China imposes online gaming curbs Gamers in China are facing new limits on how much time they can spend playing their favourite online game. The government in Beijing is reported to be introducing the controls to deter people from playing for longer than three consecutive hours. The measures are designed to combat addiction to online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft and Lineage II. More than 20 million Chinese play games regularly, mainly in net cafes. The phenomenal popularity of online games has fuelled concerns that some people may be losing themselves in the virtual worlds of massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). In one extreme case, a player killed a fellow player who had stolen his virtual sword The gamer received a suspended death sentence in June. The new system will impose penalties on players who spend more than three hours playing a game by reducing the abilities of their characters. Gamers who spend more than five hours will have the abilities of their in-game character severely limited.
Re: China imposes online gaming curbs I read the story in the gaming mags... The guy had lent this bloke the sword, the bloke sold it on making £400 in the process. China has no laws regarding the theft of virtual items, so the guy went and stabbed him through the heart after he found the police wouldn't do anything
It's hardly the worst thing to happen in an MMO. The Guiding Hand Social Club (character assasination to order) in EVE caused over 30 billion ISK's ($16,500 in real money) worth of damage in the game by taking out Ubiqua Seraph corp (a group of over 400 players) by destroying the group CEO and stealing ALL of the corp pilot's ships, battle upgrades, and blueprints (story here). God knows what would happen if their real identities were ever discovered, I bet there's a far few people pissed off at them right now...
