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South Korea gaming curfew passes committee unanimously
South Korea's national assembly will soon vote on a curfew law preventing children under 15 from playing online games from midnight until 6AM. Chosunilbo reports the National Assembly's legislation and judiciary committee voted unanimously to pass the bill this Wednesday. The law would not affect offline and console games. The government began making moves to enact a video game curfew last year. The program also included tests of a "slowdown" policy that would reduce the internet speed of underage users logged into a policed game for an extended time. Government regulation isn't fun, but it could be worse for young South Korean gamers ... they could be Vietnamese adults.
Joystiq looks at South Korea's PC Baang culture
No PlayStation, No Nintendo, No Sega. In a sprawling metropolis on the brink of a technological revolution what place would eschew console gaming? It was South Korea, and for the longest time there was an embargo against Japanese made imports. In the embargo's wake an unstoppable PC gaming utopia and a molding of an anomalous social culture evolved. With the government push for broadband access and the proliferation of PC Baangs, online PC-game rooms, a remarkable 70% of South Korean internet users have played some kind of MMOG. The Korean MMOG invasion on the western market has spurned resentment but some MMOs like Nexon's Maple Story found a successful niche. What is fascinating, are not the endless failed imports or the lucky few that do succeed in the US but the radical differences in our gaming cultures. Joystiq's Geoffrey Brooks is residing in Seoul, South Korea for the summer. Indulging his senses in this part of the world Brook posits about South Korea's PC Baangs and the masterful technological wired revolution and contrasts it to the lagging-behind United States. It's a must read, especially if you know nothing of the PC gaming culture in South Korea other than asking "isn't Starcraft big there?"
