Gaming

19726 readers

899 users here now

Sub for any gaming related content!

Rules:

1: No spam or advertising. This basically means no linking to your own content on blogs, YouTube, Twitch, etc.
2: No bigotry or gatekeeping. This should be obvious, but neither of those things will be tolerated. This goes for linked content too; if the site has some heavy "anti-woke" energy, you probably shouldn't be posting it here.
3: No untagged game spoilers. If the game was recently released or not released at all yet, use the Spoiler tag (the little ⚠️ button) in the body text, and avoid typing spoilers in the title. It should also be avoided to openly talk about major story spoilers, even in old games.

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

Metallinatus@lemmy.ml

peternile@lemmy.ml

Why does China's government hate video games so much? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by lemuria@lemmy.ml to c/gaming@lemmy.ml

24 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I saw a post here (https://lemmy.ml/post/1179679) about some Chinese kid spending USD 64k on video games and I read the news article and found myself down a rabbit hole.

https://www.techspot.com/news/98980-13-year-old-spent-64000-parents-money-mobile.html

China has long held a dim view of video games, calling them "electronic drugs" a few years ago. It only allows those under 18 to play online games for one hour, between 8 pm and 9 pm local time, on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays.

So basicaly, this article says that China (or more accurately the Chinese government) has a dim view of video games.

So I kept digging and found this article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/business/media/china-online-games.html

“I think this is the right policy,” she said. “It amounts to the state taking care of our kids for us.”

This phrase just screams "BAD PARENT" to me.

Why do you have to offload the responsibility of caring for your children to the government? You chose to bring them into the world, now you're responsible for them.

Which brings me to my question... why does China's government hate video games so much? Why would they want to impose such draconian restrictions on childrens' free time?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Clodsire@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

they dont hate video games, they hate multiplayer games and its effects on childrens/minors, china like japan and korea has had problems with minors getting very addicted to online games and living in online cafes https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/02/06/national/kyushu-gaming-addition-young-people/

now to you and me its looks kinda weird right, but you need to keep in mid that those regulations only target kids under 18, also it only affects online so a teen could play all Legend of zelda he wants but only 2 hours of games like league of legends or dota.

see it like how in the west they ban selling cigarettes to minors but people over 18 can buy as many as they can.

this article tries to explain why do they have a negative view over online games https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3156540/china-vs-video-games-why-beijing-stopped-short-gaming-ban-keeping

[–] lemuria@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Ah, so it's specifically multiplayer games that the Chinese government doesn't like. I do wonder if they'll ever start imposing restrictions on singleplayer offline games.