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.

change to WoW economy

[romit_icarus]

I predict a significant drop in Gold inflation rates in WoW due to the resulting reduction of farming activity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmer_(gaming)

The Fed had better act quickly.

Democracy vs Dictorator ship

[SmallFurryCreature]

That would be like setting of a flair signalling that you are doing something the goverment disapproves off.

Your silly attitude is pampered by living in the free west. A program called freenet suffers from that too. Its latest version attempts to sit on a darknet.

Yeah, that works. In the free west where NOBODY (we know off so far) gives a shit about wich ports traffic is going across or wether they can read it.

For the chinese goverment it would be trivial to just report any traffic that does not go over legit ports in a legit form. A darknet would stand out like sore thumb. If you think a darknet works then you must also think that sending mail to your own adress with a phoney name is going to fool anyone.

Same with wireless, radio signals can be detected you know. EASILY. And what would you connect to anyway? The state run ISP wireless service? Then it don't matter shit. You will still be monitored. and your location can be easily found with decades old equipment.

Crypto, well even if it is unbreakable under a dictator ship that would just mean you just proved you had something to hide, wich is a crime so of you go to be re-educated, you little counter-revolutionist.

Only in the free world can you hide in plain sight. Sending ANY content that cannot be identified but can be traced back to you is enough to land you in jail in a dictatorship.

Only if you somehow manage to come up with a solution that allows you to send and receive without being traced are you safe. Good luck with that. Spy agencies the world over would like to hear from you.

NOT a response to deaths from gamers

[FriendlyLurker]

The Chinese Gov is not responding to a few "deaths from unhealthily dedicated gamers" as many news sources are reporting with the tone that this is a "good idea". This is such a thin cover story its laughable. Unreported yet estimated to be large numbers (http://hazards.org.master.com/texis/master/search /mysite.html?q=china&submit=+Search+Hazards) of Chinese routinely die/maimed/disappear from very poor to zero work related safety precautions, with local courts routinely ruling against the victims and their families because awarding for better conditions/compensation "restricts Chinas progress". This news story is simply an ongoing restriction to information/Internet policy with a very thin disguise - anybody reporting it otherwise is being uninformed or perhaps is gunning for a similar policy locally.

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...

Re:NOT a response to deaths from gamers

[drinkypoo]

Yep! And the counter-point was, internet cafes are everywhere, internet is on people's cell phones, internet is available on home computers.

On one hand you might say it's like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. On the other hand, not doing it is like telling someone it's okay to stab you because you've already been shot. Of course, that's a pretty ludicrous comparison when what we're talking about is censorship, fascism, and control, but it still illustrates the point better than any other example.

Also, this could easily be a first step to actually closing down cybercafes...

And your point about cellphones and home computers is utterly irrelevant, because you are not anonymous with either of those things (except possibly for prepay cellular, but I don't know how that's actually handled in China.)