Underage Gamers Get 6-Hour Ban in South Korea
South Korea is cracking down on video game addiction.
The Korea Herald reports that South Korea is cracking down midnight gaming for underage players, blocking 19 specific games for six hours in order to curb video game addiction amongst the country's youth. In addition, if underage gamers are found to be playing the titles for at least six hours during the day, the Internet connection will be throttled.
The new policy will ultimately offer gamers three choices: 12 a.m. to 6 a.m., 1 a.m. to 7 a.m., and 2 a.m. to 8 a.m. Titles that will suffer the six hour ban will include Maple Story, Mabinogi, Barmaeui Nara, and many others. Currently the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism is testing the new limits on Dungeon & Fighter, Dragon Nest, and two other unnamed MMORPGs.
"The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism intends to establish a countermeasure for youths using their parents' resident registration number to set-up online accounts sometime in the first half of this year," the Korea Herald said.
MMORPGs encompass approximately 79-percent of South Korea's online game market.
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Lol, generation fail.
GOD FORBID THEY CAN ONLY GAME 18 HOURS A DAY!
Wow those kids need help if cutting the internet is the only way to get them off.
that southpark was great!
Glad this isn't in America. As I believe it's the parent's responsibility to control their kids not the goverments.
Underage gaming? Theirs an age limit on gaming and smoking is still legal...wtf has the world come to.
How do they block it? By ip?
Maybe they're building some sort of virtual nuclear weapon...
How do they block it? By ip?
were they playing Starcraft?
how is World of Warcraft NOT part of this? I mean seriously...
that southpark was great!
Lol it really was...
Wow and I thought America was bad...
Mabinogi? Dungeon Fighter? Maple Story? I guess even South Korea has noobs even in MMORPGs......
Anyway these games are so available in the US. And every country has people like this. I remember that there are even people who are on Facebook the whole day. O_o
Hopefully the US will ban all the 10 year olds from Modern Warfare 2 now. Ya, I know, wishful thinking.
Im sure WoW was one of those two unnamed MMORGS, but ya the generation does have a kinda serious problem, and im a WoW player, but when your on it for 15+ hours a day...jesus, look in the mirror.
But...can they still play Crysis?(offline)
Government intervention this may be, but I support this measure elsewhere as well. How else would we stop a generation of kids from becoming overgrown couch potatoes?
LOL! I love this. Korea's government would rather have the kids make the games than play it. Just as assumption... Since most mmorpgs come from korea.
How do they block it? By ip?
They probably get the provider to block the game account because this is for MMOs. And actually it's not such a bad idea.. just maybe a little extreme. A better law would be to allow parents to establish the possible gaming hours when they open the account. Something like "No WoW after 9pm".
Maybe they're building some sort of virtual nuclear weapon...
Wrong Korea. You're thinking of the north.
Also, I expect no less of asians.
Glad this isn't in America. As I believe it's the parent's responsibility to control their kids not the goverments.
In USA the government controls your parents.
Online game´s are very addictive and dangerous. That is why I have stopped playing those games...not even 1 hours..
Not anymore...I had problems caused by Ragnarok a few years ago...
That's it for me...no more online games..
Hopefully the US will ban all the 10 year olds from Modern Warfare 2 now. Ya, I know, wishful thinking.
If that happens you will be migrating to your own Ip all day.
Glad this isn't in America. As I believe it's the parent's responsibility to control their kids not the goverments.
The government has to do something if parents are faced with problems they don't know how to handle... as a government you can't afford to have a "generation failure" to quote thesupermedium.
i loved "make love not warcraft" such a funny episode.
i can see why they'd do that, especially before a certain age as they're still developing.
I do occasional long stints of gaming, last time i did was for about 4 hours, running around in Assassin's Creed II, but thats not the longest i've played, my longest session i think was about 14 hours with breaks playing Oblivion(fun game) and i've still yet to complete it, but i like doing as many side quests as i can just to lose myself in the game.
The government has to do something if parents are faced with problems they don't know how to handle... as a government you can't afford to have a "generation failure" to quote thesupermedium.
The government doesn't need to do anything. The parents need to learn that they are in authority and not their kids. All computers require power, and it's very easy to remove that.
Doesn't help when the parents want their kids to raid with them.
MMORPGs = Kids(and some adults) staying out of trouble. i say give em better chairs and some mountain dew!!
MMORPGs = Kids(and some adults) staying out of trouble. i say give em better chairs and some mountain dew!!
Absolutely. It's a great idea to support one addiction to prevent them from getting another somewhat worse one...
There are parents. There are teachers. There is a family. There is a government. So how on earth can there be so little control that kids get the chance of becoming addicted in the first place? I game quite a bit, but when I was too young to have some common sense I had parents who had some...
Until we get a definitive list, we can't really say what's missing. Would be amusing if WoW wasn't listed at all.
Incidentally, Lineage (the first one, I expect) isn't on the list yet is still popular.