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Game Watch

If you were the parent of a teen gaming his nights away, falling asleep in school and getting close to failing grades, how might you feel about a system that policed your child's gaming habits?  The system in question:

".. includes a ban on minors playing video games from 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m., as well as limiting their playtime to 90 minutes a day. The law also prohibited minors from spending more than $28 to $57 a month on micro-transactions. New rules requiring all individuals, regardless of age, to register for games using their real identities and prohibiting citizens from playing games that include “sexual explicitness, goriness, violence, and gambling” were also implemented. "

At first blush a harried parent who can't get a grip on their kid's gaming habit, might find this an useful intervention. But the relief may prove short-lived for many reasons. Kids as we know will find ways around such clamp-downs and choices made in desperation will prove bad or wrong for them. So now instead of just having a gaming problem they might have legal ones too. The interventions if any need to happen at home and delivered by the primary authority figures in the child's life. Ideally, the situation does not escalate to the point where an intervention is even needed. 

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