The Democratic Party of Korea, government officials, educators and industry representatives recently met to debate “Video Games: Addiction or Art?” The gathering focused on the South Korean government’s impending Game Addiction Law, which would regulate video games like drugs and alcohol. The government previously passed gaming legislation in late 2011, the Shutdown Law, which prevents adolescents under age 16 from playing games between 12-6 a.m.
In South Korea, gamers pay less than a dollar an hour at ‘PC bang’ establishments, similar to U.S. internet cafés but equipped with row after row of computers with the latest gaming hardware. for less than a dollar per hour) to play games has become a national pastime. Professional Gaming, or e-Sports, is a multimillion-dollar industry. But gaming addiction has been in the news recently due to an April incident in which a 2-year old was left alone to starve while his father played online games in PC bangs for several days.
At the meeting, Jong-Duk Kim of the Game Developers Association said, “Everyone and everything has the right to freedom of expression and games are no different. They have the right to freedom of expression as a legally published medium, whether art or not. The title of the debate suggests that if video games are considered to be a form of art, they should be protected and punished otherwise.”
Goong-Hoon Nam, chairman of the Gamers Foundation, said restricting video games would be like “replacing the engine of your car when it stops running, only to find out that it was merely out of fuel.”
Professor Joong-Kwon Jin stated children turn to games to relieve stress they feel from parents about academic performance. He said parenting was one of the main causes and solutions of video-game addiction.
