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China Limits Online Gaming Time
by Chris Remo, Aug 25, 2005 10:15am PDTIn a move sure to frustrate MMO operators who see China as an increasingly important market, the Chinese government has just announced its system for preventing "unhealthy" periods of play time on the part of players. The system will progressively lower a character's statistics and abilities the longer the player stays online past a three-hour mark. China's General Administration of Press and Publication has defined playing online games for under three consecutive hours as "healthy," for three to five hours as "tiring," and for more than five as "unhealthy." After three hours, a character's level is cut in half and drop rates for items is decreased, and after five hours the character's level is reset to the minimum. The character will not return to normal until the player has signed out for five hours.
"This timing mechanism can prevent young people from becoming addicted to online games," Kou Xiaowei, Deputy Director of the Audiovisual and Internet Publication Department of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), said during a press conference.Several companies have pledged their support for the program, which will take effect some time between late 2005 and early 2006. Affected games include World of Warcraft and Lineage II, as well as nine others. Assumedly, players will be unable to avoid the effects of the system by simply switching over to another game after three hours. The system is sure to frustrate players able to take part in high-level instances, which generally take several hours. It was not specified whether MMO developers will compensate for this in-game. Some existing MMO players may look forward to the program's impact on "gold farmers", many of whom are known to be located in China. But for legitimate players, how much uninterrupted play time is "unhealthy"? Do the goals of this program (ie, fewer people dying after 36-hour online gaming sessions...) outweigh the obvious negatives? What would be the ramifications of such a program in South Korea? (Armed rebellion?)
Comments
What would happen if your government mandated daily excercise? You'd have to get an ID and report to the workout facility once a day. If you failed to do this you'd be fined, then thrown in jail after multiple offenses.
Or what about eating mandates? You can only eat X amount of fast-food per week. This is monitored by microchips and/or your purchasing habits on your GovernmentMoneyCard which reports every cent spent to state and nation.
These things sound terrible? They're just an evolution of this bullshit. Fuck China.
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I'm going to make my statement and step off the soapbox. I'll reply where warranted, but I'm not going to amplify emotions into a fight like the last thread:
I had a friend once who was a great person, in my mind anyway. Doesn't perform miracles or anything, but out of all the people I know, he's the one I'd have chosen to be stuck with on a desert island for 10 years with. This person is still alive today, but the spirit and personality that I admired so much in him is gone, he has become all but a slave to the MMOs he's been playing since 1999. It's very hard to see this person nowadays, what he's become like compared to who he was.
Now, I'm not going to knock something unless I've tried it, and I've played a couple MMOs. I was a casual player of Asheron's Call for 1.5 years and I was a terribly hardcore constant City of Heroes player for about 2 months. I ultimately decided at some point that I had my fill of these games and stopped playing them. Even if I didn't uninstall and cancel my subscription, I would not play them for days on end.
My friend, in his MMO-drone mode, doesn't do this. I miss the personality I knew before it met an MMO it couldn't get enough of. I wish there was some way the MMO-drone side could be forced away, just for a little bit. But since this person is an adult, there's not a lot that can be done without that person's agreement. I think that's a shame.
I see it a lot like gambling, which oddly enough wants to call itself gaming now. I've been to Vegas casinos. I enjoy the games at the casinos and enjoy telling stories of winning big on them. But I don't give the games more money than I agreed upon and I stop when it's lost it's fun value. Some people don't have this self-control and they need help. There's a legitimate psychological problem that they are addicted to gambling.
There's people who have legitimate problems being addicted to alcohol or drugs.
There's people who are seriously addicted to MMOs as I have seen, although there's no treatment centers or diagnosis for it yet. And that's why I support, whether government-operated or not, a third party who can take you away from your MMO even if you don't want to go. Because there's a legitimate problem that needs to be recognized here.
And that's why I'm getting tired of all you Reaganites here that are standing on their towering principles about how people should be freely allowed to destroy themselves if they wish, and friends and family and the public and the government should just stand by and watch and have no control to do anything about it, because of personal responsibility and blah blah blah.
Let's see what happens when the life of someone YOU know changes from one of these things. Let's see how fast your principles shift.
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http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/wowworld.html
For now let's just say it's the most instantly gripping, involving and demanding entertainment technology ever invented. The addiction rate appears to be about twice that of crack Cocaine.
I think i agree with the article from the time i spent on 10Six and World of Warcraft Beta. They simply eat away your time and before you know it , its 6am and you have to head to class/work in a bit.
I definetly think something needs to be done, and while i wont comment on how affective the chinese move is, i think it is a step in the proper direction.
Those who scream about freedom, i wanna hear your thoughts on why addictive drugs such as coke and heroin should be lawful :)
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Steps to success:
1) You cannon play MMO without having a girlfriend or significant other of some kind. Find one, go to appropriate #2.
2a) She/he lets you play, in which case you will maintain a reasonable playing time or She/he will leave you. Go back to 1.
2b) You actually stop playing because it is more fun to spend time with her/him. This will last a few months before the novelty wears off, but maybe by then the game will be old news. Go to 3.
2d) She/he also plays MMO, in which case you are a doomed couple, will not reproduce, and are no longer relevant to the human race. Go to hell.
3) ????
4) Profit!
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There are businesses in China that are strictly for farming gold and items. They pay people to play the game and farm. If the people can no longer play the characters for the given time, that is going to hurt the business. The only way around this is for the business to have 8 characters which rotate every 24 hours.
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Its scary to see so many people here in the U.S. (lefties) that would absolutely love for our country to head the way of communism. From each according to their ability to each according to their needs...
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Look, I love games, and I've put in a few good marathons of gaming (this is why I think a one week time would be better, you could have a marathon night and then not play for the next few days). I grew playing a lot of video games, and looking back I wish that I had taken up other things, like music. Simply put, I wish I didn't have the freedom to do that. My parents couldn't do anything about it either...they were at work all the time, like every other parent in America.
Freedom is a double-edged sword: it always gives and takes away. Take alcohol for example: we have the freedom to drink, but that also takes away freedoms of hundreds of thousands of alcoholics. Freedom is not always a great thing.
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I wish their was a right way to limit gametime, I've personally been in the trap of wasting hundreds of hours on MMORPG's and knowing my busy schedule I would only allow myself to get into another MMMORPG if I knew it was regulated time wise.
Silly, lack of self control? Yeah, but I'm honest about it.
Right idea China, wrong execution though. I don't even know what the right execution would be actually, but I know the Man telling you your bedtime is never a good thing.
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So, sounds good, but only considering the lack of alternatives.
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Granted, it pales compared to the limitations on journalism, travel, speech, family size, and information but it is another brick in the wall.
As China gets more and more westernized, one has to wonder how long the general populace (or, proletariat) will allow this type of heavy-handed control.
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The only game i can even think of playing for an entire day was Ocarina Of Time. It was Chrimbo, i got the game as a present, i was a teenager, and i had nothing better to do other than talking to relo's.
Oh, and the game was fucking awesome, so i think that had something to do with it.
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Riiighhtt.....
Just means that players will buy two accounts. Double revenues. Or maybe subscribe to several games instead of only one. Again, increase of revenues.
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thanks mom
what if it was your PS2 or XBOX, or the cable tv..
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NO MORE GAMES FOR YOU!!!
Now eat that brocolli! EAT IT!
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/sarcasm off
And yeah the gov't control fucking sucks.
ps. I hope this kills nc.
and then what happens if people hack it? is that breaking the law? will they be arrested?
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Asheron's Call 2 shutting down end of year
http://ac2.turbine.com/index.php?page_id=384
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China could ask MMORPGs to give them the IPs of all non Chinese MMORPG servers. Then they just block all access to these IPs. This would be the easiest solution. They already block access to tons of websites.
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I know I'd still be playing WoW today if I couldn't have pulled a bunch of 8+ hours per day sessions.
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The manufacture, sale, and play of the game are virtually crime-free and do no real harm to anyone.
And of course, one more person spending his nights killing dragons is one less person joining an uprising to overthrow the oppressive, misguided government.
This law is not really going to help any significant number of people, and it is going to make almost everyone who is affected by enjoy their life a little bit less.
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