PK'ing Banned in China For Minors

Evoluder writes "Just saw this over on worldofwar.net as it appears to apply to WoW as well. A story at interfax.com says China just passed a law prohibiting minors from playing games that allow players to kill each other (i.e., player killing)." From the article: "Minors should not be allowed to play online games that have PK content, that allow players to increase the power of their own online game characters by killing other players...Online games that have PK content usually also contain acts of violence and leads to players spending too much time trying to increase the power of their characters. They are harmful to young people."

Comments

Re:this is a violation of freedom of speech

[Mythrix]

China has a declaration of independence?

Age check

[DarkFencer]

From the article:

hina's Ministry of Culture (MOC) and Ministry of Information Industry (MII) have also ordered the country's online game operators to develop identity authentication systems that prevent minors from playing games These authentication systems would require all players to first enter their Citizen ID Card numbers before being allowed to play games that allow Player Kills.

At least we see how they will check for age. Citizen ID Card. That just makes me shudder.

Regardless though, will they have seperate servers for 'minors'? Or will those who are minors (based on the authentication) be unable to be flagged as PvP? Either idea has advantages and disadvantages, but it does sound like it will create difficulties for Blizzard and its competitors that operate in China.

Say what?

[Vo0k]

One of few things in their censorship thing they got right.
I really don't understand why boobs are so no-no and killing is okay.

Re:Restraint?

[Nytewynd]

While it is messed up, at least it makes a little bit of sense. They don't want to ban games like Tetris, but they do want to ban games like Counter Strike. Maybe there is a little truth to the fact that kids shouldn't be playing games with realistic killing of other people. I don't think games lead to violence more than anything else, and don't support this policy, but it makes a lot more sense than flipping out about a boobie while you let kids do drive bys.

Re:What's the difference?

[xtracto]

It's interesting that we find censorship of boob'age or swear words to be completely socially acceptable, but we balk at the idea of censoring PK'ing in games.

Yeah... that makes you think which goverment is more stupid, the Chinese for banning games promoting killing and anti human practices or a country where this natural thing which all of our moms and dads did and we will ALL do sometime called SEX is banned?

And of course the leaders of that country are busy killing people and invading some other countries... I think someone should show these leaders what sex is about :) maybe that is the problem...

Re:Restraint?

[blueZhift]

It is important to note that video games and other forms of mass entertainment are an important element of maintaining control over a population. So to ban all video games with violent elements would leave too many of the wrong people with too much time to be upset about how the government is screwing them over. Gaming can be a very powerful opiate against social unrest as long as the games are free of subversive political content. The foreign investment money is good too, but the need to keep people reasonably happy and not thinking about revolution is far more important.

Banning minor-PK probably has some deeper elements that just old fashioned morality. China's one child policy has created a generation of, to put it mildly, spoiled brats. They are often referred to as little princes and princesses because the parents dote on them so much, particularly boys. For such a population to grow up PKing could be socially disruptive and dangerous to the government trying to say no to a generation that's not accustomed to hearing that. A generation of PKing minors might just get the idea that they could gain real power by knocking off those currently in charge! Now why would anyone believe that?

Oh, I should also note that games with explicitly sexual content would also be banned, as pornography is illegal in China. So boobs (bare ones at least) would not be okay either.