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  • THURSDAY AUGUST 25 2005 8:00 PM

Chinese Government: No Online Gaming For You!

Submitted by Noctua

Edited by SomeOneUK

So you like playing World of Warcraft? EverQuest? The Matrix Online? Think of yourself as an uber power-gamer? Do you boast that you spend more time online than you do sleeping and working combined? Well, you better not live in China because the Chinese government is imposing a 3-hours-per-day limit on MMO games.

In China yesterday, the government agency that oversees the online game industry said that testing of a system to regulate the number of hours gamers spend online will be ready for deployment this October.

The system will impose penalties on players who spend more than three hours gaming online. The system is slated to be fully operational in late 2006 or early 2006 and will be compulsory for all massively multi-player online role-playing and online casual games.

"This timing mechanism can prevent young people from becoming addicted to online games," Xiaowei Kou, the deputy director of the general administration of press and publication (GAPP), said during a press conference in Beijing.


Gaming in excess of the legal 3 hours per day will result in a degradation of your character's stats, which will not reset until you've been offline for a set amount of time.

This bit of legislation comes at a time after a number of notable MMO-related events, such as Korean couple whose child died while they gamed, a gamer who died after a 50 hour gaming marathon and the recent opening of a game-addiction clinic in China.

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Comments
alpha_hazard

alpha_hazard

Fort Collins, CO
April 2004

AUG 25, 2005 08:08 PM

3 hours per day? I used to play the matrix online and that was a lot for me...then again, I hardly fit into the category of ubergamer.

Skurvash

Skurvash

Kailua, HI
July 2005

AUG 25, 2005 08:11 PM

Glad I don't live in china, that's insane.

malkav11

malkav11

Saint Paul, MN
July 2003

AUG 25, 2005 08:16 PM

I just hope for the Chinese gamers' sake that Chinese servers are separate. (One tends to suspect so). As if other, non-limited gamers are playing on the servers the Chinese folks will be shafted.

Otherwise...well, this is just one of many reasons why totalitarian governments are bad.

Sunheart

sunheart

Salem, OR
April 2005

AUG 25, 2005 08:25 PM

on the bright side mabey this will curb chinese gold farming?

Keith

Keith

Hooker, OK
August 2002

AUG 25, 2005 08:26 PM

Sunheart said:
on the bright side mabey this will curb chinese gold farming?



god I hope so. For about five minutes, at least. They'll just get multiple accounts and game for 3 hours, switch accounts, rinse, repeat.

[Edited on Aug 25, 2005 by Keith]

Dollbabyamy

Dollbabyamy

Lebanon, TN
March 2004

AUG 25, 2005 08:30 PM

All I have to say is if they did this in America, my boyfriend would die. 3 hours of WoW is just warming up for him.

Vestril

Vestril

Coronado, CA
February 2003

AUG 25, 2005 08:34 PM

I don't think it can, those Chinese gamers are playing on American servers; unless Chinese reach has extended that far they should fly under the radar. I don't think this proposed system would work without server complicity.

seanvegas

seanvegas

Lincoln, NE
December 2004

AUG 25, 2005 08:45 PM

China, love the food, hate the laws! blackeyed

cK

cK

Phoenix, AZ
October 2004

AUG 25, 2005 08:50 PM

ah haa haaaaaa

that's ridiculous

BlastProcessing

BlastProcessing

USA
OLD SKOOL

AUG 25, 2005 08:52 PM

Vestril said:
I don't think it can, those Chinese gamers are playing on American servers; unless Chinese reach has extended that far they should fly under the radar. I don't think this proposed system would work without server complicity.



Read the article.

WasteXTC

wastextc

Denver, CO
November 2002

AUG 25, 2005 09:04 PM

Communism at its finest, ladies and gents.

catdad

catdad

Portland, OR
August 2002

AUG 25, 2005 09:07 PM

I honestly think it would be a good idea for all games to have a daily, weekly, or monthly game time limit for each player or account.

(Yeah, yeah, I'm probably some sort of communist or something.)

funnyman

funnyman

Cherry Hill, NJ
December 2004

AUG 25, 2005 09:20 PM

catdad said:
I honestly think it would be a good idea for all games to have a daily, weekly, or monthly game time limit for each player or account.

(Yeah, yeah, I'm probably some sort of communist or something.)



by saying that, it shows quite clearly that you are not in any way shape or form a gamer. i don't consider myself an "uber-gamer", but 3 hours of Call of Duty is about an average night's playtime. On a good night when i don't have work, i have been known to play 5-6 hours without more than a couple food/pee/shit breaks. this would totally blow monkey-sack. sorry to burst your bubble there, but you would be hard-pressed to find any gamer who agreed with you, no matter how advanced they are.

Vestril

Vestril

Coronado, CA
February 2003

AUG 25, 2005 09:23 PM

Furious_D said:

Vestril said:
I don't think it can, those Chinese gamers are playing on American servers; unless Chinese reach has extended that far they should fly under the radar. I don't think this proposed system would work without server complicity.



Read the article.



I did. You're much cleverer than I am so you'll have to quote the part that describes a mechanism for this that would work without the server side changes. Maybe this is entirely possible, but it doesn't say so in the article itself, not the gamespot one nor in the original one I read yesterday or the day before, which gave somewhat more information.

I saw that some companies were involved in the trials, but Blizzard wasn't one of them. Again, their Chinese servers would have to be affected to keep running, but their American ones wouldn't, thus gold farming would stay alive.

Read my post.

[Edited on Aug 25, 2005 9:24PM]

cthav

cthav

USA
August 2004

AUG 25, 2005 09:53 PM

I suck yoooo dick fo' sum evercrack and sum noooodles!!!

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