China puts a limit on online gaming

We recently heard a news about a gamer who played continuously for really long hours and at the end of it, he just collapsed and died. Looks like the news have had its affect on the Chinese government. The gamers in the country would soon have to face certain limits on how much time they can spend on online gaming. The government in Beijing is reported to be introducing the controls to deter people into playing really long hours on the Internet.

The limit is expected to be around 3 consecutive hours which might disappoint a lot of gamers in the country. Some of the recent games like World of Warcraft and Lineage II have been really popular amongst these gamers who play for long hours on the Internet with the worldwide audiences. As per statistics as many as 20 million Chinese gamers are playing these games from cyber cafes on a daily basis.

China is a big market for the gaming business. It was worth around US$500m when we count online gaming expenditure. In fact the government itself was seeing encouraging the online gaming concept. It is interestingly hosting a two-day games conference in September in Beijing in the hope of attracting more foreign investment. However, the fear of people indulging in it so badly that they lose track of the reality around them is such drastic that these steps are being taken now.

October is the month which might see the implementation of this new law in the country.