The South Korean parliament is considering a bill that makes a group of popular online games with gambling, drugs, and alcohol anti-social gambling, according to a report by the Associated Press.
The bill is gaining support from parents, religious groups and doctors, but has infuriated gamers. Some of the proposed legislation's provisions seek to limit advertising. Another separate bill intends to take 1 percent revenue from the gaming industry in order to generate funds that will be used to curb the four addictions mentioned.
The proposed legislation highlights the divide in the social, economic, and cultural priorities of the country. On the hand, Internet entrepreneurs are seen as a source of economic innovation, while another group, sees the gaming industry as a wedge that separates people, especially the young, from schooling, families, and workplaces.
"We need to create a clean Korea free from the four addictions," Hwang Woo-yea, a top lawmaker in South Korea's ruling party, said in a recent speech.
The bill is supported by 14 ruling party legislators who sees the industry as a threat to family and social values.
"There is a huge prejudice that gaming is harmful," Lee Byung-chan, an attorney, said. "Games are as harmful as alcohol, drugs and gambling, that's the prejudice."
Lee is involved in a constitutional court case about a 2011 law that bans gaming between midnight and dawn for anyone under the age of 16. The law was a result of a controversy about an infant who died of starving because her parents were too busy playing online games.
Since 2011, the South Korean government looked into Internet game addiction. Its latest annual study found that 2 percent or about 125,000 South Koreans aged 10-19, needed treatment for excessive online gaming or were at risk of addiction.
South Korea was one among 65 countries surveyed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2012 and garnered the lowest percentage of students who are unhappy at school.
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