China's government to discuss anti-gambling measures for mobile games

Gambling is illegal in China (with the exception of some relatively-autonomous regions like Macao). The Chinese government takes that very seriously, and now the country’s mobile game development union has announced that the Ministry of Culture will be meeting to discuss the issue of gambling in mobile games.

The meeting, which is being held today, will discuss three things:

• Prevention against mobile games involving gambling
• Clear rules for randomized drawings in card games and other mobile games with randomized prize elements
• How the mobile game industry can uphold fair and orderly competition

China’s government has previously come out against randomized drawings and prizes. In 2013, eight games were wrist-slapped for including elements that allowed users to pay real or virtual currency in return for a random prize.

But the current system is pretty vague, and it’s not clear what exactly constitutes gambling. For example, when Hearthstone was first released in China there was some question as to whether that game would be ruled illegal.

Today’s meeting is just a discussion, so actual regulations on this are likely still quite a long way off. But clearer rules and definitions could really only be a good thing for Chinese mobile developers.

(via Sina Games)