January 17, 2008
According to Reuters, the Chinese government plans to release new regulations designed to crack down on "undesirable elements" of online games.Chinese officials have expressed concern about supposed video game addiction and have blamed much of the nation's youth crime on overexposure to games and the Internet. Kou Xiaowei of the General Administration of Press and Publication said:
Although China's online gaming industry had been hot in recent years, online games are regarded by many as a sort of spiritual opium and the whole industry is marginalized by mainstream society. If we don't make adjustments, the industry will suffer sooner or later.
Reuters notes that attempts to regulate gaming in China have been hampered by the country's lack of a rating system and the ready availability of pirated games.
Comments
That pretty much says everthing about anything the Chinese tries to block.
If you buy the Chinese gov's reason for new regulations then we should talk about a bridge I've got for sale on the Hudson.
the 'problem' is that much of the gaming community is technically proficient enough to secure downloads/ pirated games.
the only way for the chinese government to stop online games, is to remove all the phonelines and other internet connections in the country.
the ONLY way.
they cannot realistically filter the content that reaches their people, it just doesnt work after a certain point.
Next, they thought Undead were scary, so they changed the graphics.
What is next?
In an ironic way is can be said that such measures DO protect their youth. We all saw what happened when chinese kids, filled with thoughts of freedom, decided to demonstrate...
If you mean the commenter's replies, well I have to admit that most who comment here (including myself) are more sympathetic to societies that share our same views on basic human rights. The real motivation we perceive behind this media excerpt is offensive to the core.
From that Reuters report;
"Other unregistered establishments were tucked in the upper floors of otherwise empty buildings. "This shows the difficulties the law enforcers face," Xinhua noted."
Unregistered Internet cafes. Like we register handguns and aren't allowed to own assault rifles (in some states)? People are going to jail over this! The lucky ones just get their property confiscated. Let's hope none of them tried to take video of the events with their cellphones...would hate to think anyone got beaten to death over this.
and being harsh on a totalitarian goverment is wrong?
or being harsh on a fou democracy(USA) is wrong? ^_~
We btch therefore we are :P
This article only pertains to china anyways. Discussion of other countries would be off topic.
Some may think the comparison is at least in poor taste, I say that not only is it right on the money but basically explains in great detail the real reason behind the crackdown on games to anyone that knows about Chinese history...
Opium caused the Boxer Rebellion that kicked the west out of china, now games are bringing the west into China and threaten to kick the commies out with a rebellion of the young educated Chinese...
IF you were a Chinese commie trying to control and repress your people wouldn't you be worried too?
Many new online gaming sites have come up.
Even I'm a big sucker of online games. They are susually easy on systems, have a light theme and can be interesting without getting addictive.
Some of the latest that I came across are from Zapak.com.. Zapak is has now launched games even for the mobile platform. Given the mobile phones penetration, this is a huge add-on. Now we can easily play games while commuting etc.. Just loved the way they have structured the games in this category.
Here is the link
http://www.zapak.com/zapakmobi.zpk?utm_source=b
Zapak has been expanding a lot, lately.
I was a total addict at Indiagames until Zapak came.
The range and quality of games available at Zapak is just mindblowing.And to top it all, they now support it with offline events like Gameplexes.
What I discoverd was that you can even embed their games as widgets in your blog. I tested one.
Here is the link
Although I have not yet started utilizing the full potential, I can see this adding a lot of value to gaming bloggers.
Would like to see your comments about the same on my blog.
:D