Vietnamese government implements restrictions on online games

I've noticed since Starcraft 2 came out, the amount of people posting on Joystiq has plumme...

*alt-tabs back to Starcraft 2*

I must be the only person not on Starcraft 2 then. I'm still crazy on Monster Hunter 3.... . .

I don't get the hype around Starcraft or RTS.

Do these countries regulate say....how long you can be in a chatroom or using MSN? I don't play MMO but basically are they not just huge chatrooms with a game thrown in for good measure (simplistic i know). What do the government's fear?

Vietnam is still a very strict communist society, not that I have a huge problem with that or anything, but there's a lot of silly restrictions there. I spent a month travelling there and stories from expat and locals alike are of silly rules to protect the party. It's just how it is.

Nowhere near as strict as China, but not anywhere near as "free" as modern industrialised nations.

It's hard enough to get internet access there, so I think this kind of law making is really in line with the government there's policies with regard to outside contact. They don't have the firewall of China, but it isn't something everyone can have access to.

I find interesting (and horrible) that dictatorships today are always aiming at video-games, in particular MMOs. It seens that they now perceive it as a form of threat to their system, treating it the same way they treat free press, art, internet or anything else that could be a place of discussion.

As a person that lives in a country that was a dictatorship 20 years ago (now we're completely free, thank goodness), I can say that having your freedom cut in any way is a real tragedy. And being denied even the right to play a game, to see a story, to talk to friends is absurd in every sense of the word. I hope this regimen, like any other one state that uses censorship as a form of control, ends soon.

It's always interesting to see Communism grapple with modernity

Boo Vietnam! Hooray my nation of residence!

Being a Vietnamese, I don't bother these regulations much. The Vietnamese game publishers nowadays take very silly steps towards MMO publishing. Buy a generic MMOFPS, MMORPG from Chinese or Korea, localize into Vietnamese, apply alpha test then beta test WITHOUT resetting characters after this then publish the game with lots of bonus, double exp, money .... Then after months, the game is forgotten even by the publisher, no events, no updates, no sh*t, then few months later, they announce that the producer no longer supports the game in order to stop operating this game. Many dozens of games are publishing by this method, even great games like atlantica, granado espada, runes of magic ... While the majority of games are free to play and gamers just have to add cash to buy items ,the publishers are just like vampires that absorbing money from gamers and as the consequence, only wealthy guys who spend tons of money in the game can survive in this era.

No more Phantasy Star Online for them! :(

Không có thêm sự ảo Phantasy Star Online cho họ! : (

Milk and cheese!

Only reason I don't go break the law is because i have games to play, If there was no games, or there was bans on them in my country, I would get so bored i would just go do crimes.

The irony being that the Government is probably sponsoring real, organised crime.