South Korea's government is backing down on restrictions that were supposed to prevent children under the age of 17 from playing games between midnight and 6 a.m.
The so-called "Shutdown Law" provision of the Youth Protection Revision Act was enacted in November 2011 to combat fears that gaming addiction—which the law's supporters blamed for sleep deprivation and other health issues—was on the rise among South Korean children.
The idea was that limiting the amount of time kids could play online games would help protect their health. But the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said in a press release that the Shutdown Law hasn't achieved its goal. Instead, the children it's supposed to protect are turning to single-player games, social media, and other entertainment while they burn the midnight oil instead of going to sleep.
The Korea Times reports that the Shutdown Law also suffered from a critical oversight: It doesn't apply to mobile games. That doesn't come as much of a surprise, considering when the provision was written, but it does mean the country's 16-year-olds are well within their rights to spend the early hours of the morning playing games on their phones instead of other devices.
Now the South Korean government will focus on educating children and their families about gaming responsibly, The Korea Herald reports, instead of attempting to ban those games entirely for six hours a day. But that shift will take some time—revoking the Shutdown Law requires a revision to the Youth Protection Revision Act by the country's National Assembly.
This approach puts South Korea in stark contrast with China, which has a similar rule prohibiting children in the country from playing games at certain times or for extended periods. As South Korea backs off the rule because it's proven ineffective, companies like Tencent have started to introduce facial-recognition-based systems to better enforce China's even stricter policies.