Violent online games: a many-headed Hydra?

Published: 09/01/2011 05:00

0

259 views
After five months of tightening
control over online games, HCM City authorities have banned 20 games, said an
official during yesterday’s conference on online games management.

After five months of tightening
control over online games, HCM City authorities have banned 20 games, said an
official during yesterday’s conference on online games management.

Most of the suspended games are violent, including three
most popular gun games — Sudden Attack, Special Force and Cross Fire –
provided by Vinagame, FPT and VTC Intercom, respectively.

These games had been licensed by the Ministry of
Information and Communication (MIC), said Le Manh Ha, director of HCMC
Information and Communication Department.

The Department has requested nine online game operators and
providers to remove violent assault and combat from 29 of their kungfu games. So
far, Saigontel and Netgame have complied in 6 games while FPT, VTC and Asiasoft
have pledged to do the same for 14 games prior to April 1, 2011, he said.

The director also said the department would take tough
action against Vinagame since the company had yet to delete violent scenes from
eight of its games.

Regarding online games that can be accessed from overseas
servers, Ha said he had requested Internet service providers to take measures to
prevent the penetration of unlicensed games.

The department is preparing a list of unlicensed online
games and will ask online games providers not to provide those games to users,
he told the conference.

To minimize the negative effects of online games on users,
especially students, a representative of District 2’s Cultural and Information
Office proposed that online games be restricted from 6 pm to 7 am, the time when
parents can exercise effective control over their children’s activities.

Impediments that only the Ministry can overcome

The city department has asked online game companies to
close their services to 352 Internet cafes located within 200 meters of schools,
said Ha. However, several district officials at the conference said many of
those cyber cafes still offered online games to their clients.

It is not legally allowed to turn down applications for
setting up Internet cafes near schools, said Nguyen Ngoc Hung, head of the
Cultural and Information Office of Tan Phu District. “All we can do is to put on
the business license we granted, in parenthesis, ‘not allowed to provide online
games’”.

Officials from the Cultural and Information Office of other
districts confirmed the difficulty of managing internet cafes, saying they could
only issue warnings or penalties to violators but could not revoke their
business licenses.

To eliminate violent online games, HCMC’s Department has
proposed the Ministry of Information and Communication establish clear criteria
for assessment of violence levels of online games and conduct an overhaul of all
the licensed games, but the ministry has yet to respond to the proposal, Ha
said.

In addition, the department also recommended that online
game companies control the ages of game users and shut down online-gaming
servers from 10 pm to 8 am, but the ministry did not reply to that either, he
said.

The Ministry has taken some measures to improve management
over online games, but it has yet to do what is most essential: to eliminate
violent online games, Ha told Tuoi Tre. “The ministry has the full authority and
ability to do this,” he added.

Source: Tuoi Tre

Provide by Vietnam Travel

Violent online games: a many-headed Hydra? - Social - News |  vietnam travel company

You can see more



enews & updates

Sign up to receive breaking news as well as receive other site updates!

Ads by Adonline