Curfew For Online Gaming

[Vadrosaul]

A Malaysian city is introducing a curfew for online gamers in a bid to stem a rise in the number of addicts.

 

The authorities in Subang Jaya, near the capital Kuala Lumpur, say that from next year they will close down net cafes which allow patrons to play games late at night.

 

Politicians decided to take the action after being approached by a worried mother whose son had gone missing.

 

The teenager was found in a cyber cafe where he had been playing for 48 hours.

 

Police monitoring

 

Under rules due to come in next year, cyber cafes will have to set up different areas for gamers and for other internet users.

 

Gaming areas will need a separate entertainment licence and will be required to close at midnight, even at weekends.

 

Local lawmakers say they plan to deploy teams of officers to check on popular internet spots.

 

Those found playing games after midnight will be told to leave, while cafe owners who ignore the rules face having their licences withdrawn.

 

The plan has met with a mixed response from proprietors and gamers alike.

 

Some believe the move will cut crime as well as preventing young gamers becoming addicted to their hobby, while gamers have expressed resentment at the intrusion.

 

Computer gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry which attracts million of players in some Asian countries.

 

It is a professional sport in South Korea, while in China a dispute over a game earlier this year resulted in murder.

 

Quoted from the BBC

[Domarius]

I was discussing this with my best friend (much more intelligent than me) and she convinced me that laws like this will become increasingly nessecary.

 

Basically, a country is not going to be very productive if most of its citizens are spending most of their time involved in entertainment and not balancing it with work.

[sparhawk]

Blablabla....

 

If people like to game then let them. I agree that it is kind of stupid to allow a teenager to play straight for 48 hours, but such extreme cases are always used to "explain" the need for more restrictions.

[oDDity]

Yup, you get these stories cropping up every so often about some oriental guy who died after playing x game for 48 hours without food or sleep.

They're just fucking idiots basically, and you can't pass laws against idiocy, because idiots aren't going to obey them.

 

Of course, on the other side, this has become a full time job for a lot of people. They earn real life monmy by earning in-game money and items and then selling them for real world money.

[sparhawk]

And this is the reason why people start to control it. Not because they care for the poor poeple who spend 48 hours gaming. They care for the money and the power that is in there.

[Gildoran]

I say that as long as somebody can afford to pay the cyber cafe (assuming the money is their own), they should be allowed to play.

 

As for worrying about productivity... Great idea outlawing entertainment in the hopes of forcing the average person to slave away more of their time for those in power. In any case, alcohol has hurt productivity far more, and it's not illegal.

[sparhawk]

A similar "argument" is used against smoking. Smoking can cause cancer and therefore it should be forbidden for normal people. Actually we can construct all kind of restriction with this kind of reasoning.

Going to the theater wastes about 2-3 hours which can be better spent working for the community.

Driving cars kills a lot of people each year, this could also be banned. Especially when we consider the amount of pollution it creates.

 

Of course you can always pay a fee and then you are still allowed to do this, because then it would be ok.

[Gildoran]

Truthfully, I had always figured that the reason alcohol and cigarettes are the only legal drugs in america is because they have an industry to protect them, whereas drugs such as marijuana can be grown without an industry to protect it. (and I have a hard time imagining its users being motivated and coordinated enough to do so either, heheh) ...so that begs the question - if videogames are such a big industry, why have they not yet learned to kick and scream and throw tantrums like other similarly sized industries?

[OrbWeaver]

if videogames are such a big industry, why have they not yet learned to kick and scream and throw tantrums like other similarly sized industries?

 

If this was in the US, they would.

 

In countries like Malaysia and China you do what you're told, even if you are a corporation.

[Maximius]

Harpers magazine had an interesting essay this month about gaming "farms" in Asia. These farms hire kids to play games like Lineage II for 50 cents a day then take the power-ups and crap that they find and sell them on E-bay for much more money. One of the farm owners related a story of some idiot who emailed him, promising to send him his (former) wedding ring in exchange for several thousand in virtual gold pieces. The guy said "Why not?" and credited his account. When the ring arrived, he had it appraised at 2000$ U.S.

[Domarius]

The movies are different because its a finite time of entertainment. With video games you are encouraged to play indefiently.

[Ishtvan]

The company doesn't get any more direct revenue if you play the game longer though (unless it has a monthly fee).

 

If they make millions of sales to kids who play for 5 hours and then beg mommy & daddy for the next thing, the company still made a profit. The economic benefit to making interesting games with good replayability include good reviews & good opinion of their brand name among gamers. However, the majority of gaming purchases are probably made with little consideration or knowledge of the development house that put the game together.

 

Unfortunately it seems like gamers with discerning taste who make careful purchasing decisions based on past games are in the minority, just like people who bother to find out who directed and wrote a movie they are considering going to see.

[obscurus]

Legislating against people seeking X form of entertainment is futile and more costly than any losses attributable to the addict. Tobacco is a legal drug in most countries, while Heroin is typically illegal in most countries. Smokers are several times more likely to die as a result of their habit than are heroin addicts, and since there are also a lot more smokers than heroin junkies, smokers are much more of a burden on society. And the costs to society of enforcing laws to stop people from using heroin are again illogical, futile and costly. As is the crime rate resulting from desperate junkies commiting petty thefts to support their habit as a result of the inflated prices resulting from the risks to dealers of distributing an illegal narcotic. The simplest way to control heroin addiction is to make it a legal prescription painkiller (which it used to be). It is chemically almost identical to morphine, but has less severe side effects than morphine or codein. It is one of the most effective painkillers known, and if you manage the main side effect (addiction) properly, it is not likely to become a problem for those who use it.

 

If people want to fuck their lives up by spending too much time playing computer games or taking drugs, let them. They are really only hurting themselves, and it is their life to live as they want (and to end as they want).

 

Taking the flawed reasoning of regulating entertainment to it's logical extreme, one would conclude that all humans should be exterminated and replaced with more productive robots that work 24/7 without entertainment. In reality, freedom to entertain oneself as one sees fit is the biggest boost to productivity anyone could ask for.

Edited November 14, 2005 by obscurus

[Vadrosaul]

Another form of national gaming control:

 

According to German media reports, language introduced into a proposed revision to Germany's child protection laws targets violent video games in specific, and would place a ban on any game that depicted lethal violence.

 

A coalition made up of CDU/CSU and SPD party members has drafted an updated version of the child protection statutes, originally put into effect in April 2003, part of which demands that violent games be banned for the sake of Germany's youth.

 

As with several cases underway in the U.S. and Japan, the legislation would impose government controls above the existing German ratings classification. The anti-game language in the laws, according to comments made by parliament member Andreas Scheuer, is part of a wider effort to remove violent media from children's lives. The topic has been a hot issue in Germany since a high school student in the town of Erfurt staged a Columbine-esque shooting spree, resulting in the deaths of 16 before the student shot himself.

 

The passage in question is so far a very minor part of the larger coalition effort, but has already come under criticism from several critics within Germany. Grietje Bettin, of Germany's Grün party, said that "The laws read in such a way as if the coalition partners are not familiar with the existing regulations at all." Olaf Wolters, head of Germany's interactive software association, said to Der Spiegel magazine that "As far as we are concerned, there are no such things as killer games, but adult games."

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=7227

[sparhawk]

Yeah! That is a nice one but your passage is much more friendly than the actual phrasings from these so called "politicians".

 

CD/CSu cal thse games "killergame" for populistic reasons. They signed a coalition contract now with the SPD. One of the "important" parts of this contracts is "Die famillienfreundliche Gesellschaft" wich means "family friendly society". This contract includes such "important" topics like prohibiting "killergames".

But this is only a small part of it. Other topics include reduction of education, reduction of places where kids can socialise, reduction of state sponsored money where mainly families rely on, reduction of the amount of tax that married couples can get back (again families have a much stronger impact than couples without kids), and so on. So the "family friendliniess" is more related to populistic stunts than measures to actually help families.

[Ombrenuit]

I love how the government is claiming responsability for others by not trusting their population to take care of themselves.

[BlackThief]

yeah, I read this here: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/politik/0,1518,385496,00.html some days ago.

 

This is really frustrating - our country has got thousands of problems, but the politicians don't do anything but populistic laws against gamers. Of course why not? Gamers don't have a rich lobby in Berlin such as the other media or the car industry. There are a lot fatal accidents on german 'Autobahnen' (highways) every year, but there's not a single conservative politician who calls for a speedlimit (there are still a lot highways here that don't have any speedlimit). Why? Well because DaimlerCrysler, Porsche etc. contribute millions of Euros for the parties election campaigns.

 

I think the youth protection laws are really good - but if parents don't care about what their children are playing on their PC/console, the best law won't prevent the kids from playing adult games (no I don't mean sex games imho: adult games = games with lots of violence).

I'm of age, I am responsible for myself - so it's over to me to decide what I want to see on my screen.

[sparhawk]

Only politicians know what's good for you. You should not spend time with something as obscene as thinking, because that's what the politicians are for.

[BlackThief]

Only politicians know what's good for you. You should not spend time with something as obscene as thinking, because that's what the politicians are for.

 

of course - they're thinking and talking the whole day. that's why they end up looking like this

[Dram]

wtflol...

[Domarius]

I love how the government is claiming responsability for others by not trusting their population to take care of themselves.

Well that's the thing - most of them can't The majority of people are stupid.

 

When I was a kid, games weren't realistic enough to be very violent, so everything was fine.

[sparhawk]

Even if they can't, which has to be proven, politicians are no way better. The reason why politicians are concerned is NOT because they care about the people, its because it gives another powertool to wield.

[Fingernail]

I hope y'all voted Gerhard over there.

 

Or left, or green.

 

Anything but CPU really.

[sparhawk]

As you can see in the news, that didn't help. Gerhard has resigned and he was bid farewall yesterday.

[Fingernail]

I know he's gone.

 

I just mean, I hope you're not right wing bastards