China declares victory over online game addiction

*facepalm*

Now they just need to cure Joystiq addiction...

"F5, F5, F5, F5. WHERE IS THE NEXT POST JC?!?!?!?!?!?!"

The age verification I like. It keeps young children from claiming to be older than they are ala that one Futurama episode.

Another part of the program was distributing a virus through the games that caused 7% of PCs to violently explode, usually killing the game addict in the process.

Wait till Nintendo decides to make a Pokemon MMO. Asia (and the rest of the world for that matter) will fall into ruins as no one leaves their computer.

A pokemon MMO would sound great but not on the Wii......not powerful enough to do it.

They need to do this in America, so many 13 year old little kids that spend 4 hours a night playing Halo.... Can't be good for future America.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics. I notice they failed to mention the total number of people playing, just the proportion. How about a little quick math:

China has a decreasing rate of population expansion, meaning that fewer babies were born this year than last. That means there are more 19 year-olds than 18 year-olds than 17 year olds, etc. Thus, if you assume a constant proportion of any age group playing games, within the past year, more people have more from the "below 18 and playing games" group into the "above 18 and playing games" group than reached an age where they could begin playing games and enter the "below 18" group. Therefore, this decrease in proportion should be attributed to China's One Child policy, and has nothing to do with the anti-addiction campaign.

Additionally, it is not ridiculous to assume that more people are becoming interested in gaming across all age groups, especially given the success of the Wii. The Wii has been shown internationally to sell well to older people who wouldn't be normally be interested in gaming, and any increase in the gross number of people over 18 playing games would also shift the proportion away from the under 18 group. This decrease would therefore be attributable to the success of a Japanese entertainment company, and has nothing to do with the anti-addiction campaign.

Furthermore, I'm assuming that the anti-addiction campaign involves a large public presence, and all this to-do might have interested some adults in seeing what all the fuss is about, causing them to enter the gaming segment (yep, above 18) and shifting the proportion again away from the under 18 group. This decrease would be attributable to the anti-addiction campaign, but an increase in the total gaming population is doubtlessly not what they were going for and therefore cannot be considered a success either.

Always doubt someone who gives you percentages to prove a point. Gross numbers are the only things worth looking at, and even then they can be dodgy.

You meant same as President Bush declared victory over Iraq.

Yay for misrepresenting statistics, China. Maybe this has more to do with the fact the population isn't growing as fast as people are leaving the under-18 category. But, what do you expect? Governments will always twist facts to try and convince people of their relevance.

Not just the name, you need to fill in your ID card number to register a game account. This information will link to the government database, if you're under 18, they'll know.

Well of course you can always use someone else's ID card. And since ID card numbers have certain patterns, you could just guess a number. Though the number will not pass the test since you don't have the right name, but I could just play for a few hours without filling any of my personal information. I tested this in The9, the WOW distributor in China. It works.

But, yeah, I guess the program could stop some addiction.

Hot damn I dislike the PRC government.

My guess is, this has a LOT more to do with the fact that Wrath of the Lich King is not available in China yet.

Yeah, sure... "Mission Accomplished"

China: making sure all its people do what it says.

Victoly!

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