Time's up for young Gamers
 

YOUNG South Koreans will be banned from playing online video games later than midnight after lawmakers passed a new curfew law. Yonhap news agency reported the new law - which bans anyone under 16 from playing online into the early hours - was passed by lawmakers worried about growing levels of addiction to gaming among youngsters.
Gaming companies fiercely contested the legislation but the Youth Protection bill passed late Friday.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said the law was a means to combat teenagers' gaming addiction following a series of tragic incidents.
In May 2010, a South Korean couple were jailed for negligent homicide after they left their baby daughter to starve to death while they raised a "virtual" child on the internet.
In March of the same year, a 32-year-old man died after reportedly playing for five days with few breaks.
Following the incidents, the government, which estimates that the highly wired nation has about two million web addicts, announced a campaign to combat the affliction.


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And how would this ever be enforced?

SOURCE

Wether it works as intended, time will tell i guess.
Although when using SSN to sign in online for a game, they'll just steal their parent's account details.
There's ways around this i guess. Always loopholes.

http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/5...ficerbinoc.jpg

:03:

Good luck South Korea, on separating the masses from their opium. Frankly, showing them a picture of what they look like while satisfying their fix couldn't hurt either.

http://img.neoseeker.com/v_thumb.php...=14704&image=1

You should also remember that unlike the private-PC-at-home culture we have here in the West, a very large portion of Korean gaming takes plan at internet cafes.

Indeed...

Forced 'weaning' from the web is likely to have all sorts of unintended consequences. Will be interesting to watch the fallout from this.

Well, under 16's shouldn't be, and i do stress the word shouldn't be in internet cafes at midnight.
They should be fast asleep. In a ideal world where every parent and every child functions just the way they are meant to ofc.
And, this being law, i assume the internet cafes will have to tow the line here as well.
Just in case those under 16's linger in cyber cafes after midnight.

Yeah, I'm not really against the idea that under-16s are best off keeping a regular schedule and being under parental supervision. Just saying that this is probably what the law is really aimed at - giving another nudge to the cyber-delinquents that populate a lot of these cafes, and making sure that the owners get their act together. It's probably a big phenomenon of busy city life in Korea. On the bright side, hey, at least most of these kids aren't in gangs on the street...

Exactly right.
I'm not sure what the laws are like over there but one way to curb or enforce this in internet cafes is to ban or prohibit under 16's from entering these cafes in the first place.

For an under-16 even midnight is too late! It's a step in the right direction though. Now just need to stop parents buying 18-rated games and videos for their little darings.

Good luck with that. Seems to be an epidemic nowadays. :nope:

Then again, those people make quite a bit of cash playing tournaments, pro gaming is on the up and it is becoming more and more lucrative for those who are good at it.