The protection of minors on the Internet and the prevention of addiction to online games have always been important issues of great concern to all sectors of society. After the “830” anti-sedimentation rules came into force and the first comprehensive legislation on the protection of minors' networks, the Regulations on the Protection of Minors' Networks, came into force, gaming companies have actively implemented anti-sedimentation measures and have achieved remarkable results.
According to the “2023 Progress Report on the Protection of Minors in China's Game Industry” released by the Game Work Committee of the China Association for Audio and Digital Media, the consumption of minors' games has been further reduced, with 28.86% of minors' game users consuming less, and minors' dependence on online games has also been reduced at the same time.
Since the landing of the “830” new regulations, the game industry has continued to make efforts to combat the black and gray production of online games, and further build a solid defense for the protection of minors on the network. Recently, in response to the existence of black and grey production merchants in the e-commerce platform, the manufacturers represented by the stacked paper game jointly with the relevant departments to crack down on the unscrupulous merchants through the plug-in mass production of “self-sampling number” sold to minors. In addition to cracking down on the black and grey production chain of renting and buying numbers, in order to further assist parents in supervising their children's gaming behaviors and preventing them from registering accounts using their parents' cell phone numbers and identity information, Stacked Paper Games has recently added a “Parental Guardianship” page to its official website and launched the function of querying the role of an account.
Combating the black and gray industry of “self-pumping number” to escort the cyberspace of minors
For game companies that strictly abide by the requirements of online game addiction prevention, the black and gray industry of renting and buying numbers, which is prevalent on e-commerce platforms, is a “persistent problem” that is difficult to eradicate but must be overcome. Specifically, the black and gray production through illegal technical means, with improper channels to obtain the identity card information for real-name authentication, thus creating a large number of game accounts. At the same time, these black and gray businesses also target minors and sell the illegally created accounts through online platforms, so that underage users can buy these accounts and thus overstep the game's anti-obsession system.
The industry has long been concerned about this type of rent-and-buy black and grey production, and has continued to carry out phased special remediation actions to vigorously combat the black and grey production of online games for underage players. At the beginning of this year, with the launch of new games, some of the e-commerce platforms in the development of unscrupulous merchants stacked paper under the game plug-in script behavior again active. These unscrupulous merchants mainly use scripts to create game accounts in bulk, brush the resources in the game, and package the above accounts as “self-sampling number”, sold to minors.
In July, in order to effectively prevent black and gray accounts from damaging the anti-obsession mechanism and game ecology, Folding Paper once again launched a special remedial action to combat black and gray production. This action took monitoring the abnormal behavior of in-game accounts as its main task, aiming to help the project team more accurately determine black and grey production accounts. After the special action was carried out, between July and August, the project team banned over 50,000 black and gray accounts in just one month.
At the same time, in order to curb and combat this kind of behavior that destroys the game ecosystem and harms the legitimate rights and interests of users and the company, the stacked paper game quickly locks the “small black hand game” and other e-commerce platforms in the influence of the larger illegal business. After a joint crackdown, “Little Black Game” and some of the downstream merchants have shelved the self-sampling number products of Paper Folding Game. After investigation and statistics, the black and gray merchants in the hands of the stock of unsold accounts up to the level of millions of accounts, this batch of accounts have no inflow into the market may be, the number of black account login plummeted.
New “Parental Guardian” portal to help parents monitor their children's gaming behavior in real time.
In addition to vigorously combating black and gray production, the industry is also continuing to improve the protection of minors in the whole process of the game and the user feedback mechanism. At present, the stacked paper game has access to a unified real-name authentication system, all registered users must enter their real-name information before using the game service, and minors whose real-name information is under the age of 18 will be subject to game time limitations and consumption limitations.
In addition, in order to allow parents to directly contact customer service and inquire about their children's game account information, some manufacturers have launched a “Parental Guardian” page on their official websites. In addition to detailing the log-in time limits and paid service restrictions for underage players, the manufacturers also provide parents with direct access to the “Underage Growth Guardianship Platform” to provide quick feedback on all kinds of underage gaming-related issues.
Taking Folding Paper's underage growth guardian platform as an example, the platform provides parents with a direct customer service portal, which allows them to quickly get in touch with the customer service by simply clicking on the page and communicate with minors on a series of possible problems in the game, such as anti-sedimentation and recharging. In addition, the platform has also set up a “Guardian Guidelines” page, which provides parents with a specific process for feedback on minors' gaming problems and frequently asked questions, and builds a service platform for parents to more conveniently supervise their children's gaming behavior.
In recent years, the gaming industry has continued to deepen and improve the anti-obsession mechanism of games, covering the full cycle of management of the gaming behavior of minors, and strengthening the protection measures in all aspects from prevention, monitoring to intervention, in order to build a more solid network security defense line for minors. In the future, manufacturers represented by Paper Stacking Games will continue to uphold corporate social responsibility and take the protection of minors as a long-term mission and an important obligation to escort the healthy growth of minors.
Article source: [South+] APP Written by Li Jiayao
Editor's Notes:
China's gaming industry is actively implementing measures to protect minors. The practice of Paper Folding Game shows the company's concrete actions in combating the black and gray production of online games and preventing indulgence, including joining hands with relevant departments to combat illegal account trading and developing a “parental guardianship” platform. Data shows that these initiatives have begun to bear fruit: the consumption of games by minors has declined, and their dependence on them is also decreasing. This not only reflects the social responsibility of gaming companies, but also highlights the positive trend of industry self-discipline and regulatory coordination, building a stronger protective net for the online safety of minors.
