Alyssa Abkowitz reports in the Wall Street Journal:
Tencent plans to introduce digital contracts that allow parents and their children to negotiate reasonable play times, following criticism that school children were neglecting their studies to play Tencent’s games. Children can exchange their playing time by doing housework or reaching certain [academic] scores. Children can ask their friends to witness the signing of the contract. Tencent is the largest videogame publisher in the world by revenue, with a market capitalization topping $500 billion.
Chinese videogame company Tencent Holdings Ltd. plans to introduce digital contracts that allow parents and their children to negotiate reasonable play times, following criticism last year that school children were neglecting their studies to play one of Tencent’s games.
“With the proposed feature, children can exchange their playing time by doing housework or reaching certain [academic] scores,” Tencent chief executive Ma Huateng said at a news conference late Saturday. “Children can ask their friends to witness the signing of the contract.”
Mr. Ma, also known as Pony Ma, held the news conference on the sidelines of the annual meetings of China’s two governing bodies, the National People’s Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Mr. Ma is a delegate to the National People’s Congress.
His comments came as Yu Xinwen, a vice president of Guangzhou University who is a delegate of the CPPCC, urged Beijing to develop a system to classify online games by age.
“Some online games have become the new opium to poison the growth of teenagers,” Ms. Yu said.
Ms. Yu was referring to “Honor of Kings,” Tencent’s top-grossing game. Tencent imposed time restrictions on play last summer following criticism in state media that students were staying up too late playing the mobile game, causing them to skip homework and fall asleep in class.
At his news conference, Mr. Ma said games can be used for learning and that Tencent plans to introduce titles that will help children learn math and science.
Shenzhen-based Tencent is the largest videogame publisher in the world by revenue, with a market capitalization topping $500 billion. Its popular WeChat social messaging app, which also has games inside it, is used by nearly 1 billion people to do everything from chatting with friends to hailing taxis and paying for restaurant bills.
Mr. Ma is China’s richest man, now with an estimated fortune of $47 billion thanks to Tencent’s share value rise of more than 100% last year, according to the latest wealth report published by research firm Hurun Report
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