Tencent will use facial recognition to restrict minors from playing games late night; here’s how it works

China banned the PUBG Mobile online multiplayer game long back but the game publisher Tencent manages to relaunch the game in the country with some tweaks. The Chinese government was concerned about the addiction of players to the game. After the ban, the game developers have made a series of changes to the game to make it less addictive. Tencent has added parental control, restricted gameplay time for minors, and more. Now in the latest addition, the company has announced that the game will use facial recognition technology to ban minors from playing video games. 

Tencent’s big restriction against minor gaming

China has passed a new anti-addiction bill that comes with strict orders for game developers to take action against video game addiction. The newly announced facial recognition technology from Tencent is known as Midnight Patrol. 

“We will conduct a face screening for accounts registered with real names and that have played for a certain period of time at night,” reads a press release by Tencent Games. “Anyone who refuses or fails the face verification will be treated as a minor, and as outlined in the anti-addiction supervision of Tencent’s game health system, and kicked offline.”

Tencent claimed that the new technology will be used to make sure that minors are not playing video games between 10 PM to 8 AM. The Midnight Patrol tech will be used in the game titles like Honor of Kings, Game for Peace (Chinese version PUBG Mobile), and 60 other games. Tencent holds 93 percent equity in Riot's League of Legends and the game is out of the list. However, it seems that the game publisher will soon add that too to the list. 

Recently, China announced that it's planning to restrict gaming for minors with new regulations and it seems that the government has successfully implemented it. According to a report from IGN India, social media impressions suggest that many gamers who are below 18 or about to be 18 are not happy with the decision. 

“As a minor, I’ve been caught,” the IGN India report quoted one gamer on the platform. “This is such desperate news for us high school graduates who are two months away from being 18,” another wrote.