BoHwan Park Assembly member and other 10 people of the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology(MEST) have submitted a special bill about prevention and treatment of internet game addiction in minors on February 6.

The bill would wield a powerful regulation to game industry as it would ban minors from playing any beta testing games, also including the Cooling-off system and the post-censorship.

What is more serious about the bill is that it could set the scope of the target to not only PC online games but also console games, smartphone games, or all other online games because it just specified ‘real-time internet games.’ The Cooling-off system also encompasses all the games.

So young students would lose an opportunity to participate his/her anticipating game even though it is rated Everyone if the bill passes the National Assembly.

Any game developers/publishers that do not enforce the Cooling-off system or allows minors play unreleased games would be sentenced to up to three years’ imprisonment or be fined up to about US$27,000.

Since the submitted bill is a special bill that is superior to the Game Law of the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism(MCST) and the Youth Protection Law of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family(MGEF), its power is much stronger than the two Shutdown systems.

“To solve the game addiction of the young we are trying to establish the special law that limits daily playing time and supports consultation and treatment centers for the game addiction, and this would help them grow into healthy human beings,” said Park.