Is restricted playing time a good idea?

[Sharpshooter]

I remember reading a topic from the GGNews Bot that mentioned the death of a young gamer (http://www.getgamer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1825) and that players in China would be restricted to 3-hour intervals of play from 2006 onwards. Considering that this in now probably in force in China, what do you think about restricted online gaming? I can see the point of it, to stop people dying from exhaustion. But should people prepare themselves better for games and be prepared to stop (difficult i know) or is this 3-hour rule a problem?

[Red Devil]

I don't think it's really necessary. I mean, the majority of people should be able to stop before it kills them, right? Only a small number of people are going to play for several days without taking a break, and even then, its unlikely to kill them. I can see why you'd want to play for so long. I once played FFVII for the majority of a day because school was closed but even then I took breaks and went and did other stuff while the game was paused.

Nothing wrong with a good 5 hour+ gaming session every now and again, just dont go too crazy.

[Sharpshooter]

I don't think it's really necessary. I mean, the majority of people should be able to stop before it kills them, right? Only a small number of people are going to play for several days without taking a break, and even then, its unlikely to kill them. I can see why you'd want to play for so long. I once played FFVII for the majority of a day because school was closed but even then I took breaks and went and did other stuff while the game was paused.

Nothing wrong with a good 5 hour+ gaming session every now and again, just dont go too crazy.

Both people who died are mentioned as young gamers. How about making it some sort of parental control action? It's a idea, but I also know many parents probably wouldn't activate it anyway.

In fact, why didn't the parents pull them off the games after a while anyway???

[BigBlue]

This is silly. Doing ANYTHING too much is bad for you. We sure as hell don't need new laws. Really all we need is some common sense.

For what it's worth, long play time is one of the reasons I don't get into Evercrack or RPGs. There is no end, and I don't have the time to play that much.

[Sharpshooter]

I heard that Morrowind, a RPG for the XBox 360 is going to take approx 250 hours to complete (without all the secrets). Thats about 4-5 times for an Final Fantasy Game :eek:
I think that could be a bit too much, restricted or not. How many people do the developers expect to complete it? Playing any game too much for too long gets boring after a while - so most people will stop somewhere and you've got to have the time to play it as well.

If people are just sensible about what they do (or read the warning notes on games), then there wouldn't be deaths from exhaustion and neglect and they'd be no reason for restricted playing time.