Get Nebula using my link, including lifetime memberships for a limited time: go.nebula.tv/techaltar Education crackdown bonus video: nebula.tv/videos/techaltar-chinas-crackdown-on-private-education-explained
300 $/Euro(ger) with or without the CuriosityStream (about 3 $/month) Bundel? Or do I have to wait for the Bundel Deal Cupon? 10 Years x 30$/Year = 300$. Nebula founded in 2019, so it's 4 Years old. So if I belive Nebula survives >10 Years (no inflation/Cupons/...) it's a better deal then the /Year one?
I do disagree with china's aggressive gaming regulations but there is an issue here gaming companies are hiring neurologists to make their customers addicted to their products
For sure I was playing Apex Legends for some time and as I was playing I would often notice these weird high frequency beeping sounds in the background and also weird flashing. Think of the mcollough effect and how easily the mind can be manipulated.
I think gaming and gambling or any adrenaline related thrill seeking activity has a common root. By the way I have yet to see that they ban gambling parlors in PRC, those are more harmful in my opinion than video games.
Maybe their choice of handling is not the best, however nowadays addictive games are bad news, the fact that kids spend their parents money is one thing, however the real danger is what the lasting effects of such interaction can be and how they can change the way kids percieve the world forever.
Thats true. And because GPU Chips are limited it makes more sense for them to sell them to AI companies instead of gamers since they will pay a lot more.
there have been several cases online that kids actually wake their grandparents in the middle of the night to make them go throught the face verification just so they can continue to play the game. Imagine the guy monitoring seeing a 80 yo playing for 12 hours straight. 😂
A genuinely informative and balanced, in-depth take at the history, development and current situation regarding the Chinese video games industry (in particular, mobile, online and subscription gaming) and legislation for it. Kudos.
Also, good take in your opinion piece. When I have alternatives to gaming and dont feel that stressed, I dont even open my computer, and when I do it's to talk with my friends and specfically play with them and not just open the computer just because
As someone on the Autism spectrum, who in various points of my childhood had issues with excessive gaming, I can attest that at the very least there is a strong comorbidity between problem gaming and mental health/neurological conditions at large. My special interest as a child was turn based RPGs. Predominantly Pokemon, though nowadays I'm into other franchises. My friends and I mostly bond over video games or tabletop RPGs like D&D. About half of my friends are also on the spectrum and many of them also have video games as their special interest. I cannot say for certain whether or not video game addiction should be considered a condition unto itself. What I can say with confidence is that gambling addiction should 100% include addiction to loot-boxes in video games, loot-boxes should be regulated to the same extent as and in similar ways to other forms of gambling, and video games should at a bare minimum be regulated as another form of consumer media with special attention payed to its interactive nature.
Speak for yourself. I personally disagree with that claim. I played video games growing up, but played less than all of my neurotypical friends. I was never addicted, and nowadays (in uni) I basically never play video games. I do however agree with you about regulating and adding disclaimers to lootboxes.
To understand this policy, it is first necessary to understand China's cultural background. In the past, China was very poor and people could only engage in manual labor. However, with the reform and opening up, the economy began to develop. Many parents hoped that their children would not have to endure the hardships they had experienced, so they encouraged their children to study hard from a young age, so that they could stand out from the crowd in the future. But excessive learning has caused great pressure on children. Some children have become bored with learning and become addicted to electronic games, resulting in poor academic performance and inability to attend good schools. As adults, they can only go to sweatshops to engage in physical labor, repeating the hardships their parents have endured. But these parents who make their children tired of learning do not realize that their excessive expectations are causing their children to be tired of learning. They believe that their children's poor academic performance is due to their addiction to games, so they have been protesting to the government, demanding that all game companies be closed. Different from what most people imagine, the Chinese government will listen to the opinions of the people, so they have introduced game restrictions. However, this can only solve surface problems, because the most fundamental problem is that parents are busy with work and do not have time to accompany their children, parents lack communication with their children, their education is very rough, their children's grades are not good, they will insult their children, and often physically punish their children, and say to their children, "These are all for your own good. No wonder children escape reality and become addicted to games. The government cannot directly blame these parents because China's current rapid economic development cannot do without their overtime work, so the government can only use game bans to cope with the situation. After all, it's still because there are too many Chinese people. There is a famous saying in ancient China, "All things are inferior, only reading is high." This is a problem that Chinese society cannot avoid. Also, this ban is actually very lenient. As long as parents actively provide their children with their real name authentication, children can play for a long time because the system authentication shows that the parents themselves are playing the game. I have seen many parents dislike their children's noise, so they voluntarily throw their phones at their children and let them play the game on their own. Through these practical actions, you will find that game bans are only a temporary measure to address parents' complaints, and have no impact on adults and increasingly enlightened parents.
Just to be clear, gaming is never banned if you are over 18 yrs old. And the rule is not simply ban children playing games, but limiting the time of playing within a scientific range that gaming is still beneficial for brain exercise but not enough to get addictions. A lot of students or children were exposed to additive games and ruined their future during the 1980s to 2000s. Currently the policy is only enforced on teenagers younger than 18, similar to alcohol policies all over the world. As for the reason for these strict import policy of games, it is mainly due to the prejudice that Western world saw China, which made up a lot of games story lines that degraded the reputation of China on purpose. Another reason is that some games are full of violence or dirty words and regulations play the role of game ranking or classification.
Agree with you, remember how angry western media was when Diablo Immortal wasnt in China yet, they made up stories like it was banned there with so much dirty politics. Personally believe that game should be banned.
I find myself being suck by video games and play it for hours and going to bed late because the game just grabs you. But i also had the same feeling in watching some TV series or even reading some mangas. Sometimes some media content will make want to consume it until i feel exhausted. After doing it i never really feel like seeing it again.
@@iAmNothingness also because of enormous competition. If a company/business wants to survive, they often just MUST exploit some psychological weaknesses we humans have, to attract customers, and make them spend time in their games/consume whatever other kind of media they specialize in producing, and do their best to make people spend at least some money over that time. Free-to-play games, usually of competitive genre, with elements of grind, are the most addictive and destructive on average, as far as I can see. And most profitable. Actual engaging, relaxng, or somewhat educating interactive art, that games can easily be, are not any easier, and often harder to produce; they attract less funding since it's known that they are less profitable and investors (whoever they can be) would be better off investing in some more exploitative genres. They are harder to be kept "alive" for years or decades, like competitive games can be, - it takes more creativity, development resources and funds to keep delivering sequels of high quality that people will accept. While competitive or grindy service games don't even actually need any coherent and engaging plot, complex story, universe, whatever. It can be a nice bonus for fans but it's not required. Professional tugging on the consumers' psychological weaknesses is required, and maybe some decent, catchy, not off-putting visuals, and that's all. Oh, and also lots of clever advertisement, to stand out of hundreds, or now thousands of competitors who want to do the same. A huge part of why games are largely like that, is also the fact that people often don't have much time to thoroughly engage in some artistic game world, which is usually required to actually enjoy them. While competitive/addictive free-to-play games know this fact and cleverly alow you to play short matches, lasting from ~15 to ~60 minutes on average. Engagement is not really needed, you don't need to learn much at first, only the basic game mechanics, which are made as simple as possible for newbies, while usually having deeper layers that unfold as the player keeps exploring it, to keep them unsatisfied, feeling inferoior to other players, wanting to catch up, collect more things, be more universal and mighty, or whatever else. And also, free-to-play games are just... free. The way they are built, their business model, just allows that. That's basically cheating in a way. Why would one pay for something that they can't be sure they will like and accept the quality of, when there are so many free products to try "without" consequences of potentially wasting money on? That's a trick too, though, because free-to-play games generate much more income for developers on average, thanks for unfortunate souls that got hooked on it and keep spending money on, usually just to try to scratch the itch of standing out, being more powerful than other players, or whatever else they eventually pay and keep paying for. While others, who don't pay (there are lots of such people usually, the majority of players), have to experience slower progress compared to those who pay, see their characters in default, "boring" appearance, not standing out, and are just reminded constantly that they are inferior to those who pay, in little but persistent and sometimes mildly annoying ways. Still many do not pay, either due to total lack of money, due to not accepting to "pay for games", some principles, or whatever else, and I think it can hurt their self esteem and confidence in a way. For me it did for sure. I am generalizing and simplifying, of course. The problem is a huge and complicated one. To be honest, I think it all boils down to how the imperfections of how the human mind, society and capitalism, and maybe even this world, work; due to huge and growing competition, and due to games being made firstly as a business, and not as art. Although, art can be somewhat addictive too, any fiction can be. Especially to people who are having problems in life, feeling insecure or unfulfilled, and don't know how to change that.
Oh, and I must add to my previous message. The gaming market, as well as movies and especially books I think, is very oversatieted. I mean, there are so many games to try, accumulated over the previous few decades (mostly the last ~15 years or so). The audience, its time and money, are dilluted over this enormous legacy. There are lots of older games that still have some or a lot of people online (or just playing them, in case of single player projects), who are not really willing to leave and switch to something new. Sure, most games of the past don't have as good graphics as the new ones. But gameplay-wise many of them are hard to surpass, with all the modern huge expectations. New developers come into the industry, either for passion or for money, and have to find ways to compete with all of this legacy, try to catch people's attention, pull them out of the comfortable games they got accustomed to and keep playing for years, and make them try their projects, somehow. Combine it with the falling fertility rates, less young players to become a potential audience, in countries where most gamers are, and the progress, "refreshment" becomes even harder, harder to compete with the legacy and create new and meaningful projects. I hope you get what I mean. Also add mods, which add lots of play hours for people to keep enjoying older games, taking their time, attention, but usually not giving the mod developers any money for their skills and work, hence not funding the usually passionate and artistic developers. Add piracy, which makes competition for game developers even harder if significantly widespread. Pressuring the prices of paid projects (not free-to-play, those actually are not affected by piracy at all in most cases, due to how they are meant to play) to lower even more, as people can literally get the product for free, and takes away the attention, play time and potential money with those people that pirated it. They spend time there, for free, not funding any further development, not trying other products they could have, it's basically lost to the economy. Again, I most likely expressed my thoughts a bit vaguely here, I just need to sleep now ;/ I think the world, the society works like that, in a way. Accumulating complexity, also mistakes and disagreements, slacking and lots of work spent inefficiently, until it all becomes too heavy to hold onto, unsolvable without drastic measures which usually are not taken even if understood, and slow or fast degradation begins, while the society is squeezed more and more dry (often voluntarily, due to the ongoing processes that people don't even think about or notice, not just due to some evil capitalists or government) to try and keep their level of life as it was, without doing the much needed changes, reforms, without slowing down and "taking a deep breath" to think about it all.
Myself as a Chinese has devided opinion on this. I do believe gaming addiction is a serious problem and it needs to be adressed. I am pleased that Beijing is determined to adress it, no matter the cost. However gaming is also an industry that needs room to breath and grow. It is kind of satifying to see Chinese games are getting a chunk of the world market share. But hardly can we find Chinese masterpiece titles out there, despite the richness of our culture. I hardly believe any kind of great games can be created by investors and designers who worry about censorship and constantly changing regulations.
Agree with you, I dont mind and even hope Chinese can develop our own gaming industry and no need to aways look at the western and Japanese games. Same thing like our own film industry, use to be dominated by Hollywood. Nowdays, most Chinese can look at our own movies proudly. As long as gaming is restricted to adults and not children, I think this is fine.
Multiplayer gaming, especially mmos, gachas, and whatever mtx thing is cancer, predatory, and should be eradicated. On the other hand, single player gaming industry in China and especially indies is healthy and should not be touched.
I miss the days in the early 2000s when all the kids in the neighborhood would have GBAs and have massive link parties in the park. Beijing was a gaming paradise and it felt healthy. We'd be physically interacting and would play other games besides videogames like football, rollerskating, and biking.
When it comes to cultural exports china is severely lacking. Japan has Anime and Korea has massively popular kpop and i thought gaming would become very influenced by china and chinese games. Unfortunately because the goverment attacks the developers and industry itself by limiting game releases it harms the cultural exports more than the game addicts its supposed to punish.
The virtual world is "better", because it's designed to be that way. To make it so pleasurable to the senses, that you keep coming back to it until you're addicted.
When I was in high school (around 10 years ago), I simply use my dad's ID number for game registration. And go to "illegal" internet cafe on weekends, where they have adults' temporary ids for teenagers. Those internet cafes did prohibit high-school students from entering, but I used my friends ids and claimed I was a technical-school student. But now the internet cafes are dying out because everyone has their PCs, and those are still running requires chip-ID plus facial recognition (connecting to police network), which basically banned all teenagers below 18. More teenagers are playing mobile games instead thanks to the development of smartphones. It is never about "video game addiction", parents are too busy or lazy to spend time with their children out of school, and they just want to find something to blame.
Solid reporting and evaluation. A very level evaluation from someone with experience in both China and gaming. Going to Nebula now to watch the piece about China's actions in addressing abuses in the private educational system and issues of excessive pressure in the State schools..
What he said about education pressure is the real issue here. While education serves to add value by teaching skills and knowledge, conventional schooling also is a signaling mechanism that implies ability for future universities and employers. So parents want their children not just to learn but to beat their peers. So you end up with a system where parents need kids to perform ever better in standardised exams to get into more elite universities and continue getting stellar results so they can be attractive to the most desirable employers. As long as there will always be more desirable and exclusive professions/employers people will compete to get into the more exclusive/elite universities. As long as some university programs are more exclusive/elite/outright better than others, school children will compete to get better results on standardised testing. As long as you have some young people who either themselves are willing or their parents are willing to force them, everyone will be under intense pressure to study 12 hour days to get the best standardised test results. I don't want a US style admissions process where the best institutions mostly don't admit on merit any more (if they ever did). I still believe in meritocracy but China and east Asia as a whole shows the pitfalls of what can happen when meritocracy is taken to its logical conclusion.
Okay but he also mentioned that China has cracked down on excessive education so clearly they're aware of the problem and are actively working to fix it.
@@JS-ih7lu Education and merit only gets you so far. Your leaders also need to not want to only think of themselves above all else. Which is hard when a thing called "power corrupts is a thing".
I think the bigger issue is the perception by the government that the citizenry lack any sort of agency, and unfortunately the citizenry also accept that. I don't want to riff too much on the personal responsibility side because when taken to the extreme it allows for massive corporate abuse, but a balance must be made. People aren't chess pieces you can move or eliminate any time you like.
It definitely went wrong in the US. Most of gen z are now woke id*ots, acts like npcs and can't even answer simple math or general knowledge questions.
@@mao_tse_tung1921 For every complex problem in this world, there is a simple and succinct solution that is often wrong. Game companies are often one step ahead of your government officials when it comes to understanding why people want to play games and what pushed them over the edge to addiction. It is down to parents to understand their children and cultivate a healthy relationship with gaming in a way that fits their children better. We cannot attribute gaming addiction to some nebulous concept of the mysterious Chinese or Western (in itself a misnomer) soul and really understand this problem through proper observation and psychological studies. A healthy human mind doesn't wake up one day and go "today I will get addicted to something". People get addicted because there was some pleasure in their life that they could not get outside of the addictive substance. Hold corporations accountable, but understand that they may not be the whole problem.
even though i am Japanese and female i played videogames when i was much older and me and my husband use it to blow off steam! I’m a pediatrician and my husband is a veteran and co-owner of a private security company and we are off on the weekends we play when our children go to bed and we don’t play it for too long. We limit our childrens game play but we start to notice now our children love camping and being in nature. My husband is what you call a survivalist and loves to fish,hunt and camp with us all. During covid-19 me and my husband worked but my husband got home before i did and was teaching our children how to cook and try out new things. My father-in-law loves hanging out with his grandchildren so they learned a few things from him! Video games are addictive and i can understand what China did but it does go too far.
It’s funny, because I’m a gamer who has depression and anxiety, and I find myself having trouble getting into games these days, which sucks since I have a huge backlog I’d really like to work through.
Reason #1 Children in China have MONEY! The Gaming Industry is aware of this and created the "Pay to Play" model. Everything else can be branched off from here!
You're using the "grain of salt" metaphor wrong. It's the other way around: if you can't trust how good something is, you shouldn't put but a grain of salt in it to see if it's good, instead of salting it all the way, thus covering up its true nature.
I’m currently teaching at a private primary school in China. I don’t think the laws are working too well because all my male students talk about are the video games they are going to play on the weekend. I have several students write stories about playing their Nintendo Switch, so I think the government’s report is tainted for sure.
Some games are addictive, other games are more artistic and won't make you binge. Rules should be made in a game by game case. MMORPGs, and competitive online games, are often addictive and require the expenditure of money. Offline games not so much, story driven games can be akin to watching a series, people will hardly binge on them for many hours.
I suppose most of the Chinese parents agree with you theoretically, but we still prefer our children to play sports/chess/musics (we call it "the world of 3D") rather than playing virtual games (we call it "the world of 2D"). This is not the matter of the games. This is just the matter of the anxiety of entering good schoos and good companies.
He, theese regulations are actually a great way to educate a generation of hackers as all the kids will use giant amount of time to bypass the technical limits :D. What do you think introduced all the kids in east Europe to hacking in the 90s and 00s? When a single game costed roughly 1/4 of average monthly salary, quite a lot of kids became interested in cracking copy protections.
I think gaming in moderation is fine and the parents themselves should be able to regulate their kids playing games. However I think microtransactions, in-game sales, gambling or similar stuff, should completely be outlawed.
Video games are getting too much negative publicity because the industry focuses way too much on violence. There is not enough attention given to educational and strategy games.
Just came back from Japan and oooh boy are there alot of Chinese tourists in BIC stores. Saw a chinese family check out with 4 switch games for their kid.
These parents tell the government to do stuff that should be their own job and now the government as usual overstep their bounds when there’s way more important things to do after three years of zero Covid atrocity
they have the right idea, but their execution is extreme games these days turned into microtransaction addiction madness, even act as political messages, like the recent Call of Duty games. They deliver certain messages, they're meant to hook you up, they're meant to earn money from you they think of you as a customer, not a human.. unlike the games released on CD's back in the days where they earn per CD sale and that's it.
there is no "gaming addiction" - like you mentioned in the video. Excessive gaming is a direct result of being isolated or shielded too much. If you restrict childrens' actions and experiences all too much they will seek out compensation for multiple urges which cannot get satisfied - like the need for human interaction, friendship, physical movement / exercise and also education in a child-friendly setting. If you're taking away some of their freedom aspects you'll only limit their minds, restrict mental development *or* even cause developmental damage. Children need to be incentivized to go outside, play with friends, have fun, discover things, learn and *experience the world* - then and only then they will disregard computer games to some extent and *CHOOSE* to re-enter a healthy lifestyle.
China has the biggest mobile game market. Mobile gaming is designed around artificial grind. People aren't addicted in a sense all they want to do is have fun. They're addicted to grinding for their objective. New Clash army or whatever. This lead to a lot of Chinese video games being designed around artificial grind to keep player retention. If you wanna skip the grind "give us more money". Leading to a spending addiction for the dopamine high of unlocking/progressing through the game. Banning consoles led Chinese to more predatory and addictive version of gaming in the mobile market as discussed in the video. Sure understand China's concern but maybe they should research on why addiction is so high and taking appropriate action. Like banning predatory practices in gaming. Instead of just seeing that it is high and freaking out about it worsening the issue cause you failed to understand the problem to begin with.
The video game addiction in China/East Asia is more of a cultural thing. As a gamer in Romania, some weeks I play 2 hours (total per week) of video games, some weeks I play 8 hours a day. Depends on my tasks, the outside weather and so on. I also do sports. I would hate it if the government would meddle with my personal freedom on how I choose to spend my own free time. I play video games responsibly, I shouldn't be punished because other people can't. So I wholeheartedly disagree with your overall take, but I have still enjoyed the video. I've found it very informative on Chinese practices.
Guess what, young leaders grow old too... And every new generation repeats the cycle of thinking this is a generational problem before realizing too late is a class one (usually when they find themselves either repeating the paradigm or too tired to oppose it, in the end unable to escape class dynamics later in life). The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can refine critical systems and retire useless ones. The longer we take, the more non-sense we'll excuse to keep the status quo unchanged, blaming old leaders and hoping for a "generational shift" that will never come.
Well on the bright side this could lead to more and better offline singleplayer pc games without microstransactions and gambling. Ya can't regulate piracy.
I think this policy was in tandem with the private educational market ban so as to create more time for families. We'll see in a generation how this worked out.
tbh, before the strict gaming restrictions comes out, I can see kids are just gaming everywhere me and my friends were feeling sad that we can never see kids doing sports and running around in the playground anymore but after this restriction came out, kids are going back to their position, they are now grouping up to hangout together, not group gaming anymore. guys you will never imagine how terrible it was, you walk pass by the playground in your community, you see kids sitting there gaming all day long and cursing their enemies in game gosh
As an American, I see the problem as being one of government control. A broken people will allow government to decide what's best for them. Free people do not. Excessive gaming is a real problem, underlying issues. It is the responsibility of parents to help the child, not the government to control them.
10:55 You meant "negligible". neg·li·gent - adjective = failing to take proper care in doing something neg·li·gi·ble - adjective = so small or unimportant as to be not worth considering; insignificant.
Why does every UA-camr I follow eventually feel compelled to make a China video? I'll give you some credit for not just making a "China bad" video. Your historical analysis misses the material conditions. China in the 80s was still an extremely poor developing country so of course they need their population to be more productive. Also, afaik the gaming time restrictions only apply to their own platforms (i.e. Steam is not restricted). You attribute the 130% duties on gaming consoles to societal reasons. This was an era when the US had 100% tariffs on Japanese goods and was waging economic war on it as it's greatest rival (see Plaza Accords, Princes of Yen). You then talk about the Chinese grey market copies... isn't that equally likely that they wanted to develop and direct their own industry (towards PCs) and the tariffs were a form of protectionism? You say that China is overwhelmingly hostile to the medium but say they have the largest market and companies. It's taken as a given that the contradiction here is a result of the ineffectiveness of the measures China has taken rather than a refutation of your premise. Calling camps private prisons is an absurd leap. It sucked that they existed but how widespread were they actually? How do they and the abuse compare to things like Boy Scouts, teen drug rehab facilities, Synanon, etc?
A great way to help kids play less game is based on parenting, many of my Chinese friend are more likely to spend time with their kids unlike my parents generation where everyone is busy making a living. Though life is still tough, people are busy, at least most Chinese parents are trying to find times with their families.
Why do kids get addicted to gaming? Parents don't wanna care for them and they just buy a tablet, gaming is a really strong drug, and every year its getting worse
I bought a PS5 at launch. I've only played games for all of 15 hours since launch. I mostly use it for on demand viewing youtube politics, news, and the like. I'd say games are a good thing! 5 - 6 hours is a reasonable maximum amount of time, and it can certainly help as a mental / sharpening exercise, co-operative teamwork play, plus hand eye coordination.
China has absolutely taken the right steps in limiting not only gaming but also online social media platform usage, like tiktok. Comments be coping in here.
Let me guess, most young people who are not married and have no kids don’t care or against it. On the other hands, most parents are agree with limit gaming for their kids for kids own benefits…..lol
I think this video game addiction and spiritual opium is really exist at a certain point. Because I'm also the victim, it make me lazy, less time to study, spend unnecessary amount of money on literally nothing and waste huge amount of time. On the other hand it make me responsive, have a better judgment on a certain problem, calm and neutral thinking and have a hobby on computer. I think Chinese government still on the right path, it's just need more time to be refined and perfected. It's better than standing still and video game destroy young generation.
10:45 : Soooo , let me understand something about this “”brilliant”” Chinese-Government strategy : If I’m a minor and spend let’s say … *20-30hours* a week in playing videogames ,I’m considered “addicted” , while if I sit *80-90hours* a week in front of youtube or something similar and watch other player’s walkthroughs/streaming for the same games , or even if I watch parents/uncles/older friends play those same games instead of me … 🥳I’m fine ? WOW , I feel very sorry for those minors … everyone knows that when you forbid someone from doing something *this can cause an obsession* and when these minors grow-up ,many of them will try to fulfill their long-term obsession by spending even more hours in video-games when they enter into their adulthood … BRILLIANT strategy Chinese-government , simply BRILLIANT !! oh those poor kids …. --P.S. personally ,when I was a kid I didn’t care for playing videogames myself , but on the other hand I could spend *countless hours* watching my friends or my parents playing those same games and I was simply watching them … so countless hours spent but 🥳no addiction for me right Chinese-Government ??? lol !!🤯
as 20 years old gamer may say that nothing wrong with this regular addictions. still can play 1 hour at day and can syntezed unusual things and thoughts...
so your solution is let kids take all kinds of medicines to deal with those so called add depression anxiety autism? what's the next step? self-medication? legalization of marijuana and drugs, is this your coping mechanism alternative solutions. america is doing this kind of method, is it success?
One thing this video neglects to mention is that this is a grossly immoral limitation on human rights to tell them how they can't and can't spend their own time.
ther bbk is not a fake computer, it is a legitimate home computer, it doesn't matter the reason it may exist, but it is in fat an amazing home computer very comparable to Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum - I am glad that someone in China made a home computer as they make an important part of my home computer collection - given the population of China and the econmics (both the price point and affordability) of the Chinese home computers, I am sure there are many programmers who started out on those - making them an good important part of Chinese history.
What about it? Are we going to act like Windows Hello, Kinect or Apple's FaceID don't exist and aren't widely available already everywhere? You really think govts/corps need your face to invade your non-existent privacy?
I am Chinese. When I was a child a decade ago, I had to go to an internet cafe to play computer games. 2 RMB per hour was very expensive, and I could only play for 2 hours, so I didn't have any money. Now it's different. Every family has a computer and phone, and a few years ago, every child could play games without restrictions, which made my parents very angry. Then the rules changed, and they could only play for one hour a day and were forced to be offline by the system. In fact, it's the same as when I was a child. I think it's very fair, and playing games all the time is not something that students should do
What is tooo smart of the government is that recognizing that this is mostly a issue a child can develop. How many gaming addicts that exist over the age of 50? If you didn't develop addiction at ages 4 to 14, then you are mostly good to go. It is really really important to prevent addiction at early ages. Kudos for the government for the huge help. Like think about it. Parents are helpless right now. There is literally no good app to prevent it. Huge companies prevent employees to play games on company computers through specialized software. Windows or android doesn't come with these apps. You have to have a IT team, a professional, a budget for this. This is not something you can expect from every parent. Government is so amazing for doing this service to parents. Well done.
"Kid, you can't play, but drink all you want when you grow up. Real man drinking. Repeat after me, long live communism!" - President Xi That's crime against humanity.
I do find it interesting how the crackdown on games in China is a very good case study on how Capitalism spreads its tentacles where is it is not welcomed. The problem was enabled, exasperated and exploited for profit. As per this video, first a black market formed around hardware, pirated games appeared, then subscriptions raised their ugly head, and finally games made from the ground up to be as addictive as possible also appeared. All of this in service of, mind you, not sell games to chinese kids or adults to have a good time, for education, social reasons, for art sake etc., but instead to make a profit. Combined with the for profit schooling in the country, as you even mentioned, is no wonder chinese kids and adults get addicted to games in the first place. Rehabilitation centers too, for profit? Damn.
Playing a bit of digital games is fun and socially healthy. Playing too much n too long that down graded living is sick. I play games using cathode tube monitor for a year 45 years Ago. No more! Never touch a game for last 45 years. Games may be fun, but could waste life. Sociable with positive energy people is more fun.
LMAO I was expose to gaming at an early age and it helps me a lot to like feed-up in gaming and become more responsible. I think game addiction is still depends on ppl some ppl cannot balance their responsibilities and their hobby(gaming). And I know one of my college friends with a half Chinese used his tuition fees for game. And that's leave me my jaw drop life WTF? and makes me laugh and think its nuts.
Chinese Government is 90% good and 10% bad, and that 10% is because of stupid decision like this and one child policy. Totally a stupid decision considering Chinese companies make most advanced video games and that video games are a source of soft power that must not be neglected
When I was a kid (not in China), my parents would scoff at me playing games and watching TV while completing ignoring the fact that there was nothing else to do, as all the nearby playgrounds had been turned to buildings and parking lots. No D&D culture either. I guess forcing me to attend a 12hour school and classes for chess, piano and what not could have kept me busy lol. Might as well be a robot
I remember when my parents wanted for me to stay longer at school my results actually went down (*there were some after school lessons). You can't productively learn more than about 2 or 3 hours per day..... it's just impossible. Learning is not like "chopping wood" sometimes less is more. More lessons and more learning is not the answer to anything. More motivation to learn is the best but you still can't force yourself to learn more. There is some limited capacity and if you go into overdrive too much your results will go down, not up. Also if the environment around you is stressful somehow, your results will go down if your parents constantly fight or if your family has financial problems anything which moves your "brain attention" away is very bad. My best result in school were the best when my family was most "healthy" as a whole. You can't expect a kid with problems in the family to perform well. It's very complex problem of course the most important is motivation but even with all the motivation in the world you should know your limits and not go above, or your results will certainly go down and you can't overcompensate, because you'll get even worse. It's like fighting with water when going to drown, you should stop fighting the water, more intense flapping will not save you.
Mine yelled at me for playing games a lot too, but yelled at me even more when I wanted to go visit a friend, go out to eat, to the park, etc. It made no sense.
Increase of myopia (3:17) is strongly associated with lack of sunlight exposure for your eyes as a minor. This can also happen when you are in a cram school from 09.00 till 21.00 without ever seeing a screen.
@@heckoff7904 Yea they are, it is also kind of sad how much pressure Chinese parents put on children trying to pass the Chinese central exam with high grades.
When I was a kid, I spent lots of time outdoors. When I was diagnosed with myopia, I was told it's because I "read books too much". The blame game never ends... When I looked at the studies last time, I got the impression that rather than just sunlight exposure, myopia is caused by lack of re-focusing (and sunlight exposure) during a *crucial developmental age* which is however *different for everyone*. So like I got myopia because I didn't spend time outdoors when I was 5-6 years old, but someone else's range might've been 7-8 years old, and someone else might've had the crucial time during 4-5 years of age. And because the effects/onset of myopia is delayed by months/years, the studies have so far not been entirely conclusive
@MenkoDany You also have people who inherit myopia genetically from their parents. I want to point out that there was a significant increase in myopia cases in a few countries like China, South Korea, and Taiwan. It was linked to the overly competitive education system and kids being in a cram school from dawn-to-dusk.
The sad reason behind the constantly failed ban in video games is mainly because the wide spread poverty disqualify children from any other "good" activities (free video game and time of a poor child are very cheap), and there is a general lack of those "good" activities. Also, ironically, lack of willingness to enforce labour protection law in China resulting in people, or more specificly, parents working extra hour with little or no additional pay, leaving no time for their children, is another major cause for the toxic gaming culture in China.
I have a college classmate who has lived in an internet cafe for almost four years, and I don't even remember how many days he went back to school for classes. His parents are middle school teachers, so do you mean his parents work overtime at school every day and don't have time to accompany him? Therefore, it can only be said to be one of the reasons, but not all reasons.
BTW, My classmate only paid 1 year's tuition in 4 years of college, and applied for an interest-free student loan for the remaining 3 years It's not that he can't afford the tuition, but that he invested all the tuition money he brought from home into the game.
Get Nebula using my link, including lifetime memberships for a limited time: go.nebula.tv/techaltar
Education crackdown bonus video: nebula.tv/videos/techaltar-chinas-crackdown-on-private-education-explained
Is the lifetime fee 250 dollar or 300 dollar? It says both numbers on the page at 1:12
300 $/Euro(ger) with or without the CuriosityStream (about 3 $/month) Bundel? Or do I have to wait for the Bundel Deal Cupon?
10 Years x 30$/Year = 300$. Nebula founded in 2019, so it's 4 Years old.
So if I belive Nebula survives >10 Years (no inflation/Cupons/...) it's a better deal then the /Year one?
The wanted 250 and then said nah 300 people will pay 300
Even with that offering it's still not worth it. The potential is there, but it's not good besides the content of UA-camrs like TA.
These Nebula exclusive bonus/extra videos are only like 4-5 mts long, not really worth getting a subscription.
I do disagree with china's aggressive gaming regulations but there is an issue here gaming companies are hiring neurologists to make their customers addicted to their products
For sure I was playing Apex Legends for some time and as I was playing I would often notice these weird high frequency beeping sounds in the background and also weird flashing. Think of the mcollough effect and how easily the mind can be manipulated.
With every worldly issue that isn’t just arguing about fiction. It’s complicated.
I think gaming and gambling or any adrenaline related thrill seeking activity has a common root. By the way I have yet to see that they ban gambling parlors in PRC, those are more harmful in my opinion than video games.
Maybe their choice of handling is not the best, however nowadays addictive games are bad news, the fact that kids spend their parents money is one thing, however the real danger is what the lasting effects of such interaction can be and how they can change the way kids percieve the world forever.
got a link for that?
On the side note Nvidia's approach of increasing gpu prices could also work in this situation too😂
Nvidia doesn't need our peasant money when AI companies pay them millions monthly for GPUs
@@dacueba-gamesMoney is something that's never enough...
Thats true. And because GPU Chips are limited it makes more sense for them to sell them to AI companies instead of gamers since they will pay a lot more.
Most people game on their phones tho
Most chinese kids play on their phones
there have been several cases online that kids actually wake their grandparents in the middle of the night to make them go throught the face verification just so they can continue to play the game. Imagine the guy monitoring seeing a 80 yo playing for 12 hours straight. 😂
People don't get individual 24hr monitoring. What does happen is the employees can skim through the data and look through those photos.
@@cubicinfinity2 they can set up red flags like 80 year old with so much time clocked in
@@abdiganiadenthis is honestly really sad. This sounds like an institution or a prison. There’s being harsh and then there’s this.
@@jalene150
Nothing "harsh" about protecting children from videos game adiction.
@@peekaboopeekaboo1165 The world may be going to ruin but at least there won't be any video game addiction. Problem solved I'd say
A genuinely informative and balanced, in-depth take at the history, development and current situation regarding the Chinese video games industry (in particular, mobile, online and subscription gaming) and legislation for it. Kudos.
Also, good take in your opinion piece. When I have alternatives to gaming and dont feel that stressed, I dont even open my computer, and when I do it's to talk with my friends and specfically play with them and not just open the computer just because
As someone on the Autism spectrum, who in various points of my childhood had issues with excessive gaming, I can attest that at the very least there is a strong comorbidity between problem gaming and mental health/neurological conditions at large. My special interest as a child was turn based RPGs. Predominantly Pokemon, though nowadays I'm into other franchises. My friends and I mostly bond over video games or tabletop RPGs like D&D. About half of my friends are also on the spectrum and many of them also have video games as their special interest. I cannot say for certain whether or not video game addiction should be considered a condition unto itself. What I can say with confidence is that gambling addiction should 100% include addiction to loot-boxes in video games, loot-boxes should be regulated to the same extent as and in similar ways to other forms of gambling, and video games should at a bare minimum be regulated as another form of consumer media with special attention payed to its interactive nature.
Speak for yourself. I personally disagree with that claim. I played video games growing up, but played less than all of my neurotypical friends. I was never addicted, and nowadays (in uni) I basically never play video games.
I do however agree with you about regulating and adding disclaimers to lootboxes.
To understand this policy, it is first necessary to understand China's cultural background. In the past, China was very poor and people could only engage in manual labor. However, with the reform and opening up, the economy began to develop. Many parents hoped that their children would not have to endure the hardships they had experienced, so they encouraged their children to study hard from a young age, so that they could stand out from the crowd in the future. But excessive learning has caused great pressure on children. Some children have become bored with learning and become addicted to electronic games, resulting in poor academic performance and inability to attend good schools. As adults, they can only go to sweatshops to engage in physical labor, repeating the hardships their parents have endured.
But these parents who make their children tired of learning do not realize that their excessive expectations are causing their children to be tired of learning. They believe that their children's poor academic performance is due to their addiction to games, so they have been protesting to the government, demanding that all game companies be closed. Different from what most people imagine, the Chinese government will listen to the opinions of the people, so they have introduced game restrictions. However, this can only solve surface problems, because the most fundamental problem is that parents are busy with work and do not have time to accompany their children, parents lack communication with their children, their education is very rough, their children's grades are not good, they will insult their children, and often physically punish their children, and say to their children, "These are all for your own good. No wonder children escape reality and become addicted to games.
The government cannot directly blame these parents because China's current rapid economic development cannot do without their overtime work, so the government can only use game bans to cope with the situation.
After all, it's still because there are too many Chinese people. There is a famous saying in ancient China, "All things are inferior, only reading is high." This is a problem that Chinese society cannot avoid.
Also, this ban is actually very lenient. As long as parents actively provide their children with their real name authentication, children can play for a long time because the system authentication shows that the parents themselves are playing the game. I have seen many parents dislike their children's noise, so they voluntarily throw their phones at their children and let them play the game on their own.
Through these practical actions, you will find that game bans are only a temporary measure to address parents' complaints, and have no impact on adults and increasingly enlightened parents.
Just to be clear, gaming is never banned if you are over 18 yrs old. And the rule is not simply ban children playing games, but limiting the time of playing within a scientific range that gaming is still beneficial for brain exercise but not enough to get addictions. A lot of students or children were exposed to additive games and ruined their future during the 1980s to 2000s. Currently the policy is only enforced on teenagers younger than 18, similar to alcohol policies all over the world. As for the reason for these strict import policy of games, it is mainly due to the prejudice that Western world saw China, which made up a lot of games story lines that degraded the reputation of China on purpose. Another reason is that some games are full of violence or dirty words and regulations play the role of game ranking or classification.
Agree with you, remember how angry western media was when Diablo Immortal wasnt in China yet, they made up stories like it was banned there with so much dirty politics. Personally believe that game should be banned.
I find myself being suck by video games and play it for hours and going to bed late because the game just grabs you. But i also had the same feeling in watching some TV series or even reading some mangas. Sometimes some media content will make want to consume it until i feel exhausted. After doing it i never really feel like seeing it again.
Oh for sure it’s everywhere. Even on youtube. Everything is designed like this because of greed.
@@iAmNothingness also because of enormous competition. If a company/business wants to survive, they often just MUST exploit some psychological weaknesses we humans have, to attract customers, and make them spend time in their games/consume whatever other kind of media they specialize in producing, and do their best to make people spend at least some money over that time.
Free-to-play games, usually of competitive genre, with elements of grind, are the most addictive and destructive on average, as far as I can see. And most profitable.
Actual engaging, relaxng, or somewhat educating interactive art, that games can easily be, are not any easier, and often harder to produce; they attract less funding since it's known that they are less profitable and investors (whoever they can be) would be better off investing in some more exploitative genres. They are harder to be kept "alive" for years or decades, like competitive games can be, - it takes more creativity, development resources and funds to keep delivering sequels of high quality that people will accept. While competitive or grindy service games don't even actually need any coherent and engaging plot, complex story, universe, whatever. It can be a nice bonus for fans but it's not required. Professional tugging on the consumers' psychological weaknesses is required, and maybe some decent, catchy, not off-putting visuals, and that's all. Oh, and also lots of clever advertisement, to stand out of hundreds, or now thousands of competitors who want to do the same.
A huge part of why games are largely like that, is also the fact that people often don't have much time to thoroughly engage in some artistic game world, which is usually required to actually enjoy them. While competitive/addictive free-to-play games know this fact and cleverly alow you to play short matches, lasting from ~15 to ~60 minutes on average. Engagement is not really needed, you don't need to learn much at first, only the basic game mechanics, which are made as simple as possible for newbies, while usually having deeper layers that unfold as the player keeps exploring it, to keep them unsatisfied, feeling inferoior to other players, wanting to catch up, collect more things, be more universal and mighty, or whatever else.
And also, free-to-play games are just... free. The way they are built, their business model, just allows that. That's basically cheating in a way. Why would one pay for something that they can't be sure they will like and accept the quality of, when there are so many free products to try "without" consequences of potentially wasting money on? That's a trick too, though, because free-to-play games generate much more income for developers on average, thanks for unfortunate souls that got hooked on it and keep spending money on, usually just to try to scratch the itch of standing out, being more powerful than other players, or whatever else they eventually pay and keep paying for. While others, who don't pay (there are lots of such people usually, the majority of players), have to experience slower progress compared to those who pay, see their characters in default, "boring" appearance, not standing out, and are just reminded constantly that they are inferior to those who pay, in little but persistent and sometimes mildly annoying ways. Still many do not pay, either due to total lack of money, due to not accepting to "pay for games", some principles, or whatever else, and I think it can hurt their self esteem and confidence in a way. For me it did for sure.
I am generalizing and simplifying, of course. The problem is a huge and complicated one.
To be honest, I think it all boils down to how the imperfections of how the human mind, society and capitalism, and maybe even this world, work; due to huge and growing competition, and due to games being made firstly as a business, and not as art. Although, art can be somewhat addictive too, any fiction can be. Especially to people who are having problems in life, feeling insecure or unfulfilled, and don't know how to change that.
Oh, and I must add to my previous message.
The gaming market, as well as movies and especially books I think, is very oversatieted. I mean, there are so many games to try, accumulated over the previous few decades (mostly the last ~15 years or so). The audience, its time and money, are dilluted over this enormous legacy. There are lots of older games that still have some or a lot of people online (or just playing them, in case of single player projects), who are not really willing to leave and switch to something new. Sure, most games of the past don't have as good graphics as the new ones. But gameplay-wise many of them are hard to surpass, with all the modern huge expectations.
New developers come into the industry, either for passion or for money, and have to find ways to compete with all of this legacy, try to catch people's attention, pull them out of the comfortable games they got accustomed to and keep playing for years, and make them try their projects, somehow.
Combine it with the falling fertility rates, less young players to become a potential audience, in countries where most gamers are, and the progress, "refreshment" becomes even harder, harder to compete with the legacy and create new and meaningful projects. I hope you get what I mean.
Also add mods, which add lots of play hours for people to keep enjoying older games, taking their time, attention, but usually not giving the mod developers any money for their skills and work, hence not funding the usually passionate and artistic developers.
Add piracy, which makes competition for game developers even harder if significantly widespread. Pressuring the prices of paid projects (not free-to-play, those actually are not affected by piracy at all in most cases, due to how they are meant to play) to lower even more, as people can literally get the product for free, and takes away the attention, play time and potential money with those people that pirated it. They spend time there, for free, not funding any further development, not trying other products they could have, it's basically lost to the economy. Again, I most likely expressed my thoughts a bit vaguely here, I just need to sleep now ;/
I think the world, the society works like that, in a way. Accumulating complexity, also mistakes and disagreements, slacking and lots of work spent inefficiently, until it all becomes too heavy to hold onto, unsolvable without drastic measures which usually are not taken even if understood, and slow or fast degradation begins, while the society is squeezed more and more dry (often voluntarily, due to the ongoing processes that people don't even think about or notice, not just due to some evil capitalists or government) to try and keep their level of life as it was, without doing the much needed changes, reforms, without slowing down and "taking a deep breath" to think about it all.
Gaming nowadays is nothing to worry about. Tik Tok is what should be concerned about
Don't worry! Once they ban TikTok. All the dangerous challenges will move to Twitch or UA-cam.
Myself as a Chinese has devided opinion on this.
I do believe gaming addiction is a serious problem and it needs to be adressed. I am pleased that Beijing is determined to adress it, no matter the cost.
However gaming is also an industry that needs room to breath and grow. It is kind of satifying to see Chinese games are getting a chunk of the world market share. But hardly can we find Chinese masterpiece titles out there, despite the richness of our culture.
I hardly believe any kind of great games can be created by investors and designers who worry about censorship and constantly changing regulations.
Agree with you, I dont mind and even hope Chinese can develop our own gaming industry and no need to aways look at the western and Japanese games. Same thing like our own film industry, use to be dominated by Hollywood. Nowdays, most Chinese can look at our own movies proudly. As long as gaming is restricted to adults and not children, I think this is fine.
Multiplayer gaming, especially mmos, gachas, and whatever mtx thing is cancer, predatory, and should be eradicated. On the other hand, single player gaming industry in China and especially indies is healthy and should not be touched.
I miss the days in the early 2000s when all the kids in the neighborhood would have GBAs and have massive link parties in the park. Beijing was a gaming paradise and it felt healthy. We'd be physically interacting and would play other games besides videogames like football, rollerskating, and biking.
When it comes to cultural exports china is severely lacking. Japan has Anime and Korea has massively popular kpop and i thought gaming would become very influenced by china and chinese games. Unfortunately because the goverment attacks the developers and industry itself by limiting game releases it harms the cultural exports more than the game addicts its supposed to punish.
@@illliiiiillliii6265 So they're doing everyone a favor unlike Japan who export those games and animes to ensure that the weeb losers remain as such 😂
When the virtual world is better than the real world
The virtual world is "better", because it's designed to be that way. To make it so pleasurable to the senses, that you keep coming back to it until you're addicted.
The but that digital world is just based off of the real world. There’s beauties and horrors in the real and digital worlds.
I mean you don't game just to suffer
But too much is not good bc electricity bills could Skyrocket
The state is trying to parent for the parents.
"Why spend time on games than you can spend same time working in factory"
- China
Based and Labourpilled
Throughout the whole video, I just thought “they put too much pressure on those kids to be perfect, no wonder they are turning to video games”
When I was in high school (around 10 years ago), I simply use my dad's ID number for game registration. And go to "illegal" internet cafe on weekends, where they have adults' temporary ids for teenagers. Those internet cafes did prohibit high-school students from entering, but I used my friends ids and claimed I was a technical-school student.
But now the internet cafes are dying out because everyone has their PCs, and those are still running requires chip-ID plus facial recognition (connecting to police network), which basically banned all teenagers below 18. More teenagers are playing mobile games instead thanks to the development of smartphones.
It is never about "video game addiction", parents are too busy or lazy to spend time with their children out of school, and they just want to find something to blame.
Solid reporting and evaluation. A very level evaluation from someone with experience in both China and gaming. Going to Nebula now to watch the piece about China's actions in addressing abuses in the private educational system and issues of excessive pressure in the State schools..
What he said about education pressure is the real issue here. While education serves to add value by teaching skills and knowledge, conventional schooling also is a signaling mechanism that implies ability for future universities and employers. So parents want their children not just to learn but to beat their peers. So you end up with a system where parents need kids to perform ever better in standardised exams to get into more elite universities and continue getting stellar results so they can be attractive to the most desirable employers. As long as there will always be more desirable and exclusive professions/employers people will compete to get into the more exclusive/elite universities. As long as some university programs are more exclusive/elite/outright better than others, school children will compete to get better results on standardised testing. As long as you have some young people who either themselves are willing or their parents are willing to force them, everyone will be under intense pressure to study 12 hour days to get the best standardised test results.
I don't want a US style admissions process where the best institutions mostly don't admit on merit any more (if they ever did). I still believe in meritocracy but China and east Asia as a whole shows the pitfalls of what can happen when meritocracy is taken to its logical conclusion.
Okay but he also mentioned that China has cracked down on excessive education so clearly they're aware of the problem and are actively working to fix it.
East Asia also has much more competent political leaders than the west because of their emphasis on education and meritocracy
@@JS-ih7lu Education and merit only gets you so far. Your leaders also need to not want to only think of themselves above all else. Which is hard when a thing called "power corrupts is a thing".
It's also funny how huge Tencent is and how big China's esports acene is
Ah, yeah, let the government parent the children, surely nothing would go wrong
I think the bigger issue is the perception by the government that the citizenry lack any sort of agency, and unfortunately the citizenry also accept that. I don't want to riff too much on the personal responsibility side because when taken to the extreme it allows for massive corporate abuse, but a balance must be made. People aren't chess pieces you can move or eliminate any time you like.
@@Moonstone-Reduxperfectly said
It definitely went wrong in the US. Most of gen z are now woke id*ots, acts like npcs and can't even answer simple math or general knowledge questions.
@@mao_tse_tung1921 For every complex problem in this world, there is a simple and succinct solution that is often wrong. Game companies are often one step ahead of your government officials when it comes to understanding why people want to play games and what pushed them over the edge to addiction. It is down to parents to understand their children and cultivate a healthy relationship with gaming in a way that fits their children better. We cannot attribute gaming addiction to some nebulous concept of the mysterious Chinese or Western (in itself a misnomer) soul and really understand this problem through proper observation and psychological studies.
A healthy human mind doesn't wake up one day and go "today I will get addicted to something". People get addicted because there was some pleasure in their life that they could not get outside of the addictive substance.
Hold corporations accountable, but understand that they may not be the whole problem.
even though i am Japanese and female i played videogames when i was much older and me and my husband use it to blow off steam!
I’m a pediatrician and my husband is a veteran and co-owner of a private security company and we are off on the weekends we play when our children go to bed and we don’t play it for too long. We limit our childrens game play but we start to notice now our children love camping and being in nature. My husband is what you call a survivalist and loves to fish,hunt and camp with us all. During covid-19 me and my husband worked but my husband got home before i did and was teaching our children how to cook and try out new things.
My father-in-law loves hanging out with his grandchildren so they learned a few things from him!
Video games are addictive and i can understand what China did but it does go too far.
It’s funny, because I’m a gamer who has depression and anxiety, and I find myself having trouble getting into games these days, which sucks since I have a huge backlog I’d really like to work through.
me too. I've found other hobbies from gaming but even those don't fulfill me anymore. I guess it's life
Reason #1
Children in China have MONEY!
The Gaming Industry is aware of this and created the "Pay to Play" model.
Everything else can be branched off from here!
You're using the "grain of salt" metaphor wrong. It's the other way around: if you can't trust how good something is, you shouldn't put but a grain of salt in it to see if it's good, instead of salting it all the way, thus covering up its true nature.
I’m currently teaching at a private primary school in China. I don’t think the laws are working too well because all my male students talk about are the video games they are going to play on the weekend. I have several students write stories about playing their Nintendo Switch, so I think the government’s report is tainted for sure.
Some games are addictive, other games are more artistic and won't make you binge. Rules should be made in a game by game case. MMORPGs, and competitive online games, are often addictive and require the expenditure of money. Offline games not so much, story driven games can be akin to watching a series, people will hardly binge on them for many hours.
I suppose most of the Chinese parents agree with you theoretically, but we still prefer our children to play sports/chess/musics (we call it "the world of 3D") rather than playing virtual games (we call it "the world of 2D"). This is not the matter of the games. This is just the matter of the anxiety of entering good schoos and good companies.
He, theese regulations are actually a great way to educate a generation of hackers as all the kids will use giant amount of time to bypass the technical limits :D. What do you think introduced all the kids in east Europe to hacking in the 90s and 00s? When a single game costed roughly 1/4 of average monthly salary, quite a lot of kids became interested in cracking copy protections.
China: Don't play videogames!
Also China: 650,000+ Gamers
Limiting spending amounts for minors might not be a bad idea if lootboxes aren't made illegal for minors.
I think gaming in moderation is fine and the parents themselves should be able to regulate their kids playing games.
However I think microtransactions, in-game sales, gambling or similar stuff, should completely be outlawed.
Video games are getting too much negative publicity because the industry focuses way too much on violence. There is not enough attention given to educational and strategy games.
Just came back from Japan and oooh boy are there alot of Chinese tourists in BIC stores. Saw a chinese family check out with 4 switch games for their kid.
These parents tell the government to do stuff that should be their own job and now the government as usual overstep their bounds when there’s way more important things to do after three years of zero Covid atrocity
they have the right idea, but their execution is extreme
games these days turned into microtransaction addiction madness, even act as political messages, like the recent Call of Duty games.
They deliver certain messages, they're meant to hook you up, they're meant to earn money from you
they think of you as a customer, not a human.. unlike the games released on CD's back in the days where they earn per CD sale and that's it.
there is no "gaming addiction" - like you mentioned in the video. Excessive gaming is a direct result of being isolated or shielded too much. If you restrict childrens' actions and experiences all too much they will seek out compensation for multiple urges which cannot get satisfied - like the need for human interaction, friendship, physical movement / exercise and also education in a child-friendly setting. If you're taking away some of their freedom aspects you'll only limit their minds, restrict mental development *or* even cause developmental damage.
Children need to be incentivized to go outside, play with friends, have fun, discover things, learn and *experience the world* - then and only then they will disregard computer games to some extent and *CHOOSE* to re-enter a healthy lifestyle.
China has the biggest mobile game market. Mobile gaming is designed around artificial grind. People aren't addicted in a sense all they want to do is have fun. They're addicted to grinding for their objective. New Clash army or whatever. This lead to a lot of Chinese video games being designed around artificial grind to keep player retention.
If you wanna skip the grind "give us more money". Leading to a spending addiction for the dopamine high of unlocking/progressing through the game.
Banning consoles led Chinese to more predatory and addictive version of gaming in the mobile market as discussed in the video.
Sure understand China's concern but maybe they should research on why addiction is so high and taking appropriate action. Like banning predatory practices in gaming. Instead of just seeing that it is high and freaking out about it worsening the issue cause you failed to understand the problem to begin with.
China’s games are addictive, and China’s control is because of helpless.
The video game addiction in China/East Asia is more of a cultural thing.
As a gamer in Romania, some weeks I play 2 hours (total per week) of video games, some weeks I play 8 hours a day. Depends on my tasks, the outside weather and so on. I also do sports. I would hate it if the government would meddle with my personal freedom on how I choose to spend my own free time. I play video games responsibly, I shouldn't be punished because other people can't.
So I wholeheartedly disagree with your overall take, but I have still enjoyed the video. I've found it very informative on Chinese practices.
What about social media addiction?
China knew video games would create Redditors.
They are anti Japanese cause they got popular.
man.. life is gonna be so much better for everyone when these (globally) old leaders die out
Guess what, young leaders grow old too... And every new generation repeats the cycle of thinking this is a generational problem before realizing too late is a class one (usually when they find themselves either repeating the paradigm or too tired to oppose it, in the end unable to escape class dynamics later in life).
The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can refine critical systems and retire useless ones. The longer we take, the more non-sense we'll excuse to keep the status quo unchanged, blaming old leaders and hoping for a "generational shift" that will never come.
Well on the bright side this could lead to more and better offline singleplayer pc games without microstransactions and gambling.
Ya can't regulate piracy.
only 130% duties? where i live it is 600%; damn china has it easy on imports
The last quarter of this video is the best part. Thank you!
"teenagers burn down internet cafe and kill people in doing it"
"Those damm video games killing people"
I think this policy was in tandem with the private educational market ban so as to create more time for families. We'll see in a generation how this worked out.
tbh, before the strict gaming restrictions comes out, I can see kids are just gaming everywhere
me and my friends were feeling sad that we can never see kids doing sports and running around in the playground anymore
but after this restriction came out, kids are going back to their position, they are now grouping up to hangout together, not group gaming anymore.
guys you will never imagine how terrible it was, you walk pass by the playground in your community, you see kids sitting there gaming all day long and cursing their enemies in game
gosh
you see people playing games in the playground??
As an American, I see the problem as being one of government control. A broken people will allow government to decide what's best for them. Free people do not. Excessive gaming is a real problem, underlying issues. It is the responsibility of parents to help the child, not the government to control them.
I found the current environment of the Chinese game industry is similar to the American prohibition era in the 1920s
从你从广东搬回德国那会就在追你的视频,非常喜欢,加油!
Without gaming, half the world's programmers wouldn't exist
10:55 You meant "negligible".
neg·li·gent - adjective = failing to take proper care in doing something
neg·li·gi·ble - adjective = so small or unimportant as to be not worth considering; insignificant.
Hey man can you link your sources? I'd like to do some further reading
What is the cure for such disorders?
Beatings.
Why does every UA-camr I follow eventually feel compelled to make a China video? I'll give you some credit for not just making a "China bad" video.
Your historical analysis misses the material conditions. China in the 80s was still an extremely poor developing country so of course they need their population to be more productive.
Also, afaik the gaming time restrictions only apply to their own platforms (i.e. Steam is not restricted).
You attribute the 130% duties on gaming consoles to societal reasons. This was an era when the US had 100% tariffs on Japanese goods and was waging economic war on it as it's greatest rival (see Plaza Accords, Princes of Yen). You then talk about the Chinese grey market copies... isn't that equally likely that they wanted to develop and direct their own industry (towards PCs) and the tariffs were a form of protectionism?
You say that China is overwhelmingly hostile to the medium but say they have the largest market and companies. It's taken as a given that the contradiction here is a result of the ineffectiveness of the measures China has taken rather than a refutation of your premise.
Calling camps private prisons is an absurd leap. It sucked that they existed but how widespread were they actually? How do they and the abuse compare to things like Boy Scouts, teen drug rehab facilities, Synanon, etc?
A great way to help kids play less game is based on parenting, many of my Chinese friend are more likely to spend time with their kids unlike my parents generation where everyone is busy making a living. Though life is still tough, people are busy, at least most Chinese parents are trying to find times with their families.
Why do kids get addicted to gaming? Parents don't wanna care for them and they just buy a tablet, gaming is a really strong drug, and every year its getting worse
I actually kind of liked the restriction plan before making it weekend only, but only if parents were able to opt in and opt out
Dang, your videos are so good. Much appreciated, as always.
I bought a PS5 at launch. I've only played games for all of 15 hours since launch. I mostly use it for on demand viewing youtube politics, news, and the like.
I'd say games are a good thing! 5 - 6 hours is a reasonable maximum amount of time, and it can certainly help as a mental / sharpening exercise, co-operative teamwork play, plus hand eye coordination.
China has absolutely taken the right steps in limiting not only gaming but also online social media platform usage, like tiktok. Comments be coping in here.
sir I do not know when you're an exchange student. last year I got up at 6:00 and went home at 22:00........
Let me guess, most young people who are not married and have no kids don’t care or against it. On the other hands, most parents are agree with limit gaming for their kids for kids own benefits…..lol
I think this video game addiction and spiritual opium is really exist at a certain point. Because I'm also the victim, it make me lazy, less time to study, spend unnecessary amount of money on literally nothing and waste huge amount of time.
On the other hand it make me responsive, have a better judgment on a certain problem, calm and neutral thinking and have a hobby on computer.
I think Chinese government still on the right path, it's just need more time to be refined and perfected. It's better than standing still and video game destroy young generation.
10:45 : Soooo , let me understand something about this “”brilliant”” Chinese-Government strategy :
If I’m a minor and spend let’s say … *20-30hours* a week in playing videogames ,I’m considered “addicted” , while if I sit *80-90hours* a week in front of youtube or something similar and watch other player’s walkthroughs/streaming for the same games , or even if I watch parents/uncles/older friends play those same games instead of me … 🥳I’m fine ?
WOW , I feel very sorry for those minors … everyone knows that when you forbid someone from doing something *this can cause an obsession* and when these minors grow-up ,many of them will try to fulfill their long-term obsession by spending even more hours in video-games when they enter into their adulthood … BRILLIANT strategy Chinese-government , simply BRILLIANT !! oh those poor kids ….
--P.S. personally ,when I was a kid I didn’t care for playing videogames myself , but on the other hand I could spend *countless hours* watching my friends or my parents playing those same games and I was simply watching them … so countless hours spent but 🥳no addiction for me right Chinese-Government ??? lol !!🤯
Productivity destroyer.
I still have my 15 years old NES clone.
And once I had a gameboy clone which looked like a mini computer with keyboard and a mouse as a controller.
Thanks
as 20 years old gamer may say that nothing wrong with this regular addictions. still can play 1 hour at day and can syntezed unusual things and thoughts...
you have made multiple errors on the 2021 timetable, the 2021 is cut off and the < is the wrong way around
This is mostly true, glad I got over 18 before the limitation grew intense.
Chineses are playing more offline games now.
so your solution is let kids take all kinds of medicines to deal with those so called add depression anxiety autism? what's the next step? self-medication? legalization of marijuana and drugs, is this your coping mechanism alternative solutions. america is doing this kind of method, is it success?
The irony of getting video game ads in the middle of a video about the negative impact they have.
One thing this video neglects to mention is that this is a grossly immoral limitation on human rights to tell them how they can't and can't spend their own time.
Does a totalitarian regime care about human rights?
ther bbk is not a fake computer, it is a legitimate home computer, it doesn't matter the reason it may exist, but it is in fat an amazing home computer very comparable to Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum - I am glad that someone in China made a home computer as they make an important part of my home computer collection - given the population of China and the econmics (both the price point and affordability) of the Chinese home computers, I am sure there are many programmers who started out on those - making them an good important part of Chinese history.
been long since we got these kinds of vidz
The parents who let their kids use their ID to circumvent the rules are the real heroes.
those are horrible parents
@@hendrx or maybe they know how to exercise restraint and can actually parent their kid without the need for the government's help
@@ARMYALEX1869 they surely can't parent their kids without the help of videogames
@@hendrx so u think kids shouldnt be allowed to play video games at all?
@@ARMYALEX1869 I believe predatory practices like lootboxes should be banned
Not many comments about the id and facial verification huh
What about it?
Are we going to act like Windows Hello, Kinect or Apple's FaceID don't exist and aren't widely available already everywhere?
You really think govts/corps need your face to invade your non-existent privacy?
People have and need to accept that Video Games are an art form.
Yes...
* Duct-tapes banana to drywall *
... art is very subjective though.
interesting video. fire your editor though, those charts about spending limits and release bans have mistakes in them. 9:31 should be
The have also included TCM BS in the new ICD-11. So I guess this was a quite Chinese Update.
I am Chinese. When I was a child a decade ago, I had to go to an internet cafe to play computer games. 2 RMB per hour was very expensive, and I could only play for 2 hours, so I didn't have any money. Now it's different. Every family has a computer and phone, and a few years ago, every child could play games without restrictions, which made my parents very angry. Then the rules changed, and they could only play for one hour a day and were forced to be offline by the system. In fact, it's the same as when I was a child. I think it's very fair, and playing games all the time is not something that students should do
Chinese parents: neglected their children's mental development then ask the big brother to do a draconian crackdown on things.
What is tooo smart of the government is that recognizing that this is mostly a issue a child can develop. How many gaming addicts that exist over the age of 50? If you didn't develop addiction at ages 4 to 14, then you are mostly good to go. It is really really important to prevent addiction at early ages. Kudos for the government for the huge help. Like think about it. Parents are helpless right now. There is literally no good app to prevent it. Huge companies prevent employees to play games on company computers through specialized software. Windows or android doesn't come with these apps. You have to have a IT team, a professional, a budget for this. This is not something you can expect from every parent. Government is so amazing for doing this service to parents. Well done.
"Kid, you can't play, but drink all you want when you grow up. Real man drinking. Repeat after me, long live communism!" - President Xi
That's crime against humanity.
Excessive consumption of anything is bad, worse if it's global.
I'm looking forward to some TechAltar Polymatter crossover
I do find it interesting how the crackdown on games in China is a very good case study on how Capitalism spreads its tentacles where is it is not welcomed. The problem was enabled, exasperated and exploited for profit.
As per this video, first a black market formed around hardware, pirated games appeared, then subscriptions raised their ugly head, and finally games made from the ground up to be as addictive as possible also appeared. All of this in service of, mind you, not sell games to chinese kids or adults to have a good time, for education, social reasons, for art sake etc., but instead to make a profit. Combined with the for profit schooling in the country, as you even mentioned, is no wonder chinese kids and adults get addicted to games in the first place. Rehabilitation centers too, for profit? Damn.
I had no idea that gaming was that big in China
china shouldnt limit gaming, they should limit the lootbox business model.
finally the LPL will go down as a major region because 3/4 of their academy players are minors and not allowed to train properly
Desperate results need desperate measures
Playing a bit of digital games is fun and socially healthy. Playing too much n too long that down graded living is sick. I play games using cathode tube monitor for a year 45 years Ago. No more! Never touch a game for last 45 years. Games may be fun, but could waste life. Sociable with positive energy people is more fun.
LMAO I was expose to gaming at an early age and it helps me a lot to like feed-up in gaming and become more responsible. I think game addiction is still depends on ppl some ppl cannot balance their responsibilities and their hobby(gaming). And I know one of my college friends with a half Chinese used his tuition fees for game. And that's leave me my jaw drop life WTF? and makes me laugh and think its nuts.
China is a very stressful environment specifically for kids.
Chinese Government is 90% good and 10% bad, and that 10% is because of stupid decision like this and one child policy. Totally a stupid decision considering Chinese companies make most advanced video games and that video games are a source of soft power that must not be neglected
Fun fact: Some Chinese students in the UK wear diapers so they can play video games nonstop
When I was a kid (not in China), my parents would scoff at me playing games and watching TV while completing ignoring the fact that there was nothing else to do, as all the nearby playgrounds had been turned to buildings and parking lots. No D&D culture either.
I guess forcing me to attend a 12hour school and classes for chess, piano and what not could have kept me busy lol. Might as well be a robot
I remember when my parents wanted for me to stay longer at school my results actually went down (*there were some after school lessons). You can't productively learn more than about 2 or 3 hours per day..... it's just impossible. Learning is not like "chopping wood" sometimes less is more. More lessons and more learning is not the answer to anything. More motivation to learn is the best but you still can't force yourself to learn more. There is some limited capacity and if you go into overdrive too much your results will go down, not up.
Also if the environment around you is stressful somehow, your results will go down if your parents constantly fight or if your family has financial problems anything which moves your "brain attention" away is very bad. My best result in school were the best when my family was most "healthy" as a whole. You can't expect a kid with problems in the family to perform well. It's very complex problem of course the most important is motivation but even with all the motivation in the world you should know your limits and not go above, or your results will certainly go down and you can't overcompensate, because you'll get even worse. It's like fighting with water when going to drown, you should stop fighting the water, more intense flapping will not save you.
China does have a lot of playgrounds and parks though.
@@davidk.d.7591 2 or 3 of them I hear! But seriously, 雲南 was one big park- can't same the same for 廣東。
Mine yelled at me for playing games a lot too, but yelled at me even more when I wanted to go visit a friend, go out to eat, to the park, etc. It made no sense.
Damn... That is so sad.
Increase of myopia (3:17) is strongly associated with lack of sunlight exposure for your eyes as a minor. This can also happen when you are in a cram school from 09.00 till 21.00 without ever seeing a screen.
theyre trying to fix that too tho to be fair
@@heckoff7904 Yea they are, it is also kind of sad how much pressure Chinese parents put on children trying to pass the Chinese central exam with high grades.
@@guill90even then that still didnt guarantee a job hence the high youth unemployment
When I was a kid, I spent lots of time outdoors. When I was diagnosed with myopia, I was told it's because I "read books too much". The blame game never ends... When I looked at the studies last time, I got the impression that rather than just sunlight exposure, myopia is caused by lack of re-focusing (and sunlight exposure) during a *crucial developmental age* which is however *different for everyone*. So like I got myopia because I didn't spend time outdoors when I was 5-6 years old, but someone else's range might've been 7-8 years old, and someone else might've had the crucial time during 4-5 years of age. And because the effects/onset of myopia is delayed by months/years, the studies have so far not been entirely conclusive
@MenkoDany You also have people who inherit myopia genetically from their parents. I want to point out that there was a significant increase in myopia cases in a few countries like China, South Korea, and Taiwan. It was linked to the overly competitive education system and kids being in a cram school from dawn-to-dusk.
The sad reason behind the constantly failed ban in video games is mainly because the wide spread poverty disqualify children from any other "good" activities (free video game and time of a poor child are very cheap), and there is a general lack of those "good" activities. Also, ironically, lack of willingness to enforce labour protection law in China resulting in people, or more specificly, parents working extra hour with little or no additional pay, leaving no time for their children, is another major cause for the toxic gaming culture in China.
Remove "in China" from this comment and it becomes even truer...
I have a college classmate who has lived in an internet cafe for almost four years, and I don't even remember how many days he went back to school for classes.
His parents are middle school teachers, so do you mean his parents work overtime at school every day and don't have time to accompany him?
Therefore, it can only be said to be one of the reasons, but not all reasons.
@@argus-r1j Teachers actually do a lot of overtime. You know, tests cannot be graded during class for the most parts. Same with preparing courses.
BTW, My classmate only paid 1 year's tuition in 4 years of college, and applied for an interest-free student loan for the remaining 3 years
It's not that he can't afford the tuition, but that he invested all the tuition money he brought from home into the game.
@@wai828how did you make that argus as link?