Asian Game Addiction

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I decided to start this thread due to a news post chev posted recently and other factors.

Asian countries have a serious problem with game addiction. Both China and Thailand have created plans to restrict gamers from playing too long.

China has implemented a system where MMORPG characters become tired after several hours:

"Under the new system, your online character becomes less and less effective. After three hours, the number of in-game "experience points" for, say, killing an opponent are reduced by half." - BBC News

China has even set up a Beijing internet addiction centre:

"Some even end up at Beijing's internet addiction centre. It opened its doors last year to players who are prepared to slay their own demons and take up healthier living.

To the Chinese authorities, the mere existence of the centre is symptomatic of the dangers the internet can present." - BBC News

Thailand is working on a curfew of sorts for MMORPGs (yet again):

"Thailand is to impose a night curfew on online gaming, because of concerns about rising addiction rates among young players." - BBC News

It seems the main issue there is with Ragnarok:

"Of particular concern is the Korean role-playing game Ragnarok, which has over 600,000 registered players in Thailand, many of them children." - BBC News

While in China the issue is with World of Warcraft where people are wasting their money:

"Last year alone, Chinese players paid out $500m (£280m) in subscriptions for this part-time escapism." - BBC News

As you can see the main problem is with MMORPGs. I've played Guild Wars and World of Warcraft, in both the best players are mostly Koreans (same with Starcraft). While these countries have realized the problem and started to do something about it, it still isn't enough. As with any addiction people tend to find ways around laws and problems to satisfy their cravings.

I suppose my "purpose" of this thread is to see what everyone else has to say on my view of Asia's game addiction issues. I'm not racist of course

 

I hope reports like these are not going to be the ones that spur anyone to think that China is a totalitarian nation that's not concerned with stuff, like, you know, human liberties and rights. Because you could find better reports for that.

Anyway, the response is takes into consideration cultural contexts, old and new. Urban China is not a fun place to be, and I can definitely see the heightened appeal of games like WoW. Of course, unproductive (as it were) activities like MMORPG's are going to be somewhat contrary to a culture like China's (both 20th century and past). So while the effectiveness of what the government has implemented is definitely in question, an effort seems pretty logical in a place like China.

 

The Asians are crazy with their gaming. I heard one thing about this Asian guy that played some game or other for so long that he actually died. Whether that's true or not I've no idea! I just think I remember something like that.

 

Yup, true. He was playing either a Final Fantasy game, Grand Theft Auto, or an MMORPG (I cannot remember exacly which one). He played for 52-56 hours straight with only potty breaks. He died because his heart could not take it.

 

A combination of the two, I believe; Final Fantasy XI is an MMO. (This only goes to prove how evil those games are. )

 

, but I couldn't play that game for the simple reason that when I pissed off an orc, he could chase me down and beat the motherloving **** out of me.

On topic: Maybe the addiction is seen as greater because Asia is bigger, particularly China?

 

I like China's solution, personally - it works within the context of the game and discourages long play all the same. Hell, if it was implemented properly it could even be a feature rather than just something tacked on to nanny gamers

 

Something tells me that if I had High speed access, you may not see me as much on here because I'd be hooked on some game or another...

 

Keep in mind,
Asia is big, iraq, iran, isreal, india are all asian too. In my response below, Asia mainly refers to the far east and southeast asia (to some extand).
i consider china, hong kong and taiwan to be closely related.


Piracy is a serious problem in asia. So serious that Hong Kong, a 100 moives yearly city, is being reduced into 50 movies production per year. So serious that if you are a newcomer artist (singer), if your first album doesn't get into top 3, you have no chance to make another. So serious that, no one money greed enterprise wants to make single player games anymore. And if they do, it would involve some soft porn content that could slide pass the censorship. In other words, investing technologies, investing artist, investing story writers, investing brainstormers in single player chinese game makes no return at all.

So, there comes the best idea of the century, mmorpg. And trust me, chinese mmorpg selections is much much more that you could have in e.u. and u.s. Think about it, Morrowind and Oblivion are single player game in west. Take this game, reduce it by half and you have your chinese mmorpg. Somewhere in 2000, i think, a taiwanese company that only develop a crappy mmorpg can trade its stock in their stock exchange. The mmorpg industry is that bubbly.

There was a urban legend. Starcraft single handedly revived Korean economy. Remember 97, 98 asian economy crisis? What do they turn to when they don't have to go to work? There came Starcraft. Not only the game itself but all the byproducts, a bag of chips with a Zerg image, trading cards, protoss dolls, you name them. When people start to buy things, money start to circulate, economy start to revive. Even if it is a urban legend but this tells us that the subculture of playing games comes from a time when people have a lot of time and nothing to do. When a subculture becomes the national pass time, it becomes the main stream culture. They show starcraft replays on tv. Gamers celebrities become household names. It's normal, i reckon, just like the brits prefer football, same deal.

Also, when dealing stats in china, one has to keep in mind, china is damn big. For example, they don't really care about TV rating. It has no meaning to them because even 0.1% is still a very big audience. So, even if chinese population is spending 280 million in mmorpg, it is still nothing if divided by 1,306,313,812 (chinese population, world fact book).

And also, i would sweep a lot of the "gaming related physical injuries" under public slendering. You only hear a few from your trusted news network. While i have a constant influx of such stories. Always, a game at its peak will have a few stories of young players get addicted and get troubled, often involve a one of a kind weapon lost in the process.

 

Good post about China there teekc.

Odd we see Japan yet to be mentioned. I suppose single player games are more popular there?

 

have u all ever played MMORPG such as Ragnarok, Seal, WOW ?? or maybe online golf game (Pangya) ?? because in asia (far east i mena) we play this game. yes there is a case about die because of game... not just because playing it too long.. there is some other too... like murdering or what...
but well, they just a little amount of people...
u should try asian game too i tought...

 

Such measures seems stupid and biased to me. Why don't they try to control tv first? Hypocrites.

 

@D171087: Yes WoW is quite popular in the US too.

@Liriodelagua: What WOULD be stupid is to make such measures for TV there first when they DONT have a problem with TV, just online games.

 

Japan has a different culture with gaming. First, mmorpg is not main stream as oppose to china. In fact, pc game itself is not main stream. Console is the market in japan. Remember the soft porn games that slip pass under censorship? that kind of culture comes from japanese hentai, given the fact that how japanese comic style swept the whole far east. Japan only produce a very very few "normal" playble pc games a year.

 

Heh interesting. I'm guessing that's why they make all these consoles

 

Tal sent me a link to an article talking about steps Korean parents are taking in order for their children to continue their focus on school. However, this isn't "punishing" them:

"The somewhat surprising result is that many parents, in an attempt to keep their children from ditching school...offer to take over grinding duties for their children's characters,..." - Shacknews

 

Yes. At least in part because consoles are vastly more popular there, and consoles, despite recent strides, still lag way behind the PC in terms of online gaming.

I imagine the memory of mass opium addiction and its attendent problems is still alive and well in China (they only really stamped it out what, 55 years ago?). They have damned good reasons for not wanting to see a regression to the bad old days of addiction.

 

There was a case of a guy who 'borrow' a sword from a friend, then he put it on ebay and sold it; so the guy who owned the sword (from Diablo 2 game) went on a trial for the sword, and he won (even Blizzard was involved). Almost the same happened to another couple of guys, but this time, the 'ex'-owner killed the 'thief'.
Sorry I can't find links.

 

When I was in Thailand I saw many, MANY people playing MMOs in internet cafes. Mostly it's people aged 10-20s and they're playing these games during school time, flunking classes. Pangya as mentioned before especially comes to mind as well as Ragnarok where there are HUGE billboards advertising this MMO. Also when you purchase an internet connection in Thailand you get a CD with Lineage (another MMO) and a month free of said game all free of charge.

It appears to be supply and demand at work, the problem is that many Asians are demanding far more than they can handle and I'd say there's a cultural thing attached to it. I know what I'm about to say will be viewed as either racist or sterotyping but I'm speaking from experience.

I've sold life insurance to Asians and they prefer this deal (Whole of Life) where you get alot for your money yet it costs a bit more than normal (or Term) insurance. They like to see their money go far. They actually invest in everything. Now apply this to a MMO. You pay a fee and get one month of gaming. Asians like to get as much for their money as possible, guess what they do? They try to play as much as that game as possible for the money they paid. They will actually try and play for every second they paid for (in the more extreme cases).

Some people might argue with me and say it's not the case but I've seen how the Asian business mind works and trust me, they like to see their money go as far as possible when possible. I think that if MMOs in Asia were like Guild Wars with no subscription fee there would be less of this 'addiction' since they wouldn't see the need to get as much for their money as possible.

 

I remember from my days playing Lineage 2, the excessive amounts of asian people who where paid to play the game to gather money to sell to us Westerns who where stupid enough to buy adena (the 15 dollar monthly fee was enough for me thank you). It gave a rather unique look into a very organized system which profited through online gaming. I'm aware there are western sites that sell ingame money, but I've never seen it to the extent as I saw it on Lineage 2. The language barrier cuppled with the well organized asian business gamers against the more individualist western games created some very bad blood.