The policy is to prevent students from becoming addicted to online games, a senior official at the General Administration of Press and Publications told a conference in Chongqing yesterday.

It marked the first time a GAPP official revealed a timetable for the controversial policy. Students will be restricted to five consecutive hours of game time per day.

The policy will take effect for seven homegrown companies' games including Shanda, The9, NetEase and Sina, according to GAPP's Kou Xiaowei, who was quoted by Chongqing Evening News yesterday.

"The Public Security Bureau will participate," Kou was quoted in the report. "It will monitor if players are providing the proper identification.

"If players provide fake information, their characters' experience points and equipment will be deleted."

Parents of students will have the right to log into the account and learn how many hours their child spends playing online games every week.

The new policy is to improve GAPP's anti-addiction guideline launched in October. Previously, students could continue playing after five hours by using different accounts or switching to other games. The initial policy drew complaints from adult gamers because their time was also restricted. Kou was also quoted in the report that adults would no longer be limited to five hours.

A spokesperson for The9, who declined to be named, said: "The new system will prevent people from selling fake game accounts and unauthorized equipment online and make the gaming world more healthy."