Quote:South Korea's Ministry of Education, Science and Technology is reportedly reviewing a policy that would ban minors' accounts if they played online games for more than two hours consecutively, or a total of three hours in a day.

Full Story: Korea Considers Blocking Minors From Playing Online Games For Over 3 Hours

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I can't decide whether this is sad or funny. :/

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I can't help but wonder how many lines they're willing to cross before they're satisfied. They claim to be a country for freedom, (as opposed to North Korea) yet laws like these are commonly being discussed.

Granted, being an American with laws like SOPA/PIPA and ACTA being discussed, maybe I'm being a bit hypocritical. =/

In the end, though, laws like these would hold little effect. Kids would simply make accounts with ages listed as above 18, and/or have parents who simply ignore the law. It's also not likely that lawbreakers would ever be reported to the government, much less be held accountable for simply playing a game longer than 2 consecutive hours.

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(March 10, 2011 08:09:41 PM)Darryl Wrote:  Grammar Nazi: Aaron (15 Votes)

BlahblahblahBlahblahblah

Video game addiction is pretty bad in South Korea. It's good that they're trying to do something to combat it. I don't really know what else they could propose than something like this?

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Governments need to introduce these ideas because people need to be saved from themselves sometimes. Bare in mind that under 18s typically become ignorant of the world around them when buried in a game.

Think of all the chavs in England that play CoD all the time, it sets them up with the mentality likened to that of the worst players you find on there. Then they bring that attitude back into the real world and we all suffer from it.

Sure games are fun but we have to put them down sometime and it just seems that South Korea is finding that harder than others right now.

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I can't pretend I know how bad video game addiction is in South Korea, so perhaps it really does need to be combated, but a duration of 3 hours a day seems a little strict. Perhaps on weekdays, fine, but what's a gamer to do on the weekend?

And, again, I still anticipate that this law will accomplish little, should it be passed.

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(March 10, 2011 08:09:41 PM)Darryl Wrote:  Grammar Nazi: Aaron (15 Votes)

BlahblahblahBlahblahblah

(January 28, 2012 07:35:30 AM)Aaron Wrote:  but what's a gamer to do on the weekend?

Read? go out and play? get a job and make some money, idk...

Look, I don't like the idea of there being any laws by any government restricting gameplay to minors. that's something that should be left to one source and one source alone: The parents

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(January 28, 2012 01:23:27 PM)Zero Wrote:  Read? go out and play? get a job and make some money, idk...

Look, I don't like the idea of there being any laws by any government restricting gameplay to minors. that's something that should be left to one source and one source alone: The parents

I agree. I think parents (and I think I've talked about this before) are the sole reason why kids have these issues. A twelve-year-old is going to do what he/she enjoys to do, and if that's playing video games, then that person is going to be in front of the TV on a regular basis. Parents need to use the restricting software that is built into every system that can set how long a child is allowed to play per day. Many MMO's also have this built in, such as World of Warcraft.

The biggest issue is that most parents are lazy, and they allow their child to be in front of the TV all day so the parent doesn't have to deal with them.

I'm not currently aware of the gaming issue in South Korea, but if it's bad enough where the gov't has to step in, then it has to be pretty bad. I think that banning accounts is extreme, but shutting down an account for the rest of the day would be quite effective.

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