The Chinese authorities has identified online games as a drug

Shares in China continue to fall. The local government is putting increasing pressure on selected private sectors. Now the latest regulations may also affect the gaming industry. The state media has announced that the Chinese authorities may prohibit children under the age of twelve from playing computer online games. According to them, these are "electronic drugs". The stock value of the two largest Chinese companies focusing on the gaming industry has fallen by as much as ten percent in recent hours. Tencent, indexed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, traded almost 33 Hong Kong dollars on Tuesday morning than on Monday. This is a loss of about seven percent, the BBC server informed. The shares of the Chinese company NetEase, which depreciated almost eight percent compared to Monday, are in a similar situation. Investors are thus reacting negatively to reports from the Chinese media, which called the games addictive and "electronic drugs." China's Economic Information Daily reported that local teenagers are dependent on online gambling. According to the paper, some of them spend more than eight hours a day playing. "No industry must develop in such a way as to destroy generations," the article in the state newspaper said. It also called for the negative effects of playing on children and their adolescence to be avoided. It relied mostly on the popular game Honor of Kings, which is supported by Tencent. According to the Chinese state media, Chinese students play this game all too often. Tencent, one of the Internet giants in Wednesday's country, has only said in response to the article that it is planning new measures to make it more difficult for children to play and reduce the time they spend on it. It imposes similar restrictions on other online games. For example, children under the age of twelve will be prevented from spending money on games. Developer behemot Tencent saw its shares fall last week after the state ordered it to terminate all exclusive contracts with the world's recording labels. In this way, the government is trying to limit its influence in the streaming music segment. The company currently controls 80 percent. Over the past week, the Chinese government announced that it will also focus on private education. Companies operating in this sector will be banned by the country from banning profits, raising share capital or trading on the stock exchange. Even then, the shares of the companies concerned reacted significantly. The Chinese authorities want to turn companies that offer, for example, tutoring school subjects into non-profits. The reason is the Communist Party's effort to reverse the decline of the local population, which it wants to achieve, among other things, by making children's education more accessible.