Tencent to verify Chinese Honor of Kings players against public security records

Tencent will begin verifying the identities of Chinese Honor of Kings players against a police database - a new measure designed to restrict the amount of time minors spend in the game.

The Chinese company announced the news today via its official WeChat account. A registration system that asks for the real names of Honor of Kings players will be introduced around September 15, and then checked against China's public security database to identify under-age gamers.

"Through these measures, Tencent hopes to continue to better guide underaged players to game sensibly," the company said in a statement on WeChat account, as reported by Reuters. The checks will start with Honor of Kings, before expanding to other games in its portfolio.

This is the first time that any company has made use of China's public security records to enforce play-time restrictions on under-age gamers. The measures are directly linked to the pledge Tencent made in June last year, in response to widespread concern about the popularity of Honor of Kings.

"We hope we can better guide under-aged players toward more reasonable gaming habits, and preserve their healthy development," Tencent said in its WeChat post, according to Bloomberg. "At the same time, we also want to join hands with parents and society in general to address identity theft and transfers."