Banning Arcades in Malaysia?

Amon CMB was the first of several to submit a story from The Adrenaline Vault where they talk about arcades banned in Malaysia. The story is pretty scary, one of the reasons for the ban is that children were willing to steal from their parents to get cash for the games. Think about that next time you get worked up about the government censoring the amount of blood in a game. Seems kinda insignificant relative to some places.

Comments

Re:And then there's Singapore...

[mindstrm]

The thing is.. most of Singapore's laws make *sense*.

$1000 fine for not flushing a public toilet? Sure, that might seem 'draconian'.. but what the fuck is wrong with you? why not just flush the fucking toilet? It's a health risk.

fine for spitting on the sidewalk in public? Sure. It *IS* the primary way TB is spread. And is unsanitary.

Mandatory death sentence for importing illegal drugs? Well.. what's wrong with that? It's clearly made known before you enter the country, and you are given the opportunity to dump whatever you were going to import without fear of reprisal. Bring it in and get caught, they whack you. And so they should.

That kid that was caned? Why the hell should we put him in juvie and spend all kinds of money rehabilitating him? A good public caning was a swift and cheap punishment. Cruel and unusual? Well.. what purpose did his vandalizing that car or whatever serve? Any useful purpose to society at all? Nope. So he gets caned, and learns a swift lesson.

Chewing gum? I believe the ban is on chewing gum in public; and it was done because the people were spending millions every year (the government was) cleaning up black sticky gum residue off of rail terminals, temples, monuments, etc... and some poeple were sticking it on the doors of the trains and such and delaying train runs. Draconian? perhaps... but it's 'if people can't be responsible, we will do something about it'. At least it's not some insidious corrupt government doing it to enforce their own brand of gum... it was fair and unilateral.

And the same thing happens in the US.

[oneiros27]

I don't know where the rest of you grew up, but I know of a few people in my high school 10 years ago who didn't obtain their nintendo cartridges legally. (Oxon Hill High School, outside of Washington, DC)

These days, they're having problems with kids stealing other kids Pokemon cards. I'm guessing there's a few kids out there who are lifting a little cash from their parents to get it, too.

And the reason this happens is because unlike Malasia, if you give the kid a good spanking, you get brought up on child abuse charges, or your kid sues you for emotional trauma years later. But if you just let them steal, you're fine, as they're still a juvenile, and they'd just get sent up to Boy's Village for a little while.

Not even a full generation later, and you're not shocked to see some 5 year old mouthing off to his mom. If I did that to my mom, I knew that after we got home, I'd not be sitting so easy for the rest of the day.

Too many kids these say have no real adult supervision-- both parents work, and they're sent off to a daycare or have a babysitter watch after them 'till a parent gets off work. If they're lucky, they have an older brother who will beat them when they do something stupid. [of course, they could also get my brother, who would beat us for no particular reason]

Not to be a whiner, but...

[MustardMan]

Think about that next time you get worked up about the government censoring the amount of blood in a game.

Now, don't get me wrong, I believe it is a travesty that there are other countries out there that take away personal freedoms like this. I salute the efforts of organizations such as Amnesty International, who work for freedom in other nations. And, I feel very thankful for the freedom we Yanks have in comparison to some of these other countries. My sadness over their own situation, however will NEVER make me stop fighting to preserve my own rights. While it pales in comparison to the situation in Malaysia, my government telling me what I can and cannot play in my own home is STILL a violation of my rights, and I will continue to fight every single time something like that happenes. Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile.

Before everyone starts freaking out...

[Gerad]

I would like to note that a few years ago, when I took a trip to the UK, I ended up going into a few arcades there, and the place was about 75% gambling, 25% video games. If you read the article, it says that the ban was mainly focused at the illegal gambling 'arcades', and happened to catch the legitimate arcades as a side effect. I don't agree with this, but I don't think it's all that bad of a thing either. Given that the US has restrictions on gambling as well, I think people should realize that diferent countries are going to deal with different things differently.

A Malaysian's Viewpoint

[efuseekay]

I am sure glad to see that Malaysia has made a /. headline! -sarcasm- Malaysia Boleh! -sarcasm-

Anyway, being a Malaysian, I can give a bit of history about this stuff.

Malaysia is a prudish country. To illustrate, let me list out the movies _we_ have banned : Austin Powers, Prince of Egypt, Schindler's list, Saving Private Ryan, countless others.

We also banned kissing scenes in American TV movies : they are always hilariously cut/bleeped off.

We banned Ellen Degeneres' appearance in David Letterman.

etc.. You get the Picture.

BUT...

The banning of Video Arcades, however, is not exactly a BadThing(tm), though. Have you ever seen some of these "video arcades" in Malaysia? They are not Dave and Busters' nice, clean stuff. But they are like gloomy, full of smoke, and lots of unsavoury characters.

Basically, if I have kids (I don't), I won't even let them -near- that place. If my kids want video games, I'll happily buy a Athlon and QuakeIII for him.

So, please /.-ters, don't judge too hastily. It's the knee-jerk reaction that, unfortunately, permeates too many people (including /. people) nowadays.

(As a point of history, video arcades were banned for the same reasons some years back. But the licenses were reinstated a few year back.)