Video game addiction: China imposes gaming curfew for minors
bbc.com
bbc.com
Nice to see someone is doing something to curb video game companies slipping gambling into their all-ages games.
Now if only there were some way to force companies to require them to disclose their odds and require an affirmative opt in for all games that require gambleboxes and prevent them from being introduced into existing games without requiring a ratings board re-rating…
This is what parents are for. We can't expect government to rule every aspect of our lives.
Also the money argument is not really meaningful. I'm against loot boxes because they are purely gambling and should be regulated as such, but spending that money on games, cosmetics, etc, is not that much. That's what you spend by going twice to the cinema and only enjoy it for a couple hours.
Wouldn't that create more a equal playing field where all kids are raised using the same methods? Social economic differences between families would be elimated through this model.
Men/women would not have to raise children. They would have more time to work and more money/time to spend on themselves. This would create a more level playing field allowing women to stay in the workforce allowing for more wage equalization levels between the sexes.
One could say parenting is the greatest public health matter.
Taking things to their logical extremes to dictate a point is disingenuous and ultimately unhelpful.
China identifies a problem; they introduce policy to try to solve the problem.
Government should make all health decisions for children.
My comment is a natural outcome of allowing that. No one is saying China is doing that currently because of this policy. No one is talking about China at all.
Gambling is highly addictive, in-game gambling dark patterns are iterated on and weaponized by teams of designers.
Do you believe individual parents are a match for these million pound gorilla companies pushing gambling to their kids, in their own homes and everywhere, 24/7?
Gambling is gambling and is bad, especially if you're vulnerable like a kid.
What I don't think it's right is the government telling you how much time you have to spend doing X.
We're talking about gaming hours now. But what about food? Don't eat more than 2000k calories a day or we'll punish you somehow. Don't smoke, don't drink alcohol or take any kind of drugs because it costs money to give you medical attention. Don't practice that sport because it's dangerous. Don't watch more than 2 hours a day of Netflix. And I could go on and on.
Is there regulation of gambling / addiction-inducing practices in video games? At all?
Further, even if they did, that doesn’t change the rating on the box at point of purchase or after purchase.
Realistically, the only way to allow this is either for video game platform holders (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Google for Android, Apple for iOS, etc) to have a standard way for these sorts of gambleboxes to be purchased such that parental controls can be used console wide to either set spending limits or disable the ability to spend at all or for the government to make the publishers accountable for it.
Some platforms have already moved here, but the response industry-wide had been anemic at best.
https://www.polygon.com/2015/4/14/8382089/bungie-butt-micros...
Gambleboxes target whales and children, people who lack impulse control in purchasing these gambleboxes. There are multiple stories of children draining their parents bank accounts and gambling addicts draining their savings into these games. The game companies target them, calling them whales, and these strategies work because they make billions in these gamble box purchases.
Saying "it’s only cosmetics" or "most people don’t do this" doesn’t matter - there are people exploited by this type of monetization, and industry does nothing about it.
Further, it goes into targeting children by placing these mechanisms in all ages games. Sure, you can argue all you want that parents should control what their kids do, but that’s what the rating is for. If the game makers don’t flag this as something for parents to keep their eyes on, if ratings boards can be gamed by developers adding these gamblebox implementations after the rating has been issued, then the only place left to act is the government.
Exploitative behaviors make video game producers massive amounts of money - it’s against their interests to regulate it.
This is another big announcement, followed by temporary raids with nice photos, while the reality of gaming in china will slip back to what it always was. A home for the homeless, friends for the friendless, fake hope for the hopeless. Big announcements in bejing change nothing - unless the boss visits and only then for the time of the visit and on the surface.
China is a more complex society behind what the propaganda claims it to be. Why was stalins propaganda questioned and ccp propaganda is just accepted as fact?
Wonder if that has helped.
Story also covered in this thread (but links to The Guardian) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28354351
When I realized that it was too late to change it