Darth Raptor wrote:spending that amount of time every day playing the same game is also stupid and self-destructive.
no.
I am not saying that games can not be addictive. I would not dare to claim that people who value their 'virtual life' over what happens to them in reality are not immensly stupid and self-destructive. Playing for longer periods at a time CAN indicate that that person has (bigger) issues. But in my experience it happens due to time flying when you are having fun.* I just think saying "he is playing the game more than (arbitrary limit), he can not possibly have fun and must be doing it because he has no friends" is wrong. Especially when the topic is about a law that forbids playing for "excessive" amounts of time.
*Why many people in China (and an increasing number in the west) seem to be unable to have fun in different (and 'normal') ways, is a much more important question. Do you really believe that those people suddenly became stupid by playing? No, I think they just found something they could concentrate on instead of just living their boring worker bee lives becoming increasingly frustrated, their best chance of change being going postal or commiting suicide. (Or turn to drugs, street races, extreme sports or any of all those other incredibly stupid things.)
Darth Raptor wrote:What I was really disputing was Skgoa's "hey mang chillax its just fun times why you gotta be harshin?".
Skgoa wrote:
Yeah, I mean, its only that its FUN. But who would care for that?
There's a difference between gaming for fun and gaming to the point that you are wasting your life away. Addiction is a real possibility for everything, including gaming.
The same goes to addiction to drugs right?
Gaming = drugs is not the best parallel I've ever heard.
The majority of drugs are, by nature, physically addicting. Internet addiction is a mental state.
How the fuck is three consecutive hours "excessive"?
You can't even watch two movies in that time frame. "OMG THEY HAVE NO LIVES".
It's silly anyway because even if this was implemented (and I kinda doubt it was), junkies would just start playing a second MMO when their time was up on the first.
brianeyci wrote:
Freedom can suck my nuts: if the past few years has taught me anything in international affairs it's better to be under a dictator and have a better quality of life than be free and worse off.
Agreed, but there's one problem with that. As stated in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. Thus, anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
It should be noted that all the MMO companies quietly comply with these regulations, even foreign companies like Blizzard, because China is too large a market for them to ignore.
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
Can't they still connect to our servers though? Granted it's been a while since I saw a gold farmer, but that's because I'm pretty much exclusively raiding now.
brianeyci wrote:
Freedom can suck my nuts: if the past few years has taught me anything in international affairs it's better to be under a dictator and have a better quality of life than be free and worse off.
Agreed, but there's one problem with that. As stated in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. Thus, anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
Well that's why you have an aristocracy, so you put people in power who don't always want it but are born for it.
Kidding aside, freedom is an intangible concept and easy to lose but hard to win. So there is a serious concern in Western countries: if a government actually banned playing MMO's for more than three hours they could ban a whole lot of other shit they deemed inappropriate too. But I don't see how that applies to this culture or this government.
And in the end, they are banning something apparently harmful in their society, and harm is the basis of ethics. Maybe Western kids can play MMO's and not die on the keyboard and Chinese can. I'm not about to second guess China in knowing what's best for their citizens unless I have good evidence they're banning it for some silly reason. And yes, the burden of proof is on the naysayers because it's not their fucking country.
GuppyShark wrote:Can't they still connect to our servers though? Granted it's been a while since I saw a gold farmer, but that's because I'm pretty much exclusively raiding now.
I'm sure there are methods on getting around the government blocks, but I doubt most individual players are able to do it.
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
The problem with the law is that it leaves no room for reasonable moderation.
I agree with the '5+ hours a day is bad' crowd. The problem is that the law doesn't stop at just the 5+ hours a day gamers.
What about the casual gamers who actually do so responsibly? The work weekdays, and when they come home, they game 15 minutes to an hour before calling it a night. But occasionally on the weekends, because they've got some time off, they do the occasional 5 hour grind. They're not hopeless addicts, they're just responsible people who had an open day and filled it up with a easy, mind-free activity before getting back to things more relevent to their lives. They're not much different from people who decide every once in a while, "Hell, I've got the day open, I'll watch the entire LOTR/SW trilogy."
This law would fuck them over even though the times they actually do this are few and far between. And I know these people exist because I'm one of them.
Gaian Paradigm: Because not all fantasy has to be childish crap. Ephemeral Pie: Because not all role-playing has to be shallow. My art: Because not all DA users are talentless emo twits. "Phant, quit abusing the He-Wench before he turns you into a caged bitch at a Ren Fair and lets the tourists toss half munched turkey legs at your backside." -Mr. Coffee
