In recent years, the topic of minors' addiction to online games has attracted increasing attention from all walks of life. How to effectively protect minors from addiction is always a difficult problem. At the arrival of the "June 1" International Children's day, surging news tested and compared several popular online games on the market to understand the protection of major online game companies for minor players.
Original title: how about preventing minors from indulging? We measured these six online games
Evaluation results of anti addiction mechanism for minors of 6 online games.
Article 74 of the law on the protection of Minors stipulates that Internet product and service providers shall not provide minors with products and services that induce them to indulge. Online game, online live broadcast, online audio and video, online social networking and other online service providers shall set up corresponding time management, authority management, consumption management and other functions for minors to use their services.
At present, there are many kinds of online games on the market. There are not only MoBa (multiplayer online tactical competition) games such as king glory and hero League, but also shooting games such as peace elite and crossing the line of fire. Minors with weak self-control are likely to indulge in the dazzling online game world if they lack the restrictions of online game platforms.
In this evaluation, surging news has selected 6 online games, namely, the glory of the king, the peace elite, the original God, my world, ninja must die 3 and the sausage party. The suitable game ages displayed on the platform range from 8 + to 16 +.
Registration test: face recognition is not required for registration. How to prevent children from using adult information
Surging news uses identity information of minors and identity information of adults to register in the above six games. The results show that the above game registration does not need to be verified by face recognition, fingerprint and other methods. After successful registration with the minor's ID number, it is no longer necessary to associate it with the guardian's account.
Only ID number is required to successfully register.
If minors use adult name, ID number, mobile phone number and other information to register, are there any restrictions?
The reporter learned from the experience that the two games of King glory and peace elite under Tencent need to be bound with QQ number and wechat before they can be registered, while the QQ number and wechat itself need to be bound with the mobile number of relevant users for identity authentication; The original God under MIHA tour can be registered through mobile phone number and taptap account of a third-party platform, but cannot be registered through QQ number and wechat; Netease's "my world" can be accessed through mobile phone number and Apple ID (using Apple Mobile phone) and Netease email; Ninja must die 3 is limited to mobile phone number registration; Sausage party supports multiple registration methods such as mobile phone number, QQ number and wechat. The reporter found that the above games need to enter the verification code of the registered mobile phone number when registering with the mobile phone number. If the mobile phone verification code cannot be provided, the mobile phone number cannot be used for registration. Except for sausage party, the other five games do not offer the option of tourist mode.
After testing, the registration of the above games requires real name verification through social accounts or mobile phone numbers. However, in the case that the game cannot be identified by face, fingerprint and other means, children may still obtain verification codes by using their parents' mobile phones or directly log in to the game through their parents' social accounts.
For example, surging news has received consumer complaints. One parent said that the child used his aunt's mobile phone to surf the Internet and play three games such as sausage party on his mobile phone. Later, my aunt found that she had received a number of deduction notices for game recharge, totaling more than 10000 yuan. By default, these games can be directly logged in through the already logged in wechat and QQ accounts. The child logs in to the game through his aunt's QQ number, directly skipping the link of minors' real name authentication.
Recharge test: how to prevent children from using mobile phones to recharge large amount of games
Surging news noted that the six online games have age appropriate prompts in the game login interface. In the age appropriate prompts, the online game platform will limit the amount of recharge of minors' accounts. The six online games have different requirements on the recharge of minors: the minimum consumption age of Tencent's "glory of the king" and "peace elite" is 12, while the minimum consumption age of the other four games is 8.
The recharge of minors is restricted. The minimum recharge age of Tencent games is 12 years old, and that of other games is 8 years old.
According to the evaluation, for the minor users over the age of 12 and under the age of 16 in the glory of the king and peace elite, the single recharge amount shall not exceed 50 yuan, and the monthly recharge amount shall not exceed 200 yuan; For minor users over the age of 16, the single recharge amount shall not exceed 100 yuan, and the cumulative monthly recharge amount shall not exceed 400 yuan. For the other four games, users under the age of 8 can not recharge, users over the age of 8 but under the age of 16 can not recharge more than 50 yuan per time, and the monthly recharge amount can not exceed 200 yuan in total; For minor users over the age of 16, the single recharge amount limit and monthly recharge amount limit are the same as those of the first two games.
Game recharge is often paid through a third-party platform. The reporter found that the payment platform can also set face payment or fingerprint payment. In this evaluation, surging news uses an adult account to recharge, and can enter a password for payment without setting a face ID and fingerprint payment. If face ID and fingerprint payment are set in advance, face ID or fingerprint payment will be preferred when recharging, which requires the face or fingerprint of the account user. In case of three consecutive face or fingerprint payment failures, the system will automatically change to password payment.
In addition, the reporter found that the two games of "glory of the king" and "peace elite" have transaction security reminders, while other games have no relevant reminders when conducting high consumption of hundreds of yuan or more.
Tencent games are paid through wechat. When high consumption of hundreds of yuan or more is carried out, transaction security reminders will appear.
The above games have imposed corresponding restrictions on the consumption of minors' accounts, but in reality, surging news has received many complaints from parents that children play games with their parents' or relatives' mobile phones and recharge continuously in large amounts in a short time. In such cases, consumers often have disputes with the game player on "how to prove that the payer is a child, and adults do not know" and other issues.
Anti addiction test: minors can only log in within a limited time
Last year, the State Press and Publication Administration issued the notice on further strict management to effectively prevent minors from indulging in online games, requiring all online game enterprises to provide one hour services to minors only from 20:00 to 21:00 every day on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and legal holidays, and not to provide online game services to minors in any form at other times.
The surging news test found that among the six games, the accounts registered with the identity of minors can only be logged in between 20:00 and 21:00 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and cannot be logged in at other times.
No minor account can log in to the game outside the limited time.
For adult accounts, when the two games of "King glory" and "peace elite" have been online for six consecutive hours or accumulated seven hours in a single day, the game players will be forced to take a 15 minute rest offline. Thereafter, the players will be required to take a 15 minute rest every hour. Other games do not limit the playing time of adult accounts. During the use of the six games, the identity of the players will not be verified through face recognition. Minors are easy to play games for a long time with adult accounts. The two games "King glory" and "peace elite" can limit the game duration and consumption amount of adult accounts through "Tencent growth Guardian", but they can also close the limit.
Tencent games will limit the game duration of adult accounts.
Comprehensive evaluation: measures to identify and verify the identity of minors need to be strengthened
From the above evaluation results, for minor accounts, the online game platforms tested have made anti addiction and consumption supervision in line with national laws and regulations. For minors using adult accounts to play games, on the one hand, parents' supervision is required, on the other hand, the game player is also required to improve the identity verification measures in the registration, payment, login and other links.
According to previous reports of surging news, on November 5, 2021, Gamma data released the progress report on the protection of minors in China's game industry. The report shows that after the implementation of the "anti addiction" policy, 40% of parents have significantly perceived that their children's playing time has been shortened, and 85.8% of minors have been restricted by anti addiction during playing games, indicating that relevant measures have played a certain role in preventing minors from playing games. At the same time, the report shows that 20% of minors can still bypass the anti addiction system without being identified, and the anti addiction measures for minors still face certain challenges.
It is mentioned in the report that among the measures for minors to bypass the anti addiction system, the main method is to provide online black products of trading accounts by third-party platforms. Based on this phenomenon, relevant departments have joined forces with some game companies to crack down. In addition to online black production, there are not a few minors who use their parents' or elders' information to directly lift the anti addiction restrictions and log in to the game with their parents' or elders' accounts. According to the data, 42.8% of minors have directly asked their parents for ID cards, and even 11.3% of parents do not understand the purpose of minors' asking for ID cards. At present, on the basis of real name verification, 20% of minors are still not recognized because of identity information fraud or network reasons. 48.6% of parents believed that face recognition should be strengthened to determine whether the game player is a minor.
Experts' suggestions: optimize the identity verification mechanism and further enrich the online game minors' mode
Liuxiaochun, executive director of the Internet rule of law research center of the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the identification of minors is indeed a pain point in minors' addiction to the Internet at this stage. At present, in order to avoid the anti addiction measures and consumption restrictions of the platform, some minors will use their guardian or other adult accounts to register and log in to the game. Liuxiaochun said that some platforms have started to use random face scanning and other methods to dynamically monitor the user behavior in response to the above phenomena, judge whether the user may be a minor through the technical model, and take corresponding measures to prevent some minors from logging in to the game with an adult account.
In the event of "the old lady beating the king in the morning and taking the 'five murders'" which once aroused heated discussion in the society last year, the game player responded that the account was repeatedly judged as a suspected minor operation, and it was triggered a total of 17 times before and after, and all of them passed the face recognition verification of the system. The system feedback results are consistent with the data sources of the authoritative public security data platform. Even after the new anti addiction regulations came into effect on September 1, 2021, the account has passed face recognition verification twice.
Liuxiaochun pointed out that taking minors as the object of prevention and "locking them in" the minors' mode should address the symptoms rather than the root causes, "because there are always minors who constantly want to escape from this minors' mode".
Liuxiaochun believes that parents of children can reduce the damage caused by their children's addiction to online games through care, companionship and communication, so that their children's use of the Internet can promote their development, rather than being discriminated against and injured.
For some minors who evade platform identity authentication measures, log in privately, recharge games and other behaviors, liuxiaochun believes that the reason why some minors are unwilling to stay in the minors' mode is that the core functions of the minors' mode on some platforms are not perfect. She said that while optimizing the identity verification mechanism, the platform should further enrich the minors' mode, better keep minors in their "exclusive mode", so that children can better accept the protection of the platform and enjoy the corresponding service experience, so as to broaden their horizons**
Finally, liuxiaochun suggested that the regulatory authorities should give a more clear definition standard for the relevant game content of the platform, and give certain incentives to the creation of game content in the minors' mode on the platform, so as to help the platform better build the minors' mode. In addition, liuxiaochun believes that the regulatory authorities should improve the basic system construction for minor identity recognition and other issues, so as to help the platform realize the optimization of minor identity verification mechanism.