Vietnam Bans Online Gaming at Night

[Greg Tito]

Vietnam Bans Online Gaming at Night

In an effort to control the social problems associated with online gaming, the Asian nation of Vietnam will block access to online games between the hours of 10pm and 8am each night.

Starting March 3rd, Vietnam's Information and Communication Ministry has asked internet service providers to prevent consumers from playing games online in the wee hours of the night. The measure is a temporary fix as the Ministry hopes to fully revise its laws and policies concerning gaming - called the Anti-violent Online Games among Students Program - in the near future. The amount of time that school-age children play online games in Vietnam is a widespread problem, with more than 82% of surveyed students going to internet gaming shops one or more times per week. The latest measure comes as gaming companies such as VinaGame and Vietgame, have refused to keep children from playing their games after 10pm, and that many internet cafes still operate with 200 meters of schools despite the law.

"Provincial departments of information and communication will inspect online games activities nationwide and deal with organisations that violate regulations by cancelling their services," said the ministry's deputy minister Le Nam Thang.

Of course, the Vietnam gaming industry is not happy with the ban. Online game operators like VTC Intercom and Asiasoft claimed that the ban denies access to the internet that many adults pay top dollar for in Vietnam. The ban will also create problems for patching and other maintenance of online games.

While I recognize that there may in fact be a problem in Vietnam, I hardly think that restricting citizens access to games late at night is going to solve anything. I really only play WoW after 10pm because that's the time I have available to me. Would I be OK with my government forcing Blizzard to not let me access the game when I can play? Hell no.

Source: Vietnam News [http://technews.tmcnet.com/news/2011/02/21/5326228.htm]

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[teh_Canape]

yay Paranoia

really? banning online gaming?

 

[gigastar]

Can expect a roit or two over this.

Makes me glad i dont live in Vietnam.

Also 82% of students go to an internet cafe at least once a week? That should only account for students that go to an internet cafe at least twice or thrice a week.

 

[Irridium]

Well this sucks. I know a dude from Vietnam, and due to time zones, the only real way we can play together(along with a couple British people on TF2) is if he signs on at later times(in his time zone).

Weak Vietnam, very weak.

 

[Carnagath]

Yeah, students should be resting at night so they have enough energy to work for 10 cents an hour after school. Members of society should be productive.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

Well this is going to give Anon something to do besides start a flame war with WBC.

OT: This is just bad. People should be able to what they want when they want when it comes to gaming.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

Are there still commies? *someone whispers in my ear* They are? *again with whispers* Darn commies! Still talking away people's rights!

 

[Exterminas]

So it's okay to neglect you kids, as long as you get your night full of sleep?
Fair enough.

 

[joshthor]

TIME FOR A NEW VIETNAM WAR! LETS ROLL!

 

[archvile93]

I love how it says they asked, when I'm sure the internet providers had AK-47s pointed at them while the request was made

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

Is it a bad sign that when I read 'Vietnam' my mind went to Bad Company 2: Vietnam rather than the actual nation Vietnam?

 

[VaderMan92]

Ha commies suck. Just saying.

 

[Alon Shechter]

Is it a bad sign that when I read 'Vietnam' my mind went to Bad Company 2: Vietnam rather than the actual nation Vietnam?

We can kill Vietnamese troops now to try and fight the actual Vietnamese government's stupidity.

 

[Sovvolf]

Damn those commies -picks up phone- "Get me Reb Brown, we're going in!".

Though seriously, is this really going to solve anything? Ba'h I doubt it will mater, I imagine that some one will be able to set something up over there so they can play online.

 

[Psycho Cat Industries]

My advice to Vietnamese gamers,move

 

[theriddlen]

One question - what is the problem here, that Vietnamese are trying to solve? Because i can't see anything other than "cure".

BTW: In Poland, we call such things "Throw the baby out with bath water", meaning a solution, that is pointless, badly executed, and way more damaging that the problem it was to solve.

 

[Therumancer]

Well it IS Veitnam, and there are a lot of issues involved here that go beyond the obvious. This doubtlessly includes widespread depression and hopelessness amoung the youth in a nation like that leading to them grasping for escapism, when by the national Agenda they should be using that time to instead become more productive in a national sense.

Then of course there is the problem common to a lot of socialist and communist countries about the feat of outside ideas, and the formation of insurgencies (typically like the ones that put the commies in power to begin with). Veitnam, China, Cuba, and other nations have goverments set up by revolutionaries who are paranoid about the same thing happening to them especially as people learn that there really isn't going to be any kind of "workers paradise" and not much changed in the social order since the majority of the people are still at the bottom of the heap like in any society.

Online gaming provides a great oppertunity for unsupervised communication, by it's very nature there is simply too much traffic for anyone to police, and it's not practical to keep backlogs of all the communication happening through such games due to the traffic. What's more such games develop a LOT of slang and internat discussion which opens up the potential for people to carry on discussions in code. Revolutionary movements oftentimes start with the youth, so it's not surprising nations like Veitnam and China have been seriously concerned about the potential here. We hear about this kind of things coming from those nations with some frequency. I can't help but wonder if Veitnam has any "reducation" centers set up to cure people of "game addiction" yet.





At any rate, it takes a certain amount of paranoia to think along the lines of MMOs being used for back channel communications, but these nations have that in spades, and even the US Goverment has raised concerns about it in connection with terrorism:


http://www.geekologie.com/2008/09/uhoh_government_fears_terroris.php

While it's a differant kind of gaming from what we're talking about there is also this, about money laundering through online gambling.

http://www.rga.eu.com/data/files/final__mha_report_june_2009.pdf

Then we have another similar issue about money laundering with MMOs dealing with Second Life (and you can find tons on this)

http://secondlifee.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/tipping-and-money-laundering-in-secondlife/


The point here being that a group of insurgents can use MMOs, especially those that allow real money to be passed back and forth, to both communicate and covertly pass around funds. This is a problem in the US, but in nations with policies that don't allow any real questioning of goverment policy, with crack downs on supporters of democracy (or other systems), and routine violaitons of human rights like we saw with the way China handled the population during the Olympics, this takes on a whole new level of perceived threat.

With 80 some odd percent of the youth gaming acording to that study, they do have to do their crack down gradually in Veitnam though, because if they did too much at once it might start massive outcries or exactly the kind of problem they are worried about on a large scale. I imagine it will start with curfews, move on to special gamer prisons to "reeducate" them and "cure them of their addiction" and similar things until the local bamboo curtain is thick enough for them to be happy again.

Of course there really isn't a whole lot we can do about it except generally agree it blows chips.

 

[drwow]

that sucks, I get home from school at 11pm and I always want to get a little black ops in.
that really sucks.