China Puts Hold on Net Cafe Construction This Year

With government concerns about online gaming growing steadily in China, Beijing has put in place a ban on the opening of new internet cafes for the rest of the year. GigaGamez reports on the country's move, which is largely seen as a response to some high-profile deaths from unhealthily dedicated gamers. From the article: "Honestly [this] shouldn't be that big of a deal if you consider that the Chinese government has already estimated that 113,000 Internet cafes already exist. Add this to the already bizarre limitation of World of Warcraft play time and you have some very unhappy gamers." Update: 03/08 14:52 GMT by Z : GamePolitics has the word that virtual currencies are also to be restricted, in an effort to ensure that the yuan is kept secure.

Comments

Well..

[okinawa_hdr]

...if you consider how many American dollars a sword, piece of armor, or gold fetches in the aftermarket of popular MMORPG's, compared to what the average Chinese worker makes in a month, you may be addicted to farming in these games also.

Re:Nothing wrong with that...

[jamar0303]

Quite strange to be thinking of the children, given that you need to be 18 to use the internet cafes in China.

Re:NOT a response to deaths from gamers

[drinkypoo]

I think the point was that it's not because people are dying. China doesn't give one tenth of one shit if a gamer dies. In fact the powers-that-be are probably overjoyed every time, because there goes one more computer-savvy motherfucker that won't be challenging the social order.

The point which I thought was made fairly clearly in the prior comment (amazingly clearly for slashdot) is that closing the internet cafes is really about controlling access to information. You can't be anonymous at home...