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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."
;) Seriously, this is ludicrous. You might as well ban dodgeball be....oh....nevermind..
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
There goes BZFlag.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
China has a declaration of independence?
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.
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.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Ban noobs.
Chess, Checkers, Mahjong, etc. etc.
The goal is to beat or kill your opponent, 'nuf said.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
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.
Who gets punished for breaking the law - the person playing the game, or the company who let it happen?
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.
/. ++
You know Communists aren't just out to ruin every body's fun. My guess is the reason they don't ban all games is because it provides entertainment and leisure for their population (and takes up little space), plus there really isn't a good reason to.
I might not totally agree with the reasoning for banning PK games, BUT that doesn't mean I'm right - I do understand the logic behind it.
A lot of people saying this is ludicrous, and as much as I agree, the game ratings boards, PEGI - BBFO etc all rate PK games above 15 years of age usually, unless its non graphic and isn't violent
Business Voyeur
From the CIA World Factbook:
Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.12 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.13 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.91 male(s)/female
total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2005 est.)
I don't know where that 4:1 figure came from, it's totally preposterous. How could such a ratio come about? Infanticide may happen occasionally, but not in 3 out of 4 female births.
Makes sense. From my understanding of how the Linage ][ Chinese (or was it Korean?) servers work, there's an age limit. If you're over 18, you get to play on the adult servers (includes PvP); everyone else can play on the kiddie servers (PvE only!). In another slightly-interesting note, they recently took out a simple in-game dice game as folks were using it to gamble real world money.
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
PK'ing banned in Peiking!
Funny that a country that a country that kills demonstrators would have such a problem with virtual killing.
Latewire
If PvP is the only problem and they do desperately want to cater to under 18 year olds, all they'd need to do would be to not implement the PvP servers (or the Battlegrounds) and remove the flag that you get when you attack a city guard (or similar NPC) that normally makes you targetable by players. That should be very simple indeed to do.
I'll say this though, I'd pay good money never to have to play with some of the evil brats I've met in MMOG's.
China is not entirely the "Evil Communist Empire" it is made out to be. As with any communist society or decocratic for that matter you get people in power who are "out for their own agenda".
Corrupt politicians are possibly the ones behind these bans, though we may not know the reasons why they want these games banned. China has always had a strong belief in Confuciousism, and Buddism (in some parts) .
The idea of banning this type of game perhaps is thought to undermine the morality and identity that the Chinese people would like to teach the next generation.
As the world evolves and China presses forward into the technological future, it must be struggling to retain some of it's traditional beliefs and ideals. This is also a country that for centuries kept it's ways and traditions secret to the outside world until Chairman Mao took over around the 50's.
The country and it's people have a rich history, I'm am sure that this is just a step that those in power within the Chinese government see as a way to protect Chinese identity, and preserve thier culture for the future.
Without a history, we have no future.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
For those of you who don't know what PK'ing is...
PK'ing usualy takes place in MMORPGs (Massively Multyplayer Online Role Playing Games), although there are several other genres in which this happens (FPS, Tps, Paper and pencel RPG, et al), this article is mostly aimed at MMORPGs, WOW(world of warcraft), Ever quest, et al. PK'ing is when you kill a virtual character, with your virtual character, and the virtual character that you killed is controlled directly by a human.
and he said pwnt n006, and it was good
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.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Why do the Chinese leaders have the self-restraint to not ban games altogether, but they don't have the self-restraint to ban games with PK elements?
If you think of the Chinese leaders as the right wing of the Republican party, you aren't so far off: these people are socially conservative and pro business. When those principles are in conflict, it is unpredictable which one wins. In this case, they found a compromise that isn't all that different from the US or other conservative Western nation.
One difference is that the Chinese leadership is less constrained by pesky democratic and legal principles, so they can act faster on their whims; but should a US party achieve a filibuster-proof margin in the US, we may be heading that way, too.
Remember, all cultures are valid and must be respected. Except Western Anglo-Saxon culture. That doesn't count. Chinese people *want* to be oppressed. That's their culture. Those students in Tiannamen Square? They *wanted* to be run over by tanks. Don't you get that? But don't even think about making me recite the pledge of alliegance in school. That's a violation of my rights.
Remember, all women must have rights (including the right to kill unborn children, as we're not 100% sure they're really alive), unless they come from a culture that traditionally subordinates women. In which case, it's fine to treat them as property. In fact, don't listen to what they say, that's what they want deep down. The fact that, until 100 years ago, Anglo-Saxon culture treated women as property is not relevant; as we've discussed, that's not a proper culture.
Remember, tyranny is bad. Really bad. Unless the tyrant doesn't like George Bush, in which case it's a legitimate expression of valid grievances.
It's this strange web of nonsensical alliances of convenience that have shut the Left out of Government for so long. You've just managed to pick up on one expression of it.
Here in Europe, well, everything seems to be trundling along nicely
unless you say something deemed to be hate speech by the powers that be, in which case you can be arrested and or fined.
Everyone's fucked just not always in the same hole
Snowden and Manning are heroes.