How South Korea is Fixing Its Weird Minecraft Law

Just a few weeks after our video on how South Korean Minecraft players under the age of nineteen have been banned from the game, the South Korean government has decided to do away with the so-called Cinderella law that was causing all the problems.
That's the good news. That said, this doesn't solve the issue that the law was created to try to fix, and the new system for policing screen time may not be much more useful - especially if Microsoft decides that it's still too difficult to follow South Korea's law, and simply opts to keep underage players out of the game.
What's more, other countries around the world are implementing even more restrictive gaming laws, and the moral panic surrounding video game addiction appears to be spreading.
Lots of love,
BretonStripes ( / bretonstriped ) and Kotor ( / kotorcomics
Sources:
m.koreaherald.c...
www.ncbi.nlm.n...

[@TayoEXE]

I feel this more of a reflection on how bad parenting has become lately. If I played video games when I should have been sleeping as a kid, my dad would sometimes ground me. Video games themselves, are not necessarily the problem, and modern video game consoles often make it easier to set parental controls, so I'm not sure why there are parents allowing their kids to play video games for like 8 hours a day or past midnight.

[@Andsharp]

im exactly that child and now i feel awful for staring at a screen for 18 hours, should i restrict myself from doing that?

[@andromeda-p9966]

@@Andsharp For your own mental health, yes.

[@cdscissor]

@@Kazim28 But they themselves feel awful about it. Honour what they feel and support the notion of restricting their screen time.

[@jovenc4508]

Solution: be a parent and stop expecting companies and the government to raise your children.

[@MetalCapR]

Finally, kids in South Korea wouldn’t have to be playing Minecraft underaged!

[@dvdvideo5013]

Also getting arrested and facing 5 years in jail

[@kiwi_jong]

me Korean personally, I am glad that they finally try to fix the problem after more than 10 years. I have already grown up but It had to be stopped so that this problem would not be repeated.

[@귀여운개구리]

As a Korean child, almost all kids trick their age to make account, moreover, they trick their location to other countries, and they use VPN to avoid and prevent shutdowning games.

[@pinkiepurplez]

Now there wont be any leftover pumpkins and loose animals in South Korea. Bless this day!

[@PossessedPotatoBird]

Mmmh pumpkins

[@phantomstrider]

Really enjoyed this presentation. I had no idea about these Cinderella rules in South Korea. But from my experience of South Korean gamers in university, lined up on rows of computers furiously clicking for hours, I can better understand why this might be implemented in mass scale in South Korea.

[@BulbminFan]

hi Phantom

[@TheLegendOfLame]

Keep in mind that they might be more like that purely because they grew up doing a taboo/forbidden thing. The more forbidden a thing the more addicting it can be. Same reason why studies have shown that kids with more strict parents tend to be more rebellious, and kids with less strict parents tend to be less rebellious. Obviously there's a line to draw, but the less strict your parents/society is about the thing, the less likely you are to do x thing, whether 'x' is play video games to unhealthy amounts or disobey your parents wishes.

[@phantomstrider]

@@TheLegendOfLame I agree. I imagine in such a heavily studious/hard-working culture such as South Korea or Japan, playing games could well become intoxicating. I know there's nothing I feel more like than playing a stupid game for a few hours after I've been working hard 😄

[@Kazim28]

there are far worse things in the world

[@DetectivePoofPoof]

"So what solution is best for combatting genuine cases of videogame addiction?" idk remedy the root cause instead of banning the symptom? That's too much of an abstract and subtle line of thinking for governments tho...

[@corruleumblue3317]

I get the impression the biggest driver of addiction is someone not wanting to be present in their actual life for whatever reason, and there's so many reasons these days for why that might be (especially in the last couple years). But alas that's probably too nuanced for governments to tackle, especially when the companies/structures behind said reasons to avoid actual life are profiting from doing so.

[@mr__music5719]

If I wasn't out hanging out with friends I was on my computer with some online friends. School nights were usually 2-3 hours. Weekends were fair game. My parents say I needed to get off and go out more, then I counter them saying and what watch TV and stare at an I-pad all day while I'm off at school/doing sports or after-school activities. They never bothered me again. It's a parenting thing and how different society as whole is today than when they were kids. They find me staring at a computer weird where in today's world I still at an office doing design work and go home eat sleep, hang out repeat. No different then them but with less technology. At least I don't smoke, drink (that heavily), or do drugs. I'd rather get "video game addiction" which is the same as most adults sitting at the couch and watching television for an entire evening.

[@CoobyPls]

My opinion on China Laws To quote Egoraptor: YOU TOOK FUN AND MADE IT UNFUN HOW DID YOU EVEN DO THAT

[@DreamyyArt]

Adults: Video games are addictive! 15 minutes is too much! **remembers the time they used a NES for super mario for 2 hours raging and falling into the same pit over and over*

[@General-F]

If I had a kid I would make sure they do go sleep and stop playing for the sake of their health. Also locking the system is messy, kids needs to be a kids not full grown adults. At this point Parents needs to talk to them and treating them. Not ignore their kids and not loving them, that's leads the road of sadness and anger.

[@Dejf4299]

Yes, let's ban fun for you may be addicted to it. Now let me just sip my unhealthy amout of coffein and smoke my ciggies which both are as much addicting and will ruin my body more than spending few hours playing a computer game.

[@DreamyyArt]

Lol

[@TunaBear64]

Dad: Stop screaming at a completely reasonable volume for that game, oh is 4PM time to watch sports on the big TV and scream so loud can make you deaf And if you say a word during the game you are grounded

[@TwelveBaud]

I think it's actually easier to implement parental controls than the all-encompassing Cinderella law. Microsoft and Nintendo already have the concept of parental controls and family accounts, so it's relatively straightforward to add a playtime feature there and say "If you need to restrict your child's gaming, give them a child account and use parental controls." The old Cinderella law applied to all accountholders under 19, whether games companies knew they were under 19 or not, which made it much more difficult to enforce correctly.

[@boredfangerrude]

Yes, MMOS can be addictive HOWEVER, people who who play until exhausted are RARE cases that is based on personality. Also, reducing rewards for playing "too long" has NEVER been proven to be a method that actually works! It isn't good for anyone! Don't use it!

[@TunaBear64]

Can’t the server just ban you for the rest of the day after a set daily time You can’t play at all and opens a space for players wanted to play (someone servers are kinda small)

[@isaace436]

Why are they targeting parenting in the first place? They should be focusing on illegalizing some of the more egregious microtransactions and psychological tricks games use to actively cause people to become addicted. Companies like bungie and others have been caught LITERALLY researching human psychology and having entire teams devoted to making sure their gameplay and microtransaction/progression systems are taking advantage of it. This I feel is not only an unfair tactic that ends up bloating a games value because it's getting more attention than it reasonably deserves, and ends up being unfair to games with better quality and care, like indie titles, that aren't able to afford whole teams to research what casinos research, but it also leads to actual addiction. Big game cos like EA can just pump out literal garbage every year, but get away with it because their mass marketing and strategies have people addicted and ignorant to what is really going on. it's both causing people to become actually addicted, and gives the company with the most money an unfair advantage competitively. Yes, people need restraint and parents need to teach their kids better, but we ran into the same problems with mcdonalds and other cos, and we tried to regulate them some too. Expecting the gov to step in isn't a good idea, because where ever they do its usually bad. But at the same time we dont blame the parents of a child who becomes addicted to cocaine and pretend the drug dealer who manipulated the child into trying it was entirely blameless do we? No, we don't. Even if the parents are partially to blame for neglect or not teaching them to avoid such characters better, it isnt fair to pretend these companies who literally work around the clock to design and sell addiction machines are innocent and it isnt wise to expect them to follow any law that reduces their profits. They need to hurt, and they need to hurt bad. Or we are going to keep having these problems.

[@boredfangerrude]

Researching psychology as game devs isn't inherently bad, you can use the research to make a better product i.e one that is more fun because you understand what people find fun and not fun and use that to influence your design decisions. It's not all about making an addictive game or one that is easy to sell abhorrent microtransactions.

[@smt3]

I'm glad for all South Koreans finally getting a chance to play Minecraft now that the government there is doing something about the laws relating to this great game.

[@jokingsalt30142]

Now can we get the answer to why can children in China can only play games for 3 hours a week, 8-9 pm on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

[@chubbyadler3276]

With all this talk about locking out gaming at certain times being "too much work" for Microsoft, doesn't Nintendo already have that ability under Parental Controls? Maybe there should be a standardized "Parental Control" API in games so that they can be more easily controlled by the license owner (assumed to be the parent), though other consoles may very well do it as well as Nintendo.

[@DreamyyArt]

Woow nintendo actually bent the game here already

[@Wayrail]

2:10: 'now that will be the best time to play games while working as a security guard in a pizza place!'

[@logicalfundy]

Dropping off experience points after three hours is an interesting strategy - but also game specific. Platformers and puzzle games often don't have an experience system. Many indie games strip themselves down to a very small set of mechanics (for practical reasons, and to stand out from the crowd), and will often drop things like an experience system as well. So it's not something that can really be universally applied.

[@Michel-mb7yq]

Actually, those games are mainly hooking you to play. It literally values you playing more.

[@GretgorPooper]

A better question is "why did they ban Minecraft in the first place."

[@TunaBear64]

Microsoft was lazy to handle the rule and simply banned people under 18 in South Korea regardless of time Just ban them between 12AM-6AM in local time, South Korea has just one time zone but NOOOO, banned all day

[@ErickGameplaysN64]

For some reason I can't explain, why we live in a society where gamers... Don't rule the world

[@rayganparksmitchell]

Dislike because a drawing was replaced with Not going to draw this

[@funnyvalentine7607]

Or you could be a actual good parent disciplined them and stop blaming company’s for your children problems

[@ToNyCurb]

Please make a video about flash games

[@Pocket-Lent]

They better fix it We got parents putting up actual fire walls and putting real locks on the computer Spraying bug spray on ur keyboard! *that was a joke btw totally not a reference*

[@pauldelol]

Me: Hey, can you hear me all the way over there from 1986? You: Wait, what? Me: GET BACK HERE!!!

[@pauldelol]

I absolutely butchered that reply I’m sorry 😂

[@Pocket-Lent]

Its okay! 😂 I'm glad someone knows it XD

[@jokingsalt30142]

I know that gumball episode, wasn’t it the one where they saw how adults suck with technology and made the great song known as “stupidity is hashtag trending”

[@pauldelol]

@@jokingsalt30142 Yes. And it’s funny af

[@TorutheRedFox]

I was wondering why Minecraft was banned in South Korea for people under 19

[@joeyjojojrshabadoo7462]

4:20 Nice.

[@sonictouhoufan]

i still it up to mom and dad to say what video game you can play so in my eye this law is dumb it up to mom and dad

[@WarmLillie]

*Lillie wear Cinderella outfit* The ball not over just yet now.

[@ms.pirate]

It should've stayed banned

[@bonkloud8182]

I live in China, and my solution to this problem is playing with a vpn

[@gnolfo]

Good to know

[@coreykakarot7414]

I take that back never mind

[@I大韓民國萬歲I]

This is right way.

[@Darkify51]

When the parents can’t turn off the game:

[@STuber2023]

0:15 it forbids under 16 not 19, 19 is only to Minecraft

[@STuber2023]

Why Cinderella Law used 19 instead of 18?

[@STuber2023]

because in South Korea, you have to be MORE MATURE THAN 18 to drink alcohol or play Minecraft after midnight

[@elizabethgoodman4015]

Minecraft should not be for 19 year olds in SK

[@yukko_parra]

psst... china just made a new law to restrict game time oh wait it got discussed

[@ascaro1885]

That was quick

[@Vidboyloy]

God, Finally

[@강민영-d9t]

im south korean im so glad that the stupid minecraft 19+ has fixed but foreignor: shut! holy murica!! its just joke lol

[@fhjunior6183]

Thanks fkr the vid

[@엄준식식]

not now ;)

[@alexmabey7791]

Glad this happened!😃

[@Cliffordlonghead]

Ok

[@Shellboi-j6n]

Ah yes, South Korea's government is now officially smarter than Twitter! It is a wonderful day!

[@catzor4795]

FAKER?! WHAT WAS THAT??!

[@kiddbusiness]

Dangit now my comment on your last Minecraft video is now void and irrelevant lol

[@Pocket-Lent]

Same lol

[@mystcat3]

Where's the clown emoji when we need it

[@kiddbusiness]

@@mystcat3 ikr

[@tree427]

1984

[@jamarthedancingdemon3961]

EPIC

[@Mr_Careo]

Hi

[@captainteaaddict]

The best way to solve children being addicted to games is being a better parent and ot thinking the goverment is gonna do everything for you.

[@macthetv8882]

Sup