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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

#981

Post by muzani »

account42 wrote: post #932
muzani wrote: post #882

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say there's 4 kinds of games: 1. Sports. You practice, get good, compete. 2. Effort is rewarded. "Effort" is a very vague thing. It could be not dying/luck (roguelikes, Hearthstone), it could be clicking a button 1000 times. It could be problems (Factorio) or wiki games (DF, Stardew Valley). The reward is sometimes satisfaction (Factorio/chess), sometimes a movie-like denouement (FF), sometimes a thing of beauty…

Your category (2) is extremely vague and all-encompassing. I'd split off at least two distinct categories: 5. Games that are about providing a certain experience: walking simulators, horror games, casual adventure games, story focused games. Here there, effort is often not really a focus at all and while you could say that you are "rewarded" for simply playing the game that is stretching it and could be applied to an…

Maybe I could rephrase it a bit. I don't mean all games should try to be short, but right now there are almost none.

Few game designers aspire to make a game that's done in 2 hours and worth $8.

Chess is a bloody complex game and you can play a round to full satisfaction in 15 minutes. You have your complexity, but it's enough to enjoy yourself 3 hours/week.

Most movies will immerse you in the world and the characters well within the first 15 minutes. Today, you have something like Fallout 4 where it takes an hour from customizing your character's face to leaving the vault.

I think Adam Cadre's games are a great example: http://adamcadre.ac/if.html

What separated the Interactive Fiction from Adventure genre was that IF was more on interacting with the player's actions. You could achieve a goal and unlock endings, or just explore. You could get a full story well within a couple hours because the games are designed to avoid you from getting stuck. Adventure games were plagued with resource management and metagaming; once you remove the unnecessary grind of puzzle solving, you get a denser game.

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

#982

Post by honkdaddy »

dlp211 wrote: post #700
honkdaddy wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say in both cases it's the government exhibiting control over its citizens lives under the notion that it's for their own protection. I think everyone has a point at which government control becomes tyranny. For some it's lockdowns during a pandemic, for others it's time-limits on video games. Seems like all apples, to me.

Your kid playing videogames 12 hours a day has no impact on my life. You giving me Covid does. These situations are not the same and the complete lack of nuance on when government authority is good and needed, and when it is bad and harmful is...well, I don't have the word(s), perhaps disappointing. I don't get the desire to see everything as black and white and boil everything problem down to a slippery slope fallac…

One could absolutely argue that kids playing videogames 12h a day has an impact on your life, because if every kid spent their time that way, society would crumble in a generation because young people are choosing to play games instead of work.

The topic in question was whether Covid restrictions has made people more comfortable with other authoritarian measures which are implemented to benefit society as a whole. I actually think it's a very apt point and I'm surprised you don't see the connection.

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

#983

Post by thewileyone »

If you look at what China has done with online companies like Alibaba, Didi, Tencent, etc., there seems to be a method to their madness. Essentially, China doesn't see the value in having the largest online marketplace, or the largest ride-sharing platform, or the best e-sports team.

If you look at their 5 year plan release this year, there's a huge focus on research on next generation technologies. This is a write-up about it: https://merics.org/en/short-analysis/chinas-14th-five-year-p...

Right now, games like Apex Legends, League of Legends, etc. suck up a lot of time and I think China doesn't want its youth to do that. It would rather them focus on how they can contribute as they grow older.

China has always had a heavy hand in social engineering and this is just another example. Whether it's good or not, is left to be seen.

If China finishes building their city in space and lands on Mars, while the rest of the world are watching e-sports, don't be surprised.

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

#984

Post by Filligree »

prox wrote: post #637
Filligree wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soooorta? Stationeers does much better.

That’s way too taxing on my brain! :)

Give it a try! Start by looking at the Stationeers Venus series in YouTube, perhaps; that doubles as a tutorial.

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

#985

Post by CRConrad »

beaunative wrote: post #855
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be noted that this is for online gaming only, but that kind of gaming is extremely popular in China. My wife (who isn't affected by this) has this one Chinese online game that she plays for hours every weekend.

"(who isn't affected by this)" LMAO. Even if you didn't mention it. Likely no one would think you married an underaged girl.

I read it as "who doesn't live in China", but I guess we all first see what we've conditioned ourselves to look for first.

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

#986

Post by pankajdoharey »

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 would say china is well placed to be producing excellemnt content for the world. Like the japanese have done for decades with their videogames and animation. China has some excellent video game content largely consumed within china. These kids are the future Game Designers, Programmers, Architects of this Industry. Its a tragedy and would have economic impact in future.

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

#987

Post by devnulll »

goostavos wrote: post #591
devnulll wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are all sorts of things governments express control over, even at home. The obvious scenarios are alcohol, nicotine & drugs. As a parent of young children, there are addition parallels between Minecraft / Roblox / Alcohol / Cigarettes. To a real degree, more effort is put into making gaming deliberately additive - although flavored vaping (bubble gum, cotton candy, etc) would like to enter the conversation.

I don't know if we're coming at it from the same angle if we're lumping Minecraft in with alcohol and cigarettes. To your initial point, though, just because the government currently expresses control is not actually an argument that they should continue to do so or be granted additional powers to do more. Because it's normal, doesn't mean it's correct. Flavored vaping products are for sure bad. I'll happily give you…

> I don't know if we're coming at it from the same angle if we're lumping Minecraft in with alcohol and cigarettes.

My belief is that's a reasonable debate with very valid points on both sides. At a personal level, kids 2-12 are Addicted to games (Minecraft, Roblox, etc). Taking the games away has the same impact as taking away narcotics from an addict.

The unregulated ability of these platforms to target children (and they do), seems very analogous to pre-regulated cigarettes, drug, and alcohol marketing.

I wager more psychological studies are done on driving MAU, rapid viral adoption, and upping Click Through Rates than were done for nicotine.

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

#988

Post by [deleted] »

bigbob2 wrote: post #950
fma wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese citizens: "What pandemic?" The Chinese government was able to control the pandemic because they are authoritarian. Meanwhile Florida just received 14 portable morgues. Before I get the "Fake News" crowd coming at me...I was on a video conference call last week with my Chinese counterparts in my company (my first meeting) and I was taken aback when everyone in the conference room didn't have masks...then I rem…

I mean the virus came from China so I guess they didn't do that great of a job of controlling it. Not only that but can we really trust the numbers China is reporting? They have been completely non-compliant with investigations which could have resulted in saved lives. Lots of people (most?) in the US seem to have the same brazen attitude of not wearing masks in crowded spaces. Not long ago CDC was advising that peop…

[deleted]

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

#989

Post by aidenn0 »

cbozeman wrote: post #863
aidenn0 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The "problem" with EverQuest wasn't the game, it was the people. It's just like real life. You aren't supposed to be the hero. You aren't supposed to have all the best everything and a million platinum. You're just another cog moving through the world, easily replaceable. That's how it was designed. The problem is that, strangely, in a game, people can't accept that, so they'll spend 18 hours a day playing, but for s…

Ultima Online had more of that feeling than EverQuest (I played both). EQ was quite clearly a game in which you could make steady progress in power with proper grinding (and every 5 levels sucked thanks to a coding error).

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

#990

Post by AustinDev »

theintern wrote: post #675
AustinDev wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I were actually considering moving there. We even started some of the paperwork but after seeing the absurdity of their covid measures We have decided against it for now.

What about their covid measures put you off? When for so much of the pandemic they were seen as absolute world leaders and were living as normal when the rest of us were in lockdowns?

Sorry to grave dig. This is more recent but, check out this quote... and tell me you want to live in this kind of society:

“ The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,””

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-a...

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