Tencent Games announced a plan to standardise the behaviour of anchors on live streaming platforms. The move comes after regulators have intensified supervision of the live streaming industry in the past year. As an online games operator, Tencent is assuming responsibility for the game content and responsibility for the anchors’ compliance in promoting the game on live streaming platforms. Tencent is calling on the entire industry to abide by national laws, regulations and policies to promote healthy game content.

 The company released a list of 12 values that it will adhere to in its games, and expects anchors to adhere to when streaming its games. The 12 prohibited items are:

  1. Violation of China’s social values involving sensitive topics such as politics, ethnicity and religion
  2. Promoting or publishing content that violates China’s social values, including but not limited to pornography, gambling, terrorism
  3. Behaviour that damages the Tencent Games brand directly or indirectly
  4. Distributing false information to other users through any means
  5. Engaging in vulgar or indecent information
  6. Distributing or promoting game cheat software or virus software
  7. Promoting excessive violence in game or in the real world
  8. Infringing on the privacy of other users or revealing other users information without permission
  9. Failure to abide by rules of the contract signed with third parties (streaming platforms)
  10. Infringing the copyright of game makers or other content creators
  11. Causing disputes or adverse social impact
  12. Other actions that do not comply with current laws, ethics and game regulations

 Tencent says that anchors who do not abide by the above may be prohibited from streaming Tencent games in the future. We note that China’s regulators have been pushing for a healthier environment in both the games industry and live streaming industry more strongly recently. A number of live streaming sites and streamers have been banned in the past for hosting questionable content. There have also been regulations that prohibit the streaming of games that are not approved for sale in China.

 Tencent has taken a number of steps to create a healthy gaming environment for players of its games by introducing real name registration, anti-addiction systems and parental controls. We believe this move will allow Tencent to further exert that control to the live streaming space and ensure that it is abiding by regulations across all forms of game consumption.