Chinese government mandating 3-hour caps on MMO playing

By Cory Doctorow at 2:11 am Thursday, Aug 25

The Chinese government is mandating that online game companies impose a three-hour consecutive play limit, with five-hour rests, on their players. Players who play longer than three hours lose levels and experience, and after five hours, your account is reset to newbie.

Game manufacturers are apparently cooperating, though it's not clear from the article whether they'll be expected to coordinate with one another to stop a gamer from switching from one game to the next as her three hours run out.

If gamers can indeed switch games and reset the clock, perhaps the game manufacturers see an opportunity here to capture some of their rivals' customers, as gamers move from playing (and paying for) only one game at a time to playing several at once in three-hour chunks.

According to the Interfax news service, an official arm of the Chinese government, the system reduces the ability level of a player's online game character if the game is played beyond the three-hour limit. Basically, play more than three hours and the system cuts a game character's ability by half. Play more than five hours and the system reduces a game character's ability to the lowest level possible.

Gamers must wait a minimum of five hours before returning to gameplay, or the system will not reset..

Link (Thanks, Jamal!)