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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

#231

Post by crysin »

Scarblac wrote: post #162
bjt2n3904 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I disagree. Children deserve a lot of protection, and anybody can become a parent. A lot of people are far too bad at parenting to leave the decisions to them completely. Some intervention is needed.

(USA centric view) You cannot legislate parents into being good parents. You cannot pass laws that protect children from bad parenting as best case result you may get the state to intervene and put the child in a foster system where there's a 50% chance that they end up in an even worse place.

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

#232

Post by lostmsu »

lnyng wrote: post #110

Original notice from the government: https://web.archive.org/web/20210830120201/http://www.nppa.g... Google translation of the first entry: > Strictly limit the time for providing online game services to minors. Since the implementation of this notice, all online game companies can only provide minors with one-hour online game services from 20 to 21:00 on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and legal holidays. At other times, i…

This will not work well for people with multiple kids.

Also, imagine influx of games for services to handle.

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

#233

Post by katbyte »

darknavi wrote: post #37
bserge wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Even some AAA games have amazing story, but few and far between and a good number of the ones i'd point someone at are exclusive to ps4/ps5

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

#234

Post by overgard »

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.

Because play is important for children, and video games provide play? There's a WIDE variety of what you can find in video games, not all of them are casino like skinner boxes, many of them can provide good and even educational entertainment.

I know for myself, the reason I work in tech is because of my love for video games as a kid got me into computers. Being a programmer is a huge blessing economically, and I never would have done it if I hadn't spent all that time lost in video games.

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

#235

Post by rank0 »

I am appalled by all the supportive comments in this thread. Why are HN users so comfortable with authoritarian government?

It’s about more than just online games. It’s about control.

I’m sure the great firewall is perfectly fine as well?

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

#236

Post by namelessoracle »

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…

Thinking about this a different way. We have seen the games that come out that exist to get you to play as long as possible look like.

What will the games that exist to be so awesome that if you get to play only an hour a day that want you to come back again look like? Will they make sure that hour is highly enjoyable and engaging instead of grindy? Is that a more sustainable model for game devs?

At least its a change from the current skinner boxes....

Maybe it will just be stronger skinner boxes. "Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion!" or "Get X Bonus if you log in tommorow!" is probably what will happen....

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

#237

Post by ddtaylor »

ihuman wrote: post #55
ddtaylor wrote: post #22

My understanding is that South Korea already does this to some extent with users having to be over 18 or having a Pro Gaming license to play after some hour. The result has not been that the vast majority of SK gamers promptly log off at said hour. The result has been the majority of them connect to non SK servers immediately at said hour or use a friends account.

That law was abolished a few days ago https://www.engadget.com/south-korea-gaming-shutdown-law-end...

Thanks. Amazing timing!

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

#238

Post by Tiktaalik »

This will destroy the Chinese games industry and this may have broader implications than just stocks in free fall.

Video game programming is very cutting edge technology (eg. 3D graphics, animation, wayfinding, and more). China throwing this industry away will mean there are no home grown video game programmers which will have implications on their entire software engineering capability.

This gives the rest of the world a big edge technology wise.

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

#239

Post by cyber_kinetist »

lhorie wrote: post #46

For those comparing to western standards, note that this is just an increase on existing regulation. According to wikipedia[0], China has had regulation limiting underage video game play time from as early as 2005, meaning that most children there have never actually lived in times when underage unrestricted play was allowed. So in terms of "voice", this is akin to parents deciding what's good for children, except on…

And as always, kids will find a way to circumvent restrictions no matter how the state will try to enforce. South Korea is a prime example of this - they had a law starting from 2011 where kids can't play online games after midnight. After the enactment of the law kids began to use other people's IDs (parents, older friends, ...) either by persuation or resorting to more "sneaky" methods, making the whole thing kinda pointless. The law was eventually abolished a few days ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_law

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

#240

Post by floatboth »

javajosh wrote: post #168

The restriction is specifically "online games". Not offline games. Which is interesting because it implies that offline games are somehow less addictive - but in my experience, offline games can be very engaging, too. But perhaps it's in a more wholesome, problem-solving way? It's kinda impressive that the CCP can make decisions that affect 1B+ humans like this, overnight. I hope it's the right thing to do, for the k…

Well, offline games can't be real-money lootbox casinos, at least if we're talking truly offline.
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