Greetings from China

[VGsatomi]

Well, I've begun my 3 week teaching venture in Wuhan. I still have limited access to the internet so I can still get things done here.

Juvenile crime rate has risen by 70% here. The cause of this drastic rise in crime? Violation of the anti-online gaming addiction laws (a topic I posted about in the news a long while back). Its ammusing...70% of all crime committed by youngsters these days is simly playing too much online games.

I was watching TV the other say and saw an interesting debate on a talk show between a univeristy professor who has been treating young people with internet gaming addictions and a representative from a Korean online gaming company (presumably Nexon or Triggersoft). One topic that came up was about how online gaming companies were going to curve additicion before it began, and their main solution was adding ratings to games, however the prominant problem to that was by who's standards were games going to be rated? The government? The online game companies? the players? As some of you may know this has already been seen in some US released titles, which demends that players be over the age of 13 in order to play (usually just a block you have to check before signing on). The problem is there is no way to verify someone's age via online identity without committing some serious privacy invasion, which is why it will never work.

The professor was brought up the recent and extreme cases of online addiction, including the case of a young man who literally lived in an internet cafe for 3 months, another who committed suicide over social affairs in a game and another who wore diapers so he wouldnt have to get up and go to the bathroom.

The representative's defense was basically that any and all hobbies can be unheathy, both physically and mentally, if taken to an extreme. Even playing sports.

Current chinese law forbids players playing games for more then 5 hours. Online gaming companies based in china have implemented such restrictions in their services. However, once a player has played 5 hours of a game, there is nothing from stopping him from simply jumping onto another game (which he can play for an additional 5 hours, and so on), and that is where the law breaking comes in.

Clinics have opened in China, South Korea and the Netherlands specificaly to treat online gaming addiction (I have promtly sent the netherlands clinic Darky's name and address ^_^), showing that at least national governments in some countries are treating the problem with the same degree of seriousness as, say, drug addiction.

In Korea, online gaming is almost a professional sport, where players have vast fan bases and can have yearly earnings from tournements up to $250,000+. The professor says this is bad role-modeling.

 

[Gauntlet2021]

i recall reading about a WoW lawsuit sometime last year regarding a kid who jumped off his apartment building, commiting suicide.
The parents claimed that he believed this was to meet his favourite character from World of Warcraft.
I'm bringing this up because ive heard very similar restrictions to that that VG described.
My opinion is that some of this 'game caused' violence is just blaming games for minor incidents that may reflect the crime and/or motive.

I'm not saying that I don't think games cause violence, because some people just take them too far.

 

[Ramza]

In Korea, online gaming is almost a professional sport, where players have vast fan bases and can have yearly earnings from tournements up to $250,000+. The professor says this is bad role-modeling.

well thats not so bad right? at least gaming over there now has a purpose ^^ one time i saw such a thing on tv, and the prize money excist of the money, gamers have to pay to come in the building

The professor was brought up the recent and extreme cases of online addiction, including the case of a young man who literally lived in an internet cafe for 3 months, another who committed suicide over social affairs in a game and another who wore diapers so he wouldnt have to get up and go to the bathroom.

ow ive heared alot of those things. a guy in holland played RuneScape and he did suicide when his account was hacked.. he was 14 :?

 

[hyp]

I come from China and my English not good so may have some English phrasing mistakes
I didn't support you of the standpoint is because of having no such phenomenon detection in China

 

[cheesdude]

Why can't they just make a certain game system playable instead of games. For example you play games on your PC, and after 5 hours of playing ( doesn't matter what game. Internet, or CD )

They can inpmlement that inall the future computers made which will possibly reduce the chance of such sand and unfortunate events to happen. I can't say the same thing for all the poeple who are addicted right now and only suggest this. GEt a hold of yourself , you're killing your own life!!

 

[Ki]

I don't agree with limiting the hours of game playing. They are depriving freedom from these people.

But really, some people should start observing the consequences for themselves, and see the negative possibilities when participating in their own gaming habbits. When one notices the time wasted on the game and how much he/she is paying for it (in addition to the news reports of people committing suicide), it should be his/her decision to choose whether to continue or not. The government should have no involvement here.

I'm not really going to get into this with full detail unless a debate ignites.

 

[Eusira]

I'm going to have to agree, sadly, with Ki here. If anyone is to blame, it would have to be the gamers themselves. Aggravating yourself because half of the population is busy rambling away in a virtual world is a bad notion to follow. As for hyp's argument of a lack of phenomena detection, that's completely false because of the large amount of press coverage worldwide. Nonetheless, such issues as the teenager taking a leap of faith to meet that character, it would be a blame onto the gamemaker.

The gamemakers are partly to blame because of the open appeal they have to children. In the modern society today, it is sufficed to say that some people are drained out of a "normal" lifestyle and are, essentially, addicted to entertainment. Really, in my opinion, is to limit the number of games imported or made in a region. Yes, that promotes smuggling, but among [generalization] the number of addicts, the methods of obtaining a game would be difficult.

Also, in reality, there ought to be more lawsuits, or waivers in the EULA of the game that bars the user. I'm fairly sure a server can time a daily play's playing time, and for things such as MMORPG's where costs are implemented monthly, there certainly can be overcharge fees, as well as a potential rewards system, i.e. if you have a free day in a work-filled life, you can take an extra 2.5 hours if your allotted time is 5 hours, though really the number should be smaller.

 

[james1654]

Guys, its people's own perconal human rights to do what they want so long as it don't harm other people. Who are we or anyone else to say what people can and can't do?!

Millions of people have died in wars to simply keep freedom in the world. I arn't adicted to any game, but if i was, I would promtly give the "up yours" attitude to these dictators that arn't so different to wanting a nazi german society (absoloutly everything watched other, kids are incouraged vigourosly to what the goverment wants - such as a healthy nation - ect) . Ok, this seems a little unsuitable and un-comparitable to some "freak" sh*ting hes pants up cos he cant be bothered to go to the crapper, but its the truth that nobody should be bullied out of their source of enjoyment of it dont hurt anyone.

And I am not hurt physiccally or mentally by some korean kid thousands of miles away, sitting at some pc, killing himself slowly. Ok, im disturbed by it, but not hurt. So frankly, the "nerds" can do what the hell they want so long as they dont harm anyone else.



I did have a good laugh at that joke that you sent darky's name and address to a gaming addictions clinic, that was pretty evil, hehe. Erm, it was a joke ... right?

/me watches as darky is dragged away from hes pc, screaming "nooooooo, I need to grind to level 60!", as the men in white suits cringe at the smell of hes poo-ey pants.





I bet darky is speaking fluent orcish by now

 

[yogomove]

Ah...I'm from China and my English is a little better than the one upwards...So here's some facts about China.

The one suicided, who you mentioned above, died for War3, not for WOW. And his parents, together with their extremely fanatic lawyer, thought they are the same----they charged 9c(the company which sells WOW in China) and in vain.

The five-hour-limit is just but a joke. Nobody obeys it.
For example, the clever 9c said, 'We WOW already have a limit for game time------when you log in, you gain right amount of exp; if you play longer, the exp bar turns purple instead of blue, which means you only get half amount of exp.'
But the guys in the Sports Office(yes, that's where the administraters of the so-called e-sports live) aren't so foolish. They forced 9c to set up a realm with the five-hour-limit-system they invented. And that realm became a joke among Chinese WOWers. One year had passed...and that realm is still there, with no more than ten players in it----and those players are the 'official testers'.

CCTV, China's governmental TV program, set up a program about 'e-sports' in year 2004. And the program is closed after five or six times of playing. Somebody in the government received toooooooo many accusing letters from the raging parents, and the thanking young guys don't know to write 'thanking letters'---- they only express their happiness on CCTV's website, but the heads don't often got to forums.

A question to VG: 70% rate of crime? Are you sure? We Chinese always like to speak a ten-timed number to foreigners.

 

[Gauntlet2021]

The one suicided, who you mentioned above, died for War3, not for WOW. And his parents, together with their extremely fanatic lawyer, thought they are the same----they charged 9c(the company which sells WOW in China) and in vain.

I didn't realise that, thank you for pointing that out.

 

[SeaGull1723]

Interesting detail on the influence coming from WC3. Once more I feel the majority of these damn cases involve a ton of ignorance (doesn't this remind you of Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton? Tsk) But never can we actually stop the blament blaming parents make on the game companies.

I'm not sure how someone can say the limitations system is beneficial to gaming society. It is and always will be the gamer's fault for any conspiracy involving death and whatever the freaky crap they do. Limiting will do absolutely nothing to the addiction. Besides, it just shows the absolute dominance Communism has over its people (which is something I won't get into.)

@Eusira: Unfortunately, as I said before, the mdeia coverage can merely be based on ignorance.

I'm not sure how importing or reduce production can actually stop addiction. Like you said, such laws limting game quantities would promote smuggling (and this wouldn't stop ebay would it?)

I'll disagree with you on the lawsuits on the EULA. Overcharge fees sound quite ridiculous. WoW has the potential of filling in almost your sort of idea which is the ability to gain exp on a faster rate based on the amount of time left. Blizzard is the most potential MMORPG in marketing today, and if I were Blizzard, I wouldn't try to find ways to make more money on one's addiction (considering the amount in the playerbase.)

The gaming companies can be blamed one way or another whether it's based on ridiculous charges or a movement against the companiy's way of handling gameplay. For example, Blizzard uses the idea of raiding as a way to satisfy customers. Unfortunately, while challenging, the raids are time consuming. How does Blizzard reward the effort? Through means of new and better gear etc... Even casual gamers are forced to deal with the time consumption through means of grinding.

Unfortunately, most of my argument is possibly based too much on WoW, and I'd have to recall old threads I've read.

 

[VGsatomi]

come from China and my English not good so may have some English phrasing mistakes
I didn't support you of the standpoint is because of having no such phenomenon detection in China

Sorry if it sounds like I am picking on China. I am staying here right now and this is just some stuff I saw on the news that I thought was worth sharing. If you have noticed in previous news posts, I have reported on addiction extremes in Korea, Japan and the United States as well.

A question to VG: 70% rate of crime? Are you sure? We Chinese always like to speak a ten-timed number to foreigners.

Again, thats just what I heard from...well...CCTV. Maybe its shame on me for believing what I hear in the news. I suppose I should treat Chinese news programs the same way I treat American ones; by completely ignoring them due to their piss poor fact checking and rampant bias.
-VGsatomi

 

[Eusira]

The biggest problem is government interference as a whole. Because the government, the watchdogs for the prison of our existence, we can't quite blame them. Therefore, we turn our eyes onto the "victims" of the enforcement, which would be the game addicts. Problem is, it would be difficult to advocate for them unless you would take being branded as a "game lover" or junkie of sorts.

Also, the demographical measurement might be a problem. If we were to test the crime rate in California but only surveyed Hunter's Point, we wouldn't have much of a fair trial. Likewise, we can't quite go judging around China's efforts to "lower gaming." Obviously there's 6 bil. people out there, and there's all sorts of sick and demented peeps out there. Sufficed to say, there's got to be some addicts out there.

 

[Ki]

The gaming companies can be blamed one way or another whether it's based on ridiculous charges or a movement against the companiy's way of handling gameplay.

In no way can the gaming company be blamed. Critics of capitalism's foundation always point to greed. Blizzard may sure be as hell greedy, but they found the secret of addiction. More power to them.

People will always have the option of playing the game or not. You can't say it's Blizzard's fault for a ridiculous price. Do people really have to pay? No. Shoot, Blizzard could very easily kick up the price another notch (say $20/month in US dollars).

I'm not sure how importing or reduce production can actually stop addiction. Like you said, such laws limting game quantities would promote smuggling (and this wouldn't stop ebay would it?)

The government wishes to negate the intentions of keeping a game by adding additional negatives to the scenario. They hope to find some people that will say the following: "The wasting of time and money are fine to me, but now the government's taking action? This is where I need to stop." Again, it shouldn't be that way, but when certain phenomenon occurs it is likely to say that the government will take some sort of action (reguardless of country).

I mean take a look at the western world here. The increasing number of homosexuals inevitably leads government to start taking action by creating new laws, not always the case restrictions, but in the event that the phenomenon is indisputably negative towards the country's state of well-being, you will always find some sort of government action.

You could even create a metaphor here with a father being the government and a baby being the citizens. A father can take candy away from a baby, simply because the baby may become disturbingly hyper or because it isn't healthy. The difference here? We arn't babies. All you governments, get it straight.