League & Overwatch players worried as China limits kids to three hours of gaming a week

Overwatch and League of Legends players are nervous about the state of their games after China announced it was banning kids under the age of 18 from playing more than three hours of video games a week.

On August 30, China announced that going forward, kids would only be allowed to play video games online for one hour a day from Friday to Sunday between 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM. They will also be allowed to play on legal holidays.

The decision was reportedly made as a way to protect the mental and physical health of children, who require they log in with real-name registration to be able to play to begin with. So, a child cannot just make a fake account and bypass the new laws.

Fans of popular games such as LoL and Overwatch are not happy with the decision, claiming that it will severely hinder the progress being made in the region to grow their competitive scenes.

Given the length of League matches, many fans on Reddit began joking about how teams may have to forfeit in a BO3, because players will be kicked offline.

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“Coming next season: million of 40-60 years old players join China server with their id card playing 24/7,” another joked.

On the Overwatch front, many avid fans were upset at how this may drastically hurt the growing Chinese Contenders scene as it competes with Korea.

“The Chinese talent pool is essentially dead long term underage Chinese players can’t grind the game anymore the CN region will fall behind NA and EU,” one saddened fan wrote.

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“In all seriousness, this is bad. Gaming for some people is an escape from real life. It’s really more than a hobby for a lot of us,” another remarked. “Also rip any young talent, this is kinda heartbreaking.”

Many fans were also wondering about what this would mean for esports and if the government could make an exception for younger players whose job is to play video games.

They will be hoping such exceptions are within the realm of possibility and kids good enough to be on teams are not impacted by these new restrictions.