[MUD-Dev] Korea and online world responsibility

[apollyon]

From: "Sean Kelly" <sean at ffwd.cx>
> Koster, Raph wrote:

>> start quote--->

>> Online game developers pledge to restrain destructive aspects
>> Officially acknowledging the widespread theory that online games
>> could be of serious detriment to society, Korea's online game
>> developers vowed to contain the destructive fallout of online
>> games - especially their ill effects on minors.

> ...

>> The industry initiative calls for a string of technological
>> breakthroughs to discourage users from playing long hours and
>> installing a program for parents to control playing time on
>> personal computers at home.

> So it appears the fear is spreading.  But is this any different
> from the attribution of games like DOOM to events like the
> Columbine shootings? Are the producers of potentially addictive
> products responsible for aiding in the control of that addiction?
> And could all these problems just be solved by better parenting?

>From what I understand, the connection is a little less tenuous than
the connection to the Columbine shootings.  When Character A kills
Character B, prompting Player B to stand up from his chair in a
Korean internet cafe, walk across the room pulling out a knife, and
stab Player A, it's much easier for the media to lay blame clearly
upon the game itself, whether or not that blame truly belongs.  The
comparison to the Columbine shootings is perhaps not the best to
use.

>> Also, game developers expressed their intention of establishing a
>> number of rehabilitation and counseling centers for online game
>> addicts, while offering an array of alternative offline
>> entertainment programs for youths.

> So now there will be Gamer's Anonymous.  "Hi my name is Bob and
> I've been 1337-free for 0xA days now."  I understand the need for
> game developers not to be seen as Bad People, but should it really
> be necessary for them to fund alternative entertainment programs?

Necessary?  No.  Helpful, and a good PR move?  Could be.  Where is
the down side to taking this precautionary measure?

>> "However, the current problems will only be temporary as they
>> have arisen from the inevitable lag of legal and moral norms that
>> are to regulate and provide some kind of guideline for the speedy
>> development of the industry and technology," he remarked.

> There shouldn't be a need for established moral norms in order for
> parents to deal with some behavior of their child that they don't
> find healthy.  And in the case of the people who died from simply
> playing too long while sitting in internet cafes -- I'm amazed
> that (a) the cafes are apparently open 24 hours a day and (b) that
> no one working at the cafe thought to intercede when the guy at
> table 12 hadn't left the PC for over 26 hours.  Lack of legal
> precedent is no excuse for moral responsibility.

I both agree and disagree with you in this regard.  You're
absolutely spot-on when you say that lack of legal precedent is no
excuse for moral responsibility.  However, the converse holds true
as well: Lack of moral responsibility is no excuse for eschewing
legal precedent.  Civilizations impose laws upon their people to
encourage morally responsible behavior.

>> In the past, the game industry played down the seriousness of the
>> destructive social aspects of their products to be "isolated" and
>> "highly individual" cases.

> And, statistically, they still are.

The IMPRESSION I'm getting, and I don't have any statistical backing
on this, is that in much of SE Asia (and Korea in particular) these
incidents are on the rise to the point where they are becoming
statistically significant.

>> The industry's decision to correct some detrimental social
>> effects is viewed as a response to the widespread negative public
>> opinion of online games in general and the government's stern
>> action against anti-social elements in such games.

> So is the problem the in-game violence leading to RL violence, or
> that people are becoming addicted to the games and their lives are
> suffering as a result?

I don't think the two can be isolated from one another.

> This certainly isn't the first instance of potentially addictive
> products being targeted at children.  Heck, the business model of
> collectible card games like Pokemon practically rely on this.

I agree.  Ultimately, I think we need to look at the end result and
decide as a culture whether that end result is acceptible.  If
Pokemon cards were creating a wave of deaths across the nation,
something would need to be done to stop it, regardless of whether or
not the marketing relied upon addiction.

And on a side note, how healthy is it to be introducing our children
to addictions as young as possible?

>> Evident social problems caused by the growing number of online
>> game addicts aside, the highly competitive nature of some games
>> has paved the way for the illegal practice of buying and selling
>> online items and accessories for cyber games and even led to
>> scams and vicious crimes in the real world. As a result, the
>> government classified "Lineage," Korea's single most popular
>> Internet-based multi-user game, as only fit for adults, citing
>> the level of violence and overly competitive rules of the game as
>> being unhealthy for its abundant teenage subscribers.

> Ah, here's the meat of it.  So games are, by association, guilty
> as charged.  It is just like the FPS/DOOM media hoo-ha here.  Do
> Korean schools have PE classes?  And do they participate in
> competitive sports in those classes?  What about academic
> competition?  That's certainly a big deal in Japan.  And how are
> these kids paying for these cyber-products?  I assume they aren't
> old enough to get credit cards.

Again, I think we need to look at the end result if we are to
address the issue.  If PE classes offering competetive sports were
increasingly resulting in the intentional violent deaths of our
children, would we not do something about it?

>> Handed down by the Korea Media Rating Board last month, the
>> ruling was expected to severely undercut the profitability of
>> NCSoft, the developer of Lineage, and sent a shockwave through
>> the industry, which paid only nominal attention to the social
>> repercussions of its products.

> So my question is: do game developers have a moral responsibility
> to consider the potential social repercussions of their products,
> and if so, what can they do to address them?  Is it merely
> violence in games that is at issue?  Is it competitive behavior in
> general?  And is the potential for addiction a concern?  For
> subscription-based games, would it be enough to email a usage log
> to the bill-payer each month?  I would like to think that the
> ultimate responsibility for addressing these concerns is the
> concerned party, ie. the parents, and that they may merely be
> ignorant of how much time their child is spending online.

I think everyone on the planet has a moral resposibility to consider
the potential social repercussions of their actions, and that
includes any products that they may be responsible for creating or
using.  I don't think the issue can be isolated to "violence in
games" or "competetive behavior."  I think you need to look at the
whole package and analyze it in terms of the end result.  We
disagree in where we feel the ultimate responsibility lies.  I would
like to think that the ultimate responsibility for addressing these
concerns is the society as a whole, because I may raise a perfectly
healthy child who stops in at a cafe to grab a snack and get stabbed
through the eye because someone else's child wasn't being cared for.
I can take steps to prevent that now, or I can bemoan the loss of my
son (and your son, and his son, and their son), later.

Apollyon

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
- Mahatma Gandhi

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