Teenagers Being Banned From Internet Cafes

As part of a government led initiative, teenagers are beinng banned from internet cafés in order to prevent exposing them to further “immoral and harmful content”, offered through online gaming. Last year, for those of you that don’t remember, China attempted to “crack down” on Internet gaming by launching an initiative to restrict the amount of time players spent online to three hours. The Vietnamese Government recently announced plans to introduce similar measures, but according to reports, gamers have been finding ways around the new rules by playing as different characters or playing different games once the time limit is up.

Considering the massive market for MMORPGs in China and seeing how most initial releases tend to start there, this could have a massive backlash for MMO developers globally. Since the launch of WoW, for example, there have been more than 1.5 million people playing the popular MMORPG in China alone. As a result of this and several other widely anticipated releases the government backed a survey which was published in November claiming that 13 percent of the country’s young people are currently addicted to online gaming.

The government is currently attempting to put some tight restrictions on all “audio and video products and electronic games” which “harm national security and incite hatred toward other nationalities,” as reported by the Xinhua News Agency. The ban will go into effect on March 1st 2006.
As part of a government led initiative, teenagers are beinng banned from internet cafés in order to prevent exposing them to further “immoral and harmful content”, offered through online gaming. Last year, for those of you that don’t remember, China attempted to “crack down” on Internet gaming by launching an initiative to restrict the amount of time players spent online to three hours. The Vietnamese Government recently announced plans to introduce similar measures, but according to reports, gamers have been finding ways around the new rules by playing as different characters or playing different games once the time limit is up.

Considering the massive market for MMORPGs in China and seeing how most initial releases tend to start there, this could have a massive backlash for MMO developers globally. Since the launch of WoW, for example, there have been more than 1.5 million people playing the popular MMORPG in China alone. As a result of this and several other widely anticipated releases the government backed a survey which was published in November claiming that 13 percent of the country’s young people are currently addicted to online gaming.

The government is currently attempting to put some tight restrictions on all “audio and video products and electronic games” which “harm national security and incite hatred toward other nationalities,” as reported by the Xinhua News Agency. The ban will go into effect on March 1st 2006.