After Chinese regulators restricted playtime for minors to only three hours a week, servers of Honor of Kings crashed on the weekend.
Honor of Kings
Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad paid attention to the issue, saying that the incident happened on September 4.
While Tencent didn’t provide a specific reason for the crash, it probably happened due to the latest restrictions.
According to the new rules, gamers under the age of 18 can play online games only on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between 8 pm and 9 pm. It is a major change, as previous restrictions allowed minors to play 1.5 hours a day on weekdays and 3 hours a day on national holidays.
Honor of Kings, the most popular mobile game in China, had its servers crash on Saturday Sep 4.
While no specific reason was given, the crash was likely due to a surge of younger players logging on between 8pm and 9pm, as per the new regulations that have just gone into effect. pic.twitter.com/UUluzhpTPE
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) September 6, 2021
So when teens tried to log into Honor of Kings on Saturday, the game’s servers basically couldn’t handle the load. According to Ahmad, people complained about the issue on Weibo and also experienced the same problem on Sunday.
It is worth noting that Tencent announced its own playtime restrictions for minors in August, even before the new restrictions came into force. The company also said that it will prevent gamers under the age of 12 from spending real money in Honor of Kings.