The summer vacation is coming to an end, and the children on holiday are grasping to enjoy the relaxed and rare extracurricular time. However, children who are addicted to mobile games are staring at the electronic screen and have the idea of "bypassing" the game anti-addiction system by renting an account.
The reporter’s investigation found that there are a large number of game account rental platforms active on the Internet. The reporter personally found that although some platforms have set up a "real name authentication" link to prohibit minors from placing orders, most platforms can still easily rent accounts in the form of "over-the-counter transactions" and make the "anti-addiction system" of game manufacturers useless.
Children rent a game account to bypass "anti-addiction"
"Obviously, this game has long restrictions on minors. Why can children still play with their mobile phones for an afternoon?" Recently, Mr. Hu, a citizen, found that his son, who was in the fourth grade of primary school, always stayed at home to play the glory of the king when his parents were away. What surprised Mr. Hu even more was that his son’s game account actually reached the level of "34 stars of the strongest king" and also had many expensive game skins.
"This is outrageous!" Mr. Hu, who is engaged in the IT industry, is very confused, but his son tells the truth: under the introduction of his classmates, he found a game rental platform to rent a game account. "In addition to the glory of the king, you can also rent accounts of popular games such as Voyager Hot Blood Route, Call of Duty and Naruto."
Mr. Hu told reporters that, taking the "Rent X Cool" game rental platform as an example, different the glory of the king accounts have different rental prices according to the number of heroes, the number of skins and the number of segments. "Cheap bronze trumpet 7 cents an hour, high-end king account in 5 yuan to 15 yuan. It costs more than ten yuan to play in one afternoon. Parents think that children are the cost of ordinary snacks, which is difficult to detect. "
The reporter noted that on August 4, Tencent updated the health system rules in order to further strengthen the protection of minors. Among them, underage users of the glory of the king are forbidden to play from 22: 00 to 8: 00 the next day, and are limited to 2 hours a day on national legal holidays, and 1 hour a day at other times.
However, the practice of renting the game number directly makes the manufacturer’s game anti-addiction system a decoration.
The unlicensed reporter’s rental number is still "green light all the way"
In the investigation, the reporter found that the mainstream game rental platforms on the market are mainly divided into two categories: one is operated by an enterprise, and the platform has a complete APP end and a webpage end, and users can place orders directly on the platform. Take the "Rent X Play" game rental platform as an example. The platform claims that it has more than 50 million registered users and has a high-end game account worth more than 5 billion. The other is operated by small and medium-sized studios and individuals, mainly relying on e-commerce platforms to engage in transactions. In addition, some merchants use keys and other forms to bypass the platform and "pay in one hand and deliver in one hand" with users.
On August 26th, the reporter went to the "Rent X Play" game rental platform. After entering from the webpage, the reporter saw that a large number of popular mobile game accounts such as the glory of the king, Peace Elite and QQ Speeder were being rented. Take the glory of the king as an example. The hourly rental price of a V9 account in QQ Apple Zone is 5.5 yuan, the daily rental price is 71 yuan, and the night package price from 10 pm to 7 am the next day is 25.6 yuan. However, when the reporter placed an order, the website popped up a "real name authentication" page, asking the reporter to enter his name and ID number, and said that minors were not allowed to place an order.
To bypass this certification, you only need to go to Taobao to find a merchant to rent one. Under the guidance of a minor, the reporter successfully contacted a seller. The seller said that the game account can be rented at least 2 hours, and players can trade directly in the form of red envelopes without taking any goods.
After selecting the corresponding game account and paying the red envelope, the reporter successfully obtained the login key of a registrar APP, and successfully logged into the glory of the king with someone else’s account.
Game "Rent Number" Exposes Real Name Regulatory Vulnerability
In recent years, China has continuously increased the regulatory measures to prevent minors from indulging in games. On October 25, 2019, the State Press and Publication Administration issued the Notice on Preventing Minors from Indulging in Online Games, which put forward clear requirements for implementing the real-name system for accounts, strictly controlling the time and duration of minors’ games, and the content of paid services for minors. On June 1, the newly revised Law on the Protection of Minors, which was officially implemented, clearly stated that online service providers such as online games should set up corresponding functions such as time management, authority management and consumption management for minors to use their services.
Game makers have also technically strengthened anti-addiction measures for minors. On July 5th, Tencent Health System officially launched the "Zero Cruise" function on the basis of "no play, no charge and no curfew" for minors whose real names have been registered, which is mainly used for face screening for accounts whose night games have exceeded a certain period of time and whose real names are adults. Netease also upgraded the anti-addiction measures for minors this summer, combined with big data and artificial intelligence to identify minors’ fraudulent use of adult accounts, and intervened in advance for minors who were irrational in consumption.
However, the large-scale adult game account rental industry chain makes the minor game "anti-addiction" ineffective. A person in the game industry told reporters that identity recognition is the key to the implementation of the game anti-addiction system. This means that once a minor enters the game by renting an adult’s real-name authenticated game account, it will be difficult for the anti-addiction system to comprehensively supervise it. "Even if someone’s face is screened, it is still a leak."
As for the behavior of renting game numbers, the reporter noticed that many game companies such as Tencent, Ali, Netease and sogou all emphasized in the User Agreement of their games that it is forbidden to sell, rent, transfer or share game accounts with others without the permission of the company. Tencent also recently sued more than a dozen third-party game trading platforms, such as Taobao Mobile Games, DD373 and 5173, and demanded to stop trading. For all relevant departments, in order to prevent minors from indulging in online games, it is also necessary to fill in obvious regulatory loopholes such as "rental number" and increase penalties for illegal network operators to form a deterrent effect. (Reporter Yuan Lu)