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Investing.com — NetEase stock (NASDAQ:NTES) slumped 7% in Monday’s premarket trading after Chinese regulators announced new rules limiting the amount of time players under the age of 18 can spend playing games online amid mounting concerns over the impact of gaming on children.
Users under 18 will be limited to an hour of gameplay on Fridays, weekends and holidays, state news agency Xinhua reported.
Online gaming companies will be barred from providing gaming services to minors outside those hours and will have to implement measures to enforce the new rules.
In 2019, China introduced rules that barred minors from playing online games between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. and restricted the amount of time they could play.
Stricter rules governing the use of online gaming by children had been expected since a state media report, early this month, called online gaming ‘opium for the mind’.
The new rules come amid a broad based crackdown by Beijing on China’s tech giants, including Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) and Tencent, which has spooked investors.
