South Korea’s gaming culture goes beyond a hobby, but a government bill aimed at preventing the tragic deaths associated with the country’s favourite pastime has caused great debate in the East Asian nation.
South Korea’s fascination with gaming boarders on addiction. Online gaming cafes represent big business in and one of the country’s top university’s even offers a bachelor in eSports. But the captivation has turned to obsession on multiple occasions after the deaths of toddlers in recent years due to gaming addiction, including the most recent case where a 22-year-old father neglected his two-year-old child to the point of starvation.
The Democratic Party of Korea last week hosted a debate on the issue in an attempt to define gaming addiction among drugs and alcohol in a legal context.
“The proposals are not focused on the industry but on helping the people who are suffering from (game) addiction,” a lawmaker told the Korean Herald.
“The fact is that there are people who are unable to lead normal lives due to online games, (political parties) should rise above the arguments. The game industry needs to grow and expand, but these issues can’t just be ignored.”
Game addiction law would limit advertising and require 1 per cent of the industry’s revenue to fund a method to counter addiction.
“Everyone and everything has the right to freedom of expression and games are no different,” said Jong-Duk Kim of the Game Developers Association.
“They have the right to freedom of expression as a legally published medium, whether art or not. The title of the debate suggests that if video games are considered to be a form of art, they should be protected and punished otherwise.”
The current legal move isn’t the first time South Korea has pushed to legally act on gaming issues- the government passed a Shutdown Law in 2011 to ban adolescents under the age of 16 from playing video games between midnight and 6AM in response to a study which found students were gaming on average two hours each day.
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