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INTEREST: Kagawa Prefecture Passes Ordinance Restricting Children's Video Game Playing Time


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MarthKoopa



Joined: 08 Apr 2012
Posts: 271
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 1:54 pm Reply with quote
Only 1 hour a day is utter nonsense
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7jaws7



Joined: 17 Aug 2013
Posts: 704
Location: New York State
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 2:30 pm Reply with quote
Governments (not just Japan) also don’t like gacha games being made, even if most people who play them are adults. They should rethink their priorities and worry about the public health crisis the whole world is facing right now, instead of kids playing too much video games Rolling Eyes
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GNPixie



Joined: 25 Jul 2018
Posts: 293
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 2:34 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
The prefecture has no plans to enforce penalties on households that do not comply with the guidelines and ask that households apply rules under their own discretion.


So what was the point of passing it in the first place if they're not going to being enforcing it? Genuinely curious.

Kind of reminds me of Canada's Distracted Driving laws and how those aren't enforced at all.
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Firefly251



Joined: 14 Jul 2018
Posts: 354
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 2:38 pm Reply with quote
GNPixie wrote:
Quote:
The prefecture has no plans to enforce penalties on households that do not comply with the guidelines and ask that households apply rules under their own discretion.


So what was the point of passing it in the first place if they're not going to being enforcing it? Genuinely curious.

Kind of reminds me of Canada's Distracted Driving laws and how those aren't enforced at all.


becasue now parents can tell kids its the rule.
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 2:51 pm Reply with quote
Regardless of the merits (or lack thereof) of the ordinance per se, this seems like the worst time to implement it, what with schools being closed. It’s one thing to limit video game time while school is in (though I don’t know that I would say that should be 1 hour a weekday or even that the government should be deciding that at all), but with schools closed, it just seems like dictating what kids should and should not be spending their now copious amount of free time, which does not seem like a good use of the government’s time.
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Swissman



Joined: 11 May 2006
Posts: 766
Location: Switzerland
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 3:01 pm Reply with quote
MarthKoopa wrote:
Only 1 hour a day is utter nonsense

And why so?

I'm teaching at a middle school and I have to deal with kids who can't control their freetime using cell phones, game consoles and computers to play games. The result are children who play until midnight or later under a normal weekday and who show up completely tired and unfocused at school when they have their first lessons at 7.30 am.

1 hours a day and 90 minutes on sat./sun. is completely reasonable in my book.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 5887
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 3:25 pm Reply with quote
Swissman wrote:

I'm teaching at a middle school and I have to deal with kids who can't control their freetime using cell phones, game consoles and computers to play games. The result are children who play until midnight or later under a normal weekday and who show up completely tired and unfocused at school when they have their first lessons at 7.30 am.

1 hours a day and 90 minutes on sat./sun. is completely reasonable in my book.


Reasonable to you but in no way practical. Like not just in the sense that it's essentially unenforceable but you can't simply get much done in certain games within an hour or hour in and a half.

Try to imagine playing a game like DragonQuest or Pokemon over an hour every day those are 30-40 hour games that would take weeks to finish as opposed to a few days. And then of course you have multiple other games you might wanna play on top of those.


Last edited by BadNewsBlues on Wed Mar 18, 2020 3:32 pm; edited 2 times in total
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getumbuck



Joined: 15 Feb 2008
Posts: 197
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 3:26 pm Reply with quote
Swissman wrote:
MarthKoopa wrote:
Only 1 hour a day is utter nonsense

And why so?

I'm teaching at a middle school and I have to deal with kids who can't control their freetime using cell phones, game consoles and computers to play games. The result are children who play until midnight or later under a normal weekday and who show up completely tired and unfocused at school when they have their first lessons at 7.30 am.

1 hours a day and 90 minutes on sat./sun. is completely reasonable in my book.


Dam, you start at 7:30 and here I thought we had it hard opening at 8:05.
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MarthKoopa



Joined: 08 Apr 2012
Posts: 271
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 3:33 pm Reply with quote
Swissman wrote:
MarthKoopa wrote:
Only 1 hour a day is utter nonsense

And why so?

I'm teaching at a middle school and I have to deal with kids who can't control their freetime using cell phones, game consoles and computers to play games. The result are children who play until midnight or later under a normal weekday and who show up completely tired and unfocused at school when they have their first lessons at 7.30 am.

1 hours a day and 90 minutes on sat./sun. is completely reasonable in my book.

Because it is the parents' responsibility to teach their children to not be irresponsible

Playing video games for a few hours a day is not a problem. Playing the entire time you get home from school to a proper bed time is not a problem

Only 1 hour a day is not enough to properly enjoy most video games. You'd never finish a freakin' RPG by the time a sequel is out
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v1cious



Joined: 31 Dec 2002
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 3:47 pm Reply with quote
How would you even enforce this?
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SpacemanHardy



Joined: 03 Jan 2012
Posts: 2509
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 4:19 pm Reply with quote
These kids are literally stuck at home all day because of the virus, and you're gonna take away one of the few things they can do to pass the time until it blows over?

Harsh, man. Confused
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cookiemanstah



Joined: 09 Dec 2013
Posts: 546
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 4:25 pm Reply with quote
SpacemanHardy wrote:
These kids are literally stuck at home all day because of the virus, and you're gonna take away one of the few things they can do to pass the time until it blows over?

Harsh, man. Confused

they could study overtime or be productive instead of drowning in meaningless things like playing games. Video game addiction is a serious problem.

I agree the one hour thing is BS but still.
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killjoy_the



Joined: 30 May 2015
Posts: 2457
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 4:26 pm Reply with quote
^ This will take effect on April 1. I'm not optimistic that things will be back to normal by then, but still, it's not like it was made with the Corona outbreak in mind.

I feel like "1 hour" is pretty relative. Depends a lot on how much "free" time one is assumed to have outside of classes/clubs/etc. Rather than stipulate a set amount of something, I think it'd be more productive to just say "no more videogame after 23, go to bed".
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kotomikun



Joined: 06 May 2013
Posts: 1205
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 4:33 pm Reply with quote
v1cious wrote:
How would you even enforce this?

"The prefecture has no plans to enforce penalties on households that do not comply with the guidelines and ask that households apply rules under their own discretion." So, apparently, they aren't going to.

Even if there was a way to enforce this, and even if it was a good idea, there probably isn't a single teenager in Japan who has never played video games for more than an hour on a school night. They aren't all flunking out, so that level of gaming probably isn't an issue. Some limitations on gatcha games and/or making it harder for kids to make microtransactions on their parent's credit card would be a good idea, but it doesn't sound like that part of the ordinance has any teeth, either.
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peno



Joined: 06 Jul 2016
Posts: 349
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2020 4:58 pm Reply with quote
SpacemanHardy wrote:
These kids are literally stuck at home all day because of the virus, and you're gonna take away one of the few things they can do to pass the time until it blows over?

Harsh, man. Confused

Exactly my opinion. What will come next? Limiting time children can watch TV? And not even caring if they are watching unsuitable programming like Game of Thrones or useful things like some documentary that may help the kids in school? This is exactly what this ordinance did, putting all games in the same bag, no matter if it's GTA or Pokémon. Most of the world (Japan included) already have game age rating systems and while they are not totally foolproof, they are good indication for parents. If parents let their kids play unsuitable games or let them play late to the night, then the parents are responsible and no ordinance will make them better parents anyway.

And to the teacher here, who said children are sleepy because of videogames. Trust me, they are sleepy because of the ungodly early start of school. Who even thought it's good to start school at 7:30? Here where I live, the start of school is around 8:00 (each school has it a little different, but it is usually around this, give or take ten minutes) and when I still worked as a bus driver, I often saw sleepy kids in a bus and I doubt they were all playing videogames late in night. It's simply because the start of the school is too early. If children had more time to sleep in the morning, they wouldn't be sleepy zombie in the morning classes, that's what I believe.
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