Weird 2010's gamer nationalism meets china bad.
"Oh no, kids won't be able to use games to escape reality now" — Good, have them play outside or read a book or something.
"Horrible, I couldn't live without games" — Yes, this law is attempting to help people before they become like you.
"New generations won't grow up to be gamers now" — How will society survive!
"It's about controlling freedom of thought" — Ah, yes, this will stop the great dialogue had by fourteen-year-olds in LoL game chats.
The restriction in China is only for online games, the government is probably fully aware of the logistics nightmare of banning every type of game for kids. The kinds of online games popular in China right now aren't anything one could meaningfully socialize within, but rather, extremely grindy gacha games or exploitative MMOs based around sucking as much money out of you as possible.
Also I'm certain kids are going to figure out how to use a VPN to get around it anyway
Yeah, everyone thinks they're being banned from Planescape Torment: the MMO. But it's really just some lootbox infested hellscape that uses marketing techniques that literally hack minds.
This, everyone is projecting themselves into believing chinese children won't be able to live their beatiful child fantasy of playing final fantasy X while their mom makes kool aid or whatever when online gaming currently is one step removed from actual fucking casinos which is indescribably evil, and I still think China is being too tepid here.
lib glasses time
China is weaponizing Genshin Impact by preventing their kids from playing it enough to really engage with it while leaving the rest of the world vulnerable.
The only question is: why does China hate Bulgarian children?
Correct, which is why it would be infinitely better if the companies themselves were targeted with fines or whatever if they engage in practices that make the games extra addictive.
This should also apply to social media apps or whatnot, they've all god algorithms designed to keep you hooked.
That would be a non-boomer solution that might actually make things better.
A VPN is going to add so much lag that the vast majority of online games would be rendered unplayable anyways. You could play turn based games, MMOs, and maybe some old school rts games, but that's about it.
So this ban isn't trivial to get around.
I used to play LoL with a free VPN, my ping went from about 20 to 40-50, so not too bad