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China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

reuters.com

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Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#171

Post by aidenn0 »

bserge wrote: post #23
namelessoracle wrote: post #7

I have mixed feelings about this. Younger me learned a lot of problem solving skills and most importantly spent a lot of time learning how to read by playing RPGs and games that required lots of reading. My reading skills would not have been as advanced if i wasn't playing text heavy games that had a lot of plot like Square Enix games and the CRPGs of the time. Modern games though are clearly designed to get you as a…

I haven't played a good game in nearly a decade. I used to play them for the story, then it all became too grindy, trainers became moneymakers (yeah I used cheats, sue me, I played for fun), everything needs a fking Internet connection and anticheat software that does god knows what. Kinda sad.

I haven't played recent games, but are they really more grindy than e.g. EverQuest or the NES Square/Enix games?

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#172

Post by piaste »

tejohnso wrote: post #145

With school out for summer, my preschooler is either playing a video game or watching youtube for hours on end. We try to force some time away from screens but it is a never ending struggle, as screen use is the immediate, default state to return to. I find most of the youtube content worse than the gaming, but neither are all that great.

Disclaimer: not a parent.

He's a preschooler, not a teenager or even a kid. Can't you just... not give him a phone/tablet except at specified reward times?

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#173

Post by rehitman »

tgv wrote: post #8

Anyone want to argue why this would be bad, apart from restricting freedom? BTW, nothing in the article about limits on TikTok or YouTube or whathaveyougot. That's as much opium as gaming, IMO.

Freedom is extremly important. The point here is not that Video game is good or bad or how many hours of it is OKay. The point is this is something that must be enforced at family level, or at most at school level. Government forcing this for more than a billion people is just wrong and most likely hurt them in the long run. For example, Who said those days are okay, maybe someone has to work on Weekend. Maybe some kid function better if she plays an hour of game at lunch time. Everyone is different. China has done similar things few decades ago in other industries (e.g., enforcing farming policies). The result was millions of people starve to death.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#174

Post by dirtyid »

Kids will just sink time in old games / old emulators. I had a phase playing gamse on TI83 growing up. The silver lining is hopefully the market will focus more on short single player offline experiences.

Or publishers can cirvument entirely by moving games web on foreign server, and it's another entertainment locked behind VPN situation.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#175

Post by dragonwriter »

mrlonglong wrote: post #147

Wouldn't those kids grow up resenting the CCP? If the CCP keeps doing this long enough, they're going to have millions of sullen people and then all it takes is just one spark.

> If the CCP keeps doing this long enough, they're going to have millions of sullen people and then all it takes is just one spark.

...and lots of disaffected people end up dead or beaten or in prison or, seeing those options demonstrated vividly, resigned to their fate under the CCP’s rule, unwelcome as it may be.

It’s not like this hasn't played out already several times over different issues.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#176

Post by ceejayoz »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #115
namelessoracle wrote: post #7

I have mixed feelings about this. Younger me learned a lot of problem solving skills and most importantly spent a lot of time learning how to read by playing RPGs and games that required lots of reading. My reading skills would not have been as advanced if i wasn't playing text heavy games that had a lot of plot like Square Enix games and the CRPGs of the time. Modern games though are clearly designed to get you as a…

Goodness. If this was the US, I would be losing my mind over such legislation. We must not convince the law makers that video games can be beneficial. That puts the wrong emphasis on the conversation. The emphasis must be, you have no jurisdiction when it comes to raising children. Your laws are invalid. Even if video games are detrimental, you do not decide what is the best interest for a child, the parents do.

Is the same true for alcohol and tobacco?

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#177

Post by falcolas »

sudosysgen wrote: post #85

To note, this only applies to online games. The restrictions are supposed to be server side only.

Tencent is implementing facial recognition on phones to enforce this. I don't believe we can realistically claim it's server-side only.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/08/business/video-game-facia...

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#178

Post by brundolf »

falcolas wrote: post #157
jacknews wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite happy for my kids to spend hours playing online when they are playing together with friends. They start up discord audio rooms or whatever and play as a team. Of course, playing with a ball in a field might be better, but, covid. I don't allow them to play single-player games so much, unless it's something original, story or experience-based. Undertale, Braid, Journey, etc. Certainly nothing 'infinite scrol…

> playing with a ball in a field might be better I categorize this as "maybe". If you're a physically fit child with good hand/eye coordination, playing ball is fun. If you're not, due to genetics, weight, or illness, it's closer to torment. Also, playing ball is almost always going to be competitive - there are no bots and only rarely cooperative objectives involved.

For me it was just always boring. I played pee-wee sports for a few years and I spent most of the practices and games staring up at the sky daydreaming. I couldn't relate to my peers over their interest in it (though I did relate to some of them over Pokémon when we had water breaks)

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#179

Post by aidenn0 »

mrlonglong wrote: post #147

Wouldn't those kids grow up resenting the CCP? If the CCP keeps doing this long enough, they're going to have millions of sullen people and then all it takes is just one spark.

The CCP doesn't keep its power by convincing everyone it's the best thing since sliced bread; it keeps it's power by convincing everyone it's both A) Inevitable and B) Not that bad.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#180

Post by javajosh »

choeger wrote: post #160

We live in interesting times, indeed. All the devices we own now become bricks in the walls government wants to build around us. Make no mistake, China is just the first state to implement such a measure and video gaming is just the first use case. It's really obvious by now that more and more policies like this will be embedded into software. There are so many applications: Cars (how much, where, and how do you driv…

I think this rule only applies to "online gaming services", which is significantly less dystopian.

But I agree with your larger point, and would argue that insofar as we no longer understand our tools' functioning then they can (and will) be used to control us.

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