GAME DEN: Netizens play online games at a netbar in Shanghai on January 16, 2012. Netbar users are required to present identification for age verification before logging in (NIU YIXIN)

According to figures from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China's online gaming population had reached 330 million as of June 2012. In other words, more than 60 percent of the country's 538 million Internet users play online games, contributing 24.84 billion yuan ($3.99 billion) in revenue in the first half of 2012, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, approximately 150 million Chinese Internet users are believed to be under the age of 19, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.

China still does not have a unified content rating system for the online gaming industry, instead relying on individual game developers to classify their own products into suitability-related groups.

The China Youth Internet Association (CYIA) conducted research on 423 online games operated in China in 2012. It said in a report released on March 9 that 78.5 percent of the games were not suitable for people younger than 18, while only 2 percent were appropriate for children over 6.

According to the CYIA report, only 39 percent of the games were age-rated by the publishers, and 51 percent of those labeled with an age restriction failed to pass a third-party evaluation of their ratings' suitability.

Moreover, in-game-purchase traps were found in 58 percent of the games and gambling features in 35 percent, said the report, adding that 40 percent of the games did not have functioning anti-addiction mechanisms.

Introduced by China's Internet regulator in 2007 to encourage game players to take a break from the action, anti-addiction mechanisms punish excessive use by cancelling half of a user's earned credits if he or she remains logged in for more than three hours a day. Players who binge for more than five hours lose all virtual currency they had earned that day. Implementation of such systems and supervision of users are the responsibilities of game designers and operators.

Shao Dehai, Director of the Media Center of news portal China Youth International, said that addiction prevention measures are key to protecting minors.

"Anti-addiction mechanisms and rating systems are two useful ways. They create a healthy environment for minors to play games," he said, adding that rating systems can set clearer limits for players in different age groups and leave minors with no chance to play games rated unsuitable for them.

Putting a lid on IT

Internet addiction, especially online gaming addiction, has become a serious problem in China today. "Although some rules restricting students from playing online games have been introduced, the problem has not been solved completely," said Li Jianwei, an official with the Ministry of Culture.

Although there is no diagnostic standard for Internet addiction, Web users are labeled as addicts if school grades, careers or interpersonal relationships in real life are affected by habitual use of the Internet, according to Ke Huixin, Director of the Survey and Statistics Institute of Communication University of China.

Ke identifies three more diagnostic criteria: The person always wants to use the Internet, becomes disturbed if denied use, or feels happier in the virtual world than the real world.