Games worth discovering
Tencent Sets Precedent in Banning Boosting Service
1K View2023-02-24
In a first-of-its-kind move, a popular boosting app has been banned in China. The app, which was designed to help gamers increase their rankings, has been convicted of unfair competition and undermining Tencent’s playtime restriction mechanism. The ban comes as part of China's ongoing crackdown on video game addiction among minors.
The app in question, called Boosting Party, was popular among gamers who wanted to boost their rank quickly and easily, especially in Tencent’s mobile games Honor of Kings and Game for Peace.
Due to the fact that the boosting service was facilitated through the users of the Boosting Party app, there were instances where underage individuals accessed accounts belonging to adults in order to play games. This practice is in clear violation of Tencent's playtime restriction mechanisms and China's regulations on minors’ gaming.
This is the first time a boosting app has been banned in China, and it represents a significant victory for Tencent, which has long sought to crack down on such apps. Boosting apps are a common problem in the gaming community, as they can ruin the balance of skill-based matchmaking systems and lead to frustration among most users.
In fact, Tencent has been working on banning boosting apps for some time, but it has been difficult to do so without specific laws in place or evidence of wrongdoing. The company has been forced to rely on the existing regulation of game time for minors to sue the boosting service, as they did violate certain policies.
In the end, the court sentenced Boosting Party to compensate Tencent for economic losses and reasonable legal expenses totaling 142,917 USD. As the case involved the protection of minors, the court also ordered Boosting Party to immediately stop the operation of its app to prevent minors from using adult game accounts through the app.
Perhaps in the future, game-boosting services will introduce mechanisms similar to Tencent's mobile games to prevent minors from playing games for excessive periods of time. However, Tencent's fight against boosting services is unlikely to end easily or quickly.
20 Chinese Mobile Games Rated for How Well They Protect Minors From Addiction
Weilin Li
A local research institute has reviewed 20 Chinese mobile games in its efforts to protect minors from game addiction. Honor of Kings was rated most effective, getting 85 points out of 100.
Just behind that, Game for Peace and Naruto: Ultimate Storm both earned 83 points. With Onmyoji and Minecraft’s Chinese version, these five mobile games belonged to the First Tier.
The institute releasing this report is the Southern Finance and Economics Compliance Tech Research Institute.
Superpixel9K2022-05-27
miHoYo’s New Account Security Policy Controversy Reveals the Fragile Balance of The Account Trading
Recently, Chinese players found miHoYo had silently changed its authentication method. The new method allows a player to change their accounts’ password or security phone number after performing a successful facial verification. It will help players easily recover their hacked accounts. But surprisingly, there are many people upset about this because it broke the fragile balance of Genshin Impact account trading.
Superpixel3K2022-02-16
Tencent’s Games Revenue for China Domestic Market Hit 20.22 Billion USD in 2021, an Increase of 6%
Chinese game giant Tencent today released its financial report for Q4 and the full year of 2021. It reported an 6% increase of games revenue for the domestic market, with 128.8 billion CNY (~20.22 Billion USD), while its revenue for the overseas markets increased by 31%, to 45.5 billion CNY.
The China domestic market’s games revenue growth was driven by the impressive performance of Honor of Kings, Call of Duty Mobile, and Moonlight Blade Mobile, but restricted by the limited revenue of Dungeon and Fighters, and Game for Peace.
Superpixel2K2022-03-24
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