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.
If it helps, I had similar restrictions on gaming as a child (which is why china sounds like my mom), no gaming on weekdays and so on and I can for sure tell you I didn't do any of that shit except arguably reading books and only because it was a discreet way to procastinate. Like I can safely say that video games weren't the reason I wasn't Chad Einstein football team captain and expert oboe player in high school. There's something to be said about how video games was the only hobby that was able to capture my dope-ass ADHD brain attention when everything else failed of course, but I think meds would've been better for my development than a blanket restriction on video games and even then I don't think it would've changed my lack of interest in sports or whatever in any significant way. Maybe I would've been less anxious tho
This is not to dismiss China's policy of limiting online games, I think it's a good thing, but I also don't have super high expectations about it either.