泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌
[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]
My frank advice to lazy government is honesty
October.25.2013
Recently controversy rages in the gaming industry when a member of the National Assembly, who I don't even want to know the name of him, labeled game as one of big four addictions and insisted that it should be gotten rid of with drug and gambling. There also has been a policy on restricting hours of use for teens over recent years. Official purposes of the impolicy are said to guarantee teens' sleeping hours, study hours, and prevent bullying at school.
I'd like to ask them pushing the bill before bringing up theoretical problems like that a close correlation between gaming and school violence or video game addiction has not been clearly verified. Can we anticipate the results of significantly reduced gaming addicts and increased sleeping hours and study hours if the government's drive is backed by various regulations of the gaming. Are they sure? If they don't, public cannot help but to be suspicious about sincerity of remarks from the Assemblyman, officials of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and Ministry of Health and Welfare.
Laws and legal system are built on purposes of the legislation or enforcement making the people to believe that they comply with the purposes. However, without looking at some statistics, typical workers and middle and high school students in Korea generally aren't capable of spending more than 2-3 hours to play a game except for hours of sleep. It's approximately similar to housewives' TV series watching time. Something is said now that "Aggressors of school violence are usually enjoy gaming. Therefore gaming is especially responsible for the violence." or "A large number of alcoholics and drug addicts have been played a game for an age. So they easily can be another addicts." is against 'the mistake of hasty generalization' or ‘A proposition and the converse of the proposition is not the same.’, the fundamentals of logic and mathematics, which people completed the regular curriculum can definitely understand. Daily patterns of typical addicts or aggressors of school violence are not ordinary and they spend much time enjoy cultural contents like gaming. There is a high possibility of higher than average rates of TV viewing, smoking, and drinking than average people.
Overindulgence in something needs to be controled. I agree with that. But It can be solved by developing self-control and endurance of users and teenagers through strengthening the education that builds their character and improving social environment where they can get rid of their stress by engaging in leisure activity not by laws and system. The government's policy to strongly regulate the gaming never solve current problems. It is not much different from a society where games are no more can make game addicts keep their life normal. It is not only machiavellianism but also Legalism, control of people by strict adherence to the law. Character education for teenagers lies with the parents and the teachers and humanity education for members of a society is a responsibility for the society. Agreeing to regulation-only systems is administrative opportunism and parental convenience. Are you going to blame on the government with an issue of child's personality?
I'd like to stress this again. Don't discourage responsible and self-sacrificing workers in the gaming industry denouncing them that they make goods like drug on the absurd basis of "The prohibition law can help drastically reduce alcohol consumption." and be honest if you want to be lazy government or parents.
※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.
(http://www.khgames.co.kr)
Translation by Kim Ki-hui
