Holiday is the good time for the people who stay at home to study or play game.

Everyday’ s game is different. Some time ago, due to the outbreak, there was a group of children who do not go to school being addicted to games, causing some trouble to their parents.

‘The 11-year-old boy played games at home and wiped out RMB 200000 in 11 days, which would be used to save his father. ’ ‘The guy spent RMB 40000 on games which was his mother’s wage getting by carrying 40,000 bags of cement.’ ... If that happens, maybe nobody can resist the temptation to beat those spoiled kids. But, is that it?

Don’t worry and look further~

Simply speaking, topping up game is a form of signing contract. For example, when charging coupons in the game Honor of kings the player actually sign a network service contract with Tencent company. In civil law, concluding contract is a civil juristic act, and the actor having the corresponding civil capacity is one of the prerequisites for effectiveness of juristic act.

First, the civil law stipulates that minors under the age of eight are persons with no capacity for civil act and shall be represented by their legal representatives to perform civil juristic acts. So, for example, a 7-year-old child is not allowed to sign contract by himself. If he recharge the game on his own, his behavior is invalid and his representative, usually his parents, are entitled to ask the game runner to return the money.

Second, a minor not less than the age of eight who is with limited capacity for civil act, shall be represented or consented to or subsequently confirmed by his statutory agent for performing a civil juristic act, while he is allowed to independently perform a civil juristic act solely for profit or appropriate to his age and intelligence. Take 12-year-old Xiaoming who is addicted to playing the game Honor of kings as an example.

Xiaoming won a prize in Honor of kings, getting RMB 1000 worth of gift bags happily, which is purely profitable civil juristic act and effective.

Xiaoming himself spent RMB 28 in buying ‘Zhubajie - having wealth every year’ skin suit(Zhubajie is one of the chief characters in ‘Pilgrimage To The West’ who was supposedly incarnated through the spirit of pig, a symbol of man’s cupidity). Spending RMB 28 on something is what one 12-year-old boy can do on his own, so Xiaoming’s purchasing act is valid.

In order to become the most cool guy in game, Xiaoming spent RMB 10000 on a luxurious skin suit by himself. The civil law does not admit that Xiaoming have the ability to spend RMB 10000, so the avail of aforementioned business contract depends on Xiaoming’ s agent - his parents. The deal is only valid if the parents explicitly agree or ratify it. If Xiaoming’ s parents do not know this deal, the Tencent company can fulfill the right to demand them. The deal shall be invalid and Tencent company shall refund the money if Xiaoming’ s parents do not respond within 1 month since received the notice of demand which is regarded as refusing to agree.

Note that some of the children above the age of 16 years old, although minor, if they take their labor income as the main source of income, shall be regarded as full civil capacity person. They shall be responsible for their own behaviour so they can not be reimbursed if they spend money on game.

But that was the dream. The reality is that it’s difficult for us to ask for the money that the Xionghaizi has spent on the game.

Actually, online game registration and virtual currency transaction are relatively strict based on the interim measures for the management of online games issued by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism but canceled in August, 2019 because the aforementioned ministry is no longer responsible for online game management. Then on October 25, 2019, the State Press and Publication Administration issued the notice on preventing minors from being addicted to video games. This notice stipulates the real-name registration system for online game accounts, the time limit for minors to play games and strict rules for minors to pay for services. For example, for users not less than the age of 8 but not more than the age of 16, the recharge amount shall not exceed RMB 50 and the cumulative amount of monthly recharge shall not exceed RMB 200.  

So in many cases, in order to avoid the strict control for minors, the Xionghaizi will use their parents’ names and id cards to register games, or even directly use their parents’ phones to play games which gives them chance to use parents’ account number, Alipay, WeChat, bank card and password when topping up game. So it’s difficult for parents to prove that the actor is their kid rather than themselves when they sued game runners to return money(The parents shall sue the game runner in the name of their kid because the other side of contract is their kid).

Even if parents succeed in proving the real actor, the court may not fully support their requests in judicial practice. In 2016, the 10-year-old Xu from Linyi used his mother Zhang’ s id card to register the game ‘National Gunfight’ and used Zhang’ s Alipay to top up RMB 111256. Xu sued the game runner to return RMB 111256 while the court determined that Zhang shall bear 50% of the responsibility and the game runner shall only return RMB 55628 because Zhang did not perform guardianship responsibility well. In 2017, Song from Zhengzhou used his mother Shen’s id card to register a game and recharge RMB 9061. Shen sued, and the court only supported that the game runner shall return a third of the game’s cost i.e. RMB 3020.

So, the children themselves, game runner and parents are all duty-bound to prevent the Xionghaizi from recharging the game at will.

As for the Xionghaizi, Jay(a famous singer in China) said, ‘Listen to your mother and do not make her sad.’ Time flies and we everyone should be grateful and study hard.

Game runners shall perform legal obligations and shoulder social responsibilities. Strengthen technology research and development, improve the anti-addiction system, and set up effective system for identification, verification, blocking, early warning and another. The good  game runner shall fully implement measures for protecting minors physical and mental health as well as obey the legislation.

In the end, parents shall strengthen the guidance of education, keep pay password secretly and remember to keep an eye on their cellphones.