China: "Reveal Yourself, Or Don't Play Online"

Not sure if this is PP material, but it seems politically charged in some respects.

Quote:

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese gamers who frequently adopt flamboyant alter egos for their online contests will soon be forced to reveal their true identities in a bid to stop youngsters from spending too much time in the virtual world.

Beginning in June, all Chinese Internet game manufacturers will be required to install technology in their games that demands players reveal their real name and identification number, the Xinhua news agency said Tuesday.

Seven companies participated in a pilot project last year, which so far made more than 100 domestically-produced games unaccessible to players unless they register, Xinhua said.

The companies work with the police to ensure the name and identification number given by players are real.

Currently, many players simply register fake IDs.

The new system is aimed at helping parents track how many hours the teenager has played and which games he or she plays, Xinhua said.

"Using a system of real names is to standardize the Internet games network market and promote the stable and healthy development of the games industry," Wang Feng, vice chairman for Jinshan Software Company, was quoted by the Beijing newspaper Daily Messenger saying.

The paper, however, also quoted a teenager saying gamers will lose the fun of playing different roles anonymously in virtual reality when they have to register their real identity.

If a player uses a forged identity, his rank and score will be annulled.

The move is the latest attempt by the authorities to regulate the booming online gaming market after a measure last year to automatically log players off games once they exceeded a set number of hours of continuous play.

China's government has also tried to control the market by banning "unpatriotic games" that make Chinese soldiers or agents the enemy and by persuading companies to develop "healthy" games that feature Chinese heroes such as the communist do-gooder Lei Feng.

Statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center show that China had 111 million Internet users by the end of 2005, more than 20 million of whom were online game players.
Source

Imagine being a ninja looter on WoW in that country...

*DING-DONG*
"Who is it?"
"It's the guy you ninja'd Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker from!"
"Oh shit"

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Monkey King

Human rights violations only matter when the country is poor and isn't pouring lots of money into your economy. The situation isn't going to change anytime soon in China, because nobody cares.

Don't you mean out of the economy?
Last I heard, the United States had a pretty sizable trade deficit thanks to China. And while this isn't the thread to debate economics and world trade, I feel that if the US traded less with China and more with other nations then the world economy would be much better for it.

There's nowhere I can't reach.