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Opening a bank statement and realizing that your child has secretly spent thousands of dollars on video games is becoming a fear for many parents in the country of a billion people.
On May 29, a video went viral about a vegetable seller in a Sichuan market whose 12-year-old child spent 800,000 yuan (2.8 billion VND) in a year on game items.
A month earlier, a video of a father slapping himself in the face after discovering his 9-year-old son had spent more than 13,000 yuan (US$2,000) on the popular game "Eggy Party" also went viral on social media.
The incidents have sparked heated debates about who is responsible in such situations?
Under pressure from public opinion, NetEase eventually refunded the father of the 9-year-old. But many other parents are not so lucky. Game companies use complicated procedures, unclear refund rules, and strict requirements to prove that the child spent money without the parent's knowledge.
“Buying in-game items is easy, no need for facial recognition or verification, just a password. But the refund process is very complicated,” said a father surnamed Wu, whose 10-year-old son has spent more than 20,000 yuan (US$3,000) on online games in 18 months.
A 2023 report by the China Game Publishers Association found that only 15% of Chinese parents knew how much their children spent on games. Of those who applied for a refund, nearly 30% were unable to get it because they could not provide sufficient evidence to satisfy the game publisher. More than 38% said they had received a full refund.
In response to public outrage, on May 28, the Internet Society of China released a draft guideline for public consultation to address the issue and proposed refund procedures for game companies to follow.
Under Chinese regulations, gaming companies are not allowed to offer paid services to users under the age of eight. Users between the ages of eight and 16 are allowed to spend a maximum of 200 yuan ($30) per month. For those between the ages of 16 and 18, the limit is 400 yuan ($65). But children have found ways to get around these restrictions, leading to some cases of emptying their parents’ bank accounts.
Under the draft proposal, providers would be responsible for any overspending by users under 18 if they failed to have real-name authentication systems in place or enforce spending limits. They would be responsible for 30% to 70% if they had implemented those restrictions but parents helped children bypass them or failed to properly supervise them.
Parents will be held fully responsible for their children’s spending if they repeatedly help them bypass game company restrictions or fail to monitor their children’s spending for long periods of time. The guidelines state that if adult players buy game items while pretending to be their children, they will be blacklisted and reported to the police.
The new guidelines provide a standard roadmap for minors and parents to protect their rights and interests, and serve as a template for how businesses should respond to refund requests, said Yao Zhiwei, a law professor at Guangdong University of Finance and Economics.
In recent years, the Chinese government has implemented strict regulations to prevent teenage gaming addiction. A law passed in 2021 limited minors to three hours of gaming per week and required them to use their real names. These measures have significantly reduced the amount of time minors spend playing games in recent years.
In the first quarter of 2023, gaming giant Tencent said that minors' playing time and in-game spending dropped by 90% and 96%, respectively, compared to the same period in 2020.
TH (according to VnExpress)