(Yicai Global) Feb. 17 -- China’s online gaming sector is still doing well regardless of the tough new rules introduced last year to prevent addiction among underage players, according to new research.

Gaming sector revenue jumped 17.8 percent to CNY22.2 billion (USD3.5 billion) last month from a year earlier, data published by industry analyst Gamma Data showed yesterday. That was despite strict measures such as real-name authentication and facial-recognition restrictions.

Honor of Kings, a leading online game developed by Tencent Holdings, still had 165 million active players last month, almost the same as a year ago, per the data.

For China’s middle and primary schools, the winter holiday begins around Jan. 20, 2022 and ends around Feb. 20, and playing online games during this period has long been popular with younger players.

The National Press and Publication Administration brought in new rules last August amid concerns over increasing game addiction among minors. At the time, game developers said the rules were “the toughest ever,” as they required online game operators to curb minors’ playing time and enforce that through measures such as real-name authentication. 

The under age are now only allowed to play online games for one hour daily in 14 days of the month-long winter holiday, according to the 2022 winter vacation online games calendar from major Chinese game developers such as Tencent and NetEase. 

But minors have still managed to find loopholes in the rules to play online games for a longer time, Yicai Global learned in interviews.

“My classmates all use their parent's personal information to log into the gaming platforms, enabling them to play without time restrictions," one junior school student told Yicai Global. 

Some game vendors have enforced facial recognition as an added verification layer to stop restrictions being bypassed, but minors have found ways to get around this. Information about “how to bypass facial recognition,” or “how to avoid anti-addiction restrictions” is widely available online, Yicai Global found. 

Parents have a responsibility to pay attention to which accounts their children use to play online games, and they must be the last line of defense against addiction, Liao Xuhua, a senior entertainment sector analyst at Analysys, told Yicai Global. 

Editors: Tang Shihua, Tom Litting