Chinese Government to Put a Time Limit on Gaming

Flyph writes "The Chinese Government unveiled a new online gaming timer mechanism that will try to prevent gamers from playing online games for more than three hours at a time. From the article: '"This timing mechanism can prevent young people from becoming addicted to online games," Kou Xiaowei, Deputy Director of the Audiovisual and Internet Publication Department of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), said during a press conference.' Maybe this is a way to prevent the goldfarming that goes on in MMORPGs." Of course, China may just want to avoid a tragedy similar to the recent South Korean man's death covered on Slashdot.

Comments

Altruism? I have my suspicions...

[TripMaster Monkey]

From TFA:

The new system, developed under the guidance of the GAPP, stops individuals from playing online games for more than three hours by cutting the abilities of game characters. The new system cuts the ability level of a player's online game character by half after he or she has played for more than three consecutive hours. Once a player has played for more than five consecutive hours, the system cuts the ability level of that player's character to the lowest level allowed by the game.

Furthermore, the system keeps track of hours of play. Individuals who immediately log back onto a game after three hours of consecutive play will continue to have the ability of their game character lowered by the system. Players must be logged off for a minimum of five hours before the system resets.

Mabye I'm missing something here, but it seems to me that your average gaming young person will simply switch to another chracter in the same game, or failing that, another character in a different game.

Again from the TFA:

In addition, seven of China's largest online gaming firms pledged Tuesday to "sacrifice short-term revenues" to create a "healthy" environment for young internet users. Companies signing onto the "Beijing Accord" were Shanda, NetEase, The9, Optisp, Kingsoft, SINA, and Sohu. These seven companies also pledged to deploy the system when development is completed.

Seems to me that the members of this "Beijing Accord" aren't as concerned with the welfare of young people as they are with insuring that the average gamer must have accounts on two or three different games to keep playing as much as they'd like.

Re:Multiple publishers

[Myridon]

Chinese players of most (all?) MMORPG's are already paying by the hour rather than by the month like US players.

Re:China's priorities....

[Stargoat]

1. Human rights do not slow the economic growth of countries. Unstable political governments slow economic growth. There are a number of highly successful 1st and 2nd world countries that did not abuse human rights. Although limited exceptions can be found, countries like Canada, Greenland, Italy, and Switzerland did not need to resort to the systematic violation of human rights.

Furthermore, calling the Chinese slaves is a bald faced lie. It merely demonstrates Bios Hakr's complete lack of knowledge of the issue. The Chinese building the SP were for the most part well cared for by the railroad. You can start here.

2. The United States fought a war for human rights. It took another century for the aims of that war to be truly achieved, but make no mistake, states' rights had nothing to do with it. Members nations of the EU spent millions of dollars defeating the slave trade.

3. China has signed the Declaration of Human Rights. They have a permanent seat on the Security Council. As such, China has responsibilities both to the world community at large, and to it's own citizens in particular. By going to war against South Korea, Vietnam, India, Tibet, Taiwan, funding a war against the Soviet Union and Nepal, giving nuclear weapons to Pakistan and fully expecting said weapons to travel to powers like Iran, it has proved that it has been a lousy member of the world community. China is the greatest threat to world peace today.

It is not acceptable that China has the worst human rights record on the planet.