Raleigh Smith Duttweiler was folding laundry in her Ohio home, her three children playing the video game Minecraft upstairs, when she heard a story on US news outlet NPR about new rules in China that forbid teenagers and children under the age of 18 from playing video games for more than three hours a week.

“Oh, that’s an idea,” Duttweiler, who works in public relations at an NGO, recalls thinking. “My American gut instinct: this is sort of an infringement on rights and you don’t get to tell us what to do inside of our own homes...