the nationwide rollout of the real name verification of one of its most popular game Honour of Kings which is also known as Arena of Valor.

According to a message on WeChat, the rollout was completed 12 days earlier than scheduled. The company also revealed that with the full implementation of this safety check, the playtime of players aged 12 years or younger fell by 46% and the playtime of older teens above 12 years old dropped 24%. The company commenced the implementation of real-name registration on Honour of Kings two months back as part of efforts to curb China’s growing game addiction, especially among teens and kids.

China has been grappling with a monumental rise in cases of gaming addiction especially among teenagers in the country with an estimated 24 million kids affected. The government also blames the country’s widespread myopia on the playing of video games. As a result, several measures are being taken to stem the tide. One of such measures is what Tencent is the real-name recognition. Another measure which is still being worked on is facial recognition. The company has started the second round of testing of facial recognition-aided ID checks. It said it would soon expand the scale of testing as well as implementation, meaning that more users will be requested to verify their identities through facial recognition.

Read Also: Tencent deploys facial recognition to detect underage gamers amidst China’s gaming addiction crisis

In case you don’t know, Tencent Holdings is the world’s top-grossing games publisher. Its most popular game is King of Glory, with over 50m daily players in China. The game has even been heavily linked to the epidemic rise of video game addiction in the country.  Earlier this month, Tencent disclosed that there are plans to roll out the real-name verification system to its entire game line-up by 2019. All these measures have had a negative impact on the company’s revenue and even that of the industry.

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China’s once booming video gaming market is under pressure as regulators have tightened its grip on the approval of new games. This is not a new thing, as according to China’s top state media, Government has not granted any new licenses to any new games since March, 2018. For a market as big as China, this is a really big deal!

China is doing so to tackle the increasing gaming addiction among children. As per the Xinhua News Agency, Online Gaming is a huge hazard to health and deteriorate their overall development.

The news began circulating, after last week’s document which was published under the guidance of Chinese president Xi Jinping. The document outlines how China would decrease the myopia ailment among children’s. In a response, today, Xinhua News Agency stated that “For the nation’s future, we can never allow gaming companies to hunt for wealth by inducing teens to get addicted [to games].” 

Gaming addiction is not new concept in China, but it has risen to alarming levels now. In rural China, children are more addicted to games due to different lifestyle. The new commentary by State Media directly follows the latest report by the WHO (World health Organisation), which states that compulsively playing video games qualifies as a mental health condition. Further, gaming shift the focus of children from studies and mislead them with wrong views about the world. These reasons are catering to the China Government’s decision to tighten the grip over the gaming market.

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Now, the Chinese regulator will restrict the amount of time people spend in playing games. Also, they will try to restrict games which are more prone to addiction. It will also establish a new reminder system for games which will send notifications to users and will remind about the time, and health advisories.

The new stand by Chinese Government will surely hit the gaming companies in China. It has been the largest gaming market in terms of size but now, the growth is slowing for the first time after many years.  The Year-on-Year growth has dipped this year. Even, China’s major internet giant, Tencent Holdings has posted loss for the first time since 2005. Similarly, NetEase, one of the World’s biggest game companies has got lower earnings than expected. No new games have been published since March 28, 2018 in China. Currently, we are unsure when China will start issuing licenses to new Games.

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