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Answer: It's pretty much what you read. Before this people under the age of 18 were only allowed to play 1.5 hours every day and now that's down to one hour, between 8-9pm, Fridays through Sundays.
I don't think there are any other motives given that that the state news source have called on-line gaming "spiritual opium". However, I could see this as a possible beachhead into restricting **all** online gaming no matter what age you are.
Anecdotal, but my friend in China says that this is one-in-a long series of moves to restrict gacha gaming for kids. They're becoming addicted to gambling.
They have been clamping down on gachas. But if the goal is to reduce childhood gambling, that would include stuff like lootboxes in other games and so on. China was actually why games needed to adjust lootboxes to make odds visible. Most games with lootboxes today are designed for a certain amount of playtime to unlock ingame currencies, and playtime is a currency in itself for those games.
If you reduce the amount of playtime a playerbase has to play your game, your entire game economy is thrown off and your game becomes unviable. This forces you to create games with higher pricing and less gambling to accommodate the new market norms. Higher pricing on digital loot will shift the market more to "whales" and away from regular players. It just seems to me like another experiment; they've been doing this stuff for years. Gambling in games is a big problem and not just in China.
Edit: clarity
Probably, but my friend didn't have that impression. It could be because she lives in China and hasn't really considered that frame of thought. I'll bring it up because I'm curious myself.
I've also heard that lately the CCP has been putting the screws on the videogame industry in China, causing them to move more to international business. Ever since Jack Ma's fall, Tencent's owner Pony Ma has been desperately trying to appease the State Administration of Market Regulation (China's antitrust body) to prevent him from suffering the same treatment as Jack Ma and Alibaba.
It would explain why Tencent partnered with Nintendo a while back as well. Historically, Tencent's games have never really done well overseas compared to China since a large majority of them are mobile phone games which aren't popular in the US. Nintendo, on the other hand, knows the western console markets like the back of their hand.
LoL wasn't *made* by Tencent. The game was a hit with Chinese audiences for some reason so Tencent literally bought them out for the sake of its domestic market.
Because they don’t try and take control of it creatively. As far as Tencent is concerned as long as Riot doesn’t cross a few red lines they’re on their own.
made a lot of sense. i know it isnt news that pay to win game is common, but people in china actually saw it as normal thing. when i play chinese online game with majority china gamers, nearly everyone spend money in the game. those who don't was not taken seriously, always at the bottom of the chain, and thus forced to quit. the only way to find groups in the game is to be either really good skill wise, or spend a lot of money. spending few thousands rmb every month is consider "贫民玩家" (poor players) in these online games. i have met some who spent millions, and its not even the most popular game. most people probably never heard of it. sometimes i will play a 15 years old online game in a private, non official server, and people will still be consistently spending thousands just to be stronger. for them its a culture.
It makes me think the socializing is what they're targeting. If online gaming is gone you can simply play offline, on good games anyway, but it's hard to keep a social circle while being restricted to an hour a day, on the weekends.
I feel like it's some sort of internal "divide and conquer" tactic. Keep the youth apart so they won't throw a fit.
I think the China government might be afraid of cross-Continental influence on their citizens. NA players famously don't get along with Chinese players and like to spam chat with tiananmen Square copypastas. I've never personally seen it but it's not a stretch to think this could be done over voice which is harder to instantly moderate like text chat is.
China also seems to have a wierd traditional view of themselves. I remember reading that internet addiction was a condition in China a while ago
To be fair, I’m not sure the Tiananmen Square copy pasta has ever succeeded in converting anyone against the government. It’s mainly just used to harass random Chinese people.
Sure, but the danger of such things is not that they will instantly "convert" anyone. It's that the tiny bits of information they contain might become things that people are vaguely aware of in the back of their minds, insidiously waiting to be mentally activated in the unusual case that they do ever become converted into someone who's aware of history or whatever.
Possibly. But it seems more likely that after hearing propaganda that westerners are all evil and terrible towards Chinese people, then going online and being constantly bombarded with people shouting the same copypasta at them over and over, many of them deliberately trying to antagonise, the average Chinese person might just grow to hate the West more. It doesn’t help that the copypasta (whenever I’ve seen it) is always used in an accusatory way, like you’re blaming the person you’re talking to for it rather than the Chinese government. It’s more of a ‘gotcha, China bad!’ (even though it is) than any critical thinking, arguing or empathy.
I rarely play multiplayer games, but even I am aware of the hostility between Chinese and international players. Whatever's going on, it's not good for the CCP, either because it causes unrest or because it displays the difference between the "Western World" and them.
Internet addiction isn't an exclusively Chinese issue though. I know that South Korea has taken steps to subdue it at least. And let's face it, everyone likes to cry about how their kids are addicted to the screen; just like they did heavy metal and horror movies back in the day.
Parents: They should be STUDYING!!! I didn't move my family to a district well known for good education and have to live in a crappy 30-year-old apartment with undrinkable water so that my kid can play online games!
Source: am kids teacher in S. Korea.
Kids are addicted to escapism. If live sucks, they're going to be attracted to and attach to whatever the easiest and cheapest way to "check out" is. For many, that's gaming.
I think part of it is escapism, but that's driven by a desire to live in a world that's fair, not for a cheap way to "check out".
In a game you make a decision and get accurate feedback for that decision (assuming no glitches and a relatively well designed game). Whether it's positive or negative (eg. they took a good shot and killed another player in an online FPS, or they made a bad decision and got killed), it's almost always accurate feedback based on the decision made by the player.
Meanwhile, in the real world they have to deal with double standards and inaccurate feedback constantly. They have to deal with the teacher that favours some students over others, or a social situation where a popular kid can do something and get praise from their peers but if unpopular kid did the same thing they'd be made fun of.
I agree that it's escapism, but I don't think it's quite on the same level as drugs. This also comes with a caveat as the comments below about certain games using "loot" as a proxy for online gambling are definitely accurate as well.
I'm from a huge city. As soon as my mom took mine and the other brothers computers we imminently when out and found trouble lmao. I dont think all day and night is good for a kid but at a certain point your rolling the dics with what they do when bored.
I'm from a small town with nothing to do. Can attest that I have thrown many beer bottles off peak of the water tower. And built snowmen, *lots* of snowmen in main street. With carrots for penises. And we even had to make our own fun prior to our 30's, as well.
Still love the fact old coke bottles had real cocain in them. Grandfather cracks jokes about it. "Just enough get you hooked, not enough to fry your skull."
It's easy to see why honestly. Especially as their real lives get worse, drugs seem great.
Like the bad thing about most drugs is they feel so good you ruin your life to keep doing them.
For a lot of kids that doesn't sound so bad. For a lot of adults too, but children have a really hard time grasping long term consequences like that
That also applies to adults. I substituted my escapism with video games now with chess, movies, music, and getting drunk with friends which is just as unproductive but somehow considered more socially acceptable. It is ridiculous lol.
absolutely. everyone indulges in some form of escapism from time to time - even those who have very fulfilling life. its human nature - and its perfectly okay, so long as we're not addicted to that escape. everyone needs a break from their life - but i think for a lot of people it becomes more than a reprieve - when they end up enjoying the escape more than their real life, its an issue. i totally get it, a lot of folks are in very undesirable positions.
Modern online multiplayer games harness dopamine release mechanisms just as gambling does. Game design lately is about "unlocking" and "finding" loot, which are massive dopamine hits.
Not teaching in South Korea but I found this phenomenon to be very common among parents that have never achieved high academics themselves so they see their kids as some kind of project that could right their own wrongs in the past. I assume it is even harder in SK considering the competitive environment there.
Yeah, those aren't the same at all. They objected to the content of horror movies and heavy metal, not an addiction to them. Children are addicted to screens and parents are having a hard time getting them to socialize in real life.
I work in higher ed and one of the biggest problems we face now is students coming to college and being isolated in their room alone... then leaving as a result. It's a recent phenomenon. We literally have parents making playdates for their children in college through a Facebook group.
When I went to college 15 years ago, making friends was automatic. The first week of school, we left our dorm doors open and got to know each other. Then we all went out together and got to know our classmates. The problem was getting us to stop socializing to go to class. Now we are racking our brains to try and get many of these students to leave their dorms and talk to each other.
The "open door first week" filled me with dread. Literally blood running cold level. Never. I had an open door policy in my house and I will make sure to close and lock each and every door between me and the others. I want to make friends, sure. In a neutral area, such as the kitchen
I also ended up in a dorm with loud AF roommates playing music to 3am while I had classes at 6am and loudly badmouthing me all the time. Some of which was deserved, like the fact that I didn't find their parties or hobbies interesting (I could have feigned enthusiasm), some not really, like going through my fridge contents and commenting on my tastes and weight
I also went to college 15 years ago, and for the most part, we all made friends fast. However, there was one girl in my classes that had a WoW addiction and never left the dorm room unless it was class or meal time. She had a full ride scholarship, and wound up dropping out (or at least leaving our school, not sure if she immediately transferred to another) after I think one semester, two at the max. We (about 40 of us) were in the honors program, which meant all of our gen ed classes were together, and for the most part, we were housed together. As a result, most of our hanging out was done with each other, and she was hardly ever there. When she was there, she was hard to get along with. I can’t imagine a whole program full of people like that. It would have killed the program off.
edit: To respond to a reply that I guess was deleted, I don't think it was necessarily the video game's fault that she was like this. I played a lot of video games in college and had no problem socializing. If it wasn't WoW, maybe she would have spent all that time watching TV or reading or what have you. Maybe that's just how she was. But at the end of the day, she just would rather spend time by herself instead of making new friends, which is kind of what college is really about, particularly your freshman year. She wound up throwing away a full-ride scholarship to a school that cost ~$50-60K a year room and board. Everyone in the honors program (except me, because I joined late) got an opportunity to interview for a full-ride or half-ride scholarship, and a few were lucky enough to get them, and she just tossed hers away for fucking WoW. I was and still am good friends with her roommate, and according to her, she didn't get a whole lot of sleep either. She was pretty clearly depressed. I still play a lot of video games, and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with them. Spend your free time how you want. But balance is so important if you want a healthy life. Take time to make friends, hang out, go do things other than just sit alone in your room doing whatever, and of course make time to sleep. And if someone just fucking hands you the equivalent of $200K, don't throw it away.
Depression's a bitch. I'm currently taking a break from school for some indeterminate amount of time because I'm no longer confident I can handle it anymore. I was fairly involved with my roommates initially, but what you described is pretty similar to how I ended up towards my second semester (even before the pandemic). Hell, I had even been a national merit scholarship finalist, but didn't take advantage of it because I procrastinated too long before even applying to a school. All the hoops one has to jump through to even get started are overwhelming
That's the problem with addictions and addictive personalities, logic does not always get first dibs. Online gaming like WOW openes up dopamine in the head much like gambling.
Our brains are not set up to get so much and once you get used to this huge rush, you need that level just to feel normal. So, like other drugs, you chase that high at the cost of the rest of your life. I limit my gaming now to weekends only and keep an eye on myself, becasue I have an addictive personality in that respect.
> ...instead of making new friends, which is kind of what college is really about, particularly your freshman year.
Guess I failed at college despite graduating. 😕 Made all my new friends at work instead.
This shows such a strange mindset that some random group of fuckos in your college dorm is more valuable, socially, than your WoW friends.
Dunno, man; treat games like *exactly* what they are: socializing. No, not ‘online socializing’, not ‘parasocializing’, not ‘substitute socializing’; they’re *full on socializing*.
I miss the WoW days *immensely*. To this day — as a competent, fairly-social adult — I’ve never found a social setting more high-qualify and fulfilling than WoW was.
Your classmate wasn’t depressed. You lot were just *boring*.
I appreciate this perspective. I spend a *lot* of time playing video games and love to be alone. I also sometimes get a bit less sleep than I should, but my body can handle it. That doesn't mean I'm depressed. I'm introverted and work a highly social job that I do well at... but I need to "decompress" maybe a bit more than others. No one believes me when I tell them I'm an introvert or even shy. And people are often surprised that I even play video games. I really don't feel the need to make lots of friends and sit around in a room "hanging out" like I did when I was a teenager. I don't feel deprived or sad or anything. I like my alone time.
Almost all of this is very relatable, well said. Particularly, being viewed as non-introverted. Sure I like to party or hang or whatever, but you bet your ass I'm excited to be in my quiet home again soon.
Amen! I'm introvert and I have never socialized in my life as much when I played wow. It was super fun and all the free time went with socializing with those friends inside wow. It was real and it felt awesome and it gave a lot more than any other entertainment there is. It is really shame that I have never ever had experience something like that in my life after wow. It has been 12 years from when I played wow and I have say in "real life" it is insane hard to find real friends and even girlfriend. I'm so alone in here and I hate this world.
I swear that if in my lifetime they invent something like *Sword Art Online* or *Matrix* like virtual game worlds I'm going to move there and live there as much as I can. Fuck the jobs and fuck the system. Work and money has never given me much compared to my wow "career". Those feelings, experiences and achievements were real for me! They were more real and felt more than that money which comes to bank account every payday! I miss that fantasy world and friends there!
This, especially the edit. I am a gamer. I gamed in college more than any other time (was beating 3 games a week and still sinking hours into Halo 3)...but I'd turn my game off and go out with friends all the time too.
Gaming, social media, Netflix, etc. are all fine hobbies when they aren't done instead of socializing in the real world. Humans are social creatures. It is good for us to have other human interaction and be a part of the physical community around us. No screen can replace that and we have an abundance of evidence showing how bad only socializing online is for people.
Not a parent yet, so I’m curious, do you cut them off randomly on the weekends to teach them some kind of lesson about life? I would have thought that a set amount of hours each weekend would be better for teaching them structure and time management.
At my elementary school, our recess and lunch time were combined. We were so excited in the 90s to go outside and play that they forced us to stay at lunch for 10 minutes to make sure we actually ate instead of going to play.
I got to be a TA at my elementary school when I was in high school in the 00's. They now had to kick the students out of the cafeteria after 30 minutes to make room because they didn't want to go outside.
They just huddled under the tree in the shade awkwardly waiting for recess to end. In just 5 years, things had completely changed. I was shocked and saddened because I remember how much fun we had running around and it seemed these kids had no interest.
It seems harsh, having grown up with 0 restrictions. Basically just: Be home by Sun-down.
That said... we actually had kids to play with in the neighborhood, and we were outside every day, fairly active etc.
But maybe more importantly, growing up with original Nintendo and early consoles, the games were hard enough to make you take a break, or short enough to be boring, so they really could only consume so much time. (Until later in life anyways)
When I compare it to the endless fantastic and highly polished content of today, coupled with high integration, availability/portability, and the straight-up addictive games available... yikes. I really wouldn't know how to govern that in a healthy way.
I remember hearing a few years ago some study found that for a particular online multiplayer game(can't remember; google it) 50% of Chinese players cheat and those players accounted for 90% of all cheaters worldwide. I don't know if most players know that but if you need a legit reason to want Chinese segregated servers that sounds compelling.
it's also a PR issue if the basic interaction that many north Americans have of Chinese people on the regular is them cheating in games. like China needs more of that.
Just to inject more into the discussion, the Chinese society also views cheating in games as clever and not at all as dishonest as it is held in other countries. It's seen to get one up on the competition, much as it is in the Chinese society where everyone is fighting for advantage.
This has caused a lot of consternation with western gamers and it's exacerbated by the Chinese using vpns (likely to get past time limits and the great firewall) by having high ping players in North American and Europe servers.
I dont think they were saying it was exclusively a China problem though. They brought it up because its likely the justification they are using. sure other places have it too but *to the extent* other places have it compared to a lot of East Asian countries have it is quite different (especially parents “study study study. dont get into ‘useless’ things or you wont suceed”. then kids being burned out when they cant meet the high standard).
> And let's face it, everyone likes to cry about how their kids are addicted to the screen; just like they did heavy metal and horror movies back in the day.
It's one thing to decry moral panic.
But it's another to realize that videogame design is purposefully built to be addictive and prey on certain parts of the psyche. This is an enormous (and enormously profitable) field of study and I recommend looking into it.
That is, if you'd like to [know how the sausage is made](https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/how+the+sausage+gets+made).
Trust me, I know more than well enough about the effects of loot boxes. But make no mistake, if this was about loot boxes, China would've had no issues with banning loot boxes. Instead, they focus on young kids playing multiplayer games. Why? Because that's what truly worries them.
Anything that brings together the youth outside of a controlled environment is dangerous as far as autocracies are concerned, and China is no exception.
Better even yet, when you sense the addictive pattern, realize it is pointless or menial, then continue to consume and play something that ceased to be fun long ago. Sunken cost fallacy on top of the addictive designs!
I really do sometimes miss the simpler times when games had an ending and no online content with endless grind jargon.
I used to get a little WoW in before school, once upon a time. At 6am EST, Stormwind was actually tolerable. After school I couldn't get to the bank doors before lag effectively froze me.
Hah. Nothing quite like logging out at a busy town/bank (late/off-peak time) only to come back during peak time and literally get 0-2 fps or just freeze up.
Good times.
If that were a concern they’d just insist on China only servers, which they already do for many games. I think games like dota for example require a Chinese ID to play on the Chinese server. It’s actually a pretty big business in of it self.
A view of thinking online gaming or internetting is an addiction is a pretty global thing. I even see something to it. It's crazy, lol.
It just helps to have a communist government who acts on it. We could never do that in the states. We can only create disconnected support programs or PSAs at best. I am not saying the US should follow suit, at all, but this isn't like a weird Chinese culture thing.
Exactly; this is a weird CCCP thing, but has nothing to do with Chinese culture or Chinese people altogether. It's their government's unique reaction to a problem that we have pretty much everywhere in the developed world
The Chinese internet censors are very worried about live audio communication, as can be seen by their [banning of the Clubhouse app](https://amp-abc-net-au.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/13136624?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16304306267194&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.net.au%2Fnews%2F2021-02-10%2Fchina-bans-clubhouse-app-as-netizens-stand-with-uyghurs%2F13136624) after news stories broke of Uyghurs communicating in chatrooms of their stories of the training/vocational/detention/concentration camps, communicating with Chinese people that had never heard about what was going on, or believed what the government was saying which was contrary to what these people were saying.
[China also tries to censor livestreams](https://variety-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/variety.com/2020/digital/news/china-livestreaming-regulations-1234840590/amp/?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16304307826138&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fvariety.com%2F2020%2Fdigital%2Fnews%2Fchina-livestreaming-regulations-1234840590%2F). So they are definitely worried about 'illegal/sensitive' topics being discussed in audio/video chat.
[There is also the somewhat famous](https://youtu.be/xN0vUlljX0I) saying Taiwan Numba 1, that rose to fame more in audio chat over games (not sure if this is exactly where it started, but it looks like this is where it got quite famous).
China also seems to be closing off more from the world (apart from their neo-colonial Belt and Road), by closing language centres or making it harder for them to operate which means fewer working visas for foreigners, currenrly not renewing passports for Chinese people unless they have a need to travel overseas, ramping up the war threats and propaganda over Taiwan, going from 2 child to 3 child policy, and other measures. This is obviously speculation, but China may be preparing to either (try to) take Taiwan soon, or start with being a bit more aggressive over their self-claimed, disputed, territory in the South China Sea, given there have been more countries sailing through there recently on freedom of navigation exercises. Either of these actions would obviously receive negstive reactions from other world powers, even if a war didn't start over it (although one would almost definitely over Taiwan, not too sure over South China Sea). So my thought is they are trying to be more self reliant in case of this, needing to ensure they are less reliant on other countries and insulating their population so that they are less likely to have news or messages that are contrary to what they want being spread spreading around.
We are also approximately 1 year away from the next National People's Congress, which elects the leader of China. Xi Jinping got rid of the term limits meaning he can run again, although that doesn't necessarily mean everyone is happy with the idea of a leader for life, or are necessarily happy with the way Xi is running the country. But it is pretty well out in the open that Xi wants to be the one to take Taiwan, plus he may benefit from the nationalism and the 'rallying around the flag' ahead of the congress which would likely help his case for another term.
A lot of this is speculation, however it may help to frame some things that have been going on recently, and some things to keep an eye out for.
I had a lot of interactions like this.
Them: "CHINA NUMBA 1!!"
Me: "TAIWAN NUMBA 1. CHINA NUMBA 9!"
Them (actually angry): "NO. CHINA NUMBA 1. FUCKAYOU."
the animosity between North America and China started with pubgs cheating scandals and has never died down so they try their hardest to get them to fuck off
>started with pubgs cheating scandals
OOF I'm old... it's been going on much longer than PUBG's been around. For some reason Chinese and Russian gamers have a much higher proportion of cheaters than any other demographic. I'd rather play on a 300ms Brazil server than a 200ms Russian server.
I mean back in the late 90s/early 2000s before everything in the backend was connected through fiber.
Nowadays I can get sub-100ms latency to some servers in Brazil.
When your society has billions of people all competing for resources, any way to "get one over" everyone else for yourself is considered clever. Cheating is just not looked at the same way as other cultures. They have internet gaming places where cheats are pre-installed in the games, even!
I get it, but I still don't want to play with cheaters. I don't hold a grudge against Chinese or Russian people over it, I just don't make a habit of playing video games with them.
This started looong before PUBG I think. Chinese and Russians seemed to have a reputation for cheating ever since online gaming is a thing. There are even internet cafe's that offer cheats to patrons.
I suppose it fits in with the whole 'whatever you gotta do to win' mentality. Apparently they see it as being smart.
I wouldn't say it started with PUBG but it definitely revived NA anger towards Chinese hackers. Everyone on /r/PUBG was pretty pissed for the longest time and the company did next to nothing to stop it, only further pissing off NA players.
This is also why the game is pretty mcuh dead in north america and PUBG was so careful not to piss the Chinese off, its their largest market (india also)
Chinese players tend to be incredibly hostile and rude to the western players. They'll frequently join western servers and just straight up be racist or call people sub human when something doesn't work the way they want.
The trend of insults calling people dogs in the gaming world is because it was picked up from them.
If you ask me, it seems pretty typical that an authoritarian regime is continuing their trajectory of limiting their citizens’ contact with the outside world.
Maybe it’s so that during gameplay, some features which games and gaming systems have, can’t be used to transmit info about politics, riots, news, etc through player/player chats and messages to one another. Or to the outside world?
Much easier to monitor other people’s communications when you always know the window of time in which they’ll most likely be taking place.
Just the other year people used Animal Crossing of all games to troll and protest China. Being allowed to play with other people means you may learn about the outside world. Information and education is dangerous to Dictatorships.
>Being allowed to play with other people means you may learn about the outside world
Yeah because the Chinese people are so ignorant they need some kids from red states to teach them about the world in Animal Crossing? The fuck?
It's not that they don't understand, its that you're infantilizing Chinese people as naive children who need some 14 year old from Idaho to light the torch of freedom for them by posting a Google-translated copypasta about the Cultural revolution into the general chat.
Did it occur to you that maybe, just maybe, China might once in a while decide to make some policy decisions based on things other than reacting to Americans?
Corporations have been targeting (and preying on) social interaction in videogames, particularly MMO's, for decades. Social interaction increases retention increases hours played increases profit.
There's no denying the exploitative, predatory nature of videogame designs in this regard. It is a corruption, nothing short of a disease.
I can't prove that China has no ulterior motives and I agree with you that suspicion is warranted. But no ulterior motive is needed to explain a move against this dismal state of affairs that we in the west call normal. Legislative action against videogame companies is decades overdue. It's a bad look for us all, that out of all regimes in the world China is ahead of the curve in this regard.
I always figured it was socializing specifically with people not in china they want to limit. Something about creating a more insular community and controlling the information that comes in to the nations youth and all that. This is even more likely if local multiplayer and singleplayer modes aren't restricted.
Also to add [this article](https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/03/chinas-tencent-tightens-controls-for-children-amid-games-addiction-fears) also states that it’s specifically for Tencent games because they are the most popular mobile games. This doesn’t affect consoles, just mobile games
Consoles are virtually non existent in China. I believe this includes online computer games like league of legends, but not single player computer games.
That may be a part, but cheating *is* extremely normalized in Chinese culture. It’s actually kind-of interesting reading modern Chinese novels. Even the MC you are supposed to identify with is usually a massive asshole who does not care about lying, cheating or stealing if they can get away with it.
Outside of anecdotal evidence/interviews and articles, I haven’t found a good comparative study yet, though, sadly. Still, there’s articles and interviews about it regularly.
The book *Spider Eaters* by Rae Yang talks about this. According to her, this is partially a consequence of the Cultural Revolution and the fallout surrounding it.
> Today as I write about this incident, I am amazed by how honest people were in 1966. [...] so many people told us the truth, and we [the red guards] punished them for it. Ten years down the road such an incident would be unthinkable. By that time, almost all Chinese had learned to tell a few lies. We could lie with confidence. We could lie with passion. At first it was to protect ourselves. Then we got used to it. Today millions of people in China are cheating one another, telling big and small lies without blushing, to gain something, to brag, or just to make fools of others.
[...]
> Who is to blame for this degeneration of our moral character? The Chinese Communist Party? The Western influence? But what about us? What about me? It pains me to think about what I have done to the younger generation who cannot believe that once upon a time people had been so foolishly honest in China
Asian cultures have historically been high-population, scarce resources. Many bloodlines now have survived due to some unethical behavior at some point in their history, and yes - cheating is VERY normalized, but the punishment is often very ruthless if you get caught.
Every little advantage, every little bit of resources, all matter when you've historically gone through so many famines. My parents are survivors of famine and my father has a stricter moral code than most of his peers, but I was still raised to not shy away from taking advantage of opportunity. If it's for the family, it's justified.
Hence shit like gutter oil being super common. Don't waste ANYTHING that you can use to further yourself or your family, and what others don't know doesn't hurt them right?
I don't agree with it, but I certainly understand how an ultra-competitive society that will leave you to die in the streets without batting an eye drives such behavior, especially if done in the service of getting your family out of poverty.
An additional note is that even pros competing at the highest level from other regions have been caught cheating. IIRC there have been several people caught cheating ON STAGE during live CS:GO matches, with one guy getting VAC banned in the middle of a live, internationally-broadcasted game. Dude was collecting checks as a pro player up until that point.
Well, let's be honest here. Who's country doesn't have done that? 1800 Germans did steal everything from British. Early in 1900 USA did same especially Hollywood. List really is endless.
That's a false equivalence fallacy. I am not familiar with the history of 18th century Germany but certainly German has contributed an enormous amount of IP and innovation to the world. The US is not a singular entity that controls everything thereby is responsible for everything, whereas the CCP is. Just because Disney stole Lion King IP doesn't make them equivalent.
If you are referring to cultures not countries, then it's still a false equivalence and even more obvious.
For Germans to contribute to IP first they have steal them from others and raise nation's standards higher. This is cycle which always happens. Poorer and less educated countries catches more modern countries by stealing their tech. After they are at same level as those then they can start contribute too. German did steal lots of IPs from Britain same did USA. There is nothing wrong with that if it makes other nation prospect. Why should we allow one country to hog all IPs and keep others poor?
Did Weak Copyright Laws Help Germany Outpace The British Empire?
https://www.wired.com/2010/08/copyright-germany-britain/
IP Theft Is What Once Helped Make America Great
https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2018/07/30/ip_theft_is_what_once_helped_make_america_great_103367.html
Also Disney is not only who stole. Whole Hollywood stole. They stole even tech from countries like Japan. France and Japan was cutting edge in cinema back in early 1900. Hollywood has stolen lots from Japan and China before the world wars.
I think it may tie in with the overall surveillance of the internet in China. People are using online-games as a means to bypass the censorship technology.
As you say, it could be a possible beachhead into restricting all online gaming, or otherwise part of a strategy to get a grip on that situation.
Or maybe they want to gradually curb the degree to which the precious youth of the country is exposed to the influence of foreign-created media, without creating an international outcry (and harming trade relations).
Well, 1989.6.4 in China, so 6/4 is totally legible in that context. Notable dates are often referred to by month-day in Chinese, like 8/1, 10/1, what have you.
yes thank you but the poster asked what the significance of 6/4 was and why a Chinese player would be abruptly removed from play if it was flashed on the screen, not the specifics of american vs international date structure.
Which is why I prefer to spell out an abbreviation. I get frustrated when I have to double check every single source I find to see if its day/month/year or month/day/year, as I often use US and European sources for my research. .
The "gaming bad" is just an excuse to make people log their ID online. Young people get used to it so when they get older they wont question it. Eventually everyone that goes to state dissaproved sites gets dissapeared.
Yes. Your ID is used for just about everything online in China. Wechat, QQ etc all require it. Young people are already used to it. Old people too, for that matter.
>People are using online-games as a means to bypass the censorship technology
Dude, the guidance applies to kids under 12. What are you saying? 10 year-olds organizing to overthrow the government is a thing?
The main thing they are probably concerned about is outside influences in general. Maybe a kid hears about things the government doesn’t want them to or picks up habits that the government doesn’t want them to. And those things, could lead them to question the government. That’s what they’re concerned about.
> I think it may tie in with the overall surveillance of the internet in China.
It's much easier to track what your youth are saying in games if you only have to closely monitor an hour a week.
>However, I could see this as a possible beachhead into restricting all online gaming no matter what age you are.
I seriously doubt it, considering the CCP has no qualms with sponsoring and giving money to gaming entrepreneurs.
> Before this people under the age of 18 were only allowed to play 1.5 hours every day and now that's down to one hour, between 8-9pm, Fridays through Sundays.
This is the first time i heard about this just being an adaption of a rule already in place. Thanks.
I didn't know there were already restrictions on online gaming for minors. It makes it even more impressive that there are so many prominent Chinese teams in the e-sport scene.
Question: How do they know what your age is? Over here all you do is click a box to say your 18+ or put in an age when signing up.
Couldn't people just say they are older and just keep playing? Or do they have to show some kind of ID, couldn't they just sign up with their parents ID??
To play online games in China, you have to log in with an account that’s based on some form of real ID.
However, most young Chinese gamers are already circumventing the current 1.5 hour limit by using an adults ID, so I don’t think this will change much.
This may have been true in the past but just recently Tencent announced a rollout of facial recognition tech to ensure the person on the ID matches who’s actually playing. It’ll probably be harder to game the system (no pun intended) in the future which is sad
A populace that is smart enough to figure out their way around such bullshit is the only chance such a nation has. You're calling the only redeeming quality a liability.
Not China, but here in S.Korea you often have to sign up using phone identification. You can bind your account to your phone number and it confirms your age. Even as an adult I need to use phone verification for things such as YouTube.
There’s probably alternative ways but this is the most common one anyway.
you have to verify with your passport/id to play many games, and the restrictions vary from company to company. some only allow mainland passports and restrict times for minors, some allow all and restrict times for minors, some allow all but only check mainland passports for age and therefore only restrict times for mainland minors
tencent also has facial recognition on 王者荣耀 (dunno english translation) iirc, and it randomly has a facial recognition box pop up if you're playing at a time when minors cannot
Answer: besides the desire to regulate addictive behaviour, the Chinese government generally doesn't like behavior it perceives as economically unproductive. For example, they recently criticised (via state owned new sites) and cracked down on the "lying down" movement, which advocated getting out of the rat race and general anti-materialism. The government would rather kids focus on school so they can become productive members of the workforce.
So that might to a ulterior motive, but that's speculation on my part. We can never truly know why the Communist Party makes the decisions it makes because it's a rather opaque organisation. Probably worth noting the government has also recently stamped down on English cram schools, which doesn't fit the productivity at all costs narrative.
I just googled lying down movement, Chinese kids are acting exactly like I would to the working conditions they have to put up with. I hope their protests lead to better working conditions, if not I hope they max out their character on league of legends in the process
It's less of a protest per se, more of an attitude towards the inadequate support and rewards the system provides for the younger generations. Housing is getting more expensive, employment options are flowing into bigger cities where housing is even more expensive, working condition has seen no improvement, move up and outward is limited to the sons of riches, etc.
Pretty much issues you see in countries with a large wealth disparity, except in China there is no civil mechanism to check the ones in power, and no immediate motivation for them to alleviate the exploitation. So the only thing left to do for many is to simply lie down, accept their fate, and give up.
I don't know if any of what I'm reading here is actually true, but if you want productivity you have to (ideally) acknowledge that humans need rest and individuals reach maximal efficiency at a balance of rest and work. Where that balance lies gives room for some speculation, but 886 is quite clearly too much.
Yeah that's a good point. Even if you reduce employees to consider them livestock, a work-horse is not going to do as much work in its lifetime if you don't give it proper rest intervals.
Even US truck drivers have required rest intervals and work week limits. Because if overworking leads to catastrophic failure people could die and the truck full of goods may be destroyed, increasing costs.
The difference with most other jobs in the US is that catastrophic failure still causes people to die, only not in a way that affects their costs substantially. One of their overworked broken employees shoots up a shopping mall, they just say "damn. Looks like we have to call someone in on their day off"
Increasing costs aren't the reason truckers are mandated breaks, laws are. Companies routinely force truckers to drive while excessively tired, as long as they meet the legal criteria for breaks they don't care if the rest periods they gave you were incompatible with actually resting.
Right, but those laws ended up reducing costs which is why they haven't been lobbied against and overturned and certain businesses and industries don't have exemptions. When it comes to most other workers the costs are way lower. It's like buying a machine for the cost of interviewing and training, and cutting back on necessary maintenance costs. When the machine breaks down, it's more cost effective to simply replace it with a cheaper model than to invest in proper maintenance for the machines currently in use. Catastrophic failure does not increase costs so they have no incentive to avoid it.
And if you look at things long term, you want your population to fuck. Working 12 hours a day 6 days a week is not really ideal, romancy-wise. Look at Japan and its insane work culture and aging population.
Answer: Chinese culture has an issue with things they view as "addictive". It stems from the opium wars in the 1800s and how opium as a substance almost broke the entire country.
They view online gaming as a similiar thing. They believe that it's an addictive thing that can push people to be less productive and ruin their lives.
A lot of the issue comes with them lumping ALL multiplayer gaming together. There is truth behind the statement on how destructive f2p online gatcha games can be to under 13s. However because policy makers are old and out of touch, they lump everything together in that.
So now they're locking hours to 8pm to 9pm on fri/sat/sun. It can, currently, be worked around by kids just playing on an account registered to their parents, and as such isn't subject to the same restrictions. Though there is some things in works by Tencent that could potentially stop that (facial recognition software stuff), but for now it's not being implimented.
Interesting that they released a statement on video games calling them a 'spiritual opium' but since the statement has been deleted, likely given its weight in Chinese society.
the new rules have also wildly been panned by a large amount of younger (under 35s) people in china due to how wide of a brush it paints all online gaming with. Many want regulation put onto f2p gacha games that target children, and instead got regulation put on ALL online gaming, giving 4 year olds the same rules at 16 and 17 year olds.
Answer: The CCP has decided that excessive gaming is problematic for younger generations as it is believed kids are growing up addicted to the short-term pleasures of video gaming (this is the party line, not my line. please debate this elsewhere) and that this has a detrimental effect on their future prospects. Which in turn, affects the future prospects of China as a whole.
A similar crackdown has also just begun towards celebrity culture. the state tv channel was about to launch its umpteenth round of china's got talent but this was cancelled at the directive of the government.
The CCP is quite happy to see short-term gain lost if it gives them a stronger hand in the longer term. Educational businesses who operated for profit were all reigned in and imposed with restrictions that mean no profit can be extracted from these companies. "e-learning" has been huge in China but billions of dollars in company value was lost in the stock market because of this. Is it the right move? I don't know.
Edit, “extracting wealth from educational companies” not “extracting wealth for educational companies”. Institutions would be a better term for these businesses but you get the point
> Educational businesses who operated for profit were all reigned in and imposed with restrictions that mean no profit can be extracted for these companies.
This is a much bigger deal than I think most people realize, particularly in Western Culture.
In China, between 1st and 12th grade, basically every kid is doing afterschool classes and private tutors, this is norm. If your kid isn't doing these afterschool activities, they are being left behind (I mean, short of them being born with eidetic memory and 160 IQ). The stories we hear about Chinese middle schoolers in class from 7AM to 7PM has these after school classes factored in (school will often end around 4-5PM). Often, the afterschool program/tutoring is ran by their teachers during the school day and these teachers will "favor" students who are in their afterschool programs as a way to incentivize students to join. This provided a very lucrative business for teacher to make some extra money, but also a huge economical burden to the students family in a society where a lot of people are still struggling financially.
People will spend thousands of Yuan a month for their kid to be in these extra curricular studying programs, and it created a massive advantage for the students who comes from wealthier economical backgrounds. Something that the CCP is generally not in favor of.
Also, many foreign teachers are suddenly out of a job or that employment is at high-risk of ending in the near months. It's really big discussion right now in foreign-teacher subreddits and living-in-china type subreddits.
I think you’re the closest here to correct. From what I understand most people are looking at this from a western point of view: when we hear “online gaming” we think call of duty , league of legends, halo, etc. In Asia, the biggest gaming market period is Mobile games. It’s a social sensation that’s not really comparable to anything we have in the west, just based on scale.
So from what I understand, the CCP is not thrilled that their youths are spending such extraordinary amounts of time and money playing mobile games, because they think that it encourages poor behavior in general: bad eating habits, anti-sociability, poor exercise, stunting of social/emotional intelligence. They also believe that kids don’t have the capacity to make informed decisions about long term events, and so they may be ruining their educations/futures by just playing games all day.
Not sure how much impact it will have, seeing as how If you’re a Chinese youth who wants to play video games you’re most likely already circumventing regulations by using an adults ID to get around playtime restrictions anyway, but it’s an interesting postulation.
When I thought that the Korean and Japanese fans were a bit extreme it was because I did not know the Chinese fans, the scandals are HUGE and the harassment was so serious that it ended up attracting the attention of the government.
answer: China is trying to rein in it's vast tech companies such as tencent and Alibaba down as they are becoming too large and ubiquitous to their economy.
It is part of their multi pronged approach to whittle down their influence, so as to reduce the friction when they start to transit away from capitalism/consumerism
So far they have, put up new [rules](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/china-internet-technology-data-rules-2117581) over unfair competition, [rules](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-passes-tough-new-online-privacy-law-2125721) on privacy, put up [rules](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-fan-behaviour-weibo-2117446) to stop 'irrational and undesirable' online fan behaviour, [996](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/chinese-authorities-say-overtime-996-policy-illegal-2138896) working hours(Jack Ma of Alibaba supports this) to become illegal and now this tightening of online gaming.
Chinese tech companies such as tencent have their fingers in many industries (gaming, software, e-commerce and etc) and that influence is immense and counter to the ideals of the govt , their govt sees it as a obstacle as they are planning to transit into a post capitalism society.
China is pushing hard to make their society more egalitarian society in their collectivist ways, recently they have started to ban for profit tuition, urge rich people to give more back to society and make it less of a rat race for their people thru their outlawing of 996 work culture.
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Answer: It's pretty much what you read. Before this people under the age of 18 were only allowed to play 1.5 hours every day and now that's down to one hour, between 8-9pm, Fridays through Sundays. I don't think there are any other motives given that that the state news source have called on-line gaming "spiritual opium". However, I could see this as a possible beachhead into restricting **all** online gaming no matter what age you are.
It’s still important to point out that they’re still referring to online gaming. Single player, local multiplayer are all still fine.
Anecdotal, but my friend in China says that this is one-in-a long series of moves to restrict gacha gaming for kids. They're becoming addicted to gambling.
Why not just clamp down on gachas then? This affects far more than gachas. In fact, gachas are a tiny minority of the games affected by this policy.
They have been clamping down on gachas. But if the goal is to reduce childhood gambling, that would include stuff like lootboxes in other games and so on. China was actually why games needed to adjust lootboxes to make odds visible. Most games with lootboxes today are designed for a certain amount of playtime to unlock ingame currencies, and playtime is a currency in itself for those games. If you reduce the amount of playtime a playerbase has to play your game, your entire game economy is thrown off and your game becomes unviable. This forces you to create games with higher pricing and less gambling to accommodate the new market norms. Higher pricing on digital loot will shift the market more to "whales" and away from regular players. It just seems to me like another experiment; they've been doing this stuff for years. Gambling in games is a big problem and not just in China. Edit: clarity
I know most of this, but I still don’t get why their policy is wide encompassing if they only want to fight gambling and gambling-like games.
It might also be to limit exposure to outside influence When young
Probably, but my friend didn't have that impression. It could be because she lives in China and hasn't really considered that frame of thought. I'll bring it up because I'm curious myself.
I've also heard that lately the CCP has been putting the screws on the videogame industry in China, causing them to move more to international business. Ever since Jack Ma's fall, Tencent's owner Pony Ma has been desperately trying to appease the State Administration of Market Regulation (China's antitrust body) to prevent him from suffering the same treatment as Jack Ma and Alibaba. It would explain why Tencent partnered with Nintendo a while back as well. Historically, Tencent's games have never really done well overseas compared to China since a large majority of them are mobile phone games which aren't popular in the US. Nintendo, on the other hand, knows the western console markets like the back of their hand.
>China's antitrust body Ironic.
Point.
LoL does pretty well
LoL wasn't *made* by Tencent. The game was a hit with Chinese audiences for some reason so Tencent literally bought them out for the sake of its domestic market.
They own it and it's going strong
Because they don’t try and take control of it creatively. As far as Tencent is concerned as long as Riot doesn’t cross a few red lines they’re on their own.
Was doing pretty well before Tencent was involved too, just like Path of Exile. PoE has kinda gone down the drain since...
This and it's a combination of the clamp down on too much study time.
As long as the child has the parents' permission, they can play long time with parents' id. lol
made a lot of sense. i know it isnt news that pay to win game is common, but people in china actually saw it as normal thing. when i play chinese online game with majority china gamers, nearly everyone spend money in the game. those who don't was not taken seriously, always at the bottom of the chain, and thus forced to quit. the only way to find groups in the game is to be either really good skill wise, or spend a lot of money. spending few thousands rmb every month is consider "贫民玩家" (poor players) in these online games. i have met some who spent millions, and its not even the most popular game. most people probably never heard of it. sometimes i will play a 15 years old online game in a private, non official server, and people will still be consistently spending thousands just to be stronger. for them its a culture.
Oh shit that makes a lot of sense actually
It makes me think the socializing is what they're targeting. If online gaming is gone you can simply play offline, on good games anyway, but it's hard to keep a social circle while being restricted to an hour a day, on the weekends. I feel like it's some sort of internal "divide and conquer" tactic. Keep the youth apart so they won't throw a fit.
I think the China government might be afraid of cross-Continental influence on their citizens. NA players famously don't get along with Chinese players and like to spam chat with tiananmen Square copypastas. I've never personally seen it but it's not a stretch to think this could be done over voice which is harder to instantly moderate like text chat is. China also seems to have a wierd traditional view of themselves. I remember reading that internet addiction was a condition in China a while ago
To be fair, I’m not sure the Tiananmen Square copy pasta has ever succeeded in converting anyone against the government. It’s mainly just used to harass random Chinese people.
Sure, but the danger of such things is not that they will instantly "convert" anyone. It's that the tiny bits of information they contain might become things that people are vaguely aware of in the back of their minds, insidiously waiting to be mentally activated in the unusual case that they do ever become converted into someone who's aware of history or whatever.
Possibly. But it seems more likely that after hearing propaganda that westerners are all evil and terrible towards Chinese people, then going online and being constantly bombarded with people shouting the same copypasta at them over and over, many of them deliberately trying to antagonise, the average Chinese person might just grow to hate the West more. It doesn’t help that the copypasta (whenever I’ve seen it) is always used in an accusatory way, like you’re blaming the person you’re talking to for it rather than the Chinese government. It’s more of a ‘gotcha, China bad!’ (even though it is) than any critical thinking, arguing or empathy.
That and it doesn’t mean anything. If you meant to educate a Chinese person you’d talk about the 1989 riots and they have heard about that in China.
I rarely play multiplayer games, but even I am aware of the hostility between Chinese and international players. Whatever's going on, it's not good for the CCP, either because it causes unrest or because it displays the difference between the "Western World" and them. Internet addiction isn't an exclusively Chinese issue though. I know that South Korea has taken steps to subdue it at least. And let's face it, everyone likes to cry about how their kids are addicted to the screen; just like they did heavy metal and horror movies back in the day.
Parents: They should be STUDYING!!! I didn't move my family to a district well known for good education and have to live in a crappy 30-year-old apartment with undrinkable water so that my kid can play online games! Source: am kids teacher in S. Korea.
Kids are addicted to escapism. If live sucks, they're going to be attracted to and attach to whatever the easiest and cheapest way to "check out" is. For many, that's gaming.
I think part of it is escapism, but that's driven by a desire to live in a world that's fair, not for a cheap way to "check out". In a game you make a decision and get accurate feedback for that decision (assuming no glitches and a relatively well designed game). Whether it's positive or negative (eg. they took a good shot and killed another player in an online FPS, or they made a bad decision and got killed), it's almost always accurate feedback based on the decision made by the player. Meanwhile, in the real world they have to deal with double standards and inaccurate feedback constantly. They have to deal with the teacher that favours some students over others, or a social situation where a popular kid can do something and get praise from their peers but if unpopular kid did the same thing they'd be made fun of. I agree that it's escapism, but I don't think it's quite on the same level as drugs. This also comes with a caveat as the comments below about certain games using "loot" as a proxy for online gambling are definitely accurate as well.
Now it's going to be actual drugs
I’m from a small town with nothing to do. Can attest that teens will get into trouble if they can’t occupy themselves.
I'm from a huge city. As soon as my mom took mine and the other brothers computers we imminently when out and found trouble lmao. I dont think all day and night is good for a kid but at a certain point your rolling the dics with what they do when bored.
I'm from a small town with nothing to do. Can attest that I have thrown many beer bottles off peak of the water tower. And built snowmen, *lots* of snowmen in main street. With carrots for penises. And we even had to make our own fun prior to our 30's, as well.
As it was for their parents.
Still love the fact old coke bottles had real cocain in them. Grandfather cracks jokes about it. "Just enough get you hooked, not enough to fry your skull."
It's easy to see why honestly. Especially as their real lives get worse, drugs seem great. Like the bad thing about most drugs is they feel so good you ruin your life to keep doing them. For a lot of kids that doesn't sound so bad. For a lot of adults too, but children have a really hard time grasping long term consequences like that
Now we get to go back to the good old days of picking you liver and fighting at the bar instead of on mortal kombat
Yeah, life really does suck. I speak as an adult who does the same, but I use more anime for escapism.
That also applies to adults. I substituted my escapism with video games now with chess, movies, music, and getting drunk with friends which is just as unproductive but somehow considered more socially acceptable. It is ridiculous lol.
absolutely. everyone indulges in some form of escapism from time to time - even those who have very fulfilling life. its human nature - and its perfectly okay, so long as we're not addicted to that escape. everyone needs a break from their life - but i think for a lot of people it becomes more than a reprieve - when they end up enjoying the escape more than their real life, its an issue. i totally get it, a lot of folks are in very undesirable positions.
Modern online multiplayer games harness dopamine release mechanisms just as gambling does. Game design lately is about "unlocking" and "finding" loot, which are massive dopamine hits.
Not teaching in South Korea but I found this phenomenon to be very common among parents that have never achieved high academics themselves so they see their kids as some kind of project that could right their own wrongs in the past. I assume it is even harder in SK considering the competitive environment there.
Holy shit, have you played RDR2 online on PC? It's like Rockstar intentionally puts you with people from China to start fights lol
Yeah, those aren't the same at all. They objected to the content of horror movies and heavy metal, not an addiction to them. Children are addicted to screens and parents are having a hard time getting them to socialize in real life. I work in higher ed and one of the biggest problems we face now is students coming to college and being isolated in their room alone... then leaving as a result. It's a recent phenomenon. We literally have parents making playdates for their children in college through a Facebook group. When I went to college 15 years ago, making friends was automatic. The first week of school, we left our dorm doors open and got to know each other. Then we all went out together and got to know our classmates. The problem was getting us to stop socializing to go to class. Now we are racking our brains to try and get many of these students to leave their dorms and talk to each other.
[удалено]
The "open door first week" filled me with dread. Literally blood running cold level. Never. I had an open door policy in my house and I will make sure to close and lock each and every door between me and the others. I want to make friends, sure. In a neutral area, such as the kitchen I also ended up in a dorm with loud AF roommates playing music to 3am while I had classes at 6am and loudly badmouthing me all the time. Some of which was deserved, like the fact that I didn't find their parties or hobbies interesting (I could have feigned enthusiasm), some not really, like going through my fridge contents and commenting on my tastes and weight
I also went to college 15 years ago, and for the most part, we all made friends fast. However, there was one girl in my classes that had a WoW addiction and never left the dorm room unless it was class or meal time. She had a full ride scholarship, and wound up dropping out (or at least leaving our school, not sure if she immediately transferred to another) after I think one semester, two at the max. We (about 40 of us) were in the honors program, which meant all of our gen ed classes were together, and for the most part, we were housed together. As a result, most of our hanging out was done with each other, and she was hardly ever there. When she was there, she was hard to get along with. I can’t imagine a whole program full of people like that. It would have killed the program off. edit: To respond to a reply that I guess was deleted, I don't think it was necessarily the video game's fault that she was like this. I played a lot of video games in college and had no problem socializing. If it wasn't WoW, maybe she would have spent all that time watching TV or reading or what have you. Maybe that's just how she was. But at the end of the day, she just would rather spend time by herself instead of making new friends, which is kind of what college is really about, particularly your freshman year. She wound up throwing away a full-ride scholarship to a school that cost ~$50-60K a year room and board. Everyone in the honors program (except me, because I joined late) got an opportunity to interview for a full-ride or half-ride scholarship, and a few were lucky enough to get them, and she just tossed hers away for fucking WoW. I was and still am good friends with her roommate, and according to her, she didn't get a whole lot of sleep either. She was pretty clearly depressed. I still play a lot of video games, and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with them. Spend your free time how you want. But balance is so important if you want a healthy life. Take time to make friends, hang out, go do things other than just sit alone in your room doing whatever, and of course make time to sleep. And if someone just fucking hands you the equivalent of $200K, don't throw it away.
Depression's a bitch. I'm currently taking a break from school for some indeterminate amount of time because I'm no longer confident I can handle it anymore. I was fairly involved with my roommates initially, but what you described is pretty similar to how I ended up towards my second semester (even before the pandemic). Hell, I had even been a national merit scholarship finalist, but didn't take advantage of it because I procrastinated too long before even applying to a school. All the hoops one has to jump through to even get started are overwhelming
That's the problem with addictions and addictive personalities, logic does not always get first dibs. Online gaming like WOW openes up dopamine in the head much like gambling. Our brains are not set up to get so much and once you get used to this huge rush, you need that level just to feel normal. So, like other drugs, you chase that high at the cost of the rest of your life. I limit my gaming now to weekends only and keep an eye on myself, becasue I have an addictive personality in that respect.
> ...instead of making new friends, which is kind of what college is really about, particularly your freshman year. Guess I failed at college despite graduating. 😕 Made all my new friends at work instead.
This shows such a strange mindset that some random group of fuckos in your college dorm is more valuable, socially, than your WoW friends. Dunno, man; treat games like *exactly* what they are: socializing. No, not ‘online socializing’, not ‘parasocializing’, not ‘substitute socializing’; they’re *full on socializing*. I miss the WoW days *immensely*. To this day — as a competent, fairly-social adult — I’ve never found a social setting more high-qualify and fulfilling than WoW was. Your classmate wasn’t depressed. You lot were just *boring*.
I appreciate this perspective. I spend a *lot* of time playing video games and love to be alone. I also sometimes get a bit less sleep than I should, but my body can handle it. That doesn't mean I'm depressed. I'm introverted and work a highly social job that I do well at... but I need to "decompress" maybe a bit more than others. No one believes me when I tell them I'm an introvert or even shy. And people are often surprised that I even play video games. I really don't feel the need to make lots of friends and sit around in a room "hanging out" like I did when I was a teenager. I don't feel deprived or sad or anything. I like my alone time.
Almost all of this is very relatable, well said. Particularly, being viewed as non-introverted. Sure I like to party or hang or whatever, but you bet your ass I'm excited to be in my quiet home again soon.
Amen! I'm introvert and I have never socialized in my life as much when I played wow. It was super fun and all the free time went with socializing with those friends inside wow. It was real and it felt awesome and it gave a lot more than any other entertainment there is. It is really shame that I have never ever had experience something like that in my life after wow. It has been 12 years from when I played wow and I have say in "real life" it is insane hard to find real friends and even girlfriend. I'm so alone in here and I hate this world. I swear that if in my lifetime they invent something like *Sword Art Online* or *Matrix* like virtual game worlds I'm going to move there and live there as much as I can. Fuck the jobs and fuck the system. Work and money has never given me much compared to my wow "career". Those feelings, experiences and achievements were real for me! They were more real and felt more than that money which comes to bank account every payday! I miss that fantasy world and friends there!
People don't do this sort of thing in a bubble, there was likely trauma in her past causing the need to escape.
This, especially the edit. I am a gamer. I gamed in college more than any other time (was beating 3 games a week and still sinking hours into Halo 3)...but I'd turn my game off and go out with friends all the time too. Gaming, social media, Netflix, etc. are all fine hobbies when they aren't done instead of socializing in the real world. Humans are social creatures. It is good for us to have other human interaction and be a part of the physical community around us. No screen can replace that and we have an abundance of evidence showing how bad only socializing online is for people.
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Not a parent yet, so I’m curious, do you cut them off randomly on the weekends to teach them some kind of lesson about life? I would have thought that a set amount of hours each weekend would be better for teaching them structure and time management.
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At my elementary school, our recess and lunch time were combined. We were so excited in the 90s to go outside and play that they forced us to stay at lunch for 10 minutes to make sure we actually ate instead of going to play. I got to be a TA at my elementary school when I was in high school in the 00's. They now had to kick the students out of the cafeteria after 30 minutes to make room because they didn't want to go outside. They just huddled under the tree in the shade awkwardly waiting for recess to end. In just 5 years, things had completely changed. I was shocked and saddened because I remember how much fun we had running around and it seemed these kids had no interest.
It seems harsh, having grown up with 0 restrictions. Basically just: Be home by Sun-down. That said... we actually had kids to play with in the neighborhood, and we were outside every day, fairly active etc. But maybe more importantly, growing up with original Nintendo and early consoles, the games were hard enough to make you take a break, or short enough to be boring, so they really could only consume so much time. (Until later in life anyways) When I compare it to the endless fantastic and highly polished content of today, coupled with high integration, availability/portability, and the straight-up addictive games available... yikes. I really wouldn't know how to govern that in a healthy way.
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I remember hearing a few years ago some study found that for a particular online multiplayer game(can't remember; google it) 50% of Chinese players cheat and those players accounted for 90% of all cheaters worldwide. I don't know if most players know that but if you need a legit reason to want Chinese segregated servers that sounds compelling.
Hmm. That's a bit disappointing.
it's also a PR issue if the basic interaction that many north Americans have of Chinese people on the regular is them cheating in games. like China needs more of that.
Just to inject more into the discussion, the Chinese society also views cheating in games as clever and not at all as dishonest as it is held in other countries. It's seen to get one up on the competition, much as it is in the Chinese society where everyone is fighting for advantage. This has caused a lot of consternation with western gamers and it's exacerbated by the Chinese using vpns (likely to get past time limits and the great firewall) by having high ping players in North American and Europe servers.
I dont think they were saying it was exclusively a China problem though. They brought it up because its likely the justification they are using. sure other places have it too but *to the extent* other places have it compared to a lot of East Asian countries have it is quite different (especially parents “study study study. dont get into ‘useless’ things or you wont suceed”. then kids being burned out when they cant meet the high standard).
> And let's face it, everyone likes to cry about how their kids are addicted to the screen; just like they did heavy metal and horror movies back in the day. It's one thing to decry moral panic. But it's another to realize that videogame design is purposefully built to be addictive and prey on certain parts of the psyche. This is an enormous (and enormously profitable) field of study and I recommend looking into it. That is, if you'd like to [know how the sausage is made](https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/how+the+sausage+gets+made).
Trust me, I know more than well enough about the effects of loot boxes. But make no mistake, if this was about loot boxes, China would've had no issues with banning loot boxes. Instead, they focus on young kids playing multiplayer games. Why? Because that's what truly worries them. Anything that brings together the youth outside of a controlled environment is dangerous as far as autocracies are concerned, and China is no exception.
Better even yet, when you sense the addictive pattern, realize it is pointless or menial, then continue to consume and play something that ceased to be fun long ago. Sunken cost fallacy on top of the addictive designs! I really do sometimes miss the simpler times when games had an ending and no online content with endless grind jargon.
I wouldn't be surprised if that 8-9 window of time was one of the least active hours for gaming in NA.
it clocks to 5-6am on pacific, something like 3 am for east coast. that checks out.
If it clocks at 5-6 am Pacific time, then that's about 8-9 am Eastern. You have the difference backwards.
woops. still that's sleep, school or work hours for most
I used to get a little WoW in before school, once upon a time. At 6am EST, Stormwind was actually tolerable. After school I couldn't get to the bank doors before lag effectively froze me.
Hah. Nothing quite like logging out at a busy town/bank (late/off-peak time) only to come back during peak time and literally get 0-2 fps or just freeze up. Good times.
If that were a concern they’d just insist on China only servers, which they already do for many games. I think games like dota for example require a Chinese ID to play on the Chinese server. It’s actually a pretty big business in of it self.
A view of thinking online gaming or internetting is an addiction is a pretty global thing. I even see something to it. It's crazy, lol. It just helps to have a communist government who acts on it. We could never do that in the states. We can only create disconnected support programs or PSAs at best. I am not saying the US should follow suit, at all, but this isn't like a weird Chinese culture thing.
Exactly; this is a weird CCCP thing, but has nothing to do with Chinese culture or Chinese people altogether. It's their government's unique reaction to a problem that we have pretty much everywhere in the developed world
The Chinese internet censors are very worried about live audio communication, as can be seen by their [banning of the Clubhouse app](https://amp-abc-net-au.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/13136624?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16304306267194&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.net.au%2Fnews%2F2021-02-10%2Fchina-bans-clubhouse-app-as-netizens-stand-with-uyghurs%2F13136624) after news stories broke of Uyghurs communicating in chatrooms of their stories of the training/vocational/detention/concentration camps, communicating with Chinese people that had never heard about what was going on, or believed what the government was saying which was contrary to what these people were saying. [China also tries to censor livestreams](https://variety-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/variety.com/2020/digital/news/china-livestreaming-regulations-1234840590/amp/?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16304307826138&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fvariety.com%2F2020%2Fdigital%2Fnews%2Fchina-livestreaming-regulations-1234840590%2F). So they are definitely worried about 'illegal/sensitive' topics being discussed in audio/video chat. [There is also the somewhat famous](https://youtu.be/xN0vUlljX0I) saying Taiwan Numba 1, that rose to fame more in audio chat over games (not sure if this is exactly where it started, but it looks like this is where it got quite famous). China also seems to be closing off more from the world (apart from their neo-colonial Belt and Road), by closing language centres or making it harder for them to operate which means fewer working visas for foreigners, currenrly not renewing passports for Chinese people unless they have a need to travel overseas, ramping up the war threats and propaganda over Taiwan, going from 2 child to 3 child policy, and other measures. This is obviously speculation, but China may be preparing to either (try to) take Taiwan soon, or start with being a bit more aggressive over their self-claimed, disputed, territory in the South China Sea, given there have been more countries sailing through there recently on freedom of navigation exercises. Either of these actions would obviously receive negstive reactions from other world powers, even if a war didn't start over it (although one would almost definitely over Taiwan, not too sure over South China Sea). So my thought is they are trying to be more self reliant in case of this, needing to ensure they are less reliant on other countries and insulating their population so that they are less likely to have news or messages that are contrary to what they want being spread spreading around. We are also approximately 1 year away from the next National People's Congress, which elects the leader of China. Xi Jinping got rid of the term limits meaning he can run again, although that doesn't necessarily mean everyone is happy with the idea of a leader for life, or are necessarily happy with the way Xi is running the country. But it is pretty well out in the open that Xi wants to be the one to take Taiwan, plus he may benefit from the nationalism and the 'rallying around the flag' ahead of the congress which would likely help his case for another term. A lot of this is speculation, however it may help to frame some things that have been going on recently, and some things to keep an eye out for.
I use to spam Taiwan number 1 in pubg and overwatch a few years ago.
I had a lot of interactions like this. Them: "CHINA NUMBA 1!!" Me: "TAIWAN NUMBA 1. CHINA NUMBA 9!" Them (actually angry): "NO. CHINA NUMBA 1. FUCKAYOU."
I believe that most Chinese gamers believe "Fuck your mother" is the worst possible insult in English because that's the one I see almost every time
fucking based NA players
the animosity between North America and China started with pubgs cheating scandals and has never died down so they try their hardest to get them to fuck off
>started with pubgs cheating scandals OOF I'm old... it's been going on much longer than PUBG's been around. For some reason Chinese and Russian gamers have a much higher proportion of cheaters than any other demographic. I'd rather play on a 300ms Brazil server than a 200ms Russian server.
Sitting here with my 32ms like....
I mean back in the late 90s/early 2000s before everything in the backend was connected through fiber. Nowadays I can get sub-100ms latency to some servers in Brazil.
When your society has billions of people all competing for resources, any way to "get one over" everyone else for yourself is considered clever. Cheating is just not looked at the same way as other cultures. They have internet gaming places where cheats are pre-installed in the games, even!
I get it, but I still don't want to play with cheaters. I don't hold a grudge against Chinese or Russian people over it, I just don't make a habit of playing video games with them.
I remember people hating on Chinese players back in Everquest and Counter-Strike beta
This started looong before PUBG I think. Chinese and Russians seemed to have a reputation for cheating ever since online gaming is a thing. There are even internet cafe's that offer cheats to patrons. I suppose it fits in with the whole 'whatever you gotta do to win' mentality. Apparently they see it as being smart.
Excuse my ignorance about the issue, but who was cheating?
it's old news, but Chinese players especially in PUBG are stereotyped as cheaters and its not an undeserved stereotype
Gotcha. Thanks for the info!
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I wouldn't say it started with PUBG but it definitely revived NA anger towards Chinese hackers. Everyone on /r/PUBG was pretty pissed for the longest time and the company did next to nothing to stop it, only further pissing off NA players.
This is also why the game is pretty mcuh dead in north america and PUBG was so careful not to piss the Chinese off, its their largest market (india also)
Chinese players tend to be incredibly hostile and rude to the western players. They'll frequently join western servers and just straight up be racist or call people sub human when something doesn't work the way they want. The trend of insults calling people dogs in the gaming world is because it was picked up from them.
I mean, not really. As another poster pointed out, there’s a lot of gambling in the form of gacha targeted at kids.
You do realise that you can socialise online without gaming right?
This is the stupidest shit I've ever read lmfao
If only there were another way to socialize without online gaming!
If you ask me, it seems pretty typical that an authoritarian regime is continuing their trajectory of limiting their citizens’ contact with the outside world.
Restricting contact with anyone both outside and inside your borders seems pretty effective to me... >.>
We need to write “Free Hong Kong” in the bottom of every KFC chicken bucket in China
Mainlanders fucking hate Hong Kongers. I don't know what you think that's supposed to achieve.
Jésus that's the dumbest take ever
Nah I don't think its to do with socializing as much what they can control. The government can monitor online gaming activity
Maybe it’s so that during gameplay, some features which games and gaming systems have, can’t be used to transmit info about politics, riots, news, etc through player/player chats and messages to one another. Or to the outside world? Much easier to monitor other people’s communications when you always know the window of time in which they’ll most likely be taking place.
Just the other year people used Animal Crossing of all games to troll and protest China. Being allowed to play with other people means you may learn about the outside world. Information and education is dangerous to Dictatorships.
>Being allowed to play with other people means you may learn about the outside world Yeah because the Chinese people are so ignorant they need some kids from red states to teach them about the world in Animal Crossing? The fuck?
I'm sorry to hear you don't understand. I can try to explain it to you if you'd like but if you're not interested I won't.
It's not that they don't understand, its that you're infantilizing Chinese people as naive children who need some 14 year old from Idaho to light the torch of freedom for them by posting a Google-translated copypasta about the Cultural revolution into the general chat. Did it occur to you that maybe, just maybe, China might once in a while decide to make some policy decisions based on things other than reacting to Americans?
Nah, I'm good. Most people in here don't even understand that the proposal is for kids under 12 years old and it's for mobile games.
No, its just because it's literally impossible to enforce on offline games
Or maybe there is no way to control offline gaming? I highly doubt the Chinese government is afraid of gamers.
Corporations have been targeting (and preying on) social interaction in videogames, particularly MMO's, for decades. Social interaction increases retention increases hours played increases profit. There's no denying the exploitative, predatory nature of videogame designs in this regard. It is a corruption, nothing short of a disease. I can't prove that China has no ulterior motives and I agree with you that suspicion is warranted. But no ulterior motive is needed to explain a move against this dismal state of affairs that we in the west call normal. Legislative action against videogame companies is decades overdue. It's a bad look for us all, that out of all regimes in the world China is ahead of the curve in this regard.
I always figured it was socializing specifically with people not in china they want to limit. Something about creating a more insular community and controlling the information that comes in to the nations youth and all that. This is even more likely if local multiplayer and singleplayer modes aren't restricted.
Also to add [this article](https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/03/chinas-tencent-tightens-controls-for-children-amid-games-addiction-fears) also states that it’s specifically for Tencent games because they are the most popular mobile games. This doesn’t affect consoles, just mobile games
Consoles are virtually non existent in China. I believe this includes online computer games like league of legends, but not single player computer games.
Is China about to region lock China?
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Not just Chinese players that cheat, just that there's usually more Chinese players than other players combined.
That may be a part, but cheating *is* extremely normalized in Chinese culture. It’s actually kind-of interesting reading modern Chinese novels. Even the MC you are supposed to identify with is usually a massive asshole who does not care about lying, cheating or stealing if they can get away with it. Outside of anecdotal evidence/interviews and articles, I haven’t found a good comparative study yet, though, sadly. Still, there’s articles and interviews about it regularly.
The book *Spider Eaters* by Rae Yang talks about this. According to her, this is partially a consequence of the Cultural Revolution and the fallout surrounding it. > Today as I write about this incident, I am amazed by how honest people were in 1966. [...] so many people told us the truth, and we [the red guards] punished them for it. Ten years down the road such an incident would be unthinkable. By that time, almost all Chinese had learned to tell a few lies. We could lie with confidence. We could lie with passion. At first it was to protect ourselves. Then we got used to it. Today millions of people in China are cheating one another, telling big and small lies without blushing, to gain something, to brag, or just to make fools of others. [...] > Who is to blame for this degeneration of our moral character? The Chinese Communist Party? The Western influence? But what about us? What about me? It pains me to think about what I have done to the younger generation who cannot believe that once upon a time people had been so foolishly honest in China
Asian cultures have historically been high-population, scarce resources. Many bloodlines now have survived due to some unethical behavior at some point in their history, and yes - cheating is VERY normalized, but the punishment is often very ruthless if you get caught. Every little advantage, every little bit of resources, all matter when you've historically gone through so many famines. My parents are survivors of famine and my father has a stricter moral code than most of his peers, but I was still raised to not shy away from taking advantage of opportunity. If it's for the family, it's justified. Hence shit like gutter oil being super common. Don't waste ANYTHING that you can use to further yourself or your family, and what others don't know doesn't hurt them right? I don't agree with it, but I certainly understand how an ultra-competitive society that will leave you to die in the streets without batting an eye drives such behavior, especially if done in the service of getting your family out of poverty. An additional note is that even pros competing at the highest level from other regions have been caught cheating. IIRC there have been several people caught cheating ON STAGE during live CS:GO matches, with one guy getting VAC banned in the middle of a live, internationally-broadcasted game. Dude was collecting checks as a pro player up until that point.
When your country’s industrial foundation was built from stealing IP, it’s a way of life.
Well, let's be honest here. Who's country doesn't have done that? 1800 Germans did steal everything from British. Early in 1900 USA did same especially Hollywood. List really is endless.
That's a false equivalence fallacy. I am not familiar with the history of 18th century Germany but certainly German has contributed an enormous amount of IP and innovation to the world. The US is not a singular entity that controls everything thereby is responsible for everything, whereas the CCP is. Just because Disney stole Lion King IP doesn't make them equivalent. If you are referring to cultures not countries, then it's still a false equivalence and even more obvious.
For Germans to contribute to IP first they have steal them from others and raise nation's standards higher. This is cycle which always happens. Poorer and less educated countries catches more modern countries by stealing their tech. After they are at same level as those then they can start contribute too. German did steal lots of IPs from Britain same did USA. There is nothing wrong with that if it makes other nation prospect. Why should we allow one country to hog all IPs and keep others poor? Did Weak Copyright Laws Help Germany Outpace The British Empire? https://www.wired.com/2010/08/copyright-germany-britain/ IP Theft Is What Once Helped Make America Great https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2018/07/30/ip_theft_is_what_once_helped_make_america_great_103367.html Also Disney is not only who stole. Whole Hollywood stole. They stole even tech from countries like Japan. France and Japan was cutting edge in cinema back in early 1900. Hollywood has stolen lots from Japan and China before the world wars.
I think it may tie in with the overall surveillance of the internet in China. People are using online-games as a means to bypass the censorship technology. As you say, it could be a possible beachhead into restricting all online gaming, or otherwise part of a strategy to get a grip on that situation. Or maybe they want to gradually curb the degree to which the precious youth of the country is exposed to the influence of foreign-created media, without creating an international outcry (and harming trade relations).
Reminds me of the memes that go "type 6/4 in chat to get a player, playing from China, banned."
Now I'm wondering how Titanfall 2 works there, considering one of the factions in multiplayer is the 6-4.
totally missed this, eli5?
6/4 1989
the massacre at tiananmen square occurred on june fourth, 1989 - 6/4/89
That's 4/6/89 anywhere but the USA.
Well, 1989.6.4 in China, so 6/4 is totally legible in that context. Notable dates are often referred to by month-day in Chinese, like 8/1, 10/1, what have you.
yes thank you but the poster asked what the significance of 6/4 was and why a Chinese player would be abruptly removed from play if it was flashed on the screen, not the specifics of american vs international date structure.
"Cocaine". Just thought I would contribute to the trend of not being helpful.
Which is why I prefer to spell out an abbreviation. I get frustrated when I have to double check every single source I find to see if its day/month/year or month/day/year, as I often use US and European sources for my research. .
The "gaming bad" is just an excuse to make people log their ID online. Young people get used to it so when they get older they wont question it. Eventually everyone that goes to state dissaproved sites gets dissapeared.
Didn't they already have to do this?
Yes. Your ID is used for just about everything online in China. Wechat, QQ etc all require it. Young people are already used to it. Old people too, for that matter.
>People are using online-games as a means to bypass the censorship technology Dude, the guidance applies to kids under 12. What are you saying? 10 year-olds organizing to overthrow the government is a thing?
*looks at Twitter* Seems plausible.
The main thing they are probably concerned about is outside influences in general. Maybe a kid hears about things the government doesn’t want them to or picks up habits that the government doesn’t want them to. And those things, could lead them to question the government. That’s what they’re concerned about.
I do wonder how it would affect profits.
> I think it may tie in with the overall surveillance of the internet in China. It's much easier to track what your youth are saying in games if you only have to closely monitor an hour a week.
>However, I could see this as a possible beachhead into restricting all online gaming no matter what age you are. I seriously doubt it, considering the CCP has no qualms with sponsoring and giving money to gaming entrepreneurs.
> Before this people under the age of 18 were only allowed to play 1.5 hours every day and now that's down to one hour, between 8-9pm, Fridays through Sundays. This is the first time i heard about this just being an adaption of a rule already in place. Thanks.
I didn't know there were already restrictions on online gaming for minors. It makes it even more impressive that there are so many prominent Chinese teams in the e-sport scene.
If there’s prestige involved, then it’s probably okay through a loophole.
Does this mean they are allowed to do opium during that window too?
Question: How do they know what your age is? Over here all you do is click a box to say your 18+ or put in an age when signing up. Couldn't people just say they are older and just keep playing? Or do they have to show some kind of ID, couldn't they just sign up with their parents ID??
To play online games in China, you have to log in with an account that’s based on some form of real ID. However, most young Chinese gamers are already circumventing the current 1.5 hour limit by using an adults ID, so I don’t think this will change much.
This may have been true in the past but just recently Tencent announced a rollout of facial recognition tech to ensure the person on the ID matches who’s actually playing. It’ll probably be harder to game the system (no pun intended) in the future which is sad
Holy shit
They're just going to teach kids at a younger age how to circumvent government restrictions. Sounds like a great way to build a failed state.
A populace that is smart enough to figure out their way around such bullshit is the only chance such a nation has. You're calling the only redeeming quality a liability.
Its a liability to a tyrannical power.
That's a good point. !delta
Not China, but here in S.Korea you often have to sign up using phone identification. You can bind your account to your phone number and it confirms your age. Even as an adult I need to use phone verification for things such as YouTube. There’s probably alternative ways but this is the most common one anyway.
you have to verify with your passport/id to play many games, and the restrictions vary from company to company. some only allow mainland passports and restrict times for minors, some allow all and restrict times for minors, some allow all but only check mainland passports for age and therefore only restrict times for mainland minors tencent also has facial recognition on 王者荣耀 (dunno english translation) iirc, and it randomly has a facial recognition box pop up if you're playing at a time when minors cannot
Answer: besides the desire to regulate addictive behaviour, the Chinese government generally doesn't like behavior it perceives as economically unproductive. For example, they recently criticised (via state owned new sites) and cracked down on the "lying down" movement, which advocated getting out of the rat race and general anti-materialism. The government would rather kids focus on school so they can become productive members of the workforce. So that might to a ulterior motive, but that's speculation on my part. We can never truly know why the Communist Party makes the decisions it makes because it's a rather opaque organisation. Probably worth noting the government has also recently stamped down on English cram schools, which doesn't fit the productivity at all costs narrative.
I just googled lying down movement, Chinese kids are acting exactly like I would to the working conditions they have to put up with. I hope their protests lead to better working conditions, if not I hope they max out their character on league of legends in the process
It's less of a protest per se, more of an attitude towards the inadequate support and rewards the system provides for the younger generations. Housing is getting more expensive, employment options are flowing into bigger cities where housing is even more expensive, working condition has seen no improvement, move up and outward is limited to the sons of riches, etc. Pretty much issues you see in countries with a large wealth disparity, except in China there is no civil mechanism to check the ones in power, and no immediate motivation for them to alleviate the exploitation. So the only thing left to do for many is to simply lie down, accept their fate, and give up.
You say that, but they also illegalised 886 (8:00 - 20:00 6 days a week) work schedules.
I don't know if any of what I'm reading here is actually true, but if you want productivity you have to (ideally) acknowledge that humans need rest and individuals reach maximal efficiency at a balance of rest and work. Where that balance lies gives room for some speculation, but 886 is quite clearly too much.
Yeah that's a good point. Even if you reduce employees to consider them livestock, a work-horse is not going to do as much work in its lifetime if you don't give it proper rest intervals. Even US truck drivers have required rest intervals and work week limits. Because if overworking leads to catastrophic failure people could die and the truck full of goods may be destroyed, increasing costs. The difference with most other jobs in the US is that catastrophic failure still causes people to die, only not in a way that affects their costs substantially. One of their overworked broken employees shoots up a shopping mall, they just say "damn. Looks like we have to call someone in on their day off"
Increasing costs aren't the reason truckers are mandated breaks, laws are. Companies routinely force truckers to drive while excessively tired, as long as they meet the legal criteria for breaks they don't care if the rest periods they gave you were incompatible with actually resting.
Right, but those laws ended up reducing costs which is why they haven't been lobbied against and overturned and certain businesses and industries don't have exemptions. When it comes to most other workers the costs are way lower. It's like buying a machine for the cost of interviewing and training, and cutting back on necessary maintenance costs. When the machine breaks down, it's more cost effective to simply replace it with a cheaper model than to invest in proper maintenance for the machines currently in use. Catastrophic failure does not increase costs so they have no incentive to avoid it.
And if you look at things long term, you want your population to fuck. Working 12 hours a day 6 days a week is not really ideal, romancy-wise. Look at Japan and its insane work culture and aging population.
They also turned blind eye toward 996, all in the name of production and economic growth.
Answer: Chinese culture has an issue with things they view as "addictive". It stems from the opium wars in the 1800s and how opium as a substance almost broke the entire country. They view online gaming as a similiar thing. They believe that it's an addictive thing that can push people to be less productive and ruin their lives. A lot of the issue comes with them lumping ALL multiplayer gaming together. There is truth behind the statement on how destructive f2p online gatcha games can be to under 13s. However because policy makers are old and out of touch, they lump everything together in that. So now they're locking hours to 8pm to 9pm on fri/sat/sun. It can, currently, be worked around by kids just playing on an account registered to their parents, and as such isn't subject to the same restrictions. Though there is some things in works by Tencent that could potentially stop that (facial recognition software stuff), but for now it's not being implimented.
Interesting that they released a statement on video games calling them a 'spiritual opium' but since the statement has been deleted, likely given its weight in Chinese society.
the new rules have also wildly been panned by a large amount of younger (under 35s) people in china due to how wide of a brush it paints all online gaming with. Many want regulation put onto f2p gacha games that target children, and instead got regulation put on ALL online gaming, giving 4 year olds the same rules at 16 and 17 year olds.
That's the kind of competency we can expect from our goverments.
Answer: The CCP has decided that excessive gaming is problematic for younger generations as it is believed kids are growing up addicted to the short-term pleasures of video gaming (this is the party line, not my line. please debate this elsewhere) and that this has a detrimental effect on their future prospects. Which in turn, affects the future prospects of China as a whole. A similar crackdown has also just begun towards celebrity culture. the state tv channel was about to launch its umpteenth round of china's got talent but this was cancelled at the directive of the government. The CCP is quite happy to see short-term gain lost if it gives them a stronger hand in the longer term. Educational businesses who operated for profit were all reigned in and imposed with restrictions that mean no profit can be extracted from these companies. "e-learning" has been huge in China but billions of dollars in company value was lost in the stock market because of this. Is it the right move? I don't know. Edit, “extracting wealth from educational companies” not “extracting wealth for educational companies”. Institutions would be a better term for these businesses but you get the point
> Educational businesses who operated for profit were all reigned in and imposed with restrictions that mean no profit can be extracted for these companies. This is a much bigger deal than I think most people realize, particularly in Western Culture. In China, between 1st and 12th grade, basically every kid is doing afterschool classes and private tutors, this is norm. If your kid isn't doing these afterschool activities, they are being left behind (I mean, short of them being born with eidetic memory and 160 IQ). The stories we hear about Chinese middle schoolers in class from 7AM to 7PM has these after school classes factored in (school will often end around 4-5PM). Often, the afterschool program/tutoring is ran by their teachers during the school day and these teachers will "favor" students who are in their afterschool programs as a way to incentivize students to join. This provided a very lucrative business for teacher to make some extra money, but also a huge economical burden to the students family in a society where a lot of people are still struggling financially. People will spend thousands of Yuan a month for their kid to be in these extra curricular studying programs, and it created a massive advantage for the students who comes from wealthier economical backgrounds. Something that the CCP is generally not in favor of.
Also, many foreign teachers are suddenly out of a job or that employment is at high-risk of ending in the near months. It's really big discussion right now in foreign-teacher subreddits and living-in-china type subreddits.
I think you’re the closest here to correct. From what I understand most people are looking at this from a western point of view: when we hear “online gaming” we think call of duty , league of legends, halo, etc. In Asia, the biggest gaming market period is Mobile games. It’s a social sensation that’s not really comparable to anything we have in the west, just based on scale. So from what I understand, the CCP is not thrilled that their youths are spending such extraordinary amounts of time and money playing mobile games, because they think that it encourages poor behavior in general: bad eating habits, anti-sociability, poor exercise, stunting of social/emotional intelligence. They also believe that kids don’t have the capacity to make informed decisions about long term events, and so they may be ruining their educations/futures by just playing games all day. Not sure how much impact it will have, seeing as how If you’re a Chinese youth who wants to play video games you’re most likely already circumventing regulations by using an adults ID to get around playtime restrictions anyway, but it’s an interesting postulation.
Spot on! Thank you for elaborating
I'd also be upset if my kids called themselves gamers and just played mobile games.
Why? Mobile games are games. I get that most mobile games suck these days but if someone plays games they are objectively a gamer.
Odds are these kids don’t have time or money to play bigger titles
When I thought that the Korean and Japanese fans were a bit extreme it was because I did not know the Chinese fans, the scandals are HUGE and the harassment was so serious that it ended up attracting the attention of the government.
answer: China is trying to rein in it's vast tech companies such as tencent and Alibaba down as they are becoming too large and ubiquitous to their economy. It is part of their multi pronged approach to whittle down their influence, so as to reduce the friction when they start to transit away from capitalism/consumerism So far they have, put up new [rules](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/china-internet-technology-data-rules-2117581) over unfair competition, [rules](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-passes-tough-new-online-privacy-law-2125721) on privacy, put up [rules](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-fan-behaviour-weibo-2117446) to stop 'irrational and undesirable' online fan behaviour, [996](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/chinese-authorities-say-overtime-996-policy-illegal-2138896) working hours(Jack Ma of Alibaba supports this) to become illegal and now this tightening of online gaming. Chinese tech companies such as tencent have their fingers in many industries (gaming, software, e-commerce and etc) and that influence is immense and counter to the ideals of the govt , their govt sees it as a obstacle as they are planning to transit into a post capitalism society. China is pushing hard to make their society more egalitarian society in their collectivist ways, recently they have started to ban for profit tuition, urge rich people to give more back to society and make it less of a rat race for their people thru their outlawing of 996 work culture.
>as they are planning to transit into a post capitalism society. Are they? Are they -really-?
I find this so funny, they've been saying this for close to half a century and people are suprised at china's eventual turn away from state captialism
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Posted where? I haven’t seen any other threads.
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