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

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

#281

Post by persedes » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #192

piaste wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I am a parent. You absolutely can. The kid will make your life miserable about it for anywhere from 4 hours to 3 months depending on how stubborn they are.

dito, it's hard, but doable. We've gone cold turkey with the TV on our five year old and after a week or two he was much more tolerable and plays with legos for hours to keep himself occupied. He's still a 5-year old though, so removing TV alone won't help with that, you still got to parent / occupy him most of the time. It did however get easier to connect with him and reason about those decisions.

We still watch stuff together every now and then (or if we really need to be focused on smth), but he's in a much better mood throughout.

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

#282

Post by falcolas » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #229

falcolas wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile games, actually. No specific word of whether they have to be online games (whose definition is pretty vague these days - singleplayer games like Diablo III require a login and internet connection to play singleplayer). > The new functions will initially be used on around 60 mobile games, including the massively popular "Honor of Kings" multiplayer battle game, which boasts over 100 million daily users.

If you read the article, you will see that the ID is specifically to link users to the already existing player ID verification system. That system applies only to online games. Purely single player games are exempted from the ID system, so the facial recognition system is not useful. Diablo III is a bad example in that it's actually an online multiplayer game now. It didn't use to be, but I think it was planned all a…

> Diablo III is a bad example in that it's actually an online multiplayer game now. It didn't use to be, but I think it was planned all along.

Multiplayer has always been included with D3. And singleplayer mode still exists. But, let me add a different examples.

Doom Eternal's campaign can be played offline, but only after you've signed into your account.

Genshin Impact is online only, even though you can play it alone.

AFK Arena, a mobile singleplayer-only game, requires you to be online.

Crash Bandicoot 4, a singleplayer-only game, requires you to be online.

> That system applies only to online games.

I don't know a lot about the system, so you are likely right. But I have to ask, is there anything that restricts it to multiplayer online games only - aside from the current policy?

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

#283

Post by jimbob45 » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

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…

>Modern games though are clearly designed to get you as addicted as possible and to play as long as possible to an extent that made the old school 90s RPGs grinds look tame and mild

I try to tell my extended family this but I can tell that they choose not to listen. Games are no longer what they were growing up and you have to make sure your kid isn't playing a glorified slot machine. I plan to build a machine and only install certain games on there for the kids to avoid this very trap.

Parents today just don't understand how pernicious these companies have become. They used to include a hot girl in each game to keep you interested and prevent you from feeling bored. Sure it was lazy but that's all it was, lazy. Now, you have games like Genshin Impact that have weaponized sexuality to the point where people are pumping hundreds of dollars to see more sexuality in the game. Hearthstone's card packs function identically to Skinner boxes. League of Legends teases you with the prospect of going pro in gaming despite players have a higher chance to make it to the NFL than make it going pro in LoL.

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

#284

Post by jrochkind1 » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

crysin wrote: post #231

Scarblac wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Laws against child labor might be an example most of us would agree are called for, instead of just leaving it up to the parents whether children should work in mines and sweatshops or not.

Although I have no doubt someone will show up and say that should be left up to parents too.

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

#285

Post by ezekg » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

floatboth wrote: post #240

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.

inb4 all 'offline' games in China start to sync 3 times a week (for unrelated reasons)

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

#286

Post by floatboth » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #174

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.

Good! Old emulators and (truly) offline games in general can't be lootbox casinos.

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

#287

Post by saxonww » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

mrfusion wrote: post #5

I wonder why China feels so afraid of games.

Most of the answers here are about games being addictive and a time waste, but what about communication? I actually have no idea about this - is in-game communication in e.g. fortnite able to be monitored?

If not, and if the CCP is as interested in controlling discussion as people in the West think they are, online games are a problem. Youth are supposed to be more impressionable and easily influenced. So, the CCP may just be trying to limit competition.

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

#288

Post by sudosysgen » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

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…

There is a different incentive. For an offline single player or LAN game, you want to make the game interesting to play enough that the player will buy the game.

For an online game or a microtx based semi single player game, you want the player not to play, but to pay, over and over. That means that engineering addiction that leads to nothing but payment and compulsion is very profitable.

Offline games can definitely be very addicting and engaging. But ime those that are are because you're trying very hard to do something difficult, or because you're exploring, or because you're creating, all of which are ways in which video games can plausibly be helpful. And you will eventually get bored or move on to another game, which will give you time and pause to reconsider what you're doing.

Meanwhile you could be grinding an online video game doing menial tasks and buying microtransactions without ever having an end goal in mind and without being creative, for over a decade, every day.

So I think they're very different.

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

#289

Post by moulei » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

hjek wrote: post #199

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…

So it's not just 3 hours per week, it's three specific hours a week , but also only for online games services. It's interesting that the law covers the service , not the client . Now, I wonder what qualifies as an online game service . If I play correspondence chess over email, would the email host be running an online game service? If someone modifies the Battle of Wesnoth network code to run over IRC messages, woul…

It seems that "online games" include all games can download from the Internet, whether they have a multiplayer component or not. Steam China also includes an "anti-addiction" system, even though the vast majority of games on there are solo game. https://m.jiemian.com/article/4445107_yidian.html

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

#290

Post by meristohm » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

jliptzin wrote: post #203

swman wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it really depends. I have way too many personal anecdotes of people I knew from back in the day (middle/high school) who gamed like 8 hours a day. Most of those people were _addicted_, and a handful went on to drop out of college and aren't really doing that great today. They still play 8+ hours a day.. I remember I'd ask them if they wanted to study, or if they want to go hiking or do something IRL, but they…

If someone is putting off other important things in their life to play video games then that's definitely a problem. However, if people want to set aside 100% of their free time to play video games, I don't think that's any worse than other things people do with their time that we (as a society) hold in high regard such as becoming a chess grandmaster, practicing violin 12 hours / day, watching football games nonstop…

South Korea has built a collective sense of value around Starcraft, but it feels too far removed from meatspace where we will likely occupy for a long time yet. Music seems more valuable, along with the ability to tell a good story. Sometimes they overlap. I’ve been enjoying Fire Draw Near, a podcast by Ian Lynch about the folk-music tradition of Ireland. “Work, Rest, Play, Die” by The Subhumans has melodic roots in an old tune, and he makes similar connections with “One” by Metallica.

A value-test I use is: “how useful/feasible is this activity if I don’t have a computer or similar technology that is predicated on significant infrastructure?”

Telling stories, playing physical games, making music (with our bodies, at least; humming, whistling, drumming, singing); these are elegant, as in = depth / complexity (per James Portnoy of Extra Credits, RE games).