VietNamNet Bridge – One-third of 63 popular online games have been restricted in HCM City as part of an effort to reduce the negative effects of games with violent content on children's behaviour.

An online gamer in HCM City. One-third of 63 popular online games have been restricted in the city as part of efforts to reduce their negative effects on players. (Photo: VNS)

"We are trying to lessen online games' bad impact on society," Le Manh Ha, director of the municipal Information and Telecommunications Department, said at a conference yesterday in HCM City about online-game management.

According to a recent survey, 70 per cent of primary school students in HCM City and 76 per cent in Ha Noi play online games during the day.

"Daily contact with online violent games is known as the main reason behind the recent significant increase in violence of students. We welcome the city's effort to stop violent games," said Pham Thanh Long from the Education and Training Department.

The restrictions have been carried out for five months, and, since that time, the department has found and punished five companies providing eight gambling games.

"Restricting online violent games brought in by vendors from outside Viet Nam and discovering illegal advertisements for violent games are our other efforts," he added.

Under the new regulations, online game companies must not provide access to games from 10pm to 8am so that amount of playing time will be reduced.

The department is also urging the enterprises to carry out the same procedures nationwide.

In addition, all internet shops less than 200m from school gates are not allowed to provide online games at any time.

However, the city said 352 out of a total of 3,920 internet shops within that geographical area were still providing online games.

"To restrict negative impact, we can ask players to pay through their bank accounts, which means they are grown up enough to play online games," said Ha, adding that companies, however, were not happy with the proposal.

He complained that all the city efforts were limited in HCM City and the Information and Communications Ministry was not paying sufficient attention to the problem.

"The ministry has not approved time limitations from 10pm to 8am and age requirements for the rest of the country," Ha said.

He also pointed out that the ministry had not replied to the city's suggestions on content management, such as setting up a standard to define harmful levels for each game and reviewing all existing games to reject violence.

Local supervision, however, faces challenges.

"We don't have enough people to supervise internet agents and stop them providing games after 10pm. We are tired of fining only a small amount of money for internet agents who are close to schools and still provide games," said Nguyen Van Thanh, a cultural expert in the district.

Ha recognised the difficulties, saying that fighting the negative impact of online games was only the first step, and that offline violent games also had bad consequences. He said officials in all 24 districts should be vigilant and try to control the situation.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News