Tencent has been amassing a lot of pull in the Chinese market of gaming and especially esports, acquiring rights to publish games like Arena of Valor and Fortnite overseas and cultivating the competitive scenes in its catalogue. However, it appears the country is putting a rather huge roadblock in front of that growth. The Chinese Government has announced plans to the approval of new games for release and the overall number of games available.

This news came via the Chinese Ministry of Education website on August 30, 2018. In an effort to combat issues like myopia (nearsightedness) in young people, China’s government intends to make it more difficult for new games to be released. According to the above article, the goal of this initiative is to reduce myopia among Chinese youth by .5% per year going through 2030.

Under the new Ministry initiative, the use of electronic devices including mobile and PC for “for non-learning purposes should not exceed 15 minutes, and should not exceed 1 hour per day.” It also suggests that online games be further regulated by age barriers and availability through other governmental departments.

Tencent immediately felt the affect of the announcement in trade as shares dropped by more than 5% following the Ministry of Education’s proposed plan, resulting in a $20 billion drop in Tencent’s overall company value. Tencent’s CEO Martin Lau claimed in a conference call with business analysts that he was certain China’s game regulators will ease away from some of the blocks in video game publishing, but with the Education Ministry’s heavy-handed involvement in publishing, as well as active playtime of online games, it may hurt the company further.

It will remain to be seen if this has a further affect on Asian esports, where the competitive industry is undoubtedly the strongest in the world right now. That said, if the Ministry’s efforts curtail online play as much as it intends to, we may see the effects in Chinese competitive gaming sooner than later.