China has banned minors from playing games where you kill other players to increase your stats, apparently in part because they're too addictive.
"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," Liu Shifa, head of the MOC's Internet Culture Division, which drafts policies governing the online gaming market, told Interfax. "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."
They want companies to require ID numbers to play such online games, and they also want them to enforce limited play hours, forcing you offline if you play too long. (Found via this /. article.) I have to say that in some ways, this actually makes more sense than going after GTA for a brief scene of soft porn that you need a hack to access. I mean, a video game leading to real life violence? Not so much evidence for that. A video game leading to sex? Not sure about that either. A video game, especially role playing games based on boosting your stats, leading to addiction and negligence of the rest of your life? Plenty of evidence for that! That said, laws to prevent addiction to drugs don't even work that well. I'm not so sure how well these laws will work...
Comments (2)
That said, laws to prevent addiction to drugs don't even work that well.
Yeah, but they work differently too. They criminalize mere posession. Modulo hacking (which I realize is a very large modulo) this would be the equivalent of doping all alcohol/cocaine/whatever with density-dependant time release molecules that would suddenly kick in after Consumption = C1 and totally neutralize the intoxicating effect, (i.e. it would require C1*Roe-doping of them to be sitting together in your gut at some time AFTER the bottle is opened for them to activate their neutralizing power, allowing a small kick but not a big one.) OR, say, be activated by an RFID tag in the consumer's gut. As far as I know neither of those has been done yet. ;-)
It reminds me of Neuromancer, when he's "healed" but in such a way that he can't be intoxicated.
A video game, especially role playing games based on boosting your stats, leading to addiction and negligence of the rest of your life?
It still seems like there's an element of prevent violence here, but if PK is demonstrably more addictive than anything else, i.e.
"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."
is really particularly true of PK, then they certainly have a case from a welfare-of-society pov. And an adult might argue that he has the freedom to ruin his life, but you could say a child/minor has no business making such an argument. Funny, it reminds me of the Opium Wars. Except this time the Chinese goverment is a helluva a lot more powerful.
Posted by SSR | August 4, 2005
MMORPGs: Opium of the Twenty-First Century Masses! :D
Seriously, though, MMORPGs certainly have a much higher addiction value than any other computer game every made, and it seems to be a mixture of direct competition with many others and an effectively infinite character-enhancement path. Simple-player RPGs usually had an end-point where you beat the game. In an MMORPG, there's always someone better than you that you can try to beat (except for that one person at the top), and PKing becomes the most direct reflection of that competition.
Thing is, there are a lot of things in life where you compete with others and constantly improve yourself, both physical and mental activities. I think what makes MMORPGs unique is that it's relatively easy to advance, whereas in real life, you hit your limits much more quickly, and it gets hard more quickly.
The addictive thing about "leveling up" is that you get a constant sense of accomplishment. RPGs effectively "game" our desire for success.
Posted by ToastyKen | August 4, 2005