To address an ever-growing concern over online game addiction amongst children, the government of South Korea has put in place a ban on youths playing them past the witching hour. Underaged users who play in the wee hours will have their connection to the server severed for a six-hour period and gamers can choose whether it starts at midnight, 1 am or 2 am.
In addition, extended play online will result in a throttling of the user's connection speed. This measure is currently being tested on four MMOs and will later be expanded to apply to a total of 19 online RPGs which represent 79% of the domestic market in Korea.
Kids will inevitably find a way around this, no doubt. but I can appreciate the desire to do this. If I had had people -- we'll call them "parents" -- who told me to turn off my games at midnight or offered punishment for disobeying the instruction, I might have wound up with a real, grown-up job instead of this totally awesome one.
Of course, I did have people like that and I chose to ignore them. Something tells me that's likely to happen again.
Midnight ban imposed on online games [The Korea Herald]
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Contest:
7:00 AM on 04.12.2010 | 
Yeah, that'll show 'em.
Most kids don't own a PC at home in Korea, hell most adults don't either. So why not just target the cafes, cut through all the bullshit and money/time.
Make a game, make it take REALLY long to get anywhere in it to keep people playing and paying, make it social so that people feel the NEED to keep paying/playing and make it rewarding.
It's like MMO's are to endorphine addiction as pipes are to crack addiction.
But what can I say, although I don't play MMO's I AM addicted to gaming.
http://www.massively.com/2010/01/13/korea-rules-that-virtual-currencies-can-be-exchanged-for-real-mo/
Last time I checked China, North and South Korea were not free societies.
Children need more sleep than most people would imagine and I know from adult experience that playing video games until waaaay past my be time affects my abiltiy to concentrate at work so these children have no chance of absorbing their education.
to care for these children who are allowed to stay up to the wee hours playing mmo's
The ISP's dictate why services they allow, even in the "free" countries. If the bill payees don't like it they can stop paying for the services.
There's no such thing as a truly free society; the second people decide to form a government, they abdicate some of their freedoms in favor of some kind of order. Now, there are differing degrees of freedom, but every government impinges on freedom to some extent. This particular law doesn't strike me as particularly noxious.
I don't think we'll see something like this in the US any time soon either. We certainly have our MMO addicts here but it doesn't seem to be the widespread problem it is apparently becoming in South Korea.
In America, stores are already required to restrict the sale of "mature" games to minors. How does this differ to restriction of the amount of time minors can spend on an MMO? Both are restrictions to services in the interest of the health and safety of minors.
Why do you think, if the government picked up on the idea, and there was evidence that it prevented online game addiction amongst children, that it wouldn't catch on?
Is it because you believe you live in a free country where you can do what you want with your broadband?
Are you sure you don't live in a country where the main supplier of your broadband [url=can slow it down if they want to?
I live in Britain which is also meant to be free. Thanks to the Digital Economy Bill, the power to regulate broadband has been given to Ofcom. (Britain's equivalent of the FCC) The FCC are working on getting similar powers, and trying to get broadband treated like a utility so it can impose regulations much easier.
So, in conclusion, is The West particularly more free than South Korea?
So Japan erase a boyfriend/girlfriends character out of spite Jail/Fine, America no penalty really because it's considered by most to have no real value or that less than $50.
"12-2 is pretty late"
This depends entirely on your sleep cycle, when you work, and many other factors. 12-2 for me is "evening" not "late night".
if youre working then youre an adult and thusly this won't effect you.
Also, all consoles and computers can be programmed to do this, should direct parenting be too much of a hassle.
But to each country their own. Who knows what it would be like to live in a place where hardcore gaming is not only accepted, but to some extent televised and idolized.
Lets do this with crack heads and alcoholics!
A teen, if still awake at 1 or 2pm, should be preparing their stuff for tomorrow and not playing some MMO.
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