Can South Korea’s shutdown system strike a balance between preventing gaming addiction and shrinking the gaming industry?

This article explores the problems with the shutdown system and how it can be improved, using the example of the 2012 StarCraft 2 World Championships in France. Despite its intention of protecting youth, the shutdown system has many problems, including its lack of effectiveness and the shrinking of the gaming industry.

 

A long time ago, on October 13, 2012, a funny incident happened at the StarCraft 2 Korean National Team Selection Tournament in France. In the middle of a match between professional gamer Lee Seung-hyun of Team StarTale, the game was going well, but Lee suddenly attacked the opponent with an overwhelming amount of force, causing him to lose. After the game, the reason was revealed: Lee Seung-hyun was 16 years old (15 years old) and subject to the shutdown system introduced by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which automatically disconnects the game after 12 o’clock, so he was trying to finish the game before 12 o’clock. The game was being streamed live on the internet, and many foreigners and broadcasters were puzzled by Lee’s sudden tactics, and when they heard about the shutdown system, they reacted that it was a mysterious law that they didn’t understand. Afterward, Lee continued to play under a different username that didn’t violate the shutdown system, and the story was reported by many media outlets the next day.
What made the situation so ridiculous is South Korea’s “Shutdown Law”, also known as the “Cinderella Law”. It was created by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family on May 19, 2011, as part of an amendment to the Youth Protection Act to prevent youth addiction to online games, restricting the availability of online games to those under the age of 16 from 0:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. There is also an additional measure called the “selective shutdown system,” which allows parents to set gaming hours for their children, making it impossible to access outside of those hours. As of 2011, gaming companies with annual revenues of more than 30 billion won were required to comply, and by the end of 2012, almost all online games were subject to these laws.
The shutdown system was first proposed and adopted to ensure the right to sleep and health of young people. The idea is to protect the right to learn by preventing students with poor judgment and lack of interest in learning from becoming addicted to games. Recently, many cases of game addiction have been reported in the society as a whole, and there is a public opinion that a solution is needed, and this intention is good because game addiction can appear more easily and to a greater extent in adolescents. However, the shutdown system has many problems, so the current shutdown system must be improved in a way that can overcome the problems and utilize the above intention.
The first of the many problems with the shutdown system is the conflict between government bills. Recently, there have been frequent leaks of personal information on large Internet sites such as Auction, Nate, etc. Because these large sites have a large number of members, the damage caused by personal information leakage is quite large, and these leakage cases have become a major social issue, with many people filing lawsuits. Therefore, in 2011, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety passed the Personal Information Protection Act, which prohibits internet sites from collecting social security numbers. As a result, many internet sites in Korea no longer ask for a social security number when signing up. However, in order to implement the shutdown system, it is necessary to know the specific information of the members, and the Personal Information Protection Act limits the information that can be requested when signing up, so there is a problem that the criteria for the shutdown system cannot be clarified.
Second, there is the issue of effectiveness. This bill is a half-hearted bill that does not cover the entire game from the beginning, because the shutdown system is limited to online games because the information of users cannot be identified in the case of packaged games. In addition, even if it is an online game, as shown in the first example in the text, it is easy to avoid the application of the law if you have an ID registered with a resident registration number over 16 years old. In fact, it seems to encourage crimes such as ID theft. In fact, Vietnam implemented a shutdown system in March 2011 before Korea applied the law, and the results showed that packaged games that can be run without authentication instead of online games were popular, and crimes such as number theft and cash transactions increased.
Third, the proposed law places an undue burden on gaming companies in its current form. It’s easy to say “keep kids off the internet during limited hours,” but it’s hard to enforce. Not only is it a lot of work to implement, but it’s also a lot of work to tear down existing policies that game companies already have in place. However, despite this costly endeavor, governments have been rushing to implement the regulations without any compensation or remedy. This is why many companies, including Microsoft, have a policy of blocking all Korean IPs after 12 noon, regardless of age. In addition, many foreign companies have stopped considering the Korean market after the shutdown policy, and companies that were already in Korea are leaving the country. Nexon, a representative Korean game company, recently moved its headquarters to Japan through a stock listing in Japan, which may have been influenced by Korea’s excessive game regulations. If these bills continue, Korea’s game industry, which exports about 3 trillion won a year, will collapse just as the manga industry collapsed in the past due to various regulations.
Kim Sung-gon, secretary general of the Korea Game Industry Association, said, “The current shutdown system is ineffective and is only causing the game industry to shrink.” It is right to help young people because game addiction causes serious social losses and is difficult for them to control themselves. However, the current shutdowns are ineffective because they have little practical effect and are expensive to implement. This is due to the fact that it was created in a rush to stop gaming addiction, rather than through open discussions between politicians, industry representatives, and the people who actually use it. Therefore, we believe that the current shutdown system needs to be improved to reduce the burden on the game industry and increase its effectiveness.
Therefore, we would like to suggest a few practical improvements. First of all, the more you play a game, the more your character grows and the more money you earn, which is where game addiction comes from. Currently, some games have introduced systems that limit the drop rate of items, the amount of experience or game money that can be earned, and so on, so that there is no reason to play for long periods of time without taking a break. Therefore, applying these laws to all game companies would be an improvement that would effectively prevent not only teenagers but also adults from becoming addicted to gaming, without the need for a separate youth/adult distinction.
Secondly, in the United States, it is currently mandatory for cigarette cases to warn people against smoking by putting pictures or drawings of people suffering from diseases caused by smoking on the outside. Inspired by this, it would be a good idea if online games were required to show a few seconds of damage cases caused by game addiction along with the company logo at the beginning of the game, and if packaged games were required to have similar photos or pictures on the front of the game package, it would be a good way to raise awareness of game addiction without incurring a large social cost.
Third, in addition to regulating the games themselves, it is necessary to expand and promote game addiction treatment centers. Similar to game addiction, addiction treatment centers exist for smoking, alcoholism, and other addictions due to concerns about the harm caused by addiction. However, alcohol addiction centers and smoking cessation centers are common in our surroundings, and you can find them at your local public health center. However, gaming addiction treatment centers are not easily found around us. Therefore, even if you are addicted to gaming or someone around you shows symptoms of gaming addiction and wants to get professional help, it is not easy due to the inaccessibility of treatment centers. Therefore, I think it would be good for the government to expand gaming addiction treatment centers and conduct regular educational seminars in schools to help young people develop healthy gaming habits.
In addition to this, there should be more cultural content that young people can enjoy later in the day after school or academy. One of the main reasons why young people are addicted to gaming is that they come home late and gaming is the only hobby they can enjoy. Therefore, expanding cultural facilities that can be easily enjoyed even late at night, such as table tennis tables or movie theaters, in public institutions such as apartment complexes or government offices, could be a good way to solve the gaming addiction that the shutdown system was intended to address.
There are many ways to improve the shutdowns that are not worth the cost to society. There are even more great ideas that can be found through open discussions between politicians, industry managers, and the youth who are the real beneficiaries of these laws. If the current legislation is maintained, there is a possibility that Korea’s globally competitive game industry will collapse. Therefore, the current shutdown system should be modified into a solution that can solve the addiction of young people to games at a low cost to society.