Korea prepares midnight curfew for MMO-playing teens. 'Straight to bed without supper' clause unconfirmed

The Korean Culture Ministry has had enough of people becoming addicted to online games and dying in internet cafes. We would too. Its answer is to nip potential addiction cases in the bud by imposing a curfew on under-16s who play MMOs after midnight. After a one-month trial through June, a 12am-6am curfew will be put into full effect in July.

According to South Korean newspaper Korea Times, it's reckoned that 87% of the country's 100 most popular online games will be affected, leaving educational titles and online games from smaller and medium-sized companies unblocked.

Admittedly, Korea does seem to be the source for many of the more horrific cases of MMO addiction, such as the man who played Starcraft for 50 hours in an internet café, non-stop, until his heart gave up from exhaustion.

But is a six-hour enforced break for teens really the answer? And don't Korean mums pull the plug out of the wall like ours did?

Source: KoreaTimes

CATEGORIES
Justin Towell

Justin was a GamesRadar staffer for 10 years but is now a freelancer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.

Latest in World of Warcraft
Ultima Online
As Ultima Online approaches its 28th birthday, former creative lead reveals what it takes for an MMO to last for decades, and why they sometimes fail: "Content does not last forever"
A WoW Classic player chased by a dinosaur in a green forest
Former Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies dev says MMOs have "been in a rut for a long time" after World of Warcraft's popularity narrowed down "a much more diverse genre"
The Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur Mount in World of Warcraft.
World of Warcraft got a $90 dupe of a mount worth $475 around 6 years ago for the MMO's 20th anniversary, and fans reckon Blizzard made at least $15 million off it
WoW Hardcore streamer receives $7k donation on one condition: he has to delete everything he owns
World of Warcraft's new Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur mount
World of Warcraft director says last year's Hardcore release was a better version of classic WoW than WoW Classic was
Diablo 4 screenshot
Blizzard's 2024 stats expose your 480 million deaths, 1.7 trillion murdered demons, 8.34 billion hours played, and how allergic Americans are to the metric system
Latest in News
Balatro
Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
Death Stranding 2 Collector's Edition
Hideo Kojima reveals Death Stranding 2: On the Beach release date, and the Collector's Edition includes exactly what I predicted it would
Kingmakers
Kingmakers is a strategy game about taking on medieval armies with a gun, but its devs thought the giant mech was too much
The Witcher 3 lead says "not many games" were trying to match the RPG back in 2015, and that meant "there was a risk" to making it in the first place
The Blood of Dawnwalker
The Witcher 3 dev says his new vampire RPG Blood of Dawnwalker wants to challenge genre conventions, but only if "we're changing them to actually achieve some goal"
Daredevil recap: The Defenders
Marvel fans are discussing which of the Netflix series characters would have survived the Blip