China bans minors under 18 from playing online games that allow players to kill other players


By Faye Wang

Shanghai.  August 3.  INTERFAX-CHINA - Chinese authorities unveiled new regulations on Tuesday that will prohibit minors under the age of 18 from playing more violent online games, which currently dominate the Chinese online gaming market.

Effective immediately, all minors are banned from playing online games in which players are allowed to kill other players, an activity that has been termed Player Kills (PK). China's Ministry of Culture (MOC) and Ministry of Information Industry (MII) have also ordered the country's online game operators to develop identity authentication systems that prevent minors from playing games These authentication systems would require all players to first enter their Citizen ID Card numbers before being allowed to play games that allow Player Kills. No timetable was given for when these authentication systems must be implemented.

"Minors should not be allowed to play online games that have PK content, that allow players to increase the power of their own online game characters by killing other players," Liu Shifa, head of the MOC's Internet Culture Division, which drafts policies governing the online gaming market, told Interfax. "Online games that have PK content usually also contain acts of violence and leads to players spending too much time trying to increase the power of their characters. They are harmful to young people."

The Chinese online gaming market generated RMB 2.47 bln (USD 304 mln) in sales revenue last year and is expected to see RMB 10.9 bln (USD 1.34 bln) in sales revenue for 2005, according to China's General Administration of Press and Publication. It is dominated by massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) that feature Player Kills as a key portion of game play. The most popular MMORPGs on the Chinese market, such as "World of Warcraft" operated by The9, "Legend of MIR I and II" operated by Shanda, and "Fantasy Journey to the West" operated by NetEase, all contain Player Kills.

In addition, a substantial number of Chinese online game players are minors under the age of 18. At the end of June 2005, China was home to more than 103 mln internet users, statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) showed. Of that total, 15.8% of internet users were under the age of 18. It is not surprising then that many online gaming firms are hesitant about implementing the new policy issued by Chinese regulators.

"We don't want to put the authentication system in our games," a senior official with a Chinese online gaming firm, who asked to remain anonymous, told Interfax. "PK game content is an important and attractive part of almost all MMORPGs. This new regulation will have a major impact on China's online gaming market."

China is currently home to more than 20 mln online game players, 49.4% of which prefer playing MMORPGs, according to CNNIC. The official with the Chinese online gaming firm said companies would find ways to bypass the new authentication systems in order to maintain the profitability of their businesses. The new regulations banning minors from playing online games with PK content would not stop those under 18 from playing these games, he said.

"It will be very difficult for the government to enforce this new regulation," he said. "I think they will only be able to enforce this policy at internet cafes, where authentication systems would be linked to police databases. But I think it will be very difficult to enforce this system for people playing online games from home."

The MOC's Liu also said that implementation of the new policy would pose many challenges, but said that the MOC and the MII were now drafting compulsory industrial standards to ensure enforcement of the new regulation.

In addition, Chinese authorities have also ordered online game operators to install timing mechanisms that would automatically log players off of online games once they had exceeded a set number of hours of continuous play. Chinese gamers on average spend 10.9 hours a week playing online games.

"A lot of operators are not willing to install these timing mechanisms," the senior company official said. "Some have already installed them, such as Shanda, but we are not going to install it. Even if it is compulsory, many companies will not install it because it is contrary to their interests."

Furthermore, authorities have also raised entry barriers for becoming a licensed online game operator in China. Companies looking to become licensed for the first time as an online game operator in China must now have no less than RMB 10 mln (USD 1.23 mln) in registered capital, the MOC and MII said in a joint statement.

Chinese authorities have significantly increased policing of online games since the second half of 2004, as part of government efforts to create a 'healthy' environment for children. As part of that same campaign, regulators have also cracked down on pornographic, violent, gambling, and 'superstitious' content disseminated over the internet and mobile phone networks.

http://www.interfax.cn/showfeature.asp?aid=4211

What are your thoughts on this?  Maybe a good idea for the U.S.?

Is This For Real??? One word...Disturbed

Yea china is not right isn't this all in the aftermath of that kid that went crazy or something last year?  People who play online video games based on killing should be able to distinguish real life from a video game.

I guess you could view it like that in a more positive manner.  I would like to think that since alot of the graphics technology comes from japan that in this event quality in the equipment may decrease but i guess killing games aren't the only games in the world that require good graphics.

Not to mention nVidia is an American company, ATI is a Candadian company, a lot of the motherboard manufacturers are from Taiwan. Right now the only big thing China has on the Western PC market is Lenovo and that's just because they bought the Thinkpad from IBM.

As far as design of hardware goes, it's a lot of math, chemistry, physics, etc. that goes into it, not how good someone can frag you in a game.

What Judge was commenting on is the how good pro gamers from China are because they spend insane amounts of time playing them all through childhood and into adulthood. Look at RocketBoy for instance. Sure, he only came in second in the Doom3 tournament at QuakeCon, but he's still a damn good gamer.

Not trying to come down on you Valkerie, just telling it how it is.