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Censorship Entertainment Games

PK'ing Banned in China For Minors 170

Posted by Zonk from the only-leads-to-violence-if-you-have-bigger-issues dept.
Evoluder writes "Just saw this over on worldofwar.net as it appears to apply to WoW as well. A story at interfax.com says China just passed a law prohibiting minors from playing games that allow players to kill each other (i.e., player killing)." From the article: "Minors should not be allowed to play online games that have PK content, that allow players to increase the power of their own online game characters by killing other players...Online games that have PK content usually also contain acts of violence and leads to players spending too much time trying to increase the power of their characters. They are harmful to young people."
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PK'ing Banned in China For Minors More

PK'ing Banned in China For Minors

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  • ;) Seriously, this is ludicrous. You might as well ban dodgeball be....oh....nevermind..

  • Let's hope... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by SolarCanine ( 892620 )
    ...that this leads to a new period of enlightenment in China where Hot Coffee is okay, but the rest of GTA:SA is disdained. ;)

  • Out goes... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by diamondmagic ( 877411 )
    There goes BZFlag [bzflag.org].

  • Age check (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DarkFencer ( 260473 ) on Thursday August 04, 2005 @08:31AM (#13238998)
    From the article:

    hina's Ministry of Culture (MOC) and Ministry of Information Industry (MII) have also ordered the country's online game operators to develop identity authentication systems that prevent minors from playing games These authentication systems would require all players to first enter their Citizen ID Card numbers before being allowed to play games that allow Player Kills.


    At least we see how they will check for age. Citizen ID Card. That just makes me shudder.

    Regardless though, will they have seperate servers for 'minors'? Or will those who are minors (based on the authentication) be unable to be flagged as PvP? Either idea has advantages and disadvantages, but it does sound like it will create difficulties for Blizzard and its competitors that operate in China.

    • Re:Age check (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Fr05t ( 69968 ) on Thursday August 04, 2005 @08:39AM (#13239041)
      "At least we see how they will check for age. Citizen ID Card. That just makes me shudder"

      Oh you don't own a Social Security Number card?
      • Oh, I know they are somewhat alike, but its just the semantics of "Citizen ID Card".

        Also, thankfully I've never been required to use my SS number for anything but a bank/credit account and tax-related things.
        • It's my understanding it's more or less a SSN+Birth Certificate, and access to it can only be demanded by a law official with good reason. (Not sure how this will effect them using it for online age verification)

          It replaced the Resident ID card, and extended the min. age to 16 - with this change laws were passed to further protect the rights of citizens privacy and restrict 3rd party access to the information on the card.

          So it's basically the same unified national ID card Europe, Canada, and the US will hav
          • Nope. It can be demanded by your workplace. It can be demanded by the train conductor. It can be demanded by the crooked cop who sees you walking and wearing less than fresh clothes.

            If you do not have one, say you are a second child, you cannot go to school. You cannot have a job. You cannot get government benefits.

            Is is not the same unified national ID card as western countries.

    • Re:Age check (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ubera ( 107426 )
      Blizzard categorise their servers and greatly limit PvP on some World of Warcraft Servers. It would presumably not be too difficult to create a server mode completely without PvP.

      Players will still be able to cause each other's characters to die by bringing hordes of monsters down on them, but that can be prevented by banning it in the T&C.
    • If Citizen ID card makes you shudder, what about ID Card [no2id.net] or perhaps Entitlement Card [worldwidewords.org]? They'll be reality in the UK in a few years, if our lords and masters [bbc.co.uk] get their way... [bbc.co.uk]
    • According to a poll today, 66% of Americans [usatoday.com] think everyone should be required to carry a mandatory federal ID card.

      With the current bunch running the government, I'm sure that's only a matter of time.
      • You have to quote the entire question if you want to get the survey's true meaning:

        Would you favor or oppose requiring all Americans to carry a national ID card

        as a means of preventing terrorist attacks in the USA? 66% favor / 33% oppose

        Who says this would help against terrorism? All this survey proves is that people are scared of terrorism. Duh.

        You'd get very different responses if the question were phrased:

        Would you favor or oppose requiring all Americans to carry a national ID card

        as a means of incre

  • After this [slashdot.org] and their enormous profits on China, there goes a big part of their WoW revenue... I guess it won't be a BIG problem for them, but it may be a "big" one...
    • How much of Blizzard's Chinese $$ come from minors, do you think?
    • With a market as big as China I'm sure Blizzard will put some kind of age verification on the PvP servers. Not sure what they would do about Battle grounds though.
    • Realistically, what portion of their enormous profits are from minors? How many families are wealthy enough to afford to pay an hourly fee soley so their kid can play the game?

      Though there are tweaks that Blizzard could make to the game. I suppose minors could be prevented from playing on the WoW PVP servers. But I don't see how they could credibly remove the PVP flag from normal servers, since there's that whole, you know, horde vs alliance thing that's kind of hard to fix. I suppose at the worst, yo

      • Realistically, what portion of their enormous profits are from minors? How many families are wealthy enough to afford to pay an hourly fee soley so their kid can play the game?

        The fee in China may not be the same as the one here? And, those without some form of credit card can play in Internet cafes.


      • But I don't see how they could credibly remove the PVP flag from normal servers, since there's that whole, you know, horde vs alliance thing that's kind of hard to fix.


        I can think of an easy way to do it.
        Split the servers into horde and alliance servers.
        On an alliance server, people are only allowed to play alliance.

        -- Should you believe authority without question?
      • What percentage of players are minors? Judging from player behavior I'd have to say at least two-thirds.
    • If PvP is the only problem and they do desperately want to cater to under 18 year olds, all they'd need to do would be to not implement the PvP servers (or the Battlegrounds) and remove the flag that you get when you attack a city guard (or similar NPC) that normally makes you targetable by players. That should be very simple indeed to do.

      I'll say this though, I'd pay good money never to have to play with some of the evil brats I've met in MMOG's.

  • Say what? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Vo0k ( 760020 ) on Thursday August 04, 2005 @08:33AM (#13239008) Journal
    One of few things in their censorship thing they got right.
    I really don't understand why boobs are so no-no and killing is okay.

    • Re:Say what? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Descalzo ( 898339 )
      If you look at boobs in a game, the effects are way more similar to the effects of seeing real boobs. Seeing someone die on a game is very different than seeing someone get gunned down in real life. Just ask someone who's witnessed a drive-by or been to war. They start sweating and their heart-rate increases when they start talking about it. The video game death is out of our heads in minutes. I still talk about the time my roommate and I had someone get murdered in our apartment building. I never tal

      • Re:Say what? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Jamie Lokier ( 104820 )

        If you look at boobs in a game, the effects are way more similar to the effects of seeing real boobs.

        In other words, not much effect at all, and what little there is is probably good for you. In my opinion, seeing real boobs is perfectly normal among healthy human beings. The fact that seeing them on screen is a bit like seeing them in real life is hardly an argument for censoring them, is it? That would only make sense if the effect was harmful, and in all honesty, I think it's actually beneficial t

        • It is such a big deal BECAUSE seeing them is natural.

          Sexuality is a very natural thing. It's wired into us.

          Seeing death is not.

          Now, because we are built to accept sex and find it to be a good thing, when we see sex (or sexuality) in an improper context, it is not necessarily given the same protective reflex as something else.

          See also: Diabetics and Twinkies versus someone who has problems digesting fiber and their brussel sprouts.
    • Because boobs lead to sex, and sex is bad. Except for the continuation of the species part of it.

      Oh, and the part about how sex is really, really fun.
    • As much as i a agree with your point, it's not about killing per se, but killing of other player that increase your character attributes as in mmorpg, since it leads to obsessive behaviors, they say.
      It seems coming more from a psychological standpoint than from a moral standpoint.
  • I'm really curious... Why do the Chinese leaders have the self-restraint to not ban games altogether, but they don't have the self-restraint to ban games with PK elements? Obviously they have the power to do either of these things. Are some of the chinese leaders avid gamers, and therefore recognize the value of games? Does the lure of foreign investment provide at least some influence on the leaders to not be so heavy-handed, but at the same time the leaders think that banning minor-PK isn't heavy hand

    • Re:Restraint? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Nytewynd ( 829901 )
      While it is messed up, at least it makes a little bit of sense. They don't want to ban games like Tetris, but they do want to ban games like Counter Strike. Maybe there is a little truth to the fact that kids shouldn't be playing games with realistic killing of other people. I don't think games lead to violence more than anything else, and don't support this policy, but it makes a lot more sense than flipping out about a boobie while you let kids do drive bys.
      • I don't think counter strike would qualify to be banned. If you kill somebody, you don't get any advantage for your online character.

    • Re:Restraint? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Fr05t ( 69968 )
      You know Communists aren't just out to ruin every body's fun. My guess is the reason they don't ban all games is because it provides entertainment and leisure for their population (and takes up little space), plus there really isn't a good reason to.

      I might not totally agree with the reasoning for banning PK games, BUT that doesn't mean I'm right - I do understand the logic behind it.
    • It does not seem that weird a decision to me (in the context of the Chinese government ).
      Games are a healthy distraction that can keep people from worrying about bigger problems ,however they would most likely not want any minors to get any ideas about growing in power and violence .
      When they are past that age , things tend to have less influence on a persons character.
      I think they are more than likely not banning this type of game for the minors because of the violence, more the fact it could be used to s
      • Ahh, that makes sense, thanks for explaining it that way. The Chinese government sometimes seems very difficult to understand by westerners. In the US, I think we're used to thinking of most communist leaders as completely nuts, but China is clearly not nuts, since they've been able to foster an environment where their economy can grow very quickly (even while maintaining a fairly rigid social policy).
      • Western leaders might think about banning games like the recent Grand Theft Auto game, where it clearly has a very large amount of violence compared to other games. They might even think about wanting to ban games like Counter Strike, but they'd have such a huge backlash I doubt they'd succeed.

        But I don't think western leaders would ever try to ban PVP RPG's... casting fireballs at people and running around with 50 pounds of armor on is clearly a fantasy. Maybe if there were a series of incidents where

    • Mayhaps the reason the Chinese government does not just ban all video games, or video games with pk elements, is because they know there is a significant influx of foreign money due to gold/item farming in mmorpgs which are a significant portion of games with pk elements.

    • Re:Restraint? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by blueZhift ( 652272 )
      It is important to note that video games and other forms of mass entertainment are an important element of maintaining control over a population. So to ban all video games with violent elements would leave too many of the wrong people with too much time to be upset about how the government is screwing them over. Gaming can be a very powerful opiate against social unrest as long as the games are free of subversive political content. The foreign investment money is good too, but the need to keep people reason

    • Re:Restraint? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cahiha ( 873942 )
      Why do the Chinese leaders have the self-restraint to not ban games altogether, but they don't have the self-restraint to ban games with PK elements?

      If you think of the Chinese leaders as the right wing of the Republican party, you aren't so far off: these people are socially conservative and pro business. When those principles are in conflict, it is unpredictable which one wins. In this case, they found a compromise that isn't all that different from the US or other conservative Western nation.

      One differ

  • Next step (Score:3, Funny)

    by zeda ( 415 ) on Thursday August 04, 2005 @08:41AM (#13239051)
    Ban noobs.

    • Having just seen Vo0k's comment above, I read that as "Nan boobs".

      I need to get out more.

  • Long history of PK in games of all kinds (Score:3, Insightful)

    by foniksonik ( 573572 ) on Thursday August 04, 2005 @08:41AM (#13239057) Homepage Journal
    Chess, Checkers, Mahjong, etc. etc.

    The goal is to beat or kill your opponent, 'nuf said.
  • In other news, China denied that Chinese society's emphasis on having male children was harmful to the future of the country. It's so obvious that PK'ing is so much more harmful to society than not having enough women for men to marry and reproduce with. I believe the last figures I saw put the male:female ratio at 4:1.

    Letting the Chinese government dictate morality and what is best for children is like saying the engineers for the Yugo could teach all of the other car makers how to make a better car.

    • Re:In other news... (Score:3, Informative)

      by PhilHibbs ( 4537 )
      From the CIA World Factbook:

      Sex ratio:
      at birth: 1.12 male(s)/female
      under 15 years: 1.13 male(s)/female
      15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
      65 years and over: 0.91 male(s)/female
      total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2005 est.)

      I don't know where that 4:1 figure came from, it's totally preposterous. How could such a ratio come about? Infanticide may happen occasionally, but not in 3 out of 4 female births.
    • Yeah, but they see people kinda differently.
      a: men are supposedly more industrious
      2: less kids (they have a bit of a problem with that you know)

      stupid, but surprisingly practical in a completely evil sort of way.

  • What's the difference? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by seestuffgo ( 736308 ) on Thursday August 04, 2005 @08:44AM (#13239070)
    Wow, unbelievable.

    It's interesting that we find censorship of boob'age or swear words to be completely socially acceptable, but we balk at the idea of censoring PK'ing in games.

    Who gets punished for breaking the law - the person playing the game, or the company who let it happen?

    • Re:What's the difference? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by xtracto ( 837672 ) on Thursday August 04, 2005 @08:49AM (#13239097) Journal
      It's interesting that we find censorship of boob'age or swear words to be completely socially acceptable, but we balk at the idea of censoring PK'ing in games.

      Yeah... that makes you think which goverment is more stupid, the Chinese for banning games promoting killing and anti human practices or a country where this natural thing which all of our moms and dads did and we will ALL do sometime called SEX is banned?

      And of course the leaders of that country are busy killing people and invading some other countries... I think someone should show these leaders what sex is about :) maybe that is the problem...

  • Perhaps this is due to my lack of understanding of Chinese culture, but I find this to be completely bizarre. Who writes these laws? Are there a bunch of bureaucrats in China who are former gamers that are making up these laws? Is China making stuff up in order to meet some kind of a quota for new laws? Where do they come up with stuff like "Online games that have PK content usually also contain acts of violence and leads to players spending too much time trying to increase the power of their character

    • I'm reading that acts of violence in video games are marginally OK (because it's OK to kill NPC's), but spending too much time trying to increase the power of a character is what pushes the issue over the edge. Am I missing something huge here?

      Yeah, you left off the most important part of the quote:

      ...that allow players to increase the power of their own online game characters by killing other players

      It's not the fact that they are increasing the power of their characters that is the issue, it's

      • I don't really see a big deal in that, it's only pixels,
        No, it's specifically pixels that represent other actual players, and that have a direct impact on the other player, that they are concerned about. Half-life is OK, counter-strike is not.

      • I hear what you're saying...but it's still pretty nonsensical to me. Killing other players is OK, but if your character becomes more powerful by doing this, it somehow becomes more harmful. Where do they get this stuff? Do they cite any studies, or is this just another conjecture by a bureaucrat that is stated as fact?

        I'm also wondering about non-RPG's...like Command and Conquer: Generals, where you are rewarded for the experience gained from killing your opponent's armies by gaining rank, which allow

    • Who writes these laws?

      The same kind of social conservatives that write similar laws in the US. The kinds of people who get all pushed out of shape about GTA, withdraw its rating, and try to remove it from the market. Incidentally, Germany pretty much bans PK for all ages...

  • Well (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sv-Manowar ( 772313 ) on Thursday August 04, 2005 @08:57AM (#13239137) Homepage Journal
    A lot of people saying this is ludicrous, and as much as I agree, the game ratings boards, PEGI - BBFO etc all rate PK games above 15 years of age usually, unless its non graphic and isn't violent
  • I'm glad China is making sure the outrageous practise of killing people in online computer games is being stopped. This sick practise leads people to perform disgusting acts like firing polygons at another polygon in order to cause them to die with a burst of red sprites! If people do too much of this they may feel the need to let people express their own spirituality [christianp...ution.info], sexuality [lifeissues.net] and have acceptable human rights [hrichina.org]. Thank goodness they have their priorities in order! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
  • Now, the Chinese government forays the gaming industry and wants monopoly on PKing.

    Does it get more communist than this? :^P

  • "They are harmful to young people."

    They drove tanks over those young people only years ago when they protested, and now they suddenly care about their well being? Oh please. This has "hidden agenda" written all over it in big fat neon sign letters.

    If they care so much, are they going to make a certain square [wikipedia.org] a tank-free area?

  • Lineage ][ (Score:2, Informative)

    by maskedbishounen ( 772174 )
    Makes sense. From my understanding of how the Linage ][ Chinese (or was it Korean?) servers work, there's an age limit. If you're over 18, you get to play on the adult servers (includes PvP); everyone else can play on the kiddie servers (PvE only!). In another slightly-interesting note, they recently took out a simple in-game dice game as folks were using it to gamble real world money.

  • Obligatory Pun (Score:3, Funny)

    by slughead ( 592713 ) on Thursday August 04, 2005 @09:11AM (#13239226) Homepage Journal
    PK'ing banned in Peiking!

    Funny that a country that a country that kills demonstrators would have such a problem with virtual killing.
  • In America, violent content will eventually get you sued for making people shoot other people etc.
    Companies are attacked by stupid legislation.

    In China, such content is censored/regulated to prevent this from happening in the first place.
    Consumers are attacked by stupid legislation.

    Here in Europe, well, everything seems to be trundling along nicely. :-D

  • Um... (Score:2)

    by Phleg ( 523632 )
    So this pretty much bans any multiplayer game other than Dr. Mario?
  • The day killing someone in a game becomes illegal will be the day developers introduce the ability to teleport another player's soul to hell.

    • i think UT could actually argue out of this, as UT is, if you pay close attention to the storyline, set in a holographic combat arena so you are actually metagaming a character in a VR tournament whose purpose is to entertain millions of people and make monet for the liandri corporation, like a sports game but the sport involves guns.

  • A word on China (Score:3, Insightful)

    by g0bshiTe ( 596213 ) on Thursday August 04, 2005 @09:41AM (#13239436)
    China is not entirely the "Evil Communist Empire" it is made out to be. As with any communist society or decocratic for that matter you get people in power who are "out for their own agenda".

    Corrupt politicians are possibly the ones behind these bans, though we may not know the reasons why they want these games banned. China has always had a strong belief in Confuciousism, and Buddism (in some parts) .

    The idea of banning this type of game perhaps is thought to undermine the morality and identity that the Chinese people would like to teach the next generation.

    As the world evolves and China presses forward into the technological future, it must be struggling to retain some of it's traditional beliefs and ideals. This is also a country that for centuries kept it's ways and traditions secret to the outside world until Chairman Mao took over around the 50's.

    The country and it's people have a rich history, I'm am sure that this is just a step that those in power within the Chinese government see as a way to protect Chinese identity, and preserve thier culture for the future.

    Without a history, we have no future.

  • What PK'ing means (Score:2, Informative)

    by Tweak232 ( 880912 )
    For those of you who don't know what PK'ing is...

    PK'ing usualy takes place in MMORPGs (Massively Multyplayer Online Role Playing Games), although there are several other genres in which this happens (FPS, Tps, Paper and pencel RPG, et al), this article is mostly aimed at MMORPGs, WOW(world of warcraft), Ever quest, et al. PK'ing is when you kill a virtual character, with your virtual character, and the virtual character that you killed is controlled directly by a human.

    and he said pwnt n006, and it was
  • In China, only old people are PK'ing.

  • rang rang.
  • This article would still be believable if it was the US, not China.

    That is truly scary.

  • I seem to remember that in most of the earlier Final-Fantasy type games your characters would technically not be "killed" but rather would "swoon" (pass out) or something similar. I suppose this was so that when a character was permanently offed from your party then you couldn't use a 'life' potion or something similar...

    The online games could probably do something similar. You're not dead, just 'injured' until you can be recuperated. In fact, a military-game with more focus on Dr-Dodgeball style gaming c
  • that allow players to increase the power of their own online game characters by killing other players...

    I know not all games are like this, but WoW doesn't 'increase the power of their own online game character' by killing other players. You get nothing directly from killing another player. No experience, no items from their body, no money. The only thing that you DO get is a kill point (an Honorable Kill (HK) point for players that are within a certain number of levels from you). Your contribution in that
  • What point does the violence matter? Is Mortal Kombat blood bath worse than pokemon, or chess?

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