Dealing With Gaming Addiction, Chinese-Style

Anytime the government gets involved with our favorite hobby, it’s usually bad news. Video game violence is their favorite target on this side of the world, and it’s really becoming a legitimate concern to them, taking for granted the fact that a great majority of us don’t go around shooting people.

China has a different problem. It’s not violence, it’s addiction. And the measures their government took to control that problem is, well, read for yourself.

And now the Chinese government has announced that they are getting involved, by literaly setting limits on the amount of hours teenage players can spend gaming.

Under new rules that took effect Monday, Chinese Internet gaming companies must install a program that requires users to enter their ID card numbers. After three hours, players under 18 are prompted to stop and “do suitable physical exercise.”

If they continue, the software slashes by half any Experience points earned in the game and if the teens try to break the rules and stay on for over five hours, then the game will literally wipe out all the player’s experience points! (Talk about harsh!)

The program is part of a government campaign to combat Internet gaming addiction, “clean up the Internet environment” and “promote civilized Internet use,” according to guidelines issued by China’s General Administration of Press and Publication.

Harsh indeed, if not a tad drastic too. Any hardcore RPG player will tell you that losing experience points is worse than losing money. Or anything else, for that matter.

Source: VideoGamesBlogger

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