Honor of Kings, a popular online game across China, opens an offline store, which mainly sells game derivatives, at a shopping mall in East China's Shanghai. Photo: VCG

A Beijing-based social organization has initiated a civil public interest lawsuit against Chinese tech giant Tencent for the protection of minors on Tuesday, which is also International Children's Day, claiming that Honor of Kings, the Tencent-developed mobile game that has become a household name and a cultural phenomenon in China, has severely infringed on the rights of minors.

The Beijing Children's Legal Aid and Research Center (BCLARC), under the Zhicheng Public Interest Lawyers - an umbrella group that encompasses several subsidiary organizations, has brought the lawsuit to Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court, marking the first civil public interest lawsuit for the protection of minors initiated by a social organization in the country, according to a report by tech.ifeng.com, citing Zhicheng.

It is alleged that the content and settings in the game's character images, lottery rules, voice communication, chat channels that do not meet the 12-plus age-appropriate level; and that character image design, the website and community contain significant amounts of pornography and vulgar content that is not suitable for minors; besides, character images in the game have been tampered, which is different from history and traditional national culture has also been trampled on, the organization pointed out.

The game has also been called potentially addictive, which could weaken minors' self-control ability and increase the risk of overplaying.

Tencent did not immediately respond to the Global Times inquiry.

Honor of Kings is a multiplayer game where a team of five heroes go up against another team of five. It has become the first game to have over 100 million daily active users worldwide on average in November last year.

According to Sensor Tower, Honor of Kings was the world's most lucrative game. In April, the game retained the first ranking in games across the world, raking in $258 million in the month, up 38.4 percent year-on-year. 

Tuesday also marked that two newly revised laws directly linked to children's welfare take effect in China.

Internet firms are forbidden from providing underage users with products and services that are known to be addictive. Restrictions on access to internet services, duration of use and consumption will be installed for minors using services including gaming, livestreaming, social media, and audio and video, according to the latest revisions.

Chinese regulators have criticized the negative impact of excessive playing of video games on the young and pushed for stricter measures to improve the situation over recent years.

In 2018, Tencent began to launch its strictest real-name verification system in Honor of Kings to protect minors in China, using police data for the first time amid tightening scrutiny by Chinese regulator.

Last year, Tencent expanded its anti-addiction measures for the underage by limiting the time and money they can spend in the game. Users under 18 are allowed to play for up to 3 hours per day during official holidays but are otherwise limited to 1.5 hours of playtime per day.