South Korea implements internet shutdown for underage gamers

Posted November 23, 2011 by Yuliya Geikhman in News.

South Korea has implemented a midnight ban on underage video game players in an effort to fight teenage video game addiction.

South Korea takes video game addiction seriously. A little while ago, South Korea even opened a video game addiction center for teenagers who were having trouble controlling their gaming. Now it’s gone a step further in “helping teenagers battle their addictions.” A long-planned set of policies has finally been implemented this weekend, locking kids under 16 years old out of certain games and websites between midnight and 6 AM.

The new system, called the “shutdown law” or “Cinderella law” affects both PC and console internet games and connections, like PSN. According to Thinq, Sony plans to block users registered as under 16 from re-registering as older to bypass the ban. For now, offline console games and mobile games will be excluded from the ban, although South Korean officials plan to revisit this decision in 2 years and potentially decide to include these after all.

South Koreans are not all supportive of this new policy, parents included. Gamasutra reports that the MoonHwaYunDae organization has filed an appeal to Korea’s Constitutional Court against the Shutdown Law. The organization argues that this law interferes with Koreans’ rights to education, equality, and the pursuit happiness. They state that the law seems arbitrary, as there has been no concrete proof that playing video games is any worse than watching TV or listening to music. Finally, there is the issue of the dubious claim this will “cure” video game addiction: preventing kids from playing at night does nothing to address why they play so much or so late.

It remains to be seen whether this petition will have any effect. For now kids will either have to find some other way to entertain themselves past midnight, or play offline games. Because who sleeps at night anymore.

You can keep up to date on all the latest South Korea gaming news right here on BeefJack.

Tagged as cinderella law, Gaming Addiction, internet addiction, midnight ban, shutdown law, South Korea, underage