Chinese Gamers Told to Take a Break
Marathon gaming sessions are a way of life for serious players of online games like World of Warcraft or Everquest. Some game developers make changes to discourage overindulgence, but others seem to flaunt and encourage it. For the Chinese government, the problem has become more serious, with a small but well publicized number of gamers actually dying after day- or even week-long sessions at the keyboard.
According to Engadget, China has decided it's time to do something to protect its children, instituting mandatory limits in online gaming for youths. They plan to do this by forcing game developers to include a sort of diminishing return for those who play their games, reducing gameplay rewards (such as points, experience, and in-game treasures) by half after three hours of play per day. Should a sedentary gamer soldier on for a further two hours they'll be inundated with messages threatening to kill their characters if they don't get offline pronto. The regulations sound well intentioned, but China has said it will shut down any online game that doesn't institute these changes by July 16th. That doesn't give much time for developers to update the multitude of games played online in China today.
From Engadget
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
buttfacegrace78 @ Apr 12th 2007 6:54PM
Honestly, I think this is a good thing. As someone who knows a several WoW junkies, I can actually say that I wish America would mandate a law like this. I think the whole online video-gaming thing is getting out of control. Myself, I opted not to buy World of Warcraft for fear that I'd get addicted and my grades would suffer. I'll just stick with my PS2, thank you very much.