From cancelled games to the Shutdown Law

ForTheCity

In our latest round-up of news from South Korea's online games space, we look at a reactions to the online gaming shutdown law a month after it went into effect, Chinese operators closing down their Korean games, and more.

In November, South Korea implemented a shutdown system for online games, forcing operators and platform holders to block children aged under 16 from playing online titles during a late-night six-hour block -- part of a law meant to combat online game addiction.

 

A month later, though, some claim the shutdown law has had little effect. "I investigated what has changed after the policy. As a result, nothing much has changed in terms of the concurrent users for both [kids and adults]," says JongDeuk Kim, who works for an unnamed developer.

 

A younger gamer nicknamed Maemi commented, "All of [my friends] said nothing would change because we all could still either play the online games with our parents's IDs or play other games not under the policy, such as console games or mobile games. This system is meaningless."

 

Cultural Society Institute researcher KiMin Yang added, "The children would eventually play games no matter how hard we try to take them away from it, and the games themselves would not die out forever. Suppressing games, however, is the right thing to do for the potential future of our children."

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Games like Sudden Attack 2, Ragnarok Online, Cabal Online and FIFA Online 2 are all shutting down in China/Korea.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/38832/This_Week_In_Korean_Online_Gaming_News_From_Cancelled_Games_To_The_Shutdown_Law.php

Salio69

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