The government has decided to abolish the controversial “shutdown system,” lifting the curfew that has blocked underage users' access to online PC games between midnight and 6 a.m. over the past decade. Instead, it will integrate all related regulations into a “choice system,” allowing gamers under 16 or their parents or guardians to designate hours for playing games. This certainly is good news. The game curfew has long since lost its effectiveness. Moreover, online gaming trends are shifting from PC to mobile.
Major advanced countries, including the U.S. and Japan, leave the judgment on games to families and individuals, which informed the government's move. It isn't easy to find an example of state-level control on games except for China. The National Assembly Research Service (NARS) said in a recent report, “The shutdown system of online internet games seemed to exert significant influence on adolescents' game time immediately after its introduction but has failed to have a long-term effect.”
The game industry is a gold mine that creates jobs preferred by youth. The sector has emerged as a star of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Kakao Games, which was listed on the stock market last October, has become the fourth-biggest company in the Kosdaq bourse with an aggregate market value of about 5.74 trillion won ($4.91 billion). This spring, a pay-raise boom swept the game industry as companies competed to recruit workers by offering drastic hike plans. For the jobless youth, it is far better to deregulate games and other new industries and create decent jobs than to give state subsidies to them.
However, the abolition of the shutdown system will reignite public concerns about game addiction. In 2019, the World Health Organization decided to classify “gaming disorder” as a disease. The NARS predicted that the government would also likely add gaming disorder to the Korean Standard Classification of Diseases and Cause of Death from 2026. Policymakers need to work out measures to calm down worries about gaming. They could bear in mind that more and more people use games as digital therapy, both here and abroad.