Marathon gamer gurus take note. China’s putting their gamers on a leash. MMORPGs are all the rage right for online gaming, whether its World of Warcraft or Lineage II or something else but in China, anything over five hours a day and you could be in trouble.
Right now Chinese gamers number more than 20 million and those gamers spent more than $500 million for online gaming last year. In case you hadn’t noticed that’s big time money. China’s looking for more foreign investment so they’ve been encouraging the growth of online gaming.
But China, being the warm government it is, has seen fit to limit game time so, once players hit the five hour mark, you will have a reason to quit. Once you’ve played your five hours, you’re done for five hours. You receive a warning and then your character essentially has a governor slapped on it and you become severely limited in what that character can do.
The BBC quoted Xiaowei Kou of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), which regulates the online gaming as saying, “The timing mechanism can prevent young people from becoming addicted to online games.”
A number of games were included in the initial run including World of Warcraft, Legend of Mir II 3G, First Myth Online, Blade Online, The World of Legend and Lineage II.
Right now, China is number two in online access behind the U.S. They may surpass the U.S. based on sheer numbers sometime in the future as their middle class continues to grow and they continue to spend more time in online games and other Internet entertainment.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
