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South Korea Enforces Ban on Late-Night Online Gaming Sessions

by Caleb Johnson on April 13, 2010 at 06:10 PM

game banIn South Korea, marathon late-night gaming sessions may soon become a thing of the past. According to The Korean Herald, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has enforced a video game curfew for teenagers. It's an effort to curb game addiction in a country where, according to Huffington Post, a recent survey of over 1,500 public school students found that about 29-percent showed signs of addiction. Gamers can choose between three different six-hour blackout periods: midnight-to-6 a.m., 1 a.m.-to-7 a.m., or 2 a.m.-to-8 a.m. If a gamer is playing when the clock strikes midnight (or 1 a.m. or 2 a.m.), he or she will be booted from the game and prevented from logging back on until the 'dark' period is complete. This ban also includes a 'slowdown' feature, which means a gamer's Internet connection will be slowed if he or she has logged an exorbitant amount of consecutive time online.

While this ban will cover some of South Korea's more popular titles, like massively-multiplayer online RPGs (MMORPG) 'Barameui Nara,' 'Maple Story' and 'Mabinogi.' However, some games didn't make the list for one reason or another. To us, it seems silly to ban some titles, because teens will simply switch from one gaming fix to the another. [From: The Korean Herald, via: Huffington Post]

Tags: ban, controversy, gaming, gaming addiction, GamingAddiction, law, mmorpg, OnlineGaming, south korea, SouthKorea, top, VideoGames

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