There are still plenty of non-garbage games if you wade out further than AAA. My friend group played Valheim a few months ago and it was spectacular (for the weekend anyways). It's a great game to lose your self in the environments and doesn't have any IAP rubbish.
I really don’t understand what people see in this game. It’s not bad, sure, but it’s almost a walking simulator. Getting resources feels pretty grindy, and the abilities and leveling system feel lackluster to me.
It's fun to hang out in with a few friends. Solo play is like watching paint dry, playing with friends has that almost emergent feeling as all of you go off doing god knows what and end up making a mess of each other's work.
> Our restrictions came about through a democratic process A democratic process where most of the people affected weren't allowed to vote.
Not sure how this is at all relevant? In both cases children under 18 aren't allowed to vote. Or do you mean they should be allowed to have a say in this?
I think he's pointing out in this specific case, a democratic process of elected representatives is not better than that of appointed officials since it's still a group of people making decision for another totally unrelated group of people, teenagers, who didn't get to vote for those making the decisions/votes.
I don't want to start a us-vs-commies flame war but I'm finding it ironic that not a week ago someone was trying to tell me that american democracy is more of a plutocracy... Something that people don't seem to realize about China is that CCP values are supported by a majority of Chinese people. > What other word would you use to describe the Chinese government? I strongly suggest getting out of your comfort zone and…
Half-truth here. Younger people, recently more influenced by Xi Jinping's heavier hand in dispersing Marxist indoctrination, are indeed very supportive of the CCP ("generation N"). Other demographics, specially in southern China, aren't, but they can't speak up or they'll get prosecuted with "picking quarrels and provoking trouble".
I mean, I'm not trying to insinuate that every Chinese always agrees with the government, that's just silly.
Even in the US, a good chunk of the population always disagrees with whatever is the political topic du jour...
All I'm saying is that a bunch stuff happening in China does have a sizable amount of public approval, even if news articles make it sound like no one could possibly want it.
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…
All good points, but the main issue here is the government, in this case the CCP, dictating game play. It's the parent's responsibility to dictate when and how their children play games not the government. If the government wants to go after game developers because their games are addictive that's one thing. Dictating to the players is a level of control free citizens should never experience. Although, in this case,…
The regulated game are mostly online game.
It's like social media, sometimes kids have to play it to be in part of the community. Individual parents can't change this.
It depends on your environment. Say if you are at a university or something with students it will be very different than if you are working for a tech company with your Chinese co-workers. Also, southerners tend to be less nationalistic than northerners, so if you are in Beijing it is very different than if you are in Shanghai or Shenzhen (though if you are working at a tech company, your co-workers will be from all…
> It depends on your environment. Say if you are at a university or something with students it will be very different than if you are working for a tech company with your Chinese co-workers. That's what I thought before I went there but it turned out to not be the case. What I am about to say is anecdotal so take it with a grain of salt. I actually worked in Beijing. The work I did involved both tech companies and st…
I was at Microsoft China from 2007 to 2016 in Zhongguancun, so I probably had similar experiences to you (we had lots of interns as well from local and nation-wide universities).
Politics eventually comes into play, but it was more likely we would talk about the Great Firewall, or some kid getting arrested by the party police during a rave, things like that. Politics came into play when there was some heated event, like the South China Sea dispute, that someone (usually more nationalistic) was really passionate about in the moment.
China thinks that video games (specifically, the online variety) are harmful enough to children that it needs to be regulated at a federal level and children's exposure to games should be restricted. But here's the thing: We on the west do exactly the same thing for things like cigarettes, alcohol and gambling. The motivations behind all those restrictions are even similar (largely related to children's health/well-b…
I don’t agree that the restrictions are objectively similar. Cigarettes, alcohol, and gambling all have very well researched and understood physical and psychological problems over decades. I’m not aware of any such research done into the effects of playing video games more than three hours per week (though would be interested to read it), so there’s a good chance that this is more than “government looking after the…
Well. I don't think you need research to know that gaming consumes time, and for those addicted a lot of them. Cigarettes and alcohol on the other hand, is not about the time you put in doing it, it's about the time afterwards. So there is a subtle difference.
We restrict our kids to 30 min /day of screens. Try telling them it's not worth it. They are absolutely rabid about it.
We restrict both time and what they have access to, and the kids don't generally crave screen time (they're in elementary school). Aside from watching movies every once in a blue moon, they only have access to specific games (all of which fall in the educational category), so no endless content feeds and no micro-transaction BS. At one point, they got into one game enough that they'd demand daily screen time, but the…
I have mixed feelings about it all. I respected my friends growing up who couldn't play video games at will as I did, yet I also felt they were missing out. I know many adults who don't game, and often if they aren't out with friends they get bored really quickly. Since it is hard to get out with friends regularly as an adult (esp. as a working parent), it feels like many of them are just bored all the time. I wonder if they had more familiarity with the wide variety of games, they'd have found some that suit their tastes and competence and have something stimulating to do beyond doom scrolling social media. It is quite possible to game, read, have friends, and maintain a great balance between those activities and other forms of life. It is easy to displace those with social media and vice versa. All in all, I'll probably teach my kids to game even if they don't express a natural interest in it, because I ultimately believe it is a better hobby for most people than the lower hanging fruit like social media.
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…
All good points, but the main issue here is the government, in this case the CCP, dictating game play. It's the parent's responsibility to dictate when and how their children play games not the government. If the government wants to go after game developers because their games are addictive that's one thing. Dictating to the players is a level of control free citizens should never experience. Although, in this case,…
The government is not dicating parents/kids.
The government IS dictating game developers not to provide service to children who want to play outside of the said periods.
Physically abusing your child by chaining them to the radiator is not a parenting decision. Providing lunch at something the child is required to be at by law is not a parenting decision. Requiring annual physicals is not a parenting decision, nor a health care decision. However, requiring a specific treatment is both. Alcohol consumption is a grey area, and a cultural choice the country has made. Why not make the dr…
A parents' can ask their kid to limit video game time, but can't have the video gaming industry to enforce it. A national government can. That's the issue. And if a parent really feels their kids deserve more video game time, they can always lend their own account to their kids, which would disable the mechanism, that simple.
> they can always lend their own account to their kids, which would disable the mechanism
Current technology means statements like this are not necessarily true (these are all referring to the same story, Chinese language link last):
> the new feature sees the company check accounts registered in adults’ names if
> they are playing games between 10:00PM and 8:00AM. The company will then run a
> facial recognition test and, if it identifies someone who is not the account
> holder, they’ll be booted offline. “Anyone who refuses or fails face
> verification will be treated as a minor,” according to a machine translation of
> Tencent’s QQ post.