China is cracking down on video games once again, to the chagrin of American video game companies.
Previously, children in China were limited (yes, they have a national video game limit) to 90 minutes of online gaming on weekdays and three hours a day on weekends for a total of 13.5 hours per week. The new rules will now limit them to playing in a one-hour window, between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays.
Stocks are already dropping, with Roblox, Take-Two Interactive Software, and Electronic Arts all taking a hit. The most notable company caught up in this is Activision Blizzard, which is also dealing with the state of California in an anti-discrimination lawsuit.
Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, had previously humored the demands of China’s thin-skinned regime, handing down a punishment for a Hong Kong-based streamer for supporting the Hong Kong protesters. When a player in Blizzard’s Overwatch esports league, Park Jong-ryeol, criticized China, the league’s Chinese teams threatened to boycott any match that included him. They ended up backing down, but Park hasn’t appeared in a match all season.
All of that pandering is for naught, it seems, as now Activision’s market has been artificially limited even more than it was previously. So American companies can try to pander to China to chase the money in the Chinese market, but ultimately, the Chinese government will do whatever it wants, regardless of the good credit that companies, including Activision, think they have built up.
