2025 minors-protection audit: all 20 sampled mobile games still enforced Fri/Sat/Sun/holiday 20:00–21:00 play window

An English summary of Southern Finance Digital Entertainment Research Group’s Fifth Annual Report on Minors Protection in Mobile Games (2025 Edition), opened 20 September 2026, describes a Children’s Day 2025 release evaluating 20 Mainland mobile games. Under “Compliance Spotlight: Time Restrictions,” the summary states that all 20 games enforced mandatory playtime limits per China’s 2021 policy: 1 hour/day on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and holidays, 20:00–21:00 only, with zero access on other weekdays.

That schedule matches the still-operative NPPA notice 关于进一步严格管理切实防止未成年人沉迷网络游戏的通知 (国新出发〔2021〕14号), published 30 August 2021 and effective 1 September 2021: online-game enterprises may provide minors only one hour of service on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and statutory holidays between 20:00 and 21:00.

What the 2025 audit adds — and does not

The AWN China summary is a third-party evaluation digest, not an NPPA enforcement bulletin. It also reports an average score of 79.1/100, names top scorers (Honor of Kings, Minecraft at 95/100) and lowest scorers, and flags separate issues (for example Mini World under-8 purchases; only 35% of games auto-disabled stranger private messages in juvenile mode). Those social and refund findings are outside this card’s time-window claim.

Named titles in the evaluated list include Honor of Kings (Tencent), Minecraft and Eggy Party (NetEase), Honkai: Star Rail and Genshin Impact (miHoYo), among others. Presence on the list is evidence that the researchers simulated underage play during permitted hours; it is not a UA ranking or a statement about overseas SKUs of similar names.

Operator implication

Adult-skewed creatives and messaging that imply unlimited under-18 play remain high-risk while this schedule stands. Download the check card.