Recently, I was reading about Tencent founder Pony Ma meeting
with Chinese officials about antitrust issues.
I’ve written about WeChat’s anti-competition problems before so I was doing some follow up.
It is not a bad article. But a line near the end caught my eye:
> Lawmakers again brought up gaming addiction
among youths during a gathering of top Chinese leaders in Beijing in March
Tencent is the biggest gaming company in the world, with the most profitable games in the
world too. It is kind of amusing to think about Xi Jinping and the rest of China’s most powerful men
sitting in a conference room talking about Honor of Kings and Moonlight Blade.
But they apparently are, and it is something concerning enough to go to the highest levels.
Video game addiction is a problem that spans many Asian countries, so you don’t need to
comment that. But this video is going to focus on gaming addiction issues amidst the Chinese youth.
Why are they are getting addicted? What’s going on? And what can be done about it?
There are 494 million Chinese who play internet games.
That’s over 57% of the country’s total internet users. Most internet gamers play it healthily,
in such a way that helps them cope with the slings and arrows of everyday life.
However, a significant percentage have found themselves addicted to their games. This
addiction can cause side effects similar to that of other addictions: Depression,
anxiety, academic dysfunction, bad sleep, and worsening relations with friends and family.
Internet Gaming Disorder as it is formally called is a newly defined habit and impulse disease,
grouped together with gambling addictions. How do you know if you have it?
It is largely diagnosed through the use of self-reported questionnaires.
The questions differ, but can include the following:
When I am not actually playing video games, am I thinking about playing? (Sign of Preoccupation)
When I cannot play any video games, do I get irritable and restless? (Sign of Withdrawal)
Have I been spending an increasing amount of time playing video games recently? (Sign of Tolerance)
I have tried to cut back or stop playing games.
Or I usually play games for longer than I intend. (Sign of Loss of control)
Because of video games, I have reduced my homework,
eaten less, have gone to bed later, or have gotten into an argument with someone.
(Continued use despite knowledge of problems + Conflict with job/relationships/school)
Sometimes I conceal my gaming from others. (Deception)
When I feel bad, nervous, or sad, I play video games. (Escape).
Like with all things psychological, context matters and experiences vary. A disorder does
not have to follow the letters of the rule for someone to have it. But, based on the answers to
these questions, a "score" can be generated and a degree of addiction can be assessed.
## Prevalence
Just how big of a problem is this? The numbers vary for many reasons.
For instance, a 2009 study of gamers in 4 colleges in southwest China found that 15.5% of those
gamers had some mild addiction, with 1.5% having it much more severe. In 2010, a 100,000 person
study (the biggest yet) reported a 3.2% adolescent addiction rate. Overall, not just of gamers.
Okay, 1.5-3% is not so bad, right? But then again, these studies are quite old and pre-date
the WeChat and mobile gaming boom. I personally think they are a bit misleading, which is why it
surprises me that I see these older surveys cited in papers as recent as 2018. We need newer data.
A 2020 survey study of 6,400 adolescent gamers recruited through WeChat said that 17%
of Chinese adolescents have some form of addiction to internet video games.
Another 2019 study in Shanghai and Xi'an reported 13%. This is in comparison to ranges of 1.5-2%
in Europe, albeit using smaller sample sizes.
We can quibble over the studies and relevancy of the data all day.
Let us move on with the belief that we can reasonably say that the problem in some form or
another exists in a range somewhere between 3.5% to 20% of the total Chinese adolescent population.
The real number is likely to be somewhere in that middle range, which is kind of concerning.
One out of every seven or so Chinese kids have some form of gaming habit.
This problem exists amongst Taiwanese and Hong Kong youths too. We can use their data to
corroborate. I have seen many a Taiwanese teenager on the MRT mindlessly swiping at a character
sprite on a mobile phone. One study in Taiwan shows that 46% of adolescent game players exhibit
some form of addiction. Two Hong Kong studies show that 13-15% of gamers can be said to be addicted.
## Causes: People
Is there anything that makes Chinese youths more susceptible to video game addiction?
This has not been thoroughly explored in enough detail to give a conclusive response.
When we find traits correlated with addiction, which causes which?
We don't know. Correlation is not causation, yada yada yada.
With that being said, we can say that game addicted Chinese youths tend to be
introverted. And exhibit heightened levels of neuroticism and impulsivity.
They may have lower self-esteem, self-control, and elevated levels of perceived stress.
Chinese studies have noticed the repeated presence of escapist factors. Escape from what? Difficult
relationships within the family or school are most frequently cited. Bad parent-child,
teacher-student, and student-student relationships are most cited in when studying gaming addiction.
What a lot have noticed is that young people in Asian cultures do not have a lot of agency
over their lives. I mean, even less than what young people normally get elsewhere. Student
life is highly structured and often focused around stressful test-taking and educational achievement.
Additionally, Asian societal dynamics emphasize obedience by the child to both the parent and the
school teacher. Sometimes, those parents and teachers can be strict to the point of abuse.
In a situation where everything is up to someone else, video games might be
the only place where a youth might be able to exercise some form of control.
## Causes: Games
In every market, there is demand and supply. We talked about demand,
now let us talk about supply - the game companies themselves.
The Chinese video game market is the biggest in the world.
The most common video games there are mostly free-to-play. This means that the game maker
allows the player to access most of the game's functions and levels without payment.
The game makes money when the player buys something within the game's universe.
For instance, players might pay for certain skins and accessories.
In other games, artificial limiters are placed on game progress.
Players can pay to lift those restrictions and keep playing the game unimpeded.
The majority of players do not buy anything. So game companies have to find that small percentage
of players who do. The so-called "whales".
User research finds that the longer the player plays the game, the more
willing they are to transact virtual goods for them. Gamers love to enter a state of "flow"
when playing a game, that feeling of being totally immersed in something. Thus,
companies are incentivized to maximize their game's stickiness.
One particularly sore point are loot boxes - repeated in-game purchases to obtain a random
selection of virtual items. For instance, if you want to get this particular colored skin
for your character, you buy the loot box again and again until you get it.
A legal study in China found that 91 of the 100 most popular video games on the
Chinese Apple App Store have loot boxes. Far more than what can be found in the UK
and Australia. Even games deemed "suitable" for 12 year olds - 90%
of them have loot boxes. It is a core part of the Chinese gaming mechanic.
Some 70% of transactions come from people aged 29 and under. So gaming companies
specifically target such young gamers with bright colors and cute designs.
It is inevitable that adolescents get caught in the dragnet. And sometimes the kids play
games because the parents themselves play a lot of games too. Like parent, like child.
## What The Chinese Government is Doing
The Chinese government has passed several regulations in an early attempt to wrangle
its video game addiction problems. Some of these regulations have gotten bad press in the West,
which I think lacks perspective into the enormity of the problem in Chinese society.
The first is the requirement for gaming companies to verify the identities of their players.
Kind of like how banks need to know their customers. If a player is not verified,
then they cannot play. Exceptions are made for demo versions of games - 1 hour
of play is allowed and no money can be exchanged.
The second is the forced shutdown of all video game services to juveniles between
10 PM and 8 AM. This regulation follows that of similar actions
undertaken in South Korea. Later studies of that effort though did not find
improved sleep patterns amongst youths. We will see if China will be different.
Third and finally, companies need to provide hard limits on gaming hours played and money spent.
Kids cannot play for more than 3 daily hours on weekends and holidays. 1.5 hours on school
weekdays. Kids under 16 cannot spend more than $28 a month on their games. Under 18, that doubles.
Again, these regulations follow that of South Korea. China did not come up with
these ideas first. But it should be noted that these South Korean regulations were
eventually found to be a form of illegal corporate discrimination and overturned.
When it comes to loot boxes, gaming companies have fiercely fought attempts to regulate them.
The result is a lack of global consensus. The USA courts have largely stayed out of it.
European governments on the other hand have gotten more involved.
The Chinese government has taken a different approach, requiring the game companies to
disclose the probabilities of receiving certain items. But adherence to the policy is lacking,
with disclosures hard to find, not adding up to 100%, or constantly changing.
One paper noticed that games have added "pity timer" mechanics,
things that raise the probability of getting certain items the more loot boxes
you buy. This is not a mercy. It actually encourages you to play longer and longer.
## Conclusion
To close, I want to share a short personal story. My college roommate was a video game addict. When
I first moved in for the year, he had been a nice enough fellow and apparently smart.
But he soon got into playing a MMORPG and never left his room. His grades crashed. He
ate nothing but the chicken nuggets that he would microwave three times a day.
I hated that smell. His parents back home could do nothing even after the university
booted him from the program. He just gamed all day in his chair, right up until I moved out.
I know that I might sound like my father right now saying this.
And even if most people eventually just “grow out of it”,
it just does not feel right. The long-term effects of video game addiction are scarcely studied.
But the short-term effects of poor academic results, crippled socialization abilities,
and financial deterioration are bad enough to warrant some corrective behavior.
And I agree with you that the problem is complicated. Gaming addictions can
be indicative of more deeply engrained problems within Chinese society. Symptoms, rather than
causes. And we should tread cautiously when curtailing freedoms. I agree with all of this.
But doing nothing about the problem except to rub our chins and to say that it is complicated
feels like the wrong solution. The country should not just let this grow unchecked.
They got to try something.
Yet I think the gaming companies - all of which are Chinese, by the way - have
had the upper hand thus far in the battle to curb gaming’s societal influences. Sometimes,
I wonder if Tencent having control over WeChat and its news functions
has something to do with that. There is just too much money sloshing around.
But now that the problem is reaching China’s highest levels,
I am interested to see how that might change in the near future.