Update to The Korea Post

So I was scanning my Reader account and noticed that another subscription was covering the Korean gaming problem so I dropped in to use the bathroom and not flush when I came across some startling facts that were inexplicably left out of my last response.

This time what I read about was entirely shocking. It appears that a Korean couple neglected their REAL LIFE, FLESH AND BLOOD, PREMATURELY BORN OUT OF AN ACTUAL VAGINA AND UTERUS to raise a virtual child.

HO-LEE-CRAP

I think I now understand the dangers of video game addiction. My previous conclusion about video games was that people played them in order to be something that they weren't or could never be. For example, I enjoy Modern Warfare 2. I play the game for several reasons. It is something I can be good at, I can interact with my relatives who I don't see all that often, and it lets me hunt down and shoot other people while being only marginally afraid of the bullets and grenades that my enemies are hopelessly slinging my way.

They are all dead men

Now some of you are going to cry, "That kind of video game is going to make you a bad person and you will become a murderer in real life." My response to that is shut up, stop blaming video games for your child's mindless violence because you never disciplined him, or her(I'm not sexist), when they were young, or else I'm coming to kill you...do we have an understanding?

ME, when I come for you

Anyway... When I read this I really could not believe what I was looking at. A couple neglected their REAL baby in order to raise a VIRTUAL one. I feel like either one or the other should suffice. If you have a an actual baby why on earth do you need to have another one that you can only visit at an internet cafe?... On a computer? The official report says that the parents were down on their luck because they had no jobs and their child was born premature. PREMATURE, that doesn't mean dead, though in Korean in might. So instead of the taking care of what should have been their pride and joy and the hope that kept them going, they decided to ignore even that and raise a child that in the end will not put mom and dad in a good nursery home, but will probably be hacked and stolen by some other really *poopy* parents.

The parents are set to be tried for negligent homicide on April 16th. I can only hope that they are found completely guilty, they lose custody of their online child, and that thing also dies because the company deletes the account. AND I HOPE, this doesn't lead to any other kind of world wide restrictions, because I'll be super *peed* if those people ruin an enjoyable experience for the rest of us.

Korea Cuts Continuous Gaming to Curb Addiction

Let's talk addiction for a moment. When I say addiction the first thing that is going to come to mind is the thought of drugs. Heroin, Meth, Crack, stuff like that. Never would your mind think of this guy.

Okay well maybe

As it turns out Korea seems to have a problem with video game addiction. This is South Korea we are talking about here not North Korea. They have bigger problems, like communism, the free world...

and this guy

Maybe once they get that guy to wear something WITHOUT zippers they can start having problems like game addiction. I digress. The South Korean government is in the process of deciding on whether or not to ban underage gamers from the internet after midnight. Supposedly the gamers can choose if the ban goes from midnight to six, one to seven, or two to eight. Either way, it's six hours that those gamers can't be online. I am not completely clear on what video game addiction is so I asked the eternal information god...Wikipedia. What I learned from that was that video game addiction is "the overuse of video and computer games that interferes with daily life." Which sucks because that means I have life addiction because I often overuse daily life and it interferes with my video gaming; I better balance that *poop* out.

Now I still can't really understand how video game addiction can exist, much less be a bad thing. I know addiction is bad.

Bad

That's a heroin addict's arm if you were curious. I digress. I may not understand video game addiction but as a reasonable individual that can make perfectly rational conclusions. I can assume that when a government takes action to curb certain kinds of behavior that behavior must be harmful and dangerous because, to my knowledge, governments NEVER take action against things that might be pointless endeavors.

Prohibition *Cough*

However, I do know that South Korea is home to some of the most "pro" video gamers in the world. They have celebrities whose sole claims to fame are being better than anyone else at video games. They have TV channels that broadcast these games! So maybe the government is taking a step in the right direction by trying to limit the youngsters playing time, because really, any pre-pubescent kid that is staying up past midnight to play games is probably not doing anything to help their health. I think those kids just need to be introduced to the joys of sleep, which is what I'm going to go get right now. It's late. My final word on the topic is that South Korea is doing the RIGHT thing until we start seeing things like

this

at which point more action will be required. Goodnight!