VietNamNet Bridge – Games available in public allow players to spy upon girls bathing, couples kissing or people making love at Internet cafés and shopping malls in HCM City. These “porno games” are popular with young people and are also easy to find online. Some experts offer their opinions.  

From streets to shopping centres

On a Sunday afternoon, the game area at a shopping mall in HCM City was very crowded. A group of four teens sat in front of a big screen displaying two sexy girls. Their “mission” is to find differences between two similar porn pictures that are often located in “sensitive” places on women’s bodies. Such touch-screen games are very popular at arcades and trading centres. Players buy tokens worth 2-3000 dong to play.

“These games opened several months ago,” a student at the arcade explained. “Most machines here have this game for players to find different points on the girls.”

The porn games have frustrated many visitors to this shopping mall. Hai, on a shopping trip with his family, complained that he couldn’t understand why the mall allowed such games. “I wonder if the students were playing games or staring at the girls in the pictures,” he remarked. Some parents quickly led their small kids out when they saw the sexy girls on the screens. “How can kids play this game?” commented one mother.

These game are dismissed by some as “very simple”. College student Thanh Hoang maintained that, “This game is only for kids. We play many games of ‘higher class’ on the Internet.” He provided some URLs for porn games, ones with innocuous names like “kungfu”, “snake hunting”, “chess”, and “piling bricks”. Yet the content of these games is not so innocent.

For instance, “snake hunting” features a girl wearing showing her décolleté and wearing a Santa Claus hat. The more gamers win points, the more her clothes are taken off until she is entirely nude. Other games featuring sexy girls have more direct names: “shoot to remove clothes”, “XXX chess”, “XXX action game”, and “penis hammer”.  Many of these free games are very graphic and full of sexual pictures. Gamers control characters to make love and in the game forums, players make “open” comments about sex.

Many computer games shops on Huynh Thuc Khang and Pasteur streets sell porn game discs for PlayStation 2. A shopkeeper revealed that she sells many games with sexy girls daily, adding that they were a favorite among teens. Another shopkeeper said most porn games had the word “teen” on their labels and that many violent games were also popular among the youth.

A Tuoi Tre reporter bought a game disc with a picture of five girls in sexy clothes being sold for 20,000 dong (US$1.07). The reporter also found a number of sex games on discs without porn pictures on the labels.

The paper blamed lax management of Internet shops which has allowed many young customers to download porn games from the Internet. Porn games have no limit of space of relations and players’ characters in these games can have sexual relations anywhere at anytime.

Opinions

Tuoi Tre talked with an official, a psychologist and a Youth Union’s official about this issue.

The online games boom in recent years has created a negative aftermath. Many students quit school to play games and some of them have disappeared into a virtual life. How has the Department of Information and Communications dealt with this situation?

Le Manh Ha, director of the HCM City Department of Information and Communications: After the circular on online game businesses was issued, we have imposed fines on six firms who offered games without licences. However, there are many problems associated with management of online games. We have proposed that the Ministry of Information and Communications deal with it, but it has not been solved properly.

Many types of games have been distributed in Vietnam, including those featuring violence and gambling. We asked for definition of violence and gambling to licence such games, but these definitions are still absent. We also requested to end the licencing of new games while these definitions are being drafted.

It is nonsensical to restrict the time for playing game when so many games are distributed.

I know that in many rural areas, the people think that the Internet is for online games. Kids only go to Internet cafes to play games. Many criminal cases have happened because gamers need money for games or they act as their characters do in these games.

We know about the porn games at shopping malls, but the responsibility lies with other departments.

Businesses have to strictly control games. Our department will fine all firms that offer games without licences.

Vietnam is considered as the biggest online game market in Southeast Asia. Do competent agencies give up to aftermaths fromonline games for the youth?

To restrict these harmful games, we need cooperation from three sides. Players have to be aware of the uselessness and dangers of the games. Families have to educate their children about the harmfulness of these games. The state has to strengthen management over games.

What is the role of the Youth Union in assisting youngsters to protect themselves from bad games?

Le Van Minh, chief of the HCM City Youth Union’s Culture and Ideology Department: Several years ago, online games and game disks were still unfamiliar to young people, but now they can sit in their rooms and connect to the whole world very easily.

But the young can be easily infected by unhealthy content because, with several clicks, they can access porn games and pictures. This is one of the reasons for the increase in social evils and crime among the youth.

Besides close cooperation between families, schools and society, social organizations must take action to educate young people about the harmfulness of pornographic games and hold practical and attractive programmes for the youth.

I also think that the media needs to orient the youth’s awareness and struggle against porn games.

Le Minh Cong from the Central Mental Hospital: Being addicted to porn games is a form of addiction to online games or online sex. This addiction damages the dignity and futures of the players, especially the youth..

VietNamNet/Tuoi Tre