By Do Je-hae
Staff Reporter

The government announced Monday a set of measures aimed at online game addiction among youngsters, including the imposition of a "midnight curfew," but the viability of the new rules has been called into question.

To prevent online game addiction among teenagers, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said it plans to implement a series of countermeasures from the end of the year.

One of the highlights is restricting teenagers from logging on to certain online games with a high rate of adolescent members after midnight.

Players of three popular games by Nexon Corp., the leading Korean online game maker, will be subject to the new "curfew."

The government, however, said the rules are not legally binding, and that it will disclose more details later. Skepticism is already rising in the game industry that placing a time limit will have little effect on curbing obsessive online gaming habits among teenagers.

"PC rooms prohibit the entry of underage customers after 10:00 p.m. without an adult guardian. So many teenagers are not playing online games there after midnight," an industry watcher said. "The measures will be useless in dealing with young gamers who log on through their parents' ID."

More game companies will be required to introduce "fatigue systems," which impose "disadvantages" in game play when an advised playing time limit is exceeded.

The system is currently applied to a handful of role-playing games (RPG) such as "Dungeon & Fighter" and "Dragon Nest," but will be expanded to 19 games that take up 79 percent of the RPG market.

There are arguments on whether the measures will result in substantive changes, as major game companies NCsoft and NHN have already been putting into effect their own versions of fatigue systems.

Also to be reinforced are "selective shutdowns," preventing youngsters from playing games during certain hours of the day when requested by parents. Currently, 77 games from five companies practice the system but the number will increase to 100.

But it remains to be seen how faithfully game makers will comply with the ministry's guidelines to report their practice of both systems.

Game makers will be required to conduct an ID checkup of their members on a regular basis so that teenagers do not use their parents' registration numbers to enjoy games beyond the regulated times.