China vs video games: why Beijing stopped short of a gaming ban, keeping Tencent and NetEase growing amid crackdown | South China Morning Post

It has been a wild year for China's video gaming market. Stocks took a dive in August following an editorial lambasting internet games as "spiritual opium". Then Beijing placed additional restrictions on the amount of time children can spend playing games - just three hours most weeks - again battering tech stocks, especially those of Tencent Holdings and NetEase . Since then, things have calmed down a little. It turns out that many children are still finding ways around ever tightening restrictions , often with parents' help, and China's industry behemoths are still raking in tons of cash on the…