NPC deputy to submit motion for online video games legislation

Players compete with each other in Electronic Sports in south China’s Anhui Province.
Photo: Yanghua, People’s Daily online

Zhao Wanping, a deputy of the National People’s Congress and vice director of Anhui Academy of Agricultural Sciences in East China, will submit a motion on regulating online games administration and legislation at the two sessions the annual sessions of China’s top legislative and political advisory bodies, this year, news site thepaper.cn reported on Monday.

The motion was made to better protect the country’s 300 million teenagers from addicting to online video games. “Children tend to confuse the virtual world with reality and act in the real world according to what they see in the virtual world,” Zhao said, adding that “online games may trigger psychiatric disorders, and harm children’s psychological and physical health and society in the same way drugs do and may be even more harmful than drugs.”

However, online video game developers have always invested money in developing games and making them more appealing in order to pursue high profits, leaving little space for supervision from society and parents. In China, only the “Interim Measures for the Administration of Online Games” and the “Opinions on Strictly Regulating the Management of Online Game Markets” are currently in place to regulate online games, leaving a gap in legislation in this field.

Additionally, “interim measures” and “opinion” are far from sufficient to regulate the sprawling online games market. The legislation is urgently needed in this area right now, according to Zhao. It has become the common expectation of families and society for the relevant laws to be released as soon as possible in China to strengthen regulations on online games, so as to safeguard people’s legitimate rights and protect their life and properties, especially those of teenagers.

(Global Times & People’s Daily)