The popularity of video games in South Korea is constantly on the rise and has become a multi-million dollar industry in the country.
However, almost a week ago, there was a debate held in the country to discuss merits and demerits of the video games and this debate was called “Video Games: Addiction or Art.”
In this debate, members of government, professors and industry representatives participated to talk video games addiction and if result didn’t go in the favor of gamers a Game Addiction Law would be implemented that will deal with video games just like any drug of alcohol.
Many arguments presented in the debate were quite positive and in favor of video games as Gamers Foundation Chairman, Goong-Hoon Nam said that taking video games from the players would be like “replacing the engine of your car when it stops running, only to find out that it was merely out of fuel”.
Another argument stated that it is the parents’ fault that their kids are addicted to video games, because they usually go for video games for stress relief that is coming directly from the parents, who wants their child to perform exceptionally well academically.
There was also a discussion that gamers do not have much time after school to do a lot of things so they opt for video games to deal with home and school stress.
The professors sitting in debate stated that parents should try and talk to their kids more often about video games rather than shutting it down completely.
It will be interesting to see how government of South Korea moves forward with this law, but there is a huge possibility that government officials will try everything in their power to move forward with this law.
