It baffles me sometimes that while gaming industry is booming, create massive opportunities and tax revenue, and it is no way threatening the communist ideology, the government still treats it like a step child, shitting on it whenever it can.
- Old Parents hate game. And old parents usually control the policy making and media.
- Rent Seeking. As many policies in China, no clear rule in terms of game regulation. You want to pass it? Money helps. Those who make such rules don't care about taxes loses. Different department, different incentives.
To be fair, gaming as a consumer is not an inherently productive activity. The production of games, sure, but the tax of the creation is heavily distributed across the consuming population.
If what you care about is to have your population be as productive as possible, you want to produce just enough of these entertainment avenues domestically as would be sustainable and not leading to large scale distraction, while still mainly exporting the product that has no such restraints.
I think that's actually the challenge at hand for China, and it's not unique to the country. Korea, Japan, and many others face the same issues while having different tools to deal with the phenomenon.
I have to say, game is no longer games any more. For console and PC games, it may stay the same as before, (although the freemium is popular as well). Many mobile games, and casual games is about take as much as your time and money as possible through data science. It is pure evil.
I bought a switch for my son, but I try to keep him away from mobile games, especially those advertise in apps.
Because the CCP does have a moral obligation to nurture the youth, you can label the motive to whatever you want, but addiction to video games are obviously bad for health and wasting a lot of time such that the school work would be affected.
Not mentioning the gaming ideology is naturally free and liberalism oriented. There were patriotic games commissioned by government, and have been very awkward. Totalitarian nation's government generally tolerate very little about ideologically different median or mass influence tools.
Most governments in the world, including most western ones, have a long history of regulations and legal restrictions on gambling. Maybe the Chinese are ahead of the curve in recognizing the similarities in the video game industry.
It baffles me sometimes that while gaming industry is booming, create massive opportunities and tax revenue, and it is no way threatening the communist ideology, the government still treats it like a step child, shitting on it whenever it can.