South Korea to impose midnight ban, slowdowns on underage onli

[fgghjjkll]

South Korea takes video game addiction very seriously. You may have already heard about the South Korean man who died after a 50-hour gaming marathon. Or the South Korean baby who suffocated to death while her parents played at an internet cafe.

In response, the country's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has come up with a a pair of new policies that they hope will curb online gaming addiction among their youth.

One of the measures involved is the "nighttime shutdown" where underage gamers will be automatically blocked from online access to games for six hours once the clock strikes midnight. They say midnight but gamers are actually given a choice between three blackout periods: midnight to 6 AM, 1 to 7 AM, and 2 to 8 AM.

The nighttime shutdown will commence in the second half of the year. It will cover popular online games like Maple Story and Mabinogi.

Another method currently being tested slows internet connection speeds down to a crawl if an underage gamer plays for a long enough period of time.

Four RPGs are currently being used to test this "slowdown" method. This number will eventually be increased to a total of 19 RPGs which reportedly represents almost 80% of South Korea's domestic online game market. Interestingly enough, some of the country's most popular MMORPGs like Lineage are apparently not included.

Source

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Wouldn't this just cause withdrawal then?

But the thing is that this is just for underage gamers. The two examples of video game addiction in South Korea are both involving older gamers (I'm assuming the age of the man who died is not underage). And most underage gamers just put their birth date to be something that'd make them older.

This won't really help the problem, I think.

 

[Makar]

Sounds kinda stupid if you ask me. People will still go on computers at night doing "other" things :|

 

[Ryukouki]

What game is that in the picture? Looks cool!

 

[SylvWolf]

Since Lineage was mentioned in the article and the picture is titled "l2-mmo," I'm assuming it's Lineage 2.

 

[Dragoon709]

Wouldn't this just cause withdrawal then?

But the thing is that this is just for underage gamers. The two examples of video game addiction in South Korea are both involving older gamers (I'm assuming the age of the man who died is not underage). And most underage gamers just put their birth date to be something that'd make them older.

This won't really help the problem, I think.

I totally agree. Underage gamers will just lie about their age. Unless there is something that can be done to verify the age without relying on the gamer to input it themselves.....

 

[DeltaBurnt]

I find it funny how they completely bypass making the parents teach their kids any sort of values or rules.

 

[dragon574444]

I find it funny how they completely bypass making the parents teach their kids any sort of values or rules.

Mmmm. This type of situation shouldn't be the government's job.

 

[syko5150]

um wtf? thats not really doing much they can just sleep during that time wake up and play all day again...that solves nothing other then telling kids to go to bed lol!!!!!

 

[Guild McCommunist]

um wtf? thats not really doing much they can just sleep during that time wake up and play all day again...that solves nothing other then telling kids to go to bed lol!!!!!

The problem was kids not sleeping or not sleeping reasonably because they were playing MMORPGs. My brother has stayed up days at a time playing CoD or Halo. It's the same case with some South Korean kids, apparently. Making them go to bed is what the government wants.

 

[syko5150]

but i mean there are people like that all over the world the majority of them aren't that way only a small amount of people are that addicted to it and its not like they're keeping them off for that long its only 6 hours and if they're so addicted to games that they dont sleep what makes them think a 6 hour downtime is going to keep them from playing?yes they can take them away from online games but what about playing games in general? they could just go play a single player game for those 6 hours and then get right back to playing online for 18 hours a day...

 

[DeltaBurnt]

What game is that in the picture? Looks cool!

Looks like it might be from Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2.

 

[thedicemaster]

Wouldn't this just cause withdrawal then?

But the thing is that this is just for underage gamers. The two examples of video game addiction in South Korea are both involving older gamers (I'm assuming the age of the man who died is not underage). And most underage gamers just put their birth date to be something that'd make them older.

This won't really help the problem, I think.

I totally agree. Underage gamers will just lie about their age. Unless there is something that can be done to verify the age without relying on the gamer to input it themselves.....

koreans often have to fill in their social security number to register for online games(atleast, korean based online games)
although it's not that hard to find yourself a new identity with google.

 

[BlackDave]

What game is that in the picture? Looks cool!

Looks like it might be from Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2.

No way in hell it's Guild Wars

 

[superrob]

Wow they sure are clever! Wonder what the kids would do about this... "Oh hai im born in 1974!".. bah thats just stupid and won do ANYTHING at all.

Try their parrents instead.

 

[GundamXXX]

but i mean there are people like that all over the world the majority of them aren't that way only a small amount of people are that addicted to it and its not like they're keeping them off for that long its only 6 hours and if they're so addicted to games that they dont sleep what makes them think a 6 hour downtime is going to keep them from playing?yes they can take them away from online games but what about playing games in general? they could just go play a single player game for those 6 hours and then get right back to playing online for 18 hours a day...

I think you misunderstand the addiction in SouthKorea, I played a LAN party from friday night till monday morning(not sleeping) and slept for like 2 days afterwards.
These guys have a LAN party from monday to sunday not sleeping and then crashing on their keyboards dying doing a Leeroy Jenkins in WoW.

I think this is a good idea. But its sad that their parents cant take care of the issue. I know mine never knew the solution because I worked and I paid the internetbill so they couldnt shut me down.

Best solution btw is just to ban MMORPGs from SouthKorea

 

[syko5150]

but not all south koreans are like that and a lot of people have really bad addictions to online games i know my brother is extremely addicted to WoW he put on like 80lbs from sitting there playing the game and eating all day...and werent the people that let their kid starve to death overage? so basically they're trying to stop kids from playing all the time but arent doing anything about the adults that are dying from this? and i agree with you gundamxxx they should ban MMORPGs from South Korea at least until people can get their addictions under control...

 

[zuron7]

This, then companies will say decrease in sales.
It's never gonna end.

And talking about the timings.It's just 6 hours and it comes right at weird timings so shouldn't affect people much.

 

[syko5150]

This, then companies will say decrease in sales.
It's never gonna end.

And talking about the timings.It's just 6 hours and it comes right at weird timings so shouldn't affect people much.

well aren't most of the MMORPGs that people get addicted to really bad the kind that are free to play but have an option to buy in game items?

 

[Cermage]

acceptable idea, however i can see younger people easily bypassing this by using their parents KSSN instead of their own.